Preparing for the Coming Day
2 Peter • Sermon • Submitted
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Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 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 heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
The world as we now know it will someday come to an end. This is a fact. The death of loved ones, the failure of institutions and the close of each calendar year remind us that it’s so. Even unbelievers admit that the world will end someday, though they claim that its end will come when the ozone layer is depleted, an asteroid strikes the earth or the sun exhausts its energy.
Therefore, we don’t need to waste much time wondering IF it will happen. We don’t even have to ask WHEN. It will happen in the glorious day that the Son of God returns, whenever that might be. But there’s a question that we still have to ask ourselves. It’s in verse 11 of our text: knowing that the present world will end, what manner of persons ought ye to be? How should we live right now? How should the certainty of the future affect the present?
Just to give you a little preview of where we’re going today, our text answers this question. It does so in several ways, but verse 14 is especially to the point. It says,
Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
The promise of new heavens and a new earth should make us more diligent to lay hold of Jesus Christ.
New Heavens and a New Earth
New Heavens and a New Earth
The first thing we need to do this morning is consider what exactly is going to happen in the future. Verse 11 says, All these things shall be dissolved. Here the phrase all these things refers to the entire created universe, including heaven and earth. Verse 7 says that the heaven and the earth, which are now,… [are] reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. Verse 10 adds,
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 melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Verse 12 also says that the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.
This is clearly a picture of universal destruction and judgment. But what will actually happen? Did Peter mean that the whole universe will be completely vaporized and replaced with a brand new one? That’s what a lot of people assume. But in the Bible destruction doesn’t necessarily imply annihilation. Second Thessalonians 1:9 says that unbelievers will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, but we know that they won’t cease to exist, since Revelation 14:11 says that the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.
There are at least two things in 2 Peter, chapter 3, that indicate that the world will not be vaporized when the Lord returns:
One is the comparison between the coming judgment and the flood of Noah’s day. Verse 6 is especially helpful here because it says that the world that then was [i.e., the world as it was before the flood] … perished. It was destroyed by water as an act of divine judgment, but it didn’t cease to exist. Noah rode the waves that covered it safe and secure in the grace of God.
Then there’s also verse 13. Peter wrote that we have God’s promise of new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Here the word new (καινοὺς … καινὴν) is important. It doesn’t mean ‘brand new’ or ‘fresh off the assembly line,’ but ‘new in quality.’ It’s like a rebuilt 1957 Chevy — the engine has been overhauled, the body repaired and painted, the upholstery replaced, and so forth. This is the same word that the New Testament generally uses for the new covenant (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:8, 13; 9:15). The new covenant isn’t a replacement for the old covenant; rather, it’s the reality and fulfillment of the old. The substance remains the same, but the administration has changed. And likewise, the new heavens and the new earth will be the present creation cleansed and purified. They will be made fit places for the dwelling of perfect righteousness.
So, you see, the new heavens and new earth will not be brand new creations, but ones that have been refurbished by the judgment of God. Every trace of sin, every consequence of wickedness, every taint of corruption will have been wiped away, never to be seen again. The elements (στοιχεῖα) that will melt with fervent heat in that day are not atoms, but ideas that contradict the knowledge of God and plans that oppose his perfect will.
Luther’s Apple Tree
Luther’s Apple Tree
Knowing that the Lord will remove the wicked from his presence and cleanse the whole creation to make it a fit dwelling place for his glorified saints, let's go back to our original question: What does this say about how we should live?
One individual who got this all wrong was a man who lived in the nineteenth century named William Miller. Miller started out as a Baptist, eventually rejected that in favor of Deism, and later sort of returned to his Baptist roots. Anyway, his study of the book of Daniel convinced him that Jesus would return sometime in 1843 or 1844. On October 22, 1844, thousand of his followers, having sold the businesses and homes, gathered together for this glorious event. But as you know, it didn’t happen. Most of these Millerites, as they were known then, either abandoned religion altogether or returned to their previous churches. A few, however, clung to a modified form of Miller’s prediction and came to be known as Seventh Day Adventists.
The point here is that Millerites prepared for the second coming by neglecting their lives in the present world. In the New Testament, some of the brethren in the church at Thessalonica seem to have been prone to the same kind of thinking.
A better response is attributed to Martin Luther, the sixteenth-century Reformer, although there’s no evidence that he actually said it. The first account of it was published in 1944 and seems to have arisen in the German Confessing Church to inspire hope under Nazi oppression. Anyway, the story goes like this. Someone asked Luther what he would do if he knew for certain that the world would end tomorrow. He responded, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.”
Whether this story is true or not, what’s its point? Some give it a hedonistic meaning: life is short, so you might as well do the things you enjoy while you can. But attributing a pagan worldview like this to Luther is absurd. It’s far more likely that he would have emphasized man’s duty to glorify God. The Lord put us here to serve him and we should keep ourselves busy in his service as long as we’re here. This includes even ordinary and mundane things like planting trees.
Serving God also includes working out our salvation, and that’s what Peter emphasized in our text. His question wasn’t merely, “What manner of persons ought ye to be?” but, What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? As Christians we must be wholly devoted to the service of Jesus Christ, submitting to his righteous laws, regardless of how short our time on earth may be. As our catechism puts it, we must fulfill our office and calling as willingly and faithfully as the angels do in heaven (HC 124), i.e., we must do God’s will immediately and perfectly.
Yet, there’s more. Verse 12 says that we must also look for, await or eagerly anticipate the coming of the day of God. In fact, the Lord expects us to speed up its arrival. But how can we do that? If God’s timetable is fixed eternally, is it even possible for us to do anything to move it along? Of course not, but that’s not what Peter meant. He was simply reminding us that God has appointed certain things to take place before Jesus returns, and that we have a part in it. If all the elect are to be gathered out from among the nations, then we must pray for their salvation, we must tell our neighbors about the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and we must support those whom God calls to preach the gospel at home and abroad. When we do these things, we are moving world history closer to the day of our Savior’s return.
Until that day, dear saints of God, we must live zealously as servants of our crucified and risen Lord.
Diligent in Peace
Diligent in Peace
As I said at the beginning of today’s message, Peter answered his own question most clearly in verse 14. What kind of persons ought we to be as we await Jesus’ return? We must be diligent to be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
But what did Peter mean by this? Who should we strive to be at peace with? Did he mean peace with God, peace with one another or peace with the false teachers who were annoying the church? Here the original is a little clearer because the word order is different. It literally says, “be diligent spotless and blameless in him to be found in peace.” In other words, to be at peace means that we are spotless and blameless in Jesus Christ. It means that we have peace with God because our sins have been forgiven and we have the only righteousness that can stand before the judgment seat of God. We get it from Jesus, who suffered the punishment that we deserve and imputes to us own obedience. This is what gives us true and lasting peace with God. Romans 5:1 says,
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
And this, in turn, restores our peace with others of like precious faith. Paul wrote this about Jesus:
For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
These are the precious gifts of God’s grace that we have right now. But this isn’t the end of the story. Verse 14 commands us to be diligent to be found in the peace of the gospel. How do we do this?
The answer is found throughout Scripture. It’s in Isaiah, James and 1 Peter. It’s also found in the the last five chapters of the book of Romans, which we’ll use because Romans is particularly clear. We are found in the peace of the gospel when we present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1). We are found in peace when we use our whatever spiritual gifts God gives us for the benefit of the whole church (Rom. 12:3–8). And we are again found in peace when we submit to the authorities that God has placed over us (Rom. 13:1–7), as Jesus did when he was condemned by Pontius Pilate. Working out our salvation or being found in peace means that we submit to all the commands of Scripture.
And finally, I want to emphasize the word diligent. Peter wrote, Be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. It’s your responsibility vigorously to pursue the practical application of the gospel to your own lives. The pursuit of holiness should be your priority — not just because it’s a duty, but because it’s how God has taught you to glorify him and to demonstrate your thankfulness for your salvation. It reflects the fact that the Holy Spirit is working in you to make you more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, whom Peter described in his first epistle as a lamb without blemish and without spot (1 Pet. 1:19).
In our text, Peter exhorted us to do what he was already doing. How could he have looked for and hastened the day of our Lord’s return if he had any doubts that the new heavens and the new earth were for him? He couldn’t. This shows that he fully understood his own standing before the Lord. He knew that he, being a sinner, had been reconciled to the Father by the blood of the cross and was therefore fully clothed in the perfect obedience and righteousness of his Savior. His life of fellowship and communion with God only made him desire Jesus’ return even more.
And, you see, this wasn’t for Peter alone. It’s also for you and everyone who everyone who has been redeemed by the same Savior. Every believer has the sacred calling to be constantly — every day and every hour — living the faith of the gospel, enjoying our present privileges in Christ, and eagerly awaiting those that are yet to come. Amen.