II Peter 3:10 – Certainty

“…but [the] Day of [the] Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens shall vanish with a crash and [the] elements will dissolve burning intensely and [the] earth and the works in it shall be burned up.”

This verse has intrigued me for years. What a pleasure to finally get to actually study it.

What has intrigued me most is those first few words, “The Day of the Lord will come.”

So many things in life might happen. It might rain. The Colts might win the Superbowl. I might get a good job. Some things are more likely than others. Some matter more or less than others. But through all of that, there is one thing absolutely certain: “The Day of the Lord will come.”

That certainty has intrigued me. I was glad to find that the Greek in fact corroborated the English emphasis. In fact, in the Greek “will come” is the very first word of the sentence. The Greeks had the freedom to re-arrange their sentences in a way we cannot and so they liked to provide emphasis by putting a word or phrase first in a sentence. (Interestingly enough, I understand that in Latin [so often similar to Greek in many ways], they provided emphasis by placing the word or phrase at the end of their sentences. Interesting). This emphatic position is indicated in my translation by the underlining of the word will.

“The Day of the Lord will come.”

The mockers say, “All things continue as they have from the beginning” and the natural human observation is that it seems to be taking an awfully long time. Verse 9 explained why it is taking so long – because the Lord is patient, wanting to make room for all to come to repentance. BUT verse 10 assures us, “the Day of the Lord will come.”

It has been interesting in my life to observe other people. In particular I remember being in school. The teacher or professor would announce that a particular assignment was due on a specific date, or perhaps that a test would occur on a certain date. I would begin right away to plan and work toward that deadline, knowing full well it would come. But it seemed so many around me would go into what looked like careless denial … until suddenly it was upon them. It is hard for me to understand. We all know the day will come. How can someone possibly pretend they don’t know it’s coming? It has always seemed to me like completely irresponsible foolishness. This very problem is exactly why people get head over heels in credit card debt. They are deliberately disregarding the fact they will have to repay it. The bills will come. A simple healthy dose of reality would in an instant eliminate the whole problem of credit card debt. (As an aside, when it comes to all of this, I don’t believe I think that somehow I’m “better” than others. I am quite sure I owe it to my parents’ good training even before I was old enough to know I was being trained. Somehow, they imprinted in my young impressionable heart a respect for those things which most certainly would come to pass. Still don’t know what they did, but I’m confident that is the only explanation why I’m different).

So it is, as I read this passage, it cuts to the very heart of who I am. “The Day of the Lord will come.” It will come. That realization should move us all to sit up straight, to consider what it means, how we should prepare, how we should perhaps re-order our lives in realization of its certainty.

It’s a good thing to have certainty in our lives. It’s good to know there are some things that we can absolutely count on. We all build our lives around that which we think is certain. The sun will rise and fall. Winter, spring, summer, and fall will come. Every year will have 365 ¼ days. The office will be there Monday morning. The car will start. The furnace will turn on and off and keep the house warm. Certainty allows us to plan, to live, to order our lives.

And this one grand certainty reigns above them all: “The Day of the Lord will come.”

The rest of II Peter 3 is basically answering the question, “Seeing we know this is true, how should we then live?” so I’m not going to spend any time here to go into the applications that cross my mind. I just want to say that the certainty of these words “The Day of the Lord will come” actually provide the very basis to ask that question, “How should we then live?”

Blessed assurance. Jesus is mine.