We are in the Last Days. God has no unfinished business to complete before this fallen existence is terminated and His Son returns.
Peter notes he has written this second letter to ensure his readers are mentally ready for what is coming. Minds which have been healed from the deadly imaginations of human thinking don't need teaching, merely encouragement to cling to their divine purpose: to serve the Spirit. What was it the Old Testament prophets warned us? And what did Christ teach His Apostles? These Last Days would be filled with attacks against the truth. Those false teachers were no different than the rest of the human race, seeking to feed their own lusts. People always sought excuses for denying God's Laws applied to them. This was the real motive for mocking the promise of His Return.
So they denied Jesus was coming back. Had anything changed since Creation itself? Yes, it had. Peter points out the Flood destroyed the entire human race, all but a handful of people, simply on the basis of His Laws, never mind spiritual matters. That was an entirely different sort of world, which had not yet received much of His revelation, but He held them accountable. Since then we've had the Nation of Israel and the Son of God with all the Scriptures recording the meaning of those events. So any future judgment will be the Final Judgment. The folks to whom Noah preached mocked and waited 120 years for his prophecies to come true. God is not here with us inside the fallen realm of time. As easily as we move our hands through the three dimensions of space, God moves His hand across the dimensions of time itself. Whatever excuse there might have been for those before the Flood, there is no excuse now, so the only reason for a delay is God's patience in dealing with a far greater culpability after the revelation of His Son.
No human mind is capable of estimating when He will return. What a day it will be, that Final Day! Everything you see in the sky above you, the whole universe, will simply disappear with such a noise, no one living will mistake what it is. Indeed, the earth under our feet and everything we know will dissolve in a blaze. It could be any moment, utterly disconnected from any omens on this human plane. So what does it take for us to remain ever ready for that moment? One does not take a vacation from holiness.
We cannot imagine what a vast and dramatic change it will be, this New Heavens and New Earth. It will be of a divine character, and if we want to be ready, we need to practice that divine character within ourselves. Paul Himself has written extensively about this Return of Christ. Who can understand such things? Those determined to walk in the flesh have twisted his words as they have all other Scriptures. Don't follow them. Don't forget how your minds have been kicked off the throne, and made to serve the Spirit of God in your spirits. Fundamental issues have already been decided before they come to your brain, so thinking is merely a matter of implementing the truth revealed.
The mind of fallen man, the human intellect, presumes to judge God as little more than an arrogant human who holds His power unfairly over us. Seeking to throw off His Laws as oppressive, such minds keep seeking opportunity to unchain sinful desires. They assume God is bound under our sense of time, and if Jesus were coming back, it makes no sense He would have waited this long. Thus, they cast off all moral restraint and dream up their own convenient morality. We know this whole Fallen Realm is one big lie. We should not mistake God's patience for weakness, but realize this is our chance to get up to speed on the holiness which characterizes the Other Realm.
Peter closes by inviting them to grow in grace, which means doing a better job of resurrecting the Savior in our bodies. That's where the real gnosis takes place.
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By Ed Hurst
08 October 2011
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