Peter drew application for his readers and focused their attention on how they should live presently in view of the future.
3:11 Peter believed that an understanding of the future should motivate the believer to live a holy life now. His question is rhetorical. Holy conduct refers to behavior that is separate from sin and set apart to please God. Godly means like God (1:3, 6-7; cf. 2:7, 10, 12-15, 18-20; 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:15-16).
3:12 The Greek participle translated "hastening"or "speeding"(speudontes) sometimes means "desiring earnestly"(RSV margin).155If Peter meant that here, the sense would be that believers not only look for the day of God but desire earnestly to see it (cf. vv. 8-10; Matt. 24:42; 25:13).156The AV has "hastening unto"implying that Peter meant believers are rapidly approaching the day of God. Yet "unto"needs supplying; it is not in the text. Most of the translators and commentators, however, took speudontesin its usual sense of hastening. They assumed that Peter was thinking that believers can hasten the day of God by their prayers (cf. Matt. 6:10) and their preaching (cf. Matt. 24:14; Acts 3:19-20).157Believers affect God's timetable by our witnessing and our praying as we bring people to Christ (cf. Josh. 10:12-14; 1 Kings 20:1-6; et al.).158
"Clearly this idea of hastening the End is the corollary of the explanation (v 9) that God defers the Parousia because he desires Christians to repent. Their repentance and holy living may therefore, from the human standpoint, hasten its coming. This does not detract from God's sovereignty in determining the time of the End . . ., but means only that his sovereign determination graciously takes human affairs into account."159
The "day of God"may be a reference to the time yet future in which God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28).160This will follow the creation of the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21:1). On the other hand this phrase may be another way of describing the day of the Lord.161The antecedent of "on account of which"(NASB) is the day of God. God will burn up the present heavens and earth because of that day.
3:13 We look forward to the new heavens and earth, not the destruction of the present heavens and earth. The reason is that the new heavens and earth will be where righteousness dwells. Unrighteousness characterizes the present world (cf. Jer. 23:5-7; 33:16; Dan. 9:24; Rev. 21:1, 8, 27). "His promise"of new heavens and earth is in Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; et al.
"Christians need to remember the ultimate, bottom-line,' purpose of biblical eschatology: to make us better Christians here and now."162
"The purpose of prophetic truth is not speculation but motivation . . ."163
3:14 "These things"probably refers to all of what Peter just finished saying in verses 10-13 rather than to the new world in which righteousness dwells (v. 13; cf. the "these things"in v. 11). Peter again urged his readers to "diligent"action (cf. 1:5, 10). He wanted us to be at peace with God, and the implication was that he expected his readers to be alive when the Lord comes.164"Spotless"means without defect or defilement (as in a spotless sacrifice, cf. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:19), and "blameless"means without justifiable cause for reproach. The false teachers were stains and blemishes (2:13), but believers need to be spotless and blameless.
3:15 We should view the Lord's tarrying as a manifestation of His longsuffering that leads people to repentance and salvation rather than as a sign that He is never coming (v. 9).
"While God is waiting, He is both giving time for the unbeliever to be saved, and for the believer to be working out his salvation (cf. Phil. 2:12, 13) in terms of progress in sanctification."165
Peter regarded Paul as a "dear brother"who was one with him in his allegiance to God and His Word. Perhaps Peter had Romans 2:4 in mind when he said Paul wrote the same thing he had just said.
3:16 "These things"probably refers generally to future events (cf. vv. 11, 14) and the importance of Christians living godly lives in view of them.
It is somewhat comforting to learn that even the Apostle Peter found some of what Paul wrote hard to understand! Peter also wrote some things in his two epistles that tax our understanding. The "untaught"(Gr. amatheis) are those who had not received teaching concerning all that God had revealed. The "unstable"(Gr. asteriktoi) are those who were not always consistent in their allegiance to God or the world, namely, double-minded, fence-straddling compromisers. These types of people misunderstood and in some cases deliberately misrepresented the meaning of Paul's writings. However this only added to their own guilt before God.
"The verb distort' (streblousin), occuring only here in the New Testament, means to twist or wrench,' specifically, to stretch on the rack, to torture.'166They take Paul's statements and twist and torture them, like victims on the rack, to force them to say what they want them to say."167
Note that Peter regarded Paul's writings as of equal authority with the Old Testament Scriptures. This statement reiterates what he said previously about the apostles' teaching being equal with the prophets' writings (1:12-21; 3:2).
"That an Apostle should speak of the writings of a brother-Apostle in the same termsas the books of the Old Testament--viz., as Scripture--need not surprise us, especially when we remember the large claims made by St. Paul for his own words (1 Thess. ii. 13; 2 Thess. ii. 15; Eph. iii. 3-5. Comp. Acts xv. 28; Rev. xxii. 18, 19)."168
"In attempting to destroy the Bible men destroy themselves."169
