But the present heavens and the earth by his word are laid up in store, kept for fire unto a day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
Peter answers mockers who say the world has always run on unchanged, so Christ cannot be coming back. His reply rests on one thing: the word of God. That word made the heavens and earth, flooded them once, and now keeps them for fire.
Two facts about God carry the point.
(V. 7). If God brought the world into being by His word, He can surely end it by His word. If God has intervened in judgment, He can do so again.
The same writer sets out three acts of God, all carried by the same word:
First, that by His word God created the heavens and the earth. Second, by His word God stepped in to judge. He brought the flood on the ungodly world, and that world perished. Third, by His word God keeps the present heavens and earth for fire, until the day when He judges the ungodly men of this present generation.
To claim that nothing has ever interrupted nature, you must push one fact out of sight — the flood. Commentators say this blindness is real, and self-made.
They ask, "Where is the promise of His coming?" They claim that all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. It is the argument of "uniformity," pushed all the way. They ignore God's judgment by the flood... This is hidden from them, says the apostle. It is truly hidden, so they can be sincere in holding it. Yet it is the cunning of their own wills that hides it — and those wills so often deceive the sharpest minds.
The verse says this world is "stored up" and "kept" for fire. One writer applies that to everything men build.
God has but one way of purifying this sin-stained earth, and it is by fire... So that, on the mightiest monuments of man's skill and ingenuity, faith sees the words "Reserved to fire" written in letters that cannot be erased.
The reason is not that the world is old but that it is stained. One writer ties the fate of the creation to the fate of the man who ruined it.
This world is already under judgment, and it will soon vanish, for the present heavens and earth are "stored up for fire"... Why? The answer is this: the first creation will share the doom of the first man.
Another writer looks at the world as it stands today.
The world, as we look at it, in spite of all reforms and all outward improvements, is not such that anyone can easily believe a holy God will go on with it forever.
Peter calls it "the day of judgment"; three verses later he calls the same event "the day of the Lord." Commentators read these as one period.
These two expressions must clearly mean the same thing — they both refer to the same period... "The day of judgment," then, is the period when God destroys the heavens and the earth by fire.
How long is that day? One writer says Peter takes it in its widest sense.
Peter, and he alone, takes the day of the Lord to cover the whole of the thousand-year reign, and even what comes just before it and just after it... All these vast events fall within the day of the Lord — not within the thousand years, but within that day.
Why is the coming judgment heavier than the flood? One writer points to all that has happened since Noah's day.
The law, Christ's coming, and the gospel preached to every creature have made man's responsibility far greater. So his sin in rejecting the truth is far greater too... Such measureless guilt — rejecting the only, perfectly righteous One and His propitiation — will have to face God's extreme punishment by fire.
Smaller judgments already stand as previews. Of the fire that fell on Sodom, one writer observes:
This judgment was a sample of what is yet to come on a much greater scale in "the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly."
- Word that made — the heavens and earth exist because God spoke; the whole verse rests on that single fact.
- Word that flooded — the same word once broke nature's routine. Scoffers must hide that fact to claim the world runs on unchanged.
- Word that keeps — the present world is not drifting. God stores it, holds it, and labels it "reserved to fire." Every human achievement carries that label.
- Word that names a day — Peter's "day of judgment" is his "day of the Lord." It is not an hour but a long period, reaching across the thousand-year reign and beyond.
- Word that raises the stakes — water answered an age of ignorance. Fire answers a world that has heard the gospel and refused the Righteous One.
But let not this one thing be hidden from you, beloved, that one day with [the] Lord [is] as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The mockers of the last days say the world keeps running as it always has, so the promised return will never come. Peter's reply asks his readers not to overlook one thing: God does not measure time the way we do.
The mockers' taunt rests on two blind spots. This verse removes the second one.
The scoffers are ignorant of two things. First, God did once take public account of the ways of the world. It was filled with violence, and a flood of waters destroyed it all, apart from one family. Second, a thousand years are as one day in the reckoning of God. The first shows that God is not indifferent to the state of the world. The second shows that we must not judge His ways by the ways of men. Men live in hours, days and years. They must work in a rush in case they are too late to do what they want. He is the eternal God, whose being is outside the bounds of time. So He can patiently wait for everything to develop until the moment is ripe for the display of His glory.
The answer runs on into verse 9. Each part meets the charge of delay from a different side.
First, let the believer remember this. In our eyes the delay may seem long. With the Lord it is only a brief moment, for "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day". Secondly, let us never forget that the promise of His coming is "His promise", and that His word cannot fail. Thirdly, there is a reason for the delay. The Lord is not slack in fulfilling His promise. He is longsuffering, "not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance". In His grace God gives space for repentance before the judgment falls. In his unbelief man uses the delay to deny that judgment will ever come.
Some have used these words to turn the days of creation into thousand-year ages. But the sentence runs in both directions.
But as to the principle, the passage in Peter is no proof at all. It is not a statement of time but the opposite — the simple assurance of how little God counts time as man counts it. You could argue from it, just as fairly, that the millennial "thousand years" was only a day, as that the creation "days" each stood for a thousand years. For it is not only "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years," but also "a thousand years as one day."
This verse prepares the reader for the day of the Lord, announced two verses later. That day does its work at once and yet stretches out.
He shows what is no small help for understanding the coming day of the Lord: with Him one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Though that day brings immense change at once, it also extends through a long period. And it is His grace in saving now, not slackness, that defers it. But it will come unexpectedly, like a thief. In that day the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise. The elements will dissolve with fierce heat, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up (8-10). It is still the day, but its evening as it were, when this catastrophe comes.
The verse invites us to swap our arithmetic for His.
If days and years are taken out of their ordinary reckoning by time, and put in connection with the Lord and His coming, faith's reckonings become like His. We then readily believe that "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." This new way of counting lets us say, about this seemingly long interval that measures His absence, "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you." The difference between these standards — either divine or human — makes the difference we are considering.
Counted that way, the cross is not ancient history, and this is still the world that crucified Him.
In God's sight it is less than two days since the world crucified your beloved Saviour. Do you want to find all your ambition, all your hopes, all your pleasures in such a world?
- Reckoning — The verse hands us God's scale of time. Faith adopts it and stops judging His ways by human clocks.
- Not slack — The delay is longsuffering. It gives space for repentance before judgment falls.
- His promise — The promise is the Lord's own, so its timing is His business and its fulfilment is certain.
- Not a formula — The sentence runs both ways, so it fixes no calendar. It measures how God views time, not the length of an age.
- Two days — On this reckoning the cross is less than two days behind us, and the day of the Lord is close ahead. That is near enough to reshape what you live for.
[The] Lord does not delay his promise, as some account of delay, but is longsuffering towards you, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Peter is answering mockers who look at an unchanged world and ask where the promised coming has gone. His answer is that the delay is not a broken schedule but patience — God counts time His own way, and He wants people saved, not destroyed.
The waiting has an explanation. One writer ties three parts of Peter's answer together: God's timescale, the certainty of His word, and the reason for the pause:
First, remember that what looks like a long delay to us is only a brief moment with the Lord: "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." Second, never forget that the promise of His coming is "His promise", and that His word cannot fail. Third, there is a reason for the delay. It is not that the Lord is slow to fulfill His promise, but that He is patient... In His grace God gives room to repent before judgment falls. In his unbelief man uses the delay to say judgment will never come.
The phrase "as some count slackness" points to a human measuring stick. Faith learns to use another one:
If days and years are taken out of their ordinary reckoning by time, and put in connection with the Lord and His coming, or with the day of God and the final dissolution of the heavens and the earth, faith's reckonings become like His, and we readily believe that "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." It is this new method of calculation which lets us say, about this apparently long interval that measures His absence, "the Lord is not slack concerning His promise as men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us."
The delay has a purpose. One writer describes what God is busy doing instead:
His purposes of grace alone hold things back for the moment. He is bent on saving souls. He holds back from trading the present work of salvation for the strange work of judgment. He wants to fill heaven with guests that grace has made fit for it. But He is not slow to fulfill His promise.
It also answers a question believers ask: why does God let such a world go on?
If God stepped in to change it, He would have to come in judgment and end the time of mercy. He does not do that while anyone still has ears to hear... We may have to suffer in the world for a while. Even so, we can be glad the world goes on, because it is still a time of mercy for others.
Writers link this to what God swore in the Old Testament about the wicked:
First, it is not because judgment is His delight... "Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?"... No, God takes no pleasure in destroying anyone. The sad truth is that men despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and patience.
Commentators are careful to call this God's desire, not a promise about how men will answer. It is "what is in His heart, His desire for men, however little they may respond to it" (F. W. Grant).
Misread, the pause becomes an argument that nothing will ever happen. The verse itself blocks that:
The Lord is not slow, and not careless or undependable, whatever some men accuse Him of. His patience is astonishing. It is folly to mistake His patience for indifference.
Peter's own words leave two roads open: "The alternative is clearly stated. It is repent or perish" (F. B. Hole).
Since the waiting is mercy, it shapes how believers pray and how hearers should act. One writer draws the conclusion for prayer:
Men are the work of His hand, and He looks on them with pity. He "is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." This is the day of grace, not of judgment. So it is the day for intercession.
That same patience takes away every excuse. Those who hear the message and still refuse "shall perish without a shadow of an excuse" (C. H. Mackintosh).
- Not broken — the delay never touches the reliability of the promise. It is His promise, and His word cannot fail.
- Not slow — a thousand years are like a day to Him. Faith learns to read God's clock instead of man's.
- But patient — the pause is grace. He is saving souls, and He will not close the time of mercy while anyone still has ears to hear.
- Not wishing any perish — this is God's heart, the same heart that swore He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
- So: repent — patience is not indifference. Peter's choice is plain: repent or perish. Meanwhile it is the day for intercession, not judgment.