2 Peterchapter 3
18 verses · Peter, by tradition · AD 64 to 68 · The general letters
But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and its works will be laid bare.
Introduction
Peter, by tradition, The general letters, 2 Peter Overview.
This chapter closes Peter's last letter and takes up the question the false teachers were pressing, whether Christ would come again at all. He writes to believers who had waited a generation and were hearing mockers say the world runs on unchanged. The chapter argues from creation, from the flood and from the character of God. Listen for the word promise and for three worlds set side by side: the world before the flood, the world now, and the world to come. Listen also for how the answer turns into a call to live. Read it as a farewell that ends on growth.
Context
- Who
- Believers a generation in, watching the first eyewitnesses die and nothing arrive
- What
- The last chapter of Peter's letter, which answers those who mock the promise of Christ's return and closes with a call to holy living and growth in grace.
- Where
- The churches of Asia Minor that had received his first letter, most likely written from Rome.
- When
- About AD 65 to 68 on the traditional dating, a generation after the resurrection, when many of the first believers had died.
- Why
- To explain the delay of the Lord's coming as God's patience, to warn that the day will come suddenly, and to call believers to live ready for it.
Historical context
The mocking question is a real one: everything goes on as it always has since the fathers fell asleep. Thirty years had passed, the founding generation was dying, and the argument from unbroken normality is the argument people always reach for.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Peter's counter is the flood. The world that existed then was destroyed by water, so the claim that nothing has ever interrupted the ordinary course is simply false, and the readers' own Scriptures said so.
A world ending in fire was not an alien idea to Greek-trained hearers. Stoic philosophers taught that the universe periodically burns up and begins again, so the language of the elements dissolving in heat connected with something they already discussed. What Peter adds is a moral purpose and a new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells.
The last paragraph mentions Paul's letters and puts them alongside 'the other Scriptures,' which tells us Paul's correspondence was already circulating and being collected while Peter was alive. It also says frankly that some of it is hard to understand.
Significance
For hearers embarrassed by the delay, the answer reframes it: the delay is patience, and it is aimed at people who have not yet turned. The waiting has a reason and the reason is mercy.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
Read in a premillennial frame, the day of the Lord in this chapter is a real coming event on God's calendar, not a figure of speech, which is exactly why the chapter ends with a question about conduct: what sort of people ought you to be.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Scoffers Ask: Where Is the Promise of His Coming?
2 Peter 3:1-2
this is now my second letter to you: Peter calls both his letters reminders to stir you to wholesome thinking, eilikrine, tested and found clear. Verse 2 sets the holy prophets beside what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles, one rule for the church.
2 Peter 3:1
“Peter makes a point of mentioning that this is his second letter, so that the recipients will not doubt its authenticity.”
Hilary of Arles · written before 449 · Introductory Commentary on 2 Peterpatristic
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Peter 3:1
“By saying, I stir up your pure mind, he means the same as though he had said, "I wish to awaken you to a sincerity of mind." And the words ought to be thus explained, "I stir up your mind that it may be pure and bright." For the meaning is, that the minds of the godly become dim, and as it were contract rust, when admonitions cease.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
2 Peter 3:1
“Opposite to "having the understanding darkened." ALFORD explains, The mind, will, and affection, in relation to the outer world, being turned to God [the Sun of the soul], and not obscured by fleshly and selfish regards. by way of--Greek, "in," "in putting you in remembrance" (2Pe 1:12, 13). Ye already know (2Pe 3:3); it is only needed that I remind you (Jude 5).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
holy prophets: The reminder rests on the prophets and the apostles together. John Calvin reads their agreement as firm ground that no crowd of the ungodly can shake. Theophylact of Ohrid adds that both proclaimed the Lord's coming, and so many witnesses deserve belief.
2 Peter 3:2
“That ye may be mindful of the words - Of the doctrines, the truths; the prophetic statements. Jude Jud 1:18 says that it had been foretold by the apostles, that in the last days there would be scoffers. Peter refers to the instructions of the apostles and prophets in general, though evidently designing that his remarks should bear particularly on the fact that there would be scoffers. Which were spoken before by the holy prophets - The predictions of the prophets before the advent of the Saviour, respecting his character and work.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:2
“For when we have the prophets and apostles agreeing with us, nay, as the ministers of our faith, and God as the author, and angels as approvers, there is no reason that the ungodly, all united, should move us from our position. By the commandment of the apostles he means the whole doctrine in which they had instructed the faithful.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
2 Peter 3:3-4
in the last days scoffers will come: Scoffers, empaiktai, mockers, are themselves a sign, following their own evil desires, their doctrine following their appetite. Their taunt, Where is the promise of His coming, rests on the claim that everything continues as it has from the beginning of creation. The next verses answer that claim with the flood.
2 Peter 3:3
“Knowing this first - As among the first and most important things to be attended to - as one of the predictions which demand your special regard. Jude Jud 1:18 says that the fact that there would be “mockers in the last time,” had been particularly foretold by thom. It is probable that Peter refers to the same thing, and we may suppose that this was so well understood by all the apostles that they made it a common subject of preaching.”
The scoffers argue from a steady world. John Wesley notes that they leave the Lord unnamed, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown observe that the promise was made to the fathers. Hilary of Arles says they spoke as if the flood and the fire on Sodom were forgotten.
2 Peter 3:4
“Saying, Where is the promise of his coming - To judgment (They do not even deign to name him.) We see no sign of any such thing. For ever since the fathers - Our first ancestors.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:4
“What becomes of the promise which you talk so much of? his--Christ's; the subject of prophecy from the earliest days. the fathers--to whom the promise was made, and who rested all their hopes on it. all things--in the natural world; skeptics look not beyond this. as they were--continue as they do; as we see them to continue.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Peter 3:4
“People were talking this way as if the flood had never occurred and as if fire had never come down from heaven in the past.”
Hilary of Arles · written before 449 · Introductory Commentary on 2 Peterpatristic
2 Peter 3:5-7
But they deliberately overlook the fact: They deliberately overlook the fact that the word which formed the earth out of water and by water also flooded the world of that time. By that same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, tethesaurismenoi, stored up.
2 Peter 3:5
“Of old - Before the flood. The aerial heavens were, and the earth - Not as it is now, but standing out of the water and in the water - Perhaps the interior globe of earth was fixed in the midst of the great deep, the abyss of water; the shell or exterior globe standing out of the water, covering the great deep.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:5
"In the beginning you, O Lord, laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands," said the psalmist. If you did not know from the beginning, O Lord, who laid the foundation of the earth, and if the heavens were not the work of your hands, it would be impossible for them to be changed or to be transformed into anything else. If they had not been created, they would have to remain incomplete forever. But since you were their maker, you can do whatever you want to with them.
Eusebius of Caesarea · written before 339 · CATENApatristic
2 Peter 3:5
“For this they willingly are ignorant of - Λαιθάνει γὰρ αὐτοὺς τοῦτο θέλοντας Laithanei gar autous touto thelontas. There is some considerable variety in the translation of this passage. In our common version the Greek word (θέλοντας thelontas) is rendered as if it were an adverb, or as if it referred to their “ignorance” in regard to the event; meaning, that while they might have known this fact, they took no pains to do it, or that they preferred to have its recollection far from their minds. So Beza and Luther render it.”
2 Peter 3:5
“He breaks up the fountain of the great deep, and throws open the windows (that is, the clouds) of heaven ( Gen. vii. 11 ), till the whole earth is overflowed with water, and not a spot can be found upon the highest mountains but what is fifteen cubits under water, Gen. vii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
perished in the flood: The world of Noah's day shows that creation has changed before. John Wesley names the flood's sources, the windows of heaven opened and the fountains of the deep broken up. Albert Barnes notes that the word through which is plural, and readers differ on what it refers to.
2 Peter 3:6
“Through which - Heaven and earth, the windows of heaven being opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up. The world that then was - The whole antediluvian race.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:6
“Whereby - Δι ̓ ὧν Di' hōn. Through which, or by means of which. The pronoun here is in the plural number, and there has been much difference of opinion as to what it refers.”
reserved for fire: The same word that sent the flood now holds the present world for fire. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the verb as treasured up, and they hold that only God's watchful providence keeps the present order until its end. Justin Martyr hears the same fire in Sophocles.
2 Peter 3:7
“Then further concerning Him, that He alone is powerful, both to institute judgment on the deeds performed in life, and on the ignorance of the Deity [displayed by men], I can adduce witnesses from your own ranks; and first Sophocles, who speaks as follows: "That time of times shall come, shall surely come, When from the golden ether down shall fall Fire's teeming treasure, and in burning flames All things of earth and heaven shall be consumed; And then, when all creation is dissolved, The sea's last wave shall die upon the shore, The bald earth stript of trees, the…”
Justin Martyr · written before 165 · On the Sovereignty of God, Chapter IIIpatristic
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:7
“But the heavens and the earth which are now - As they now exist. There is no difficulty here respecting what is meant by the word “earth,” but it is not so easy to determine precisely how much is included in the word “heavens.” It cannot be supposed to mean “heaven” as the place where God dwells; nor is it necessary to suppose that Peter understood by the word all that would now be implied in it, as used by a modern astronomer.”
A Thousand Years as a Day; The Elements Shall Melt
With the Lord a day is like a thousand years: takes up Psalm 90:4 against the scoffers' complaint of delay. Some early fathers read a thousand-year scheme into the creation week, which is later reception. Peter answers with perspective and gives no date.
2 Peter 3:8
“A thousand years is the time that the temple worship lasted. For from the completion of the temple by Solomon, who built the Lord's house until it became redundant when Christ died on the cross is a thousand years. This thousand years is compared to a day, or to a watch in the night, because everything appeared to be night before the coming of the Savior. For until the sun of righteousness arose, everyone dwelt in ignorance and confusion.”
Athanasius of Alexandria · written before 373 · CATENApatristic
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:8
“FROM this text certain persons, more desirous to find arguments for their theories, than a truthful exposition of the Apostle's meaning, have drawn the inference that a day in Scripture is typical of a thousand years—that is to say, that inasmuch as God was six days in creating the heavens and the earth and then rested on the seventh day, so we must expect to have a thousand years for every day.”
2 Peter 3:8
“He is equally blessed in one day and in a thousand years. He can do the work of a thousand years in one day: so in 2Pe 3:9 it is said, "He is not slack," that is, "slow": He has always the power to fulfil His "promise." thousand years as one day--No delay which occurs is long to God: as to a man of countless riches, a thousand guineas are as a single penny.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise: , braduno, but is patient with you, makrothymei. Not wanting anyone to perish is read, as at 1 Timothy 2:4, either of every person or of the elect in view. On either reading the delay is mercy at work.
2 Peter 3:9
“The Lord is not slow - As if the time fixed for it were past. Concerning his promise - Which shall surely be fulfilled in its season. But is longsuffering towards us - Children of men.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:9
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise - That is, it should not be inferred because His promise seems to be long delayed that therefore it will fail. When people, after a considerable lapse of time, fail to fulfil their engagements, we infer that it is because they have changed their plans, or because they have forgotten their promises, or because they have no ability to perform them, or because there is a lack of principle which makes them fail, regardless of their obligations.”
But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief: The Day of the Lord will come like a thief, the figure of Matthew 24:43. The heavens will disappear with a roar, roizedon. The earliest manuscripts end with heurethesetai, the earth and its works will be laid bare, where later copies read burned up.
2 Peter 3:10
“Besides, the belief that everything was made from nothing will be impressed upon us by that ultimate dispensation of God which will bring back all things to nothing. For "the very heaven shall be rolled together as a scroll; '" nay, it shall come to nothing along with the earth itself, with which it was made in the beginning.”
Tertullian · written before 220 · Against Hermogenespatristic
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:10
“The day of the Lord will come - See Mat 24:43, to which the apostle seems to allude.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Peter 3:10
“In which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise - Surprisingly expressed by the very sound of the original word. The elements shall melt with fervent heat - The elements seem to mean, the sun, moon, and stars; not the four, commonly so called; for air and water cannot melt, and the earth is mentioned immediately after.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 Peter 3:11-12
what kind of people ought you to be?: Since everything will be destroyed in this way, Peter asks what kind of people ought you to be, potapous, and answers with holiness and godliness. Believers anticipate and hasten the coming of the day of God.
2 Peter 3:11
“Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved - Since this is an undoubted truth. What manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness - In holy conduct and piety. That is, this fact ought to be allowed to exert a deep and abiding influence on us, to induce us to lead holy lives. We should feel that there is nothing permanent on the earth that this is not our abiding home; and that our great interests are in another world.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:11
“How watchful, prayerful, zealous! to be--not the mere Greek substantive verb of existence (einai), but (huparchein) denoting a state or condition in which one is supposed to be [TITTMANN].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
hasten the coming: Believers wait for the day and also hasten it. John Wesley reads the hastening as earnest desire and fervent prayer, and he calls the last day the day of God Himself. Adam Clarke notes that pagan writers such as Ovid also expected the world to burn.
2 Peter 3:12
“Hastening on - As it were by your earnest desires and fervent prayers. The coming of the day of God - Many myriads of days he grants to men: one, the last, is the day of God himself.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:12
“For the river of fire shall come forth in fury like an angry sea, and shall burn up mountains and hills, and shall make the sea vanish, and shall dissolve the atmosphere with its heat like wax.”
Hippolytus of Rome · written before 235 · Dubious Hippolytus Fragmentspatristic
2 Peter 3:12
“The heavens being on fire - See on 2Pe 3:10. (note). It was an ancient opinion among the heathens that the earth should be burnt up with fire; so Ovid, Met., lib. i. v. 256. Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur, adfore tempus, Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia coeli Ardeat; et mundi moles operosa laboret. “Remembering in the fates a time when fire Should to the battlements of heaven aspire, And all his blazing world above should burn, And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.” Dryden. Minucius Felix tells us, xxxiv.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth: Believers look for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells, katoikei, at home. Some read the fire as ending the old creation and others as purifying it, with Ecclesiastes 1:4 and Romans 8:21.
2 Peter 3:13
“We look for new heavens and a new earth - Raised as it were out of the ashes of the old; we look for an entire new state of things. Wherein dwelleth righteousness - Only righteous spirits.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:13
“Nevertheless we, according to his promise - The allusion here seems to be, beyond a doubt, to two passages in Isaiah, in which a promise of this kind is found.”
Paul's Hard Sayings, and Growing in Grace
Therefore draws the conclusion chapter 1 drew: hope makes for effort, spoudasate, to be found at peace, spotless and blameless, amomoi, words from the sacrifices. They answer the teachers' portrait at 2:13 point for point.
2 Peter 3:14
“Seeing that ye look for such things - As ye profess that such a state of things shall take place, and have the expectation of enjoying the blessedness of it, be diligent in the use of every means and influence of grace, that ye may be found of him - the Lord Jesus, the Judge of quick and dead, without spot - any contagion of sin in your souls, and blameless - being not only holy and innocent, but useful in your lives.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Peter 3:14
“This is the court of judicature whence there lies no appeal; whatever sentence is here passed by this great Judge is irreversible; therefore get ready to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ: and see to it," 1. "That you be found of him in peace, in a state of peace and reconciliation with God through Christ, in whom alone God is reconciling the world to himself.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
our beloved brother Paul: Consider also that our Lord’s patience brings salvation restates verse 9. Peter calls our beloved brother Paul to witness, who wrote with the wisdom God gave him, sophian, a gift. One apostle honors another by name, though the two once argued at Antioch.
2 Peter 3:15
“And account the longsuffering of the Lord salvation - Not only designed to lead men to repentance, but actually conducing thereto: a precious means of saving many more souls. As our beloved brother Paul also hath written to you - This refers not only to the single sentence preceding, but to all that went before.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:15
“These things, brethren, I write to you concerning righteousness, not because I take anything upon myself, but because ye have invited me to do so. For neither I, nor any other such one, can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul. He, when among you, accurately and stedfastly taught the word of truth in the presence of those who were then alive.”
Polycarp of Smyrna · written before 155 · Epistle to the Philippians 3patristic
2 Peter 3:15
“And account - that “the long-suffering of our Lord” is “salvation.” Regard his delay in coming to judge the world, not as an evidence that he never will come, but as a proof of his desire that we should be saved. Many had drawn a different inference from the fact that the Saviour did not return, and had supposed that it was a proof that he would never come, and that his promises had failed.”
Some parts of his letters are hard to understand: Parts of his letters are hard to understand, dysnoeta, and ignorant and unstable people distort them, strebolousin, as they do the rest of the Scriptures. Paul's letters stand with the Scriptures. The end is their own destruction, apoleian, the word of chapter 2.
2 Peter 3:16
“It seems that some people find Paul hard to understand, no doubt because he speaks about the wisdom which comes from above, for in him Christ himself is speaking.”
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · CATENApatristic
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:16
“The oldest manuscripts read the feminine relative (hais); not as Received Text (hois), "in which things." some things hard to be understood--namely, in reference to Christ's coming, for example, the statements as to the man of sin and the apostasy, before Christ's coming.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Peter 3:16
“Nor was he at all disgusted by what St. Paul had written concerning him in the Epistle to the Galatians. Speaking of these things - Namely, of the coming of our Lord, delayed through his longsuffering, and of the circumstances preceding and accompanying it. Which things the unlearned - They who are not taught of God.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755)evangelical
2 Peter 3:17-18
Therefore, beloved, since you already know these things: The last charge is to be on your guard against the error, plane, of the lawless and not fall from your secure standing, sterigmou. The letter closes with grow in the grace and knowledge, gnosei, its opening word, and gives Christ the glory.
2 Peter 3:17
“Seeing that ye know these things before - Being aware of this danger, and knowing that such results may follow. People should read the Bible with the feeling that it is possible that they may fall into error, and be deceived at last. This apprehension will do much to make them diligent, and candid, and prayerful, in studying the Word of God. With the error of the wicked - Wicked men. Such as he had referred to in 2 Pet. 2, who became public teachers of religion. Fall from your own steadfastness - Your firm adherence to the truth.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:17
Peter has to warn his people so that they will not be deceived. Our Lord Jesus Christ himself warned us for our safety, that we should "beware of those who come to us in sheep's clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves." And again: "Take care that you are not deceived. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and they will deceive many." And Paul cries: "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers claiming to believe in the Lord Jesus."
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · CATENApatristic
2 Peter 3:17
“The Apostle has told us that there will come, in the last days, scoffers. We, therefore, know this is to be the case, for we have been informed concerning it. Forewarned is forearmed and now that we see the scoffers and cannot help seeing them, we perceive another proof of the truth of Scripture. Every time a blasphemer opens his mouth to deny the truth of Revelation, he will help to confirm us in our conviction of the very Truth of God which he denies!”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2533: “The Ever-present Crisis” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
grow in the grace: The last command is to grow. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the phrase as the grace Christ gives and the knowledge of which He is the object. They take the day of eternity as the day of the Lord that has no end, beginning with His coming.
2 Peter 3:18
“IT is worth while to remark that this passage immediately follows the 17th verse, where the Apostle says, "Beloved, seeing you know these things before, beware lest you, also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in Grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He puts the one after the other, as if the one must be the means of the other.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2700: “Growth in Grace” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
3 more voices on this verse
2 Peter 3:18
“But grow in grace,.... In the gifts of grace, which, under a divine blessing, may be increased by using them: gifts neglected decrease, but stirred up and used, are improved and increase. And though men are to be thankful for their gifts, and be contented with them, yet they may lawfully desire more, and in the use of means seek an increase of them, which may be a means of preserving themselves, and others, from the error of the wicked. Moreover, by "grace" may be meant internal grace.”
2 Peter 3:18
“Eph 4:15, "Grow up into Him, the Head, Christ." grace and . . . knowledge of . . . Christ--"the grace and knowledge of Christ" [ALFORD rightly]: the grace of which Christ is the author, and the knowledge of which Christ is the object. for ever--Greek, "to the day of eternity": the day that has no end: "the day of the Lord," beginning with the Lord's coming.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Peter 3:18
“But grow in grace - Increase in the image and favor of God; every grace and Divine influence which ye have received is a seed, a heavenly seed, which, if it be watered with the dew of heaven from above, will endlessly increase and multiply itself. He who continues to believe, love, and obey, will grow in grace, and continually increase in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, as his sacrifice, sanctifier, counsellor, preserver, and final Savior.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How this psalm is built
The form: The letter's close in three movements: the scoffers answered at 3:1 to 10, the call to holy living at 3:11 to 16, and the last charge and doxology at 3:17 to 18, as the site's 2 Peter exposition, notes on 3:3 to 4, 3:11 to 12 and 3:17 to 18 classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Three worlds under one word | The chapter sets three worlds side by side: the heavens and earth formed by God's word and then destroyed by water at 3:5 to 6, the present heavens and earth kept for fire at 3:7, and the new heaven and new earth of 3:13. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown mark the contrast between the world that then was and the world that is now. The same word of God governs all three.Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Peter 3:7. | 2 Peter 3:5, 2 Peter 3:6, 2 Peter 3:7, 2 Peter 3:13 |
| The reminder near the start and at the close | Peter says at 1:12 to 15 that he will keep reminding his readers, and at 3:1 to 2 he calls both his letters reminders. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown tie the two passages together. The letter's purpose is to recall what the readers already know.Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871, on 2 Peter 3:1. | 2 Peter 1:12, 2 Peter 1:13, 2 Peter 3:1, 2 Peter 3:2 |
| Grace and knowledge at the first and the last | The letter opens with grace and peace multiplied through the knowledge of God and of Jesus at 1:2, and it closes with a command to grow in grace and knowledge at 3:18. Matthew Henry notes that the first chapter asks believers to add one grace to another and the last asks them to grow in all grace.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on 2 Peter 3:18. | 2 Peter 1:2, 2 Peter 3:18 |
Where it stands in the letter
3 more paragraphs on the patterns
The chapter answers chapter 2's teachers on the point they pressed hardest. Their mockery of the Lord's coming at verse 4 is the teaching behind the conduct chapter 2 described, since people who expect no judgment live as they please. Peter's answer returns to the flood he named at 2:5, now as proof that the world has changed before.
Where to go deeper
The Lord's return has its page at /featured/second-coming, and the day of verse 10 at /featured/the-day-of-the-lord. The promise of verse 13 stands at /featured/new-heavens-and-new-earth, and the flood of verse 6 at /featured/days-of-noah and /featured/the-flood.
Keep studying
Studies6
Words12
Trails1
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Hilary of Arles, Introductory Commentary on 2 Peter, on 2 Peter 3:1 and the site's 2 Peter exposition, notes on 3:3 to 4, 3:11 to 12 and 3:17 to 18, citing Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, and John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Hilary of Arles, Introductory Commentary on 2 Peter; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin; John Gill, Exposition of the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; Justin Martyr, On the Sovereignty of God, Chapter III; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Theophylact of Ohrid, Commentary on 2 Peter.