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

Lighten Up: Full of Possibilities

What do you think of the left wing Christians who are calling on Christians to stand up for “biblical justice”?

Yes, we’ve been hearing a lot of this recently, especially from more “progressive” (left-tending) Christians calling on people to vote “God’s politics” and stand up for “biblical justice.” On the one hand, I along with everyone else applaud such rhetoric, for what Bible-believing Christian in their right mind would take a stand against “biblical justice”?…

Isn’t the World Unsafe If God Doesn’t Control Everything?

If God isn’t in control of everything, the world feels unsafe. If the future is open and if things can happen outside of God’s will, what guarantee is there that there is a point to a person’s suffering? Maybe it’s all just bad luck. My experience has been that many of those who honestly examine…

What is the significance of Amos 7:1–6?

The Lord revealed a judgment he was planning to bring on Israel to Amos in a vision. Amos prayed “O Lord God, forgive, I beg you!” (vs. 2). Scripture declares that, “The Lord relented concerning this; ‘It shall not be,’ said the Lord” (vs. 3). The Lord then showed Amos another fierce judgment he was…

Topics:

Lighten Up: I’m Not Worried Frank

http://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y?t=1m19s Well, my dear friend Frank Viola has been spouting off again about how my “logic will be shredded, excoriated, and turned into confetti before a watching world” when we host our debate on Open Theism this fall. I’m not too worried though, since Frank studied the art of debate in the clinic featured in…

What is the significance of Ezekiel 22:29–31?

The Lord says he “sought for” someone to stand in the breech for Israel “but I found none.” Hence Israel experienced the wrath of God. If everything that shall ever come to pass is eternally fixed in the divine mind, God would have foreknown that no one would respond to his call for a Moses-like…

Topics: