Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church Manhattan KS, 17 Mar. 2024
Translation: 7 but the present heavens and earth having been safeguarded by His word, are being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly men by fire. But this one thing must not escape notice with you, beloved, that, with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. The Lord is not tardy concerning His promise, as some reckon tardiness among themselves. Rather He is longsuffering toward y’all, because He is not willing for any persons to perish but for all of them to find space for repentance. But the Day of the Lord will arrive like a thief {in the night}, in which the heavens will pass away with a rush, and the elements will be disintegrated by being heated, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up. Therefore, concerning all these things being disintegrated, what sort of persons must y’all be in holy lifestyles and godlinesses, anticipating and hastening the coming of the Day of God, on account of which the heavens will be disintegrated by burning and the elements be melted away by being heated? Furthermore, in accordance with His promise, let us look forward to new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness resides!
Our passage starts with a profound statement about the relationship between the eternal God and His finite creatures. We perceive time in a very linear and limited way, but God does not experience time like we do: “with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day.”
God can interact with time in high-resolution, super-slow motion, revelling in each minute detail, and He can interact with time in hyper-fast-forward, never having to twiddle His thumbs or feel bored! Time is not a problem for Him like it is for us, and it is this misunderstanding which makes it wrong for us to criticize God for His timing of things, especially when we think He is being too slow to bring justice and salvation.
There is only one place before 2 Peter in the Bible which speaks of a “thousand years,” and that is Psalm 90, where Moses wrote, “Lord, thou hast been our refuge in all generations. Before the mountains existed, and before the earth and the world were formed, even from age to age, Thou art... For a thousand years in thy sight are as the yesterday which is past, and as a watch in the night.” (vs.1-4, Brenton) (For what it’s worth, Revelation 20 is the only other place in the Bible which mentions a thousand years.)
Surprisingly, the NIV made the most accurate and literal translation of verse 8 of any English version, framing the imperative as, “This one thing must not escape notice with you, beloved…” This must not escape your notice!
The ungodly may be expected to ignore willfully God’s divine intervention in creation and the flood, but those of us who count Jesus as our Lord and Savior must never let ourselves slip into thinking that God is just another finite creature like us1.
Throughout scripture, we see that God institutes times of waiting.
Peter mentioned in chapter 3 of his first epistle that when God decided to flood the world of wicked people in Genesis 6, He didn’t just open up the floodgates of heaven and the fountains of the deep immediately; no, in God’s “patience… He preached... even to those who wouldn’t be persuaded,” and “God waited in Noah's days during the equipping of an ark” so that there would be an ark to save Noah’s family. (NAW)
Later on in Genesis 15:16 God explained to Abram that, even though Abram had settled in Canaan, God wasn’t going to establish Abraham’s family there for four more generations. Why? “Because the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” (cf. Rev. 2:21) It would not have been just for Abraham to kill off that generation of Canaanites, but four generations later, they would deserve for Joshua to wipe them out for their wickedness. And so Abraham waited to obtain God’s promises (Heb. 11:13).
Still later, when God was bringing the Babylonian captivity upon Judea, He reminded the prophet Habakkuk 2:3 “For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.” (NKJV)
And in the New Testament, we are reminded in Hebrews 10:36-37 "[Y]'all have need of endurance in order that, after y'all have done the will of God, y'all may obtain what was promised. For, it will be ‘such a little while yet... {the One who} is coming will arrive,’ {and} He isn't delaying…” (NAW)
The result of remembering this profound truth – that God’s timing is much more comprehensive than ours and that we must wait for Him – results in peaceful trust in His salvation and worshipful praise. Notice how that peaceful trust and worshipful praise shows up in other Bible passages:
Deuteronomy 33:27 “The eternal God is your refuge, And underneath are the everlasting arms…” (NKJV) We can rest confidently in those “everlasting arms” and that “eternal refuge” even if it means waiting.
Job 36:26 “Behold, God is great, and we do not know Him; Nor can the number of His years be discovered.” (NKJV) Hear how Job praises God even while everything is going wrong and he is waiting for God to make things right.
Psalm 145:13 “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.” (NKJV)
1 Tim. 1:17 “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (NKJV)
Next, verse 9 opens with a quote from:
Deuteronomy 7:9-10 “Thou shalt know therefore, that the Lord thy God, he is God, a faithful God, who keeps covenant and mercy for them that love him, and for those that keep his commandments to a thousand generations, and who recompenses them that hate him to their face, to destroy them utterly; and will not be slack with them that hate him: he will recompense them to their face.” (Brenton)
Isaiah 46:12-13 contains the same idea: “Hearken to me, ye senseless ones, that are far from righteousness: I have brought near my righteousness, and I will not be slow with the salvation that is from me: I have given salvation in Sion to Israel for glory.” (Brenton)
God has promised that He will bring justice and salvation. The reason it hasn’t come yet is not because He is somehow incapable of pulling it off, but rather because He is so patient with sinners.
By the way, if you’re reading a King James Bible, you’ll notice it says that God is “longsuffering toward us,” whereas the contemporary versions say toward “you.” The Greek manuscripts are divided between “you” and “us,” but it doesn’t make for a theological difference, because Peter obviously isn’t trying to exclude himself from God’s patience and salvation.
The last half of v. 9 is cited as proof by free-will theologians that God’s will is for everyone in the world to be saved, but that mankind frustrates God’s will by refusing to accept God’s offer of free salvation: “He is not willing/wishing/wanting for any persons to perish but for all of them to come to repentance.” But there is another way to interpret this verse which I believe has more integrity.
Theologians who emphasize the sovereignty of God in salvation make a distinction between God’s revealed will and God’s secret will, and we believe that God came up with both at the same time.
Without a revealed will, we would be lost without any word from God.
But that revealed will in the Bible is not the track that God sovereignly laid out to actually happen in this world.
Before anybody sinned – before the world began (Eph. 1:4-5), God developed His plan of salvation which included Jesus dying on the cross.
But God’s plan from eternity never was to save every single human being; it only was to save the ones He wanted to love.
When He sent all the antediluvians to perdition in the flood (and all the people in Sodom and Gomorrah to hell with fire and brimstone), God wasn’t wringing His hands, conflicted over condemning people that He was wishing were saved. He quite willingly destroyed them because they were evil and unrepentant.
But wait; it says “all” here in v.9! “[God] does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.”
Let me begin by pointing out that the Greek words for “any” and “all” are plural, which may be neither here nor there, but in my mind it begins to undermine the picture with a God who has a will to save each-and-every individual which He created and not to destroy even a single one of them.
Another bigger consideration is that these words for “all” and for “any” are actually adjectives, so we have to ask ourselves what the adjective is modifying.
Does it mean “anything” and “everything” without qualification? (Is God not wishing for any centipede to perish but for all centipedes to come to repentance?)
Well, if you don’t believe that, then you desire to restrict the meaning of “any” and “all.” And if you wish to restrict the meaning of the word “all” and “any” to “any/all human beings,” you are making an arbitrary judgment on the meaning of the word.
Let me suggest, however, that there is a non-arbitrary solution to this conundrum found in this verse, and that is to restrict the “all/any” to the scope of the word “y’all.” “He is patient toward y’all, not wishing for any [of y’all] to perish but for all [of y’all] to come to repentance.”2
And who is “y’all”? Chapter 1 verse 1: those with “faith… in the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.”3
This fits with the plural forms of the words for “all” and “any,” and it makes sense in the context of what Peter is actually writing. Otherwise, if “all” and “any” have no boundaries to their meaning, Peter is presenting God as schizophrenic, on the one hand making plans to destroy the world by fire, and on the other hand saying that He doesn’t want to destroy any of it.
There is one other word in this verse which completes the picture of a God who is occupied in the work of saving particular beloved persons, and that is the verb χωρῆσαι, translated “come” in most English Bibles, but the verb literally means “to make space.”
(The noun formed from this Greek verb is translated “country” as in “wide-open space.” That’s the noun used in the Christmas story in Luke 2:8 – “And there were in that same country/χώρᾳ shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks.”)
As a verb it appears in Matt. 19:11 where Jesus said to His disciples, “It's not all men but rather the ones to whom is has been given who make space for this word.” (NAW)
Jesus used the same verb again in John 8:37 “I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.” (ESV)
So, with that context, I picture a person coming to a space graciously prepared for them, that they have been invited to come into, not an impersonal pool of merit that God has left sitting there for anyone who can exercise enough willpower to grab some.
In v.10, Peter switches from the work of salvation that God is patiently doing now back to the promised judgment to come in the future.
There are two manuscript variants in verse 10 that make a difference in English translations, although neither of them make a difference in meaning and application:
One is whether or not to include the phrase “in the night” after the word “thief.” But since the phrase is in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, we can just flip to 1 Thessalonians to discuss the coming of the Lord being “like a thief in the night.” With or without the phrase “in the night,” the idea is still a comparison between the way the Day of the Lord will take people by surprise and the way a thief takes people by surprise.
The other variant is over what the last verb in v.10 should be:
The Geneva, King James, and NASB read, along with the majority of Greek manuscripts, “will be burned up,”
and the NLT, NIV and ESV read “will be found/laid bare/exposed,” along with the three oldest-known manuscripts.
I prefer the KJV and NASB here because being destroyed by fire goes along with the idea of the first half of the verse – the heavens and earth passing away and disintegrating/dissolving/melting in the heat,
but the idea of fire “exposing” the quality of our works does show up in 1 Corinthians 3:13 “[T]he work4 of each will become apparent, for the day will show that by fire it is revealed, and the fire will test the work of each one, as to what quality it is.”
But despite the variants, the main point is undeniable: the heavens and the earth are going to disappear suddenly on the Day of the Lord.
The prophets already prophesied this:
Isaiah 34:4 “And all the host of the heavens will be decayed and the heavens will be rolled up like the scroll, and all their host will wilt like the wilting of leaves from the vine... 51:6 ... the heavens will be dissolved like the smoke, and the earth wear out like the garment, and her inhabitants will die likewise, but my salvation will exist forever, and my righteousness will not come undone.” (NAW)
Micah 1:4 “The mountains will melt5 under Him, And the valleys will split Like wax before the fire…” (NKJV, cf. Nahum 1:5)
Jesus also prophesied in Matthew 24:29-41 “...the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give off her glow, and the stars will fall from the heavens, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken... and they will see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of the heavens with power and much glory, and He will commission His angels with a great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together His chosen ones out of the four winds from [one] end of the heavens over to [the other] end of them... The sky and the earth will pass away, but my words have no possibility of passing away... And just as the days of Noah were, so also the coming of the Son of Man will be, for [just] as, in the days before the flood, they were munching and drinking, getting married and marrying off – until that day Noah entered into the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took away absolutely all men, thus also will be the coming of the Son of Man… Therefore, stay alert…” (NAW)
and later in Revelation 16:15 Jesus said, “Behold, I am coming (ἔρχομαι) as a thief. Blessed is he who watches....” (NKJV, cf. 3:3)
Now in vs. 11-13, Peter gets to his application. He begins with a question in v.11.
The question is interesting. It’s not, “What are you going to invest in?” or “What are you going to do in light of the end of the world?” It’s, “What sort of persons should you be?”
This is because all your possessions will “disintegrate/dissolve/evaporate on Judgment Day, so all that will be left is your soul. All that will matter is what kind of person you are, because nothing you did or owned will still be in existence.
What kind of person ought you to be in light of the fact that everything is going to burn away?
Peter points us in the right direction by telling us that our persons should be characterized by “...holy lifestyles/conversations/conducts and godlinesses.”
Curiously, all those nouns at the end of verse 11 are plural, perhaps indicating that matters of “holiness” and of “godliness” should be abundant in our lifestyle, not just one-off religious experiences.
And these words “holy” and “godly” are relationship words, not things you can collect or things you can do, they are merely things you can be in relationship with God.
You can be either a fan of God and an imitator of His character and therefore “godly,” or you are not like God and not a fan of God and thus ungodly.
You can either be in a special relationship with God as “holy” to Him, a special possession of God treated in an uncommon manner, or you are common, in no special relationship with God and therefore unholy.
The Apostle Peter and Paul were very concerned to drive this point home in their epistles, and they give us context for what holiness and godliness look like in a lifestyle:
2 Cor. 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (NKJV) How do we “perfect holiness”? By “purging” the “filth” of sin “from” our lives.
Ephesians 4: 22-24 “...put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and... put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (NKJV, cf. Phil. 1:27, Heb. 12:14) What is “true holiness”? It is “putting off” the old self with its lusts and being renewed as a new creation of God.
1 Timothy 4:12 “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity [‘αγνια].” (NAW, cf. Jas. 3:13) It’s a lifestyle of God’s pure, spiritual love and faith.
And this was a good bit of Peter’s message back in his first epistle: 1 Peter 1:13-16 “Therefore, after girding up the loins of y'all's mind, being sober, perfectly start hoping upon the grace which is being brought to y'all in the revelation of Jesus Christ. As children of obedience, not being shaped with [your] earlier desires during your ignorance, but rather, in accordance with the Holy One who called you, you yourselves should also start becoming holy in all [your] lifestyle, because it has been written, ‘Y'all shall be holy because I myself am holy.’” (NAW, cf. 2:11-12, 3:15-16)
That’s a quote from Leviticus 11:44-45 “...I am Yahweh, y'all's God. So consecrate yourselves, and you will become holy ones, because I am holy. So don't let yourselves become unclean by means of anything… because I am Yahweh, the one who effected your escape from the land of Egypt, to be God to y'all. So y'all must be holy ones because I am holy.” (NAW)
V.12 gives two participles which flesh out what a holy and godly lifestyle does: it “anticipates/ looks forward to/expectantly waits for and hastens/speeds the coming of the Day of God,”
If your life is oriented around a relationship with God, you will look forward to the return of Christ. Are you eagerly awaiting that event? Hoping it will come soon? Is it something you would welcome in the midst of your daily routine and worldly aspirations?
Jude 1:20-21 “But loved ones, as for y'all, building yourselves on in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, anticipating the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” (NAW)
Titus 2:13 “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (NKJV)
Looking forward to the return of Christ is pretty easy to understand, but what about the second thing:
How can one “speed up” or “hasten” the day of the Lord?
The King James Version suggests an interpretation which means basically the same thing as “looking forward to” by adding the word “toward” in the phrase “hastening toward the day.” That is not a bad idea, but the word “toward” is not in the Greek text, so the other English versions have properly translated it as actually speeding-on the day of the Lord, but what does that mean?
Remember what Peter said in v.9? God holds back the final judgment because He is patiently waiting for “all” of “you” “to come to repentance” and be saved so you won’t “perish.” We will see the same thing later on in v.15 “the patience of the Lord is salvation.”
So if you want to “hurry-up” His coming, you can “come on to repentance” now! Get on with getting right with God so He’s not waiting on you! Trust Jesus now to save you!
But also you can join Him in spreading the gospel to others, because there are others He is waiting-on to save too!6
Jesus Himself said in Matthew 24:14 “ And this good news of the kingdom will be announced in the whole of the world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will arrive.” (NAW)
Simply making sure that the good news gets announced everywhere in the world that it hasn’t been announced yet is a way to “hasten the coming” of the Lord!
It is actually one of the motivating factors in modern missions initiatives to identify and reached “unreached peoples.”
By the middle of the 20th Century, the Gospel had been preached in every country in the world, but missiologists like Donald McGavran and Ralph Winter pointed out in the late 20th century that pockets of ethnic groups in many countries still had not been reached yet by any missionaries.
Cameron Townsend discovered the same thing in the 20th Century doing mission work in Mexico. He was handing out Spanish Bibles, thinking everybody spoke Spanish in Mexico, when he discovered there were hundreds of other languages spoken in Mexico that nobody had yet translated the Bible into, so he started Wycliffe Bible Translators!
You want to “hasten the Day of God”? Reach out to one of the 7,278 unreached peoples in the world7, or translate the Bible into one of the of the 6,658 languages that don’t have the whole Bible yet8, or support a missionary (or two) who are doing one of those things!
Now, we need to be careful not to make this a numbers game or assume that our research perfectly comprehends God’s process of salvation, but it is the logical thing to do: to walk with God in the same enterprise of saving the world with which He told us that He is occupying Himself!
Jesus said that this enterprise of world missions will come to a fulfillment “and then the end will come.” There will come an end to the earth and skies as we know them, when the “Day of God” comes.
Peter also called it “His coming” in v.4, “His promise” in v. 9, “the day of the Lord” in v.10, the “day of judgment” in 2:9, and “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” in 1:16 – these are all describing the same thing: “the heavens will be disintegrated/ dissolved/destroyed by being set on fire, and the elements be melted away by being intensely heated.”
v.13 gives us another action-point in light of the end of the world, and that is to “look forward to new heavens and a new earth.”
All the standard English Bibles interpret this verb indicatively, saying this describes us; this is what we do: “we look forward to new heavens and a new earth,”
but I think this should be translated in a hortatory sense9, as Peter saying, “Let’s do this: let us look forward to new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells/resides/makes its home.”
Are you sick of being sick? Are you sick of being ambushed by Satan and falling into sin? Are you sick of living in a world in which unrighteousness dwells? Oh how I long for that new world where there is no sickness or death or sorrow or pain!
Now, we look forward to this, not out of wishful thinking and not out of scientific inevitability, but because God has given us promises, and we believe He will fulfill them.
The only other place in the Greek Bible where this form of the word “promise” occurs is 2 Peter 1:4 “...the valuable and greatest promises have been given to us…” (NAW)
What are some of these “great and precious promises” regarding the new heavens and earth?
Psalm 98:9 “For he [comes] to judge the earth; he shall judge the world in righteousness, and the nations in uprightness.” (Brenton)
Isaiah 65:17 “...Look at me, creating new heavens and the new earth, and the first things will not be remembered, nor will they come up upon the heart... 65:25 The wolf and the lamb will pasture as one, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and as for the serpent - dust for his food. They will not cause evil or cause corruption in all the mountain of my holiness... 66:22 for, as the new heavens and the new earth which I am making [remain] standing before my face… so y'all's seed and y'all's name will stand.” (NAW)
Do you believe God is going to fulfill those promises?
In light of the coming of Christ on Judgment Day on which He will put an end to this world as we know it, let us orient our lives toward God, walking in relationship with Him as His holy people. Let us eagerly look forward to His return and hurry it up by our own repentance from sin and sharing the Gospel with others, and let us believe in His promise to re-create this world and give us a place to live with Him where everything is right!
GNTA |
NAWB |
KJVC |
MurdockD (Peshitta) |
RheimsE (Vulgate) |
7̈ οἱ δὲ νῦν οὐρανοὶ καὶ ἡ γῆ τῳ῀ Fαὐτοῦ λόγῳ τεθησαυρισμένοιG εἰσὶ πυρίH τηρούμενοι εἰς ἡμέραν κρίσεως καὶ ἀπωλείας τῶν ἀσεβῶν ἀνθρώπων. |
7 but the present heavens and earth having been safeguarded by His word, are being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly men by fire. |
7
But the heavens and the earth, [which
are] now, by
the same
word are kept in
store, reserved
unto
fire |
7
And the heavens
[that]
now [are],
and the earth, are by his
word stored up,
being
reserved for
[the]
fire |
7
But the heavens and the earth [which
are] now, by
the same
word are kept in
store, reserved
unto
fire |
8 ῞Εν δὲ τοῦτο μὴ λανθανέτωI ὑμᾶς, ἀγαπητοί, ὅτι μία ἡμέρα παρὰ Κυρίῳ ὡς χίλια ἔτη, καὶ χίλια ἔτη ὡς ἡμέρα μία. |
8 But this one thing must not escape notice with you, beloved, that, with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. |
8 But, beloved, X be not ignorant [of] this one thing X, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. |
8
And [of]
this one thing, my beloved, X be
not forgetful
X, That one
day, |
8 But [of] this one thing X be not ignorant, X my beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. |
9 οὐ βραδύνειJ Κύριος τῆς ἐπαγγελίαςK, ὥς τινες βραδύτηταL ἡγοῦνταιM, ἀλλὰ μακροθυμεῖ εἰς Nὑμᾶς, μὴ βουλόμενόςO τιναςP ἀπολέσθαι, ἀλλὰ πάντας εἰς μετάνοιαν χωρῆσαιQ. |
9 The Lord is not tardy concerning His promise, as some reckon tardiness among themselves. Rather He is longsuffering toward y’all, because He is not willing for any persons to perish but for all of them to find space for repentance. |
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. |
9 The Lord doth not procrastinate his promise[s], as some estimate procrastination; but he is long suffering, for your sakes, being not willing that any should perish, but that every one should come to repentance. |
9
The Lord delayeth
not his promise, as some imagine
X,
but dealeth patiently
for your sake, not willing
that any should perish, but that all should |
10 ῞Ηξει δὲ R[ἡ] ἡμέρα Κυρίου ὡς κλέπτης ἐν νυκτίS, ἐν ἧͺ οὐρανοὶ ῥοιζηδὸνT παρελεύσονταιU, στοιχεῖαV δὲ καυσούμεναW λυθήσονταιX, καὶ γῆ καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῃ῀ ἔργα κατακαήσεταιY. |
10 But the Day of the Lord will arrive like a thief {in the night}, in which the heavens will pass away with a rush, and the elements will be disintegrated by being heated, and the earth and the works in it will be burned up. |
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall X melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. |
10
And the day of the Lord will come, like a thief; in which the
heavens will |
10 But the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with great violence and the elements shall be melted with heat [and the earth and the works which are in it shall be burnt upAA]. |
11 Τούτων οὖνAB πάντων λυομένωνAC ποταποὺςAD δεῖ ὑπάρχειν ὑμᾶςAE ἐν ἁγίαις ἀναστροφαῖςAF καὶ εὐσεβείαιςAG, |
11 Therefore, concerning all these things being disintegrated, what sort of persons must y’all be in holy lifestyles and godlinesses, |
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversationX and godlinessX, |
11 As therefore all these things are to be dissolved, what persons ought ye to be, in holy conductX, and in the fearX of God, |
11 Seeing then that all these things are to be dissolved, what manner of peopleX ought you to be in holy conversationX and godlinessX? |
12 προσδοκῶντας καὶ σπεύδονταςAH τὴν παρουσίαν τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμέρας, δι᾿AI ἣνAJ οὐρανοὶ πυρούμενοι λυθήσονται καὶ στοιχεῖα καυσούμεναAK τήκεταιAL; |
12 anticipating and hastening the coming of the Day of God, on account of which the heavens will be disintegrated by burning and the elements be melted away by being heated? |
12 Looking for and hasting [unto] the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heatX? |
12
expecting
and |
12
Looking
for and hasting
[unto]
the coming of the day of |
13 καινοὺς δὲAM οὐρανοὺς καὶ γῆν καινὴν κατὰ τὸ ἐπάγγελμαAN αὐτοῦ προσδοκῶμενAO, ἐν οἷς δικαιοσύνη κατοικεῖAP. |
13 Furthermore, in accordance with His promise, let us look forward to new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness resides! |
13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. |
13 But we, according to his promise, expect new heavens, and a new earth, in which righteousness dwelleth. |
13 But we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promise[s], in which justice dwelleth. |
1“He is tardy who allows an occasion to pass by through slothfulness: there is nothing like this in God, who in the best manner regulates time to promote our salvation.” ~J. Calvin
2cf. Matthew Henry’s commentary: “...it is giving more time to his own people, whom he has chosen before the foundation of the world, many of whom are not as yet converted...for God is not willing that any of these should perish, but that all of them should come to repentance.”
3Gordon Clark commented, “If it had been fully realized that Peter was addressing Christians, a great deal of theological confusion would have been avoided…. The Similitudes viii, xi, 1 in the Shepherd of Hermas… says, ‘But the Lord, being long-suffering, wishes [thelei] those who were called [ten klesin ten genomenen] through his Son to be saved.’ This quotation shows how the verse was understood in the second century.”
4This is the same word for “work” which Peter used, but the words for “fire” and “revealed” are synonyms to the words Peter used.
5The Greek version of this has “quake” (σαλευθήσεται) instead of “melt,” but the Hebrew is “melt” וְנָמַ֤סּוּ
6“...not that God’s eternal appointment of the time is changeable, but God appoints us as instruments of accomplishing those events which must be first before the day of God can come. By praying for His coming (Rev. 22:20), furthering the preaching of the Gospel for a witness to all nations, and bringing in those whom ‘the long-suffering of God’ waits to save, we hasten the coming of the day of God.” ~A.R. Fausset (cf. Acts 3:19-21)
7https://joshuaproject.net/
8https://www.wycliffe.net/resources/statistics/
9The spelling would be exactly the same either way.
A1904 "Patriarchal" edition of the Greek Orthodox Church, as published by E-Sword in June 2016. Annotated by NAW where the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland GNT differs.
BNathan A Wilson’s translation
CKing James Version of the Holy Bible (a.k.a. Authorized Version), 1769 edition, as published by E-Sword in July 2019.
DTranslation of the Peshito Syriac New Testament into English by James Murdock. Published in 1851. Republished by E-sword in June 2016.
ERheims New Testament first published by the English College at Rheims, A.D. 1582, Revised by Bishop Richard Challoner, A.D. 1749-1752, as published by E-sword in June 2016.
F“By His word” is the reading of the majority of Greek manuscripts (including 2 of the 5 oldest-known ones) and of the traditional Greek Orthodox editions. (The original Textus Receptus also reads this way, except it dropped the definite article, which doesn’t change the meaning.) The NASB and Peshitta reflect this reading. However, all the other English versions read, “By the same word,” reflecting 18 Greek manuscripts (including 3 of the 5 oldest-known ones) which read αυτω instead of αυτου. It is especially curious that the Geneva and KJV followed the minority variant, and this resulted in the variant being published in Scrivner’s 1894 edition of the Textus Receptus, even though Stephens’ 1550 edition followed the majority.
GThis
is a perfect paraphrastic in an unusual reverse order with the
perfect participle followed by the present verb of being. The
Perfect paraphrastic normally retains the Perfect tense meaning; the
NASB alone opts for the present tense. Wallace noted in his Greek
Grammar that a distinction should be made between the
English Perfect tense (which indicates uninterrupted action in the
past) and the Greek Perfect tense (which emphasizes the current
condition).
The only other time in the Bible that God is said
to “treasure up” something is Proverbs 2:7 “...he
treasures up salvation for them that walk uprightly...”
(Brenton, cf. Romans 2:5)
HThis
phrase “they are in fire” is awkward to translate. The dative
case for “fire” leads me to believe it is speaking of the means
by which the destruction will come, although all the other English
versions interpreted it as objective or purposive “for/unto
fire.” DFZ called it a “dative of destination,” but Wallace
did not list this as an instance of such a dative.
Although
liberal theologians have suggested that this is just Greek Stoic
philosophy rehashed, Gordon Clark noted that “Stoicism cannot be
the source of the apostle’s ideas… In Stoicism the final
conflagration is a gradual, natural, [cyclical] process inherent in
the constitution of matter… Peter, on the other hand, announces a
sudden, non-cyclical, virtually instantaneous cataclysm... of...
divine punishment.”
ISee same word at beginning of v.5. This verb is active and it is 3rd person singular, matching “this one thing” which is also 3rd person and singular and nominative as its subject. The NIV is the only English translation which got this right. “You” is not the subject; it is the accusative. However, the addressees are still “you,” so the practical upshot in meaning is not that different, even when English versions reverse the Greek subject and object of this verb.
Jcf. Deut. 7:9-10 & Isa. 46:12-13
KBlass & Debrunner noted in their Grammar that this noun is genitive due to the idea of tardiness separating God from His promises.
LHapex Legomenon.
Mcf. the 3 other uses of this verb in 2 Peter 1:13; 2:13; and 3:15.
NThe majority of Greek manuscripts reads ημας “us” (followed by one of the Greek Orthodox editions and the Textus Receptus and the KJV and Geneva Bible), but none of those manuscripts are older than the 9th century AD. The critical GNTs as well as the Patriarchal GNT, the ancient Vulgate, Peshitta, Coptic, and all the modern English versions go with 29 Greek manuscripts (including all 5 of the oldest-known ones) which read “y’all.” The difference in meaning is negligible, as there is no indication that Peter was trying to exclude himself from God’s patience or salvation!
OA.T. Robertson’s Grammar labels this participle as a causal.
PMost English translators chose English words that could mean either singular or plural, but the Greek words for “any” and later for “all” are plural.
QThis verb literally means “to make space.” Cf. Matthew 19:11 and John 8:37.
RThe majority of manuscripts (including 2 of the 5 oldest-known), followed by the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox NT, have a definite article before “day.” The Patriarchal GNT, along with the modern critical editions follow about two dozen Greek manuscripts (including three of the five oldest-known) which omit the definite article. But “the Lord” makes “the day” definite either way, so there’s no difference in meaning.
SThe majority of Greek manuscripts (including one of the 5 oldest-known), followed by the Textus Receptus and Greek Orthodox editions and the Geneva & KJV, include the phrase “in the night,” but 15 manuscripts (including the three oldest-known), followed by the ancient Latin and Coptic versions and the modern critical editions and contemporary English versions all omit it. The ancient Syriac versions go both ways. The phrase in question is in every manuscript of 1 Thess. 5:2, so it is an undisputedly Biblical phrase, the presence or nonpresence here of which does not change anybody’s theology.
THapex Legomenon. Onomatopoeia for a rushing or whizzing sound of an arrow or a stream of water. The other verb and noun forms in the LXX are 2 Mac. 9:7; Cant. 4:15; Wis. 5:11; Ezek. 47:5; and Bet. 1:36.
Ucf. James 1:10 “but the rich in what is his that is lowly, because he will pass on like a grass-flower” (NAW)
VIn the Bible only in Gal. 4:3 & 9; Col. 2:8 & 20; Heb. 5:12, and here and in v.12. ESV (following Fausset) is out on a limb with the translation “heavenly bodies,” since this word doesn’t carry the idea of “heavenly” or of “body,” but rather of “elemental” parts used to make up something - “building blocks,” or “basic principles” from which philosophies are developed. Others have suggested it denotes component parts of the heavens, such as the sun, moon, and stars.
WDuplex Legomenon – only here and v.12 in the Greek Bible. The ESV is the only English version I found which translated this participle as though it were an indicative verb. Almost all translated the participle as explaining the means by which the elements would disintegrate.
XThe majority of Greek manuscripts (the oldest of which dates 5th century, followed by the Textus Receptus and the Greek Orthodox editions) read with the plural ending, matching the plural subject “elements,” however 11 manuscripts (including the three oldest-known) read with a singular ending, and that is what the critical editions followed. It makes no difference in meaning because a Greek singular verb can have a plural subject if the subject is neuter, and “elements” is neuter. This variant is about a change in grammar rules over the centuries, not about a difference in meaning.
YThe majority of Greek manuscripts (the oldest of which is 5th century) are followed by the Textus Receptus and the Greek Orthodox editions and the ancient Vulgate and modern Geneva, KJV, and NASB English versions reading “will be burned up.” The 5 oldest-known manuscripts contain four significantly-different readings, so it is little wonder that subsequent Bible translators have had difficulty deciding the original reading. The two among the 5 oldest-known that coincide read ευρεθησεται “will be found,” and this is the reading of about 9 other Greek manuscripts, so that’s what the modern critical versions followed (with one exception), as did the the NLT, and the NET/NIV “will be laid bare” and ESV “will be exposed.” (The exception to the critical versions is the Nestle-Aland, which decided, after 27 editions, to add the word “not” in front of this word in its 28th edition, without any manuscript support – and, among the ancient versions, only the Sahidic reads this way). The ancient Coptic and Syriac versions are split between the two main readings, although there are other variants in existence, such as the omission of the entire phrase (Vulgate) or the substitution of “will disappear” (C) or the addition of “will be destroyed” (P72).
ZPeshitta doesn’t actually say “not,” but all the English translators of it insert “not” to translate ܕܒܗ (“in/with”).
AAThis last phrase is not in Jerome’s original Vulgate, but it is in the Claramontanus edition.
ABThe
Majority of Greek manuscripts (including two of the 5 oldest-known)
reads “therefore/as a result” followed by the Textus Receptus
and Greek Orthodox editions and the ancient Latin, Syriac, and
Coptic versions, as well as the Geneva and King James English
versions. The NASB, NIV, and ESV, on the other hand, follow the
critical editions of the GNT which follow 11 Greek manuscripts
(including 3 of the 5-oldest-known) which instead read ‘ουτως
(“thus/in the same way”). The
difference in meaning is not significant, whether it is a
comparative referring back to the previous verse about everything
being burned up or whether it is a conslusatory remark moving into
what we should do as a result of knowing that everything will be
burned up. It’s also possible that, in the first century, the
comparative may have enjoyed more popular use as a conclusion, but
that its meaning changed over the centuries towards more of a
comparative, necessitating a different word for the conclusion in
later editions.
Fausset commented
that this is “a happy refutation of the ‘thus’ of the scoffers
from v.4.”
AC“[T]he
idea is rather, are in process of dissolution” ~M.
Vincent
A.T. Robertson suggested it could be a “futuristic
present.”
G. Clark commented, “best taken as a vivid
anticipation of the future.”
ADOnly here and Sus. 1:54 (“What sort of tree?”); Matt. 8:27 (“What sort of man is this...?”); Mk. 13:1 (“What wonderful stones!”); Lk. 1:29 (“...what sort of greeting this might be.”); 7:39 (“...what sort of woman she is...”); 1 Jn. 3:1 (“Behold what manner of love…”).
AETwo of the five-oldest Greek manuscripts omit this pronoun (so the W-H, N-A26 and USB3 cautiously enclosed “y’all” in brackets, but by the 5th edition the USB had removed the brackets.), and one (Sinaiticus, followed by the NET Bible) threw it into the first plural (“we”). The Tishendorf and Tregelles critical editions followed the Majority and the Textus Receptus in keeping the “y’all.” The accusative case signals that it is the subject of the previous infinitive “to be.”
AFcf. Eph. 4: 22-24, 1 Timothy 4:12, James 3:13, 1 Peter 1:13-16, 1 Peter 2:11-12, 1 Peter 3:15-16
AGcf.
1 Timothy 4:7, Titus 1:1, 2 Peter 1:2-8.
“As to the word
godlinesses (pietatibus,)
the plural number is used for the singular, except you take it as
meaning the duties of godliness.” ~J.
Calvin
“What seems to be meant is, that every part of the
conduct should be holy, and that every part of godliness should be
attended to...” ~J. Owen
“godliness of all sorts, in all
its parts” ~Matthew Henry
“behaviors (towards men),
godlinesses (or pieties towards God) in their manifold modes of
manifestation.” ~Fausset
AHCalvin interpreted “we ought hastily to wait,” but his editor corrected him, writing, “...σπεύδω ... when followed as here by an accusative case, it has often the secondary meaning of ‘earnestly desiring’ a thing. It is so taken here by Schleusner, Parkhurst, and Macknight...”
AINKJV accurately corrected the locative “in” of the KJV to a causal “because,” which is more appropriate for translating δια when it has an accusative object.
AJThis accusative feminine singular relative pronoun refers back to the accusative feminine singular “coming.” The result of Christ’s parousia is going to be the destruction of the heavens and earth.
AKI translated this participle as describing the means by which the elements would melt away, but KJV, NAS, and NIV translated it substantively “heat” (and added a preposition “with/in,” even though it is not a prepositional phrase or dative case in Greek), ESV translated it as a temporal participle “as they burn” (as though the burning and melting are two different things), and Murdock safely translates as an English participle.
ALOdd that this is present tense whereas its parallel verb “will be destroyed” is future tense. Fausset suggested: “the present tense implying the certainty as though it were actually present.” A.T. Robertson asserted that it is a “futuristic present.” And G. Clark: “the sense is future.” This is the only appearance of this verb in the Greek N.T., but it is common in the Greek O.T. It is also passive, but most English versions translate it active. (The verb is spelled in an active voice in Psalm 147:7, Job, Nahum, and 4 Maccabees.)
AMMost English versions translated this “but” (cf. Lander, who tagged it with Louw & Nida semantic domain #89.124 marker of contrast - 'but, on the other hand.'), but, along with the KJV, I believe this conjunction should express some continuity with the previous verse.
ANThe only other place in the Greek Bible where this form of “promise” occurs is 2 Peter 1:4 “through which things the valuable and greatest promises have been given to us…” (NAW)
AOThe subjunctive/hortatory spelling is the same as the Present Active Indicative spelling of this verb. Perschbacher, BGM morphology, and Robinson Morphology all identify this verb as Indicative, as do all the standard English versions. But Peter does use subjunctives 23 times in his epistles, so why not here?
APPossibly an echo of Psalms 85:7-13 and Psalm 98:9 “For he is come to judge the earth; he shall judge the world in righteousness, and the nations in uprightness.” (Brenton)