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.
But the day of [the] Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise, and [the] elements, burning with heat, shall be dissolved, and [the] earth and the works in it shall be burnt up.
Mockers say the world never changes and that Christ's promise to return has failed. Peter's answer does not defend that hope — he names a day when fire will undo the very world they trust.
Notice what Peter does not say. They mock the Lord's coming, and the answer of faith points somewhere else:
Unbelief is as sure of a stable unchanged world as of man's progress. What is the answer of faith? Not the presence of the Lord but His day will come as a thief in the night. They taunt about the Lord's coming with its bright hope. The Holy Spirit answers them with a solemn threat: His day will come with a power that will dissolve not just the works of busy man, but the heavens and earth, before that day closes.
Peter picks the image for its silence — nothing announces it. (These writers quote an older wording: "as a thief in the night.")
The Lord is not willing that you should perish. But remember this: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." I never heard of a thief blowing a trumpet before breaking into your house.
A thief only surprises those asleep in the dark. Commentators are careful about who that includes:
The event that overtakes the world as a thief in the night is not the coming of the Lord for His saints. It is the coming of "the day of the Lord." Scripture never calls that day a "blessed hope." It speaks of it as a time of fearful retribution and judgment. Believers of this present age will not be in the night that then covers the world. As "the children of the day," they will be with Christ.
The day of the Lord is not a single moment. Writers place its start at Christ's return and this burning at its far end:
The Lord will come when men do not expect Him, as a thief in the night, and so bring in His day. That "day" will include a thousand years, as other Scriptures show. It will begin with His coming and not close until the earth and its surrounding heavens pass away, dissolved by fire… That same destruction of the heavens and the earth will bring in the "day of God" — the eternal state. The "day of the Lord" and the "day of God" are like two circles that touch and just overlap. They overlap at the point where the heavens and earth are destroyed, so their destruction may be said to belong to both.
One writer ties this burning to the scene of final judgment:
It seems plain to me that this is what takes place at the time of the great white throne. The moment the Lord is on that throne, the earth and heaven flee from before His face, and no place is found for them.
The word points to physical matter, and the flood is the pattern for reading it:
By "elements" the Apostle means, I think, the material that makes up the crust of the globe. Water once flooded the world; fire will melt it down to form a new earth, a new atmospheric heaven, and so on.
Commentators differ on how total this is. Some read it as the end of the present creation outright; others argue melting is not erasing:
Fire is the instrument of a deeper judgment, yet it does not annihilate the material it fastens on. The melting of elements even suggests the opposite, and dissolving is not, in this sense, destroying.
The verse does not stop at rock and sky. It reaches everything built on the earth. (The older wording says the works on the earth "shall be burned up"; the ESV says they "will be exposed".)
God has but one way of purifying this sin-stained earth, and it is by fire. So on the mightiest monuments of man's skill and ingenuity, faith sees written in unmistakable letters the words, "Reserved to fire."
The chapter turns at once from prediction to behaviour:
You may feel, and you ought to feel, what man is in his scoffings against the truth of God. But the best answer to it all is a godly life. Such a life is what knowing that hope works in your soul and in your walk, along with your sense of the dreadful doom awaiting those who despise not only the righteous will of God, but His mercy.
- Scoff — Mockers trust a world they think never changes. Peter does not defend the hope they ridicule. He names the day that will dissolve the stability they trust.
- Thief — No warning, no trumpet. The figure describes a world asleep in the dark, not those who belong to the light and will be with Christ.
- Fire — Water once flooded the world; fire will melt its materials. Writers differ on whether this ends the creation or purges it. Neither view softens the day.
- Timing — The burning closes the day of the Lord; it does not start it. Here that day overlaps the day of God, and earth and heaven flee from the throne.
- Walk — Faith reads "reserved to fire" on everything man builds. The fitting reply to scoffers is not argument but a godly life.