Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 2 Peter 3

“Dear friends” (lit., “beloved”; GK 28) is repeated in vv.8, 14, and 17 in this chapter (see also 1 Peter 2:11; 4:1). “This is now my second letter to you.” Does this refer to 1 Peter? Most commentators say yes. But this is not certain because (1) it has not been established that the recipients of the two letters are the same; (2) 1:12, 16 may imply a personal ministry to the recipients of this second letter that 1 Peter gives no indication of; (3) the description of the two letters (“both of them as reminders”) here does not fit 1 Peter very well; and (4) other letters of apostles have not been preserved (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:9; Colossians 4:16). None of these points is in itself very strong; yet taken together and when coupled with the lack of use of 1 Peter in 2 Peter, they raise a doubt that leaves the question open. “As reminders to stimulate you” is almost identical with “to refresh your memory” in 1:13. “To wholesome thinking” (lit. “to pure minds”) reflects the author’s goal to maintain in his readers a pure disposition.

The “words spoken in the past” are the prophetic oracles with special reference here to the day of the Lord. The “command” is a way of referring to the moral demands of the Christian faith and primarily to the command of love. These prophecies and commands were given to the early Christians by the NT prophets and apostles (cf. Ephesians 2:20).

Peter next states a primary thing to be remembered from the prophetic and apostolic deposit: the appearance of scoffers in the last days, who deny biblical truths and live in an ungodly way (cf. Daniel 7:25; 11:36–39; Matthew 24:3–5, 11, 23–26; 1 Timothy 4:1ff.; 2 Timothy 3:1–7;Jude 17–18). The “last days” are the days that come between the first coming of the Messiah and his second coming. The “scoffers” are the false teachers of ch. 2 who deny a future eschatology.

Part of the early church proclamation was the announcement of the return of Jesus to complete the work of salvation and to punish the wicked (e.g., Matthew 24:3ff.; Acts 1:11; Acts 17:31; Romans 13:11; 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:5–13:11; 2 Thessalonians 1:7–10; Hebrews 9:28; Revelation 1:7). The false teachers ask, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?” Mocking the faith of Christians, they support their own position by claiming, “Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” “Our fathers” most likely means the OT fathers (Acts 3:13; Romans 9:5; Hebrews 1:1). “Died” (lit., “fell asleep”; GK 3121) is a lovely metaphor for the death of believers (cf. Acts 7:60; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14). The argument of the false teachers is essentially a naturalistic one—a kind of uniformitarianism that rules out any divine intervention in history.

But they “deliberately [lit., willingly; GK 2527] forget” the great Flood, when God intervened in history by destroying the world. What they forget is not only the Flood but also God’s prior activity by his word—the existence of the heavens and the watery formation of the earth (Genesis 1:2–10). It seems unlikely that Peter is seeking to affirm that water was the basic material of creation. He does not use the verb “create” but says that the earth “was formed [GK 5319] out of water and with water.” In Genesis the sky separates the waters from the waters by the word of God, and the land appears out of the water by the same word. At the beginning of v.6, the phrase “by these waters” (lit., “through these”) probably refers to both water and the word as the agents used by God for destroying the former world (v.6), just as word and fire will be the destructive agents in the future (v.7). “The world of that time” obviously means that the inhabitants of the earth were destroyed (the world itself was not destroyed).