February 12, 2025 - 2 Peter 3:4 - The Promise of Christ's Coming

2 Peter 3:4

"...Where is the promise of His coming?"

The apostle Peter, directed by the Spirit of God, addresses a prominent skepticism in his day surrounding the return of the LORD Jesus Christ. Verses 3 and 4 read: "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." In this passage, Peter warns that in the last days, scoffers will arise, questioning the promise of the LORD Jesus’ second coming at the end of time. The same unbelief regarding His first coming continues toward His second coming. Many argue over the second coming of the LORD Jesus while never understanding the purpose of His first coming. The LORD Jesus, who came the first time, came to lay down His life as God's Sacrificial Lamb so that God might be just in justifying a people He chose before the foundation of the world (Romans 3:24-26). The same mockers of His second coming are those who scorned His first coming, rejecting Him as a failure because they expected Him to establish an earthly Jewish kingdom. However, that was not the reason for His first coming, nor is it His purpose in coming again to establish an earthly kingdom.

Skepticism is the fruit of an unbelieving heart. Our LORD Jesus declared that His purpose in coming the first time was not to establish an earthly Jewish kingdom but rather to save sinners out of every tribe, nation, and tongue (Revelation 7:9). When our LORD denied them the kingdom they sought and instead established a Spiritual Kingdom made up of those sinners the Father gave Him from eternity, upon completing His death on the cross, the Father justified them. Now, the Spirit is in the world calling each one to Himself—those for whom He already paid their sin debt and has united to Christ as members of His kingdom. The unbelievers who rejected Him at His first coming, left to themselves, will continue to denounce Him at His second coming. If these scoffers had truly considered the dreadful vengeance with which God already swept away an entire world of ungodly people in the flood, they would not have mocked His warnings of an equally terrible judgment to come. The same Word that once brought destruction now declares that the present heavens and earth will one day be destroyed by fire. This is as certain as God’s truth and power.

Nevertheless, for Christ's people, this passage affirms and strengthens their faith in the LORD who has promised to come again and receive them to Himself (Acts 1:11). While humans perceive a vast difference between a single day and a thousand years, to God, there is no such distinction. Past, present, and future are always before Him. A delay of a thousand years means no more to Him than a brief postponement means to us. Those who do not know or believe in the eternal God tend to imagine Him as being like themselves, limited by time. What people see as delay is, in reality, God's long-suffering with the unbelieving world, which He has already appointed to judgment. Since Christ has not yet returned, it is because He is not willing that any of those He chose and Christ redeemed should perish (2 Peter 3:9). The day of the Lord will arrive unexpectedly for the unbelieving world. All of their earthly treasures and palaces will suddenly be consumed by fire at His coming. All the sinners who were not redeemed by Christ's blood will serve as fodder for the fire of God's judgment, and every work of man will be brought to destruction (2 Peter 3:10).

Peter is not attempting to convince the unbelievers, who left to themselves, would continue to walk in their lusts and mock and scoff at the clear declaration of the Word of God—pertaining not only to His first coming but also to His second at the end of time. Because thousands of years have passed since creation and thousands of years have continued since Christ's first coming, the natural-minded find it unbelievable that there is a Man seated in glory today, who once walked this earth as a Man to earn and establish righteousness to God the Father's satisfaction. That work ended in His death on the cross at the hands of wicked men, but He rose again, ascended on high, and is now seated there until the time of His return. Unbelievers continue to mock His delay in returning, just as they mocked Him at His crucifixion when He would not come down from the cross. Everything the LORD Jesus does, He does according to the sovereign will of His Father, and nothing happens until it is the will of the Father. Christ did not come down from the cross, it was because He needed to pay the full debt of sin for His elect, and therefore, He could not and would not step down. The same is true of His return at the end of time.

What is keeping Him from coming again? Is it not that the full number of the Father’s elect has not yet been called out? It may still be millions of years before Christ returns because He knows those who are His—some of whom may not even be born yet—and therefore, He will not return until the last one He redeemed is brought to Him by the Spirit.

Let the unbelieving world mock—those who have no interest in the Sovereign LORD Jesus—but none of their unbelief can change who He is, what He accomplished in His first coming, or the fact that, at the appointed time, He will return to gather to Himself every sinner He redeemed. He has purposed that they should dwell with Him forever, which is all their hope of glory.