A Wizard is Never Late
God is often late. Or, at least, God is often later than we would otherwise expect. Peter puts it this way:
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. (2 Peter 3:8-10)
The delay of Jesus’ return is not an aberration but part of a pattern, and understanding the nature of that pattern sheds light on Peter’s argument, not to mention pastoral ministry and the Christian life. A line from Psalm 90 is at the heart of Peter’s case: “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” As is often the case, the citation of this line of the Psalm is meant as a reflection on the whole psalm, and if you take a look at it you will find a number of themes that Peter draws on throughout 2 Peter 3 as a whole.
In short: Peter’s use of Psalm 90 provides a trajectory for exploring a significant biblical theme. Why does God delay? God does indeed delay, but the delay is always in service of salvation.
How Long o Lord?
Peter answers the particular theological problem under discussion by appealing to a common experience, one which is poignantly expressed in this song for the saints. The fact that God dwells in eternity, and so does not number the days as we do, results in a existential crisis for us humans. What is magnificently tragic for us is but a step in God’s plan (90:5-6), and what passes our notice is of great significance to him (90:8). The result is the cry of lament, “how long?” And the paradoxical answer that wisdom provides: “make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil” (90:15).
How can we be “glad” despite our days of affliction? For the psalmist, gladness arises only as we consider God’s eternal purpose. It is because glad days will infinitely outnumber the evil ones, because his “glorious power” will be shown to his people, because he will show eternal favor on our fleeting work that we can be glad. It is, in short, because after all the waiting, he saves and redeems in a way that provides abundant answer to the loss.
In the Fullness of Time
Our experiences mirror the story of the world. They are an instantiation of a redemptive-historical archetype. Perhaps the most significant parallel to the situation in 2 Peter comes from Genesis 15:12-16, where Abraham is assured that he his descendants will take possession of the promised land, but not until the “fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (12:6). In the meantime “your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs” and “afterward they shall come out with great possessions” (15:13, 14).
Notice that there are actually two reasons for the delay, the most explicit of which is that the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its fullness. That seems odd; why would God want sin to grow? Why not stop it here and now? Since the purpose of the occupation of the land was to bring judgment on its inhabitants (Lev. 18:25, Dtr. 20:17), it is likely that God delays in order to allow for the occupants of the land to repent, and only when such repentance becomes impossible is God’s patience exhausted and their destruction certain. This fits the pattern of redemptive history so far, and is later exemplified in the plagues of Egypt. God calls the wicked to repentance with increasing urgency and more severe discipline, but repeated rejection of God’s call results in the escalation of condemnation.
The second reason is less obvious at first, but becomes increasingly apparent as the narrative continues. Abraham’s family must grow into a nation before it can displace nations. Abraham’s present entourage is too small for such an endeavor. God could, of course, raise up children of Abraham from the rocks, or he could topple walls with trumpets, but the task of cleansing the promised land, and holding it, and cultivating it as God requires, is kingdom work. Abraham must first become a people before he can take up his inheritance as a nation. And that takes generations. The stay in Egypt is as much to grow Abraham into a people sufficient for the task of war and occupation and cultivation as it is to give the Amorites time to repent.
It is this same dynamic that is presupposed by 2 Peter 3:9. On the one hand, the delay is a function of God’s desire to see “everyone” repent, since he does not desire the death of the wicked. At the same time, it allows the people of God to grow (in the case of the New Covenant, through covenant children and through evangelism) in number and in maturity until it is sufficient (quantitatively and qualitatively) to be caretakers of the promised land, that is, the world to come. Both aspects of the dynamic further God’s purposes of salvation.
The Son of Man Must Suffer
It is no surprise, then, that we find both the personal and redemptive-historical experience of delay exemplified in the life, death, and ascension of Jesus. Jesus himself delayed. The resurrection of Lazarus is, perhaps, the most dramatic example, for there we see Jesus deliberately lingering (“he stayed two days longer;” John 11:6), and when questioned responds “I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” The resurrection of Lazarus, which brings salvation to many and glory to God, is the answer to the delay. Furthermore, it is not insignificant that Jesus also suffers in this; he also weeps.
Jesus also experienced the delay. Again many examples come to mind, but perhaps the most significant is the three days he spent under the power of death. The number is not arbitrary (it is the smallest number of “completeness”), and the significance is certainly felt by Jesus’ followers. His disciples mourn as if he is really dead, and that’s because he really is dead, not playing dead or “spiritually” dead, as the gnostics would have it. He was dead for three days, and perhaps here we should again recall that, for the Lord, a day can be as a thousand years. Holy Saturday is a day for those who wait; a reminder that at the time there was no hope, but then Easter came.
Jesus’s story is our story, which is the world’s story. Paul puts it this way:
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Rom. 8:19-21)
Adam’s fall subjected the creation to futility, but rather than “fix” the problem then and there (by destroying Adam and the world over which he reigned), God waited. He waited until a King could be found he would not only destroy death, but establish the reign of righteousness that was to be Adam’s. That Son-King has now come, and he sits enthroned, and he has planted the seeds of New Creation in the soil of this present world, until it is ready for the harvest. And so, again, the world waits, and so do we.
