In response to the scoffing, the author of the letter appears
to remind them of the days of Noah, in which the Creator God is said to have initially
warned Noah about the pending judgment (thinking about the judgment that Jesus
pronounced in the Temple, the carrying out of that judgment by the Romans in
the year seventy, and the judgment rendered in favor of the saints of the Most
High God when the Son of Man receives His kingdom, which Jesus linked to the
fall of the Temple), but withheld the watery judgment of the earth for what
appears to be at least one hundred years (and possibly one hundred twenty
years), writing “For they deliberately suppress this fact, that by the word of
God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means
of water. Through these things the world existing at that time was
destroyed when it was deluged with water. But by the same word the
present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, by being kept for the
day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly” (3:5-7).
Now if the mind is allowed to
wander, there will again exist the temptation to retreat into inappropriate
ways of hearing what has been said. However, if one remains focused, it
is possible and appropriate to hear the Daniel seven context and the favorable
judgment on behalf of those being persecuted. Without going into too much
detail, one can also think about the fact that Jesus, at His trial, had accused
the High Priest---the chief Temple authority---of being the very entity that
was warring against the saints of the Most High God in the seventh chapter of
Daniel. According to the book of Acts, Stephen made this same accusation
at his trial. In both instances, the accuser died at the hands of the
accused.
Together with talk of
judgment and the destruction of the ungodly, one must also consider the usage
of “heavens and earth,” which could not be more important, as this can be rightly
understood to be a reference to the Temple---the place where heaven and earth
meet. Yes, the Temple was the place of the coming together of heaven and
earth. Any reference to “heaven and earth,” especially if it is in the
context of talk of the Temple, is a reference to the Temple itself.
Though this is offered as conjecture (though not unsupported conjecture) when
it comes to second Peter, it is far from being conjecture when such talk is
heard in the Gospels.
This prompts a brief
return to Matthew twenty-four (though one could also look to both Mark and
Luke), as are minder of of Jesus saying, as He answers the question about when
the Temple will be cast down with not one stone left upon another, that “the
sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall
from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken” (24:29). Though the
reference to Isaiah ends there, it has already been noted that Isaiah continued
on to eventually write “So I will shake the heavens, and the earth will shake
loose from its foundation” (13:13a). Isaiah, as has been established, was
referring to Jerusalem and the Temple being overcome by Babylon, using
apocalyptic language of heaven and earth that reaches beyond mere symbolism and
drama, conveying Jewish opinion concerning the Temple---the place where heaven
and earth came together.
The tradition of such
thinking concerning the house of the Creator God reached all the way back to
Jacob, as it is when he is in Bethel (the house of God), that he has the dream
in which a ladder reached from earth to heaven, with the angels of God
ascending and descending. Yes, the house of God is where and heaven and
earth came together. Little wonder then that the Gospel of John, in its
portrayal of Jesus that reflected the development of Christian understanding
about Jesus and a better grasp, in the late first century in the time period
after the fall of the Temple, of Jesus’ sayings about Himself, has Jesus
telling Nathanael and the other men that had been called to be His disciples,
that they “will see heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man” (1:51b).
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