God’s Word for You
2 Peter 3:11-13 What should I fear when the world ends?
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, August 27, 2022
We return to Peter’s warning about the end of the world, the destruction of all things, and the coming judgment of Christ.
11 Since all these things are going to be destroyed this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you eagerly wait for the coming of the day of God. It will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
There will be terrible fire, an awesome destruction, the end of all creatures (at least those that are on the earth when the end comes), the acrid stench of the final flames, the dissolution of matter, and gases, and liquid, and finally, even all earthly fires. There will be the sudden evaporation of the seas, the final fluttering disappearance of the clouds, and the very stones and minerals melting into liquid, and then gas, and then nothing in the blinding white heat. “The foundations of the earth and the heavens will perish; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded” (Psalm 102:25-26). Then will follow the endless nothing of eternity: “turned back to its ancient silence.”
None of these are the thing to fear about the end of the world. The thing to be concerned about is the status of your own soul. No human being will suffer in the dissolution and destruction of the former world, sky, and vastness of outer space, just as Daniel’s three friends suffered no hurt in the fiery furnace of Babylon; not even the smell of smoke was on their clothes: “The fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was the hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them” (Daniel 3:27).
Our spirits will have rejoined with our bodies, and we with faith will have ascended into Paradise. This was rightly said by Richard the Second as he fell in battle: “Mount, mount, my soul! Thy seat is up on high.” The wicked will also be rejoined, body and soul, and perhaps the fire of the end of the world will not touch them, either, for they have a worse flame, unending and unendurable, roaring its way toward them, to draw them in and hold them fast in permanent, blistering agony for their sins. No one can choose their religion on Judgment Day. Either they will already be safe under the wings of Christ, or they will discover that no other religion has any value, and all their choices and arguments will be accounted for in their punishment.
13 But according to his promise we are waiting for heavens new and a new earth, the home of righteousness.
Both “heavens and earth” are called new by Peter, just as they are by Isaiah (65:17). Peter uses the word kainos (καινός), which means “new in quality.” The new abode of the blessed will be fresh, new, pure, unstained by sin or fall from grace, not merely cleansed of former wickedness, as the world was following the flood, but formed new, without even the memory of sinfulness. Peter emphasizes this new quality with his word-order. Greek usually puts an adjective after its noun, such as the black horse of Revelation 6:5, or the gospel of “great joy” brought by the angel in Bethlehem (Luke 2:10). Those words are reversed in Greek, and that’s the usual Greek style. But here the heavens are “new heavens,” a startling, remarkable thing—their newness is the first thing we are told about them. I have tried to show this in English by doing the opposite, putting “new” after “heavens” just the way we usually don’t, so that it sounds unusual and draws attention to the detail Peter wants us to notice.
And so we return to our waiting as we live today in the expectation of the new world and the farewell to the old. Live a holy and godly life today.
The godly life, the life of faith, is a life that thanks God for his salvation and all of his other gifts. It is a life that, to a certain extent, cooperates with God, only because it is a life that is responding in faith to what God has done, not to merit anything, but responding to the merits of Christ.
Therefore: When we are converted to faith, God gives us a new will that wants to thank him. The Christian responds by using his or her will to look to God for ways to please him: “What does God want from me? I will do that.”
Second, God shows us the things he wants us to do in his word, and especially in the law, as well as those things he wants us not to do (this is the “third use” of the law, using the law as a guide for Christian living). The Christian responds by struggling against sin and desiring to obey God, as well as learning to love serving God.
Third, God gives us different opportunities to serve him either directly or through serving each other (our neighbor). The Christian responds by using those opportunities to serve God and his neighbor in a way that pleases God.
Finally, God gives us strength and the ability to use the opportunities he gives us, and “he promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore we should love and trust in him and gladly obey what he commands” (Small Catechism).
We look to the Lord for rescue from this world, when we will say, “Take me away with you—let us hurry!” (Song of Solomon 1:4). But for this day, the day that is still awaiting the resurrection, we pray: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul” (Psalm 143:8). This is the life of the Christian; the life of the one that God loves.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.