 |
Taking Every Thought Captive |
 Got Life? Our Ministry Our Beliefs Our Staff Articles What's New? Contact Us Resources Bookstore Search Links
|
Looking Back to Understand the Future 2
Peter 3:1-18 Why
the Genesis Flood is so Important to our Christian Worldview By Jay Wegter INTRODUCTION As defenders of the Genesis account of creation, we are in the habit of viewing Noah’s Flood through the lens of geology and the fossil record. As we well should, for the earth history gives powerful testament to a global cataclysm by water. This essay will examine the flood through the lens of Christian worldview. The benefits of doing so are manifold. Worldview involves the study of presuppositions (when we study origins from a worldview perspective, we find that evolution is as much a philosophy as it is an unproven theory).
Worldview is Foundational to a Person’s
Understanding of Reality. Evolutionary
Humanism’s Distorted Lens: Human
Intellect + Facts = Truth We study presuppositions not only to articulate and defend the Christian faith, but also to better understand the false starting point (false assumptions, and false core beliefs) of skeptics. All investigation begins with a faith choice (God’s lens or the lens of autonomous human reason). (“Faith choice” is another way of saying presupposition. Study by means of worldview helps us “x-ray” the depraved reasoning processes of the unregenerate.) Every man interprets the facts around him through the framework of his
worldview. Every worldview is anchored in an
ultimate starting point, or core belief. All investigation and interpretation of facts
begins with FAITH in one of two starting points – 1.) FAITH in the God who was there, OR 2.) FAITH
in the philosophies of men who weren’t
there (i.e. Darwin). The Christian Worldview lets us see the
Facts through God’s Lens. The parts of our Christian worldview fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces. Distort one piece, and it affects the shape of all the other pieces. Every time I meet a person who regards six-day creation to be too fantastic, I also find that their skepticism regarding creation carries over into the Genesis account of the flood. When we ask the question – “Why is the Genesis flood so important to our Christian worldview?” – we discover that the answers are concentrated in 2 Peter chapter 3. In that chapter, the Apostle Peter gives us the reasons why Noah’s Flood is one of the pillars of our Christian worldview. In God’s inspired Word we find that Bible doctrine is inseparably linked to events in history. It’s fascinating to think that of all the ways Peter could have chosen to refute those who deny the return of Christ, Peter chose to use the historic fact of Noah’s Flood. The Apostle thunders out the truth that Second Advent of Christ is not a notion held in the heads of religious people, it is anchored in the historic fact of a previous universal judgment – Noah’s Flood. By contrast, uniformitarians assume that the world has always been this way, but Peter is going to uncover the assumptions that lie behind their twisted worldview. At the same time he is instructing Christians to arm themselves against the dangerous teachings of the coming mockers. 2 Peter 3 can be
broken down into six commands to believers: The Commands of 2 Peter 3: (Know the Prophecy of the Lord’s Return!) 1.
“REMEMBER” what our Lord said about His
return (vv. 1-2). 2.
“KNOW” that Mockers will abound in the Last
Days (vv. 3-7). 3.
“TAKE NOTICE” of God’s Reason for the Delay
of Christ’s Return (vv. 8-9). 4.
“LOOK FOR” the Day of the Lord with
Eagerness (vv. 10-13). 5.
“BE DILIGENT” in your Readiness for the Day
of the Lord (vv. 14-16). 6.
“BE ON GUARD” against the Danger from the
Mockers (vv. 16-18). Stir up your sincere (pure) minds by putting into remembrance what
you already know about Christ’s return (think through, reflect, meditate upon). A pure or sincere mind is not sullied by
vices, heresies, or false ideas. Focus on the most important spiritual
truths – this is needful because we are constantly bombarded by the
trivial. The aim of Peter’s reminder is to promote the welfare of his readers. In light of the difficult days coming, in which world rebellion against God will intensify, they were to hold fast to their first beliefs as a safeguard against the influx of false teachings. Take heed to the O.T. and the N.T. Scriptures, for as the
Lord’s coming draws near, false teachers will proliferate (Matt At the close of the Apostle Paul’s ministry he gives a very similar warning in 2 Timothy 3-4 concerning the spiritual climate of the last days – the bulk of the world’s population will refuse to know and practice the Holy Scriptures. II. “KNOW” that Mockers will abound in the
Last Days (vv. 3-7). vv. 3-4 -- The Apostle warns of the certainty of their coming. Skepticism concerning creation and the second coming will reach a crescendo of mockery in the last days. (The “last days” refers to the time period that will close the present age.) The mockers have a scornful disregard of sacred spiritual things (Ps 1:1; Jude 18). The fact that they walk after their own lusts connects them to the false teachers of chapter two (chap. 2 exposes their licentious conduct and their self-willed opposition to the Law of God – Rom 8:5-8). Our passage makes the point that
sinners select a worldview that permits the expression of their lusts (note
Romans 1:18ff.). The way these
false teachers/mockers reason concerning the apparent delay of the parousia clearly contributes to their apostasy
(Matt 24:48-51; Zeph They have a vested interest behind their worldview of skepticism and –namely that they might indulge in immoral behavior (note that the downward spiral of suppression of God’s truth described in Romans 1 effectively opens the floodgates of immorality). The false teachers mock the promised appearing of the Blessed Hope, even though the “Promise of His Coming” is Christ’s own promise – Matt 10:23; 16:28 (God warns that He will destroy those who desecrate the sacred things of God by false teaching – Jude 10). The greater part of the world’s population is utterly indifferent to this promised hope. Most people entertain a “hope” for global change that looks to a world system based upon evolutionary humanism RATHER than looking for God to return to His creation. “For” (Greek - gar) shows that these false teachers and skeptics can use the language of reason (though the stated reason is neither logical nor scriptural). “Fathers” refers to the O.T. fathers -- the Genesis patriarchs. By using the terminology, “fell asleep” – the mockers formulate their argument against the parousia in the language of the orthodox faith. (Jesus and the Apostles used “fell asleep” euphemistically to refer to physical death – Mark 5:39; Acts 7:60; 1 Thess 4:13-14; 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 20-21). The scoffers are not hard line atheists. They don’t maintain an eternally existing universe. They recognize a god, but not the God of revelation revealed in the Holy Scriptures. The scoffers base their claim of rejection of the parousia upon the belief that all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. “All things,” (Greek, panta) denotes the entire observable cosmic system. They appeal to observation: the laws and processes that govern nature today have always been the same in the past. Evolutionary uniformitarianism dominates the scientific and educational establishments of every nation in the world today. Uniformitarianism: is the theory that all geological phenomena
may be explained as a result of existing forces having operated uniformly from
the origin of the earth to the present time. “The
Present is the Key to the Past.” The Flood Theology of 2 Peter 3: God has woven into earth history, human
history, and divine revelation a testament to global judgment. Peter’s argument for the coming universal
judgment by fire is based upon the historic fact of universal judgment by
water. “The Past is the Key to the Present and the Future.” Their argument
against the parousia is taken from the uniformity of
nature. They state their case as
if it is clear and demonstrable. There
is no place in their worldview for a cataclysmic upheaval such as the Bible’s
teaching on parousia. Their
flawed logic could be paraphrased as follows:
Since God has not previously
invaded human history in order to judge sin decisively and universally, we have
no reason to believe He ever will do so.
You might say these mockers were “moral uniformitarians”
as well! They reject any view of divine
intervention in judgment. They are willingly ignorant of the four universal judgments of God in history. The Four Universal Judgments of God in Human History: 1.
The Fall, 2. The Flood, 3. The Cross, and 4. The Day of the Lord. vv. 5-6 – Evolutionists of every stripe (atheistic, deistic, pantheistic) ignore God’s clear testimony that heaven and earth did not evolve, but were called into existence by God’s omnipotent Word (by God’s almighty Word the creation was called into being fully complete and functioning from the beginning). Peter is going to expose the fallacy of the mockers’ claim. Their self-willed reading of the past is false. When they assert that the world continues without great convulsion from the beginning, they do so by deliberate exclusion of evidence. A true reading of past history reveals a cataclysmic destruction by water. Peter describes the period before the flood. The world had equilibrium; a created
order. “Out of water,” and “by
water,” is a summary of Genesis 1:2-10.
The primeval earth was surrounded by water. It was suspended in water. A firmament was put between the “waters
above” and the “waters below” (this agrees with the
two sources of water for the flood in Gen By the “Word of God” stresses that the world came into being not by chaos and spontaneous generation, but by divine fiat (“and God said”). The false teachers held to the self sufficiency and immutability of the natural order. v. 6 – The antediluvian world overflowed with primeval waters from above and below the firmament (the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven). The existing antediluvian world order was broken up and destroyed so that it perished (it was not annihilated, but transformed, radically changed, and utterly devastated). The flood destroyed the world under the direction of God’s Word (Ps 29:10). The Greek word for “flood,” katkluzo means to surge over completely, to totally inundate, to flood. So different was the world before Noah’s flood, that Peter designates the antediluvian world of Noah’s day, “The world that then was.” According to Peter, there will be three worlds in human history. Each of the three have a radically different order in nature. The Three “Worlds” of 2 Peter 3:6-7 – 1. The World that then was, 2. The Present Heavens and Earth, and 3. The New Heavens and Earth. The mockers willfully deny God’s acts in history. Peter said it would be so in the last days. Even though the words of Christ, the Apostles, and the Prophets confirm the inspired record of the Genesis flood, and the genuine facts of science and history point to its reality, the mockers willfully deny that that the flood ever happened. v. 7 – Peter
presents us with a “flood theology” so to speak. The Apostle affirms that one
global cataclysmic judgment establishes that there also may be another. Scripture demands that believers view
Noah’s Flood as a paradigm for future global judgment (Luke Peter’s “flood theology” helps us see clearly the parallels between the judgment and deliverance of the Genesis Flood and the judgment and deliverance of the Day of the Lord. Peter’s Flood “Theology” -- The Doctrines Revealed through the Genesis
Flood: 1. Grace before
Judgment, 2. Perfect Discrimination, 3. One Means of Salvation, 4. Appropriation
by Faith, and 5. Replacement of the Whole World. Peter turns uniformitarianism
on its ear by informing us that when it comes to the works of God, the
past is the key to the present, and to the future, not the other
way around as the uniformitarians maintain! A significant feature of our worldview is that in the
present heavens and earth will NOT continue in perpetuity. The present cosmos
and the processes that occur in it are under a conservation domain (an
observable uniformity based on the Noahic Covenant –
Gen By the same “Word of God” that called the creation into existence, the present heavens and earth “are stored up” for fire (Grk. thesaurizo, to treasure up, to store up, to reserve). The present heavens and earth are not permanent and immutable. A future cataclysm will bring a determined
end to the present cosmic system. The
world and the cosmos are utterly dependent upon the omnipotent Word of God ( Peter’s picture of judgment by fire is not confined to the earth; it includes the heavens as well (note the O.T. passages – Is 66:15; Dan 7:9-10; Mic 1:4; Mal 4:1, also the N.T. – Mt 3:11-12; 2 Thess 2:7-8). The present earthly order is kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. (For the mockers to believe this would be to condemn themselves and admit that they must deal with God who judges.) The heavens and earth have not been “dismissed” to go their own way (as the scoffers and deistic evolutionists maintain), subject only to the laws of nature. Unbelievers act as if by sinful rebellion they have won
freedom from God’s moral government – 2 Pet 2:19; Ps 2:1-5; Rom III. “TAKE
NOTICE” of God’s Reason for the Apparent Delay of Christ’s Return
(vv. 8-9). Now Peter gives the needed instruction to readers regarding Christ’s apparent delay. His readers had been taught to live with the expectation of Christ’s return. The readers of the epistle must not do what the mockers are doing – they must not interpret the delay as an indicator of unending uniformity. Peter’s explanation begins with a statement about God’s relation to time. (This verse is commonly misinterpreted to support the Day-age theory, but the verse is not a reference to creation week (1000 yrs = a day is NOT a math formula or an equation). God uses time redemptively. Concerning the timing of Christ’s return – the parousia has not failed when we view the apparent delay from the vantage point of God’s relation to time. God’s relation to time invalidates the objection of the skeptics (Ps 90:4). God’s use of time cannot be conformed to our finite viewpoint and
schedules. God’s use of time is
not that of human conception. He may do
in a brief time what we may feel could only be done in thousands of years. Or He may do in thousands of years what we
feel should be done in a day (from the time of childless Abraham until the
conquest of God can do profound things in a short amount of time. Consider the intensive character of creation week – six 24 hour days to make the universe and the world (and, as Dr. Morris reminds us, it only took that long to provide the pattern for man’s work week). The Only Begotten Son of God exhausted the curse of God against the sins of the elect in only six hours on the cross. God’s apparent delays should never be interpreted as inability to perform. God is not holding back on the promised fulfillment of Christ’s return. (The intensive character of the Day of the Lord will shock the world; it will be unbelievably terrifying for unbelievers when it hits.) Peter’s exhortation is a warning to Christians to not be affected by the teaching and influence of the scoffers and skeptics. If we understand the reason for the apparent delay, we will be better fortified against what the Scriptures call “fainting” (Heb 12:5). The reason for the apparent delay (a delay from our perspective) is that God is exercising self-restraint in the face of deliberate provocation by sinners. His exercise of longsuffering patience is designed to give ample room for repentance (Rom 2:4-11). (God’s common grace postpones wrath and judgment, but only saving grace removes God’s wrath from repenting sinners.) Patient toward “you-ward” is a reminder to Peter’s readers that they themselves have experienced this fact of God’s loving patience. God’s patience and longsuffering are an expression of His genuine
desire that for the salvation of mankind (it is not a reference to the
determining will of God). The
word “wishing” here in v. 9 is a description of God’s disposition toward
sinners, not an explanation of His sovereign plan for individuals (see also Ez The goodness of God is ever seeking to lead men to repentance (Rom 2:4). Men must make room for such comprehensive change in their lives. God in His mercy is giving men as much time as possible to repent. At Christ’s return (the Day of the Lord) it will be too late. IV. “LOOK FOR”
the Day of the Lord with Eagerness (vv. 10-13). Warning! None should presume upon the apparent delay
regarding the Day of the Lord -- as if an open-ended amount of time remains. The Day of the Lord will come as a
thief (sudden, unexpected arrival, “as a
thief,” – Matt 24:43-44; 1 Thess 5:2, 4; Rev 3:3; The Day of the Lord will: 1. Come as a thief ( The first part of the Day of the Lord is very sudden. It will come with undeniable reality. There will be irreparable loss for the unprepared, but eternal blessing for those living in expectation of Christ’s coming (1 Thess 5:4-10). The events associated with the Day of the Lord involve a cataclysm by fire. (God warned Noah of things yet unseen by humans – Heb 11:7. God warns us through the Apostle Peter about things not yet seen. We can hardly imagine a cosmic cataclysm by fire. We’ve seen nuclear reactions at a distance in the stars, and relatively close up in nuclear detonations on earth, but we cannot imagine a thermo nuclear reaction that envelops the entire known universe.) The scoffers asserted the durability of the present cosmological
arrangement (order). Peter says
that there will be a cosmological (eschatological) purging that is
indescribable in scope. How reminiscent
this is of Jesus’ words (Mark The heavens shall pass from one state of existence to another. All evidence of sin’s consequences; decay, death, and deterioration will be burned up. A global and cosmic atomic fission reaction, or explosive disintegration will involve the transformation of chemical energy into heat, light and sound. The elements will be dissolved, loosened, broken up into their component parts, like a building torn down into bricks (disintegration, not annihilation). The Greek supports this picture of renovation – Grk. word for “elements” is stoicheion, meaning fundamental constituents. There will be a cleansing away of the bondage of corruption and futility. The old cosmos will be made fresh and new by the Word of God’s power. The picture of the future drawn by Peter is the very opposite of that drawn by the mockers and scoffers. The earth and its works will be burned up. God’s judgment of earth lays bare what is
worthless in all human achievement apart from Him. Nothing survives to enter the The parallel Peter is making to the Genesis flood is unmistakable in our text. When God establishes His eternal kingdom, He will overturn and destroy the present world order as well as the physical cosmic order. The Day of the Lord will sweep away the refuge of lies (Is 28:17). It will grind all human authority into powder
(Dan When God evicts the wicked from His creation, their homes, property, their bodies, possessions, the terra firma they have walked on will all be relinquished – “no place was found for them,” it says in Revelation 20:11. When the contaminated universe goes out of existence, there will be no place left for those contaminated by sin but hell itself. The
Day of the Lord is not a single
event, but series of events in the unfolding of God’s end time program. It
includes the rapture of the Church, the tribulation, Christ’s millennial reign,
and the great white throne judgment, and the making of the new heavens and
earth. The Day of the Lord (God’s Day) will last approximately 1007 years
total. It is uniquely, “God’s Day.” V. ”BE DILIGENT” in your Readiness for the
Day of the Lord (vv. 14-16). In view of the imminent Day of the Lord, believers have the duty to live holy lives. Peter reminds his readers of the strong link between Christian hope and daily conduct. He presses upon them the impact that the prospect of the Day of the Lord must have. All holy living involves separation from evil, and it
involves dedication to God in all our conduct.
(“Make no provision for the flesh,” – Rom Peter urges them to have expectancy – to continually turn their
minds toward the future. Amidst
the pressures around them, they must set their minds on things above (to the point
of having an eager desire to be with the
Lord – Rom In v. 13 – Peter includes himself in this hope and expectation whereby we are looking for new heavens and earth where righteousness dwells. The renovated world will have the moral quality of righteousness. The justified will no longer be wanderers, pilgrims with a foreign citizenship, we will dwell securely in our eternal home. The program of God for mankind will be brought to its consummation. There will be a cataclysmic, comprehensive judgment upon all evil, and a culmination of that judgment in the eternal reign of righteousness. Everyone entering this new world will be in perfect agreement with God’s sovereign will. “Things not yet seen” belong to the Flood and the Day
of the Lord: The “Things not yet seen” by Noah (Heb 11:7): A Global Cataclysm by
Water with all of its accompanying Catastrophes. The “Things not yet seen” by our
generation: Cosmic Thermonuclear “Fire” and the “New Heavens and the New
Earth.” Empirical science is
filled with limitations, for God in Christ has asserted unseen realities that
are beyond our powers of observation. Those who depend upon their five senses instead of the Word
of God will be unprepared when the Day of the Lord arrives. The Christian must be careful not to be
influenced by the scoffer. Skeptics take
a “wait ‘n see” attitude about the promised coming judgment, therefore it will
take them by surprise. v. 14 – Peter speaks with a shepherd’s heart. The word “therefore” links together faith and conduct. “Be diligent!” We can’t live in idleness; we must be diligent, zealous, making every effort to fulfill the duty of holy living. Only the righteous will attain that world. The prospect that we will soon stand before our Judge is to have a profound effect upon us (those who abide in Christ and have expectancy of His return will be purified in the process of living in that manner – 1 Jn 3:3). v. 15 – Believers are exhorted to hold a right view of the delay. The false teachers (mockers) concluded that our Lord’s failure to return was proof that our hope was a delusion. Believers must take into account daily, continually, that the purpose of the Lord’s apparent delay is the exercise of His longsuffering which results in salvation. While God is waiting, He is giving both time for the
unbeliever to be saved and for the believer to be “working out his salvation,” (Phil
2 Peter 3 is a litmus test that explains the contrast between a true believer and a false teacher. The test is, “How will you evaluate the delay of the return of Christ? And how will you order your life in consequence of that delay?” Those two questions cut to the heart of the matter. In the final three verses of this chapter, Peter summarizes his warnings about scoffers. Their teaching and lifestyle present a very real danger to Christians (Note Psalm 1:1).
VI. “BE ON
GUARD” against Danger from the Mockers (vv. 16-18). v. 16 – The false teachers misused the Apostle Paul’s teaching on grace (easy-believism – no life change). They turned grace into licentiousness and antinomianism (we know this from the little book of Jude). They took the life-giving Word of God and twisted it, distorted it, and wrested it to their own destruction. They did violence to the laws of biblical interpretation. (In attempting to destroy the Bible, men destroy themselves.) How relevant this exhortation is to our subject of origins. It is so dangerous to wrest the Scriptures and attempt to justify compromise with the ungodly philosophies of evolution and humanism. The wicked twist the Word to fit their own opinions. They willingly distort the truth of God in order to accommodate their inner desire for self indulgence. They dishearten the righteous by mocking the reasons for holiness. v. 17 – The Apostle’s exhortation can be broken into two parts; a negative, or prohibition, and a positive, or injunction. Both parts of the exhortation must be obeyed if we are to be protected from the danger of the mockers. 1.) the negative exhortation: keep guarding yourselves, beware of falling – guard against being carried away and led astray by keeping too close company with false teachers and wavering professors. (We must have a habitual sense of our own weakness and the ever present danger that surrounds us. Maintain a spirit of perpetual vigilance and steadfastness. 2.) the positive exhortation: grow in grace and keep on growing. Growth is a positive duty. Advancing in grace counterbalances us, safeguards us against falling. Effective growth involves removing the hindrance of making provision for the flesh. Growth in doctrine and practice must work together. Each is inadequate in itself. Believers are already in the sphere of grace. We grow in grace when we apprehend grace in Christ with ever increasing faith. When we order our lives by the grace of Christ, enjoying it more richly, our character and relationship with the Lord develops and grows. CONCLUSION We’ve seen clearly that our hope and expectation of Christ’s return
is necessarily linked to our conduct.
All the godly who have gone before us have by faith weighed the infinite
riches of the glory to come against the passing pleasures of this world. The godly have said along with Paul,
“Momentary light affliction is working for us an eternal weight of glory far
beyond all comparison” (2 Cor The faithful have decided along with Moses that the
“reproach of Christ is greater riches than the world” (Heb When a person denies the universal judgments of God it sows to an immoral lifestyle – it works against the fear of God (cynicism about the delay of Christ’s return, twisting the Scriptures, denial that man shall wax worse and worse as in the days of Noah all shape a person’s moral profile). The worldview of the unbeliever is that sin, death, and decay is normal. Last Days skeptics deny that death has a moral cause; they are willfully ignorant of the fact that human sin is the cause of a cursed creation. Is it any wonder that they resist God’s merciful plan of deliverance? (They subscribe to a worldview that blinds them to man’s need and to God’s purposes). Genesis records that fact that God in the past has already delivered the righteous, and evicted earth’s evil tenants once before. God will do it again -- the Genesis flood is a model of future eradication of evil from man and nature. God has once before changed the workings of nature on a global scale. He will do it again on an infinitely larger scale. This fact totally conditions the way you view Christ’s return. Instead of appearing as a fanatical religious belief in the minds of lunatics, Christ’s glorious return has a basis in physical history, the Genesis Flood. Through Peter, the Holy Spirit has taken the significance of the Genesis Flood right into the present and the imminent future. Through His inspired Word, God has taken the historic fact of the global flood and shown us its direct correlation to worldview and its consequent conduct and ethics. Once we begin to understand just how unified our Christian worldview is, it will make us more bold to preach the Gospel. What God has done on a global scale, He will do again. Our doctrine is not merely propositional spiritual truth, Bible doctrine is inseparably linked to earth history and human history. This is a cause for fear of God, not fear of man. Salvation is physical as well as spiritual. God will purge the last vestiges of evil from the universe (except for the lake of fire). Are you ready to stand in His protection in Christ as Noah and his family in the ark? SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY Barker and Kohlenberger, eds, Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary, Zondervan, 1994. Hiebert, Lloyd-Jones, D. M., Expository Sermons in 2 Peter, Banner of Truth, 1983. Morris, Henry, M., The
Defender’s Study Bible, World Bible Publishers, 1995. |
