The End of Peter - 2 Peter 3

3:1-2 - There are a lot of words that Peter is saying that I just don’t understand. But at the same time it’s kind of bittersweet because I’m trying so hard to finish up the New Testament by the end of the year and with these last few books being so short, it’s just kind of, I don’t even know how to describe it. I’ve been studying the New Testament for 5 years now and I’m so excited for the Old Testament, but at the same time, reading these original apostles’ final farewells is like a passing of the torch kind of. Like in a dream or a movie when one scene fades out and another fades in featuring a completely different place and time and people. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s how I feel. It’s always interesting to me when the New Testament talks about the Second Coming or the Last Days and implies that they are expected at any moment because it’s been over 2,000 years. I guess the preparation is the same, whether preparing for the second coming or for our own personal meeting with the Savior after our deaths. Peter ends this epistle calling the reader “Beloved” at least three times in this chapter and desiring to “stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance,” of the words of the prophets and commandments. 3:3-7 - Starting in verse 3 there is a lengthy JST translation which lends some clarity to Peter’s message. He says that in the “last days” there will be “scoffers, walking after their own lusts. Denying the Lord Jesus Christ, and saying where is the promise of his coming?” We definitely have this in our world today, and in fact I just said it a minute ago. It’s been SO long since the Savior promised to return and I feel like every Christian ever has felt that the Second Coming was going to happen in their lifetime and so far it hasn’t. So I get why it might feel farfetched that it’s ever going to happen. But again, there really shouldn’t be any difference in our behavior if it happens in our lifetime or not. We should still try to keep the commandments, we should still heed prophetic counsel, etc. The article of this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com quotes Neal A. Maxwell as teaching, “When some people cast their eyes upon human history… they see only the unbroken sweep of the centuries. Divine intervention seems less and less likely. For these individuals there is no special meaning to human existence… Therefore, in the absence of accepting evidence which is ‘spiritually discerned,’ the passage of time by itself (which actually brings us closer to the resurrection) is ironically seen as a refutation of the resurrection.” I liked the description “unbroken sweep of the centuries,” I feel like that is an adequate way to describe the vast reach but also insignificance of time past. There is mention of the earth “being overflowed with water perished,” which is a reference to the flood of Noah. The article says, “For Latter-day Saints, the Flood is a matter of faith and belief. We believe in many events that today we cannot scientifically explain. For example, in a world where change and death are the norm, the scriptures promise immortality and eternal life.” That’s a fascinating way to describe the seemingly contradictory truths of death and suffering in this life and eternal life and joy in the next. I had never considered the fact that part of gospel acceptance has to reconcile these two features of our spiritual existence before we can move forward. The article quotes Neal A. Maxwell as noting, “Conditions before Jesus’ second coming, we are further told, will resemble those in the days of Noah when there was a misdirected sense of self-sufficiency among the citizenry, a resistance to the words of the Lord’s prophet, and a dangerous norm of wickedness as usual. The attitudes among some latter-day scoffers will reflect the same scornful scornful self-sufficiency. Even the unmistakable signs will be discounted, because, said Peter, such people will say ‘all things continue as they were.’ Joseph Smith, in the inspired translation of the Bible, added, significantly, that these same latter-day scoffers would also deny the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, a sad reality that is well advanced even now. G.K. Chesterton has pointed out that when people cease to believe in God, instead of believing in nothing, what is far more dangerous is that they believe in anything.” This is one aspect of the concept of “belief” that baffles me. We all believe in something, even for those who are adamantly atheist, they still believe that there is no God, it’s still a belief. So when Jesus gives the simple command “believe in me,” it’s not like he’s asking us to do something that is completely unnatural to us. He’s asking us to simply substitute what we already feel within ourselves to be true. In that respect, believing in Jesus is easy. Because this life is so ambiguous, as far as where we came from, where we’re going, what matters, etc. We have to feel some type of way about all of that. So there is not absence of “belief” because even if you truly feel in your heart that nothing matters, there is no God, we came from nowhere and we’re returning to nothing, there is no concrete proof of that, so it’s still a belief. People who believe that take it on faith, just like people who believe in God take that on faith because there is no definitive knowledge one way or the other. Even Joseph Smith, who had seen Jesus and angels and all types of spiritual manifestations, still had to live by faith. The earth was cleansed with water during the flood in Noah’s time, and now “are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment.” This has been explained many times as the flood being the baptism by water and at the Second Coming, the fire will be the baptism by the Holy Ghost. The article comments, “True baptism involves baptism by water and by fire. The earth was baptized by water with the Flood and remains to be baptized by fire at the Second Coming. Indeed, much like us, the earth was created in innocence, suffered the effects of the Fall, has been redeemed by the Flood, will yet be sanctified by a baptism of fire, will eventually die and be resurrected, and finally will receive a celestial glory.” Because the earth is an inanimate object, or as we learned in high school science, a non-living thing, it’s abstract to think about it as being baptized, resurrected, and celestialized. But if we think about it in the sense that our bodies are only made up of atoms and the earth is just a bunch of atoms put together, what brings us to life is our spirit. And we know that everything was created spiritually before it was created physically, this indicating that the earth has a spirit, we just can’t feel or hear it right now. So our inability to recognize a fellow spiritual being doesn’t make it any less alive. That’s a really interesting idea. 3:8-9 - Maybe calling back to the flood was even a little bit too far time wise for Peter, or maybe it’s because the concepts that he’s talking about, the flood, the second coming, etc. are so spread out in terms of human time that he makes sure that the people remember “that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” I think it’s important to note here the word “as,” which implies “similar in theory.” My mom taught that this was a literal statement, and I even had someone in Sunday school once use this statement to do calculations about when the second coming was going to happen based on the “silence for half an hour” bit from Revelations. But I think it’s pretty clear that the 1,000 year specification made by Peter was not literal but figurative. The article says, “Latter-day Saints have additional information that allows a third view: that each ‘day’ of the Creation was of unspecificed duration, and that the creation of earth took place during an unknown length of time. In fact, Abraham stresses that time is synonymous with day… This usage is completely consistent with the ancient Hebrews. The Hebrew word YOM, often translated ‘day,’ can also mean ‘time’ or ‘period.’ In other words, the term translated ‘day’ in Genesis could be appropriately read as ‘period.’” I’ve also heard is said that with this definition we can consider God’s warning to Adam that if he were to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in that day he would surely die. Using the earthly definition of “day,” this would imply that eating the fruit would somehow poison him and he had less than 24 hours to live. Satan’s response that he wouldn’t die might have seemed to answer the question of longevity, but because Adam lived less than 1,000 years, he did indeed die that same day according to the time table of the Lord. Anyway, just something interesting to think about. The Lord isn’t neglecting his promise to return to earth, and we can deduce that because in the meantime, he’s “longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Teaching everyone that has ever lived the gospel is not an overnight event, it is a process that stretches throughout eons of time. The Lord is clearly highly invested in the occurrences on the earth in the times leading up to his return, so it’s not like he’s asleep on the job as many people probably assume now just like they did anciently when this epistle was written. 3:10-14 - All this time waiting for Jesus to come back, and then when he does it will be “as a thief in the night.” But for those who are watching and listening and preparing, we will be ready so it doesn’t matter when he comes back. The events of Jesus’ return are pretty bleak, the “heavens shall shake, and the earth also shall tremble, and the mountains shall melt, and pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be filled with fervent heat.” That sounds like a wild time, but this is a question that I’ve always had, if the righteous are caught up to meet Him, and the rest of the world and wicked people are burned up, the righteous have to be returned to the earth to start living out the millennium. So the righteous aren’t burned up, but they are returned to a world that is destroyed with no food or shelter? That doesn’t make sense to me. Or is this the description of what happens after the millennium right before the final judgment? Thus begs the question, if this is what’s coming, “what manner of persons ought ye to be?” We should be looking forward to Jesus’ second coming, and “hasting unto the coming of the day of God,” which I don’t really understand how we are supposed to “hasten” his arrival. I guess we can “look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Maybe that means trying to create heaven on earth, doing what we can to make the world a more righteous place, being “diligent that ye may be found of him in peace.” Diligent in our studies, diligent in our testimonies, diligent in our service of others. 3:15-18 – I love here that Peter speaks of Paul as “our beloved brother” and attributes to him “wisdom” and acknowledges the letters that Paul has written the people. It always just seems like there is so much conflict between the early apostles that it’s so nice to see that they were friends and “brothers.” Peter ends his epistle urging his readers to “beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.” It’s important to note here that Peter’s pretty plainly laying out that even those who have strong testimonies can be “led away” from the truth. A testimony is a fragile thing, the most important thing in the world, but requires constant care to preserve and to grow. Finally, he finishes, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen.”