“Through these the world of that time perished when it was flooded. By the same word, the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
Before we cover today’s verses, let’s do a quick recap of the verses that come before. Peter is writing the second letter, as he did the first, to remind his readers what the prophets had written, and the commands of Jesus given through the apostles. Most of all, he is warning them that scoffers will come, who follow their own evil desires, and will ask why Jesus has not returned yet. They will claim that nothing has changed since the beginning of creation. Peter tells his readers that these scoffers deliberately overlook the fact that by the word of God the heavens came into being and the earth was created.
This brings us to verse six. Peter writes, “Through these, the world of that time perished when it was flooded.” We must look back to verse five and ahead to verse seven to know that the “Through these” is referring to the word of God. Let’s go back to verse five for a minute. Genesis 1 gives the account of creation. I encourage you to take a minute and read the whole chapter. I am going to put verses one through three here. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” We see that by God’s word everything came into being. Now here in verse six, Peter says that the world at that time was destroyed by a flood. This can be found in Genesis chapters six through eight.
The scoffers’ argument is that things have not changed since the beginning. Peter argues that indeed, they have changed, and uses the example of the flood. Douglas Moo writes, “… Peter notes, God has intervened spectacularly in the course of human history: Having created the world through water and the word (v.5), God, by that same water and word also destroyed that world in the flood of Noah’s day (v.6). And God will do the same again, only this time he will use fire (v.7). Clearly, then, the false teachers assumption about an unbroken continuity in history, without significant divine intervention, is erroneous.”
Peter moves on in verse seven to say, “By the same word, the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” We know this is a future event, the second coming of the Lord. There are a couple of things mentioned-the present heaven and earth stored up for fire, the day of judgment, and the destruction of the ungodly. We will be covering these topics more as we continue in 2 Peter 3, but we will begin now.
We will start with heaven and earth stored up for fire. God promised Noah in Genesis 9 that he would never again destroy the world with a flood. “I establish my covenant with you that never again will every creature be wiped out by floodwaters; there will never again be a flood to destroy the earth” (v.11). But there are many passages that speak of a coming judgment that use fire imagery. Two examples are Isaiah 66:15-16, “Look, the Lord will come with fire—
his chariots are like the whirlwind-to execute his anger with fury and his rebuke with flames of fire.For the Lord will execute judgment on all humanity with his fiery sword, and many will be slain by the Lord.” And Malachi 4:1, “For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the Lord of Armies, “not leaving them root or branches.” We will read about this again in verse ten.
Next, we see the day of judgment. I was curious, so I looked up this phrase in my Blue Letter Bible app. I only looked where it is used in the New Testament in the CSB version. Jesus used it three times in Matthew. (Matthew 10:15; 11:22,24; 12:36). In each instance, He is referring to a future event where we will give account. Peter has already written about the day of judgment earlier in this letter in 2:9. “…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment…” And in 1 John 4:14-17, we read, “And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent his Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world.”
The day of judgment is a future event when Christ returns, and all will stand before him. John had a vision of this and wrote it down. We can read about it in Revelation 20: 11-15. “Then I saw a great white throne and one seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them.I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the books.Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; each one was judged according to their works.Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” As Christians, we have nothing to fear. Our names are written in the book of life. We have confidence, knowing that Jesus paid the price for our sins. “And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:27-28).
And lastly, we see the destruction of the ungodly. We already read in Revelation 20: 15, that if anyone’s name is not found in the book of life, they are thrown in the lake of fire. Is hell a literal place of fire? Is this figurative language? We do not know. But it is eternal separation from God. I hear arguments that it is not fair that God would do this. But aside from the fact that we have no concept of fairness from God’s side (His ways are not our ways), why would someone who has spent their life not wanting to accept God, then want to spend eternity with Him?
We will be continuing with these thoughts and more over the next verses.
Grace be with you!
Abundant Joy 