Peter warned his readers about the activity of mockers preceding the Lord's return to enable them to deal with this test of their faith.
"Peter finally brings together two of the most important issues in the letter: the false teachers' skepticism about the return of Christ in glory (see 1:16-21) and their disdain for holiness (chap. 2)."134
3:3 "First of all"means of primary importance (cf. 1:20). The "last days"Peter referred to here are the days before Jesus Christ's return at the Rapture. This is the same way other writers of Scripture used the phrase "last days"(cf. 2 Tim. 3:1-5; 1 John 2:18-19). What the mockers said follows in verse 4. Here the emphasis is on their attitude of intellectual superiority and disdain of scriptural revelation. This attitude led them to immoral conduct.
"The adversaries who denied the Parousia were themselves a proof of its imminence."135
"A scoffer is someone who treats lightly that which ought to be taken seriously."136
3:4 One could hardly find a better summary anywhere of the philosophy of naturalism that so thoroughly permeates modern western civilization than what this verse contains (cf. Jer. 17:15; Mal. 7:10). Peter referred to a denial of supernaturalism and an assertion of uniformitarianism. In particular, the scoffers denied the promise of the Lord Jesus that He would return (John 14:1-3; Acts 1:11; et al.). They assumed that God does not intervene in the world.
"Those who give way to their own lusts will always mock at any incentive to noble living."137
The "fathers"are probably physical forefathers, more likely the Old Testament patriarchs rather than the first generation of Christians. This is the normal use of the word in the New Testament.
Peter proceeded to answer the second statement in this verse in verses 5-7 and then responded to the scoffers' rhetorical question in verses 8-10. So this section has a somewhat chiastic structure.
3:5 "Escapes their notice"in the Greek means forgets purposely by disregarding information. Peter cited two events in the creation of the cosmos that show things have not always been as they are. God did intervene in the world in the past. When God spoke, the universe came into existence (Gen. 1:6-8; cf. Heb. 11:3). God spoke again and the dry land separated from ("out of") the waters (Gen. 1:9-10). Thus God used water to form the dry land.138
3:6 The flood in Noah's day was Peter's third example. God spoke again and the earth flooded. "Through which"(a plural relative pronoun in Greek) probably refers to "the Word of God"and "water"(v. 5).
". . . in 3:6 his [the writer's] emphasis is on the Flood as a universal judgment on sinful men and women. But he evidently conceives this judgment as having been executed by means of a cosmic catastrophe which affected the heavens as well as the earth."139
