We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

What is the significance of 2 Peter 3:9–12?

Peter says that the Lord has delayed his coming because “he is patient with you, not wanting any to perish” (vs. 9). We are encouraged to be “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” [NIV: “speed its coming”] (vs. 12).

If the future is an eternally fixed reality, of course God would foreknow the exact day of his return. Hence it is deceiving to suggest that it could be delayed because of his patience or speeded up by the way we live (e.g. by evangelizing). If God is never deceptive, however, it seems we must accept that the day of Christ’s return is not fixed and thus that the classical understanding of the future which requires that it be fixed is incorrect.

Along these lines, we should perhaps note that when Jesus says “about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son of man, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32), this can easily be taken as an idiomatic way of saying that it lies in the Father’s authority to determine this time. It need not entail that the Father has already set the exact date (see Acts 1:7).

This passage also proclaims the glorious truth that God doesn’t want “any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (3:9). On this note, one has to wonder why God would create people he knew from all eternity would end up in a hell in which they’ll consciously suffer forever. Even if one holds that hell is annihilation, as I’m inclined to do, one has to wonder why God would bother to create beings he foreknows with certainty will end up not existing anyway.

Now some may object that denying the classical understanding of the future does not solve the problem of hell. For even if God didn’t foreknow who would end up in hell he at least knows who is in hell once they’re there. Yet he allows them to go on suffering for eternity.

Category:
Tags: ,
Topics:
Verse:

Related Reading

What is the significance of Hosea 11:8–9?

After plotting severe judgment against Israel (vs. 5–7) the Lord says, “My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger… I will not come in wrath.” This passage shows that God experiences conflict between his compassion and his justice and that he sometimes alters his plans…

Topics:

Does God Change His Mind?

Classical theologians usually argue that texts that attribute change to God describe how he appears to us; they do not depict God as he really is. It looks like God changed his mind, but he really didn’t. Unfortunately for the classical interpretation, there are many texts that do not say, or remotely imply, that it…

God of Sense and Traditions of Non-Sense

As the title suggests, in his book, God’s Problem: How The Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question – Why We Suffer, Bart Ehrman argues that the Bible has nothing compelling to say about the problem of evil. Well, I just put down a beautifully written four-hundred and fifty page book that compellingly argues…

If God anticipates each possibility perfectly, how does he differ from the “frozen God” of classical theism?

Question: If God anticipates each and every possibility as if each were only possibility, how does God ever experience novelty and adventure? It seems that a God who perfectly anticipated (from all eternity)  every single possibility as if it were the only possibility would not differ from the timeless “frozen God” of classical theism Answer:…

What is the significance of Genesis 2:19 ?

“So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was the name.” God wanted Adam to have authority over the animal kingdom…

Topics:

Sermon: God Needs Prayer

In this sermon clip, Greg Boyd discusses some of the challenges we face when praying. The full sermon wrestles with questions like: If God is all-powerful, does he need our prayers to change this world? And is it even worth praying if we can’t see the results? Greg addresses these questions as he begins a…