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B -- What do you understand by the words `Where is the promise of His
coming'?
A -- I understand them to mean that the scoffers were not mindful of
the words spoken by the prophets and the Lord Himself, as verse 2 urges, and
consequently did not know where to look for those Scriptures which referred
to the parousia of the Lord.
B -- I hardly think you have caught the meaning. These scoffers
certainly will be ignorant of Scripture, but Peter means to say that they
will scoff at the idea that the parousia will ever be fulfilled, as though
they said, `Where is the fulfilment of this much vaunted promise?' Now
notice the way in which the apostle deals with the implied failure of the
Lord to keep His promise. Why does he go right back to the beginning of
creation?
A -- Frankly I cannot see any connection.
B -- You will notice that the apostle is explicit.
It is the beginning
of creation.
A -- Yes, I see that.
B -- Where would you look for any reference to that?
A -- I should turn to Genesis 1, `In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth'.
B -- Well, the word `continue' in 2 Peter 3:4 means `to continue right
through without a break'. When you read on in Genesis 1, do you find that
the creation of the first verse `continues right through'?
A -- No, I believe verse 2 speaks of an overthrow, and that God did not
create the earth without form and void, but it became so.
B -- I see, you have grasped that much. You therefore can answer the
question. The creation did not continue right through without a break?
There was a Divine interruption.
A -- Yes, but what has that to do with the Second Coming of Christ?
B -- Why this. Just as these scoffers ridicule the teaching of Genesis
1:2, saying that there never was an `overthrow', that God has never
intervened in judgment, so they argue, He never will. You will find these
same scoffers in Psalm 50:21:
`These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that
I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I Will Reprove Thee'.
You remember I left with you Isaiah 34 when we last met?
Did you give
it an examination?
A -- Yes, I did, and now that you mention it I remember that the
condition called tohu and bohu (without form and void) of Genesis 1:2 is to
be repeated, for it says: