13 Why God’s ‘Delay’ Is Mercy, Not Failure (2 Peter 3:8-9)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for joining me today for Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is the podcast where we explain not only what scripture means, but how we know. Today is our 13th talk in our series on 2 Peter, and we will be looking at chapter 3, verses 8 and 9. The lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below the podcast, or you can find them on my website. Just go to wednesdayintheword.com slash 2 Peter 13. Thanks for downloading the podcast and let's get started. We have two sessions left in 2 Peter today and then next week we'll finish this section and we'll finish the book. But today we're only going to look at two verses. We're going to focus on chapter 3, verses 8 and 9, particularly verse 9. And the reason for that is this verse features in the debate between two theological perspectives. The Reformed perspective and the Arminian perspective. The debate is over the extent to which God sovereignly determines who is saved. The Reformed perspective is that God chooses who will be saved. The Arminians say that salvation depends on our individual free will. Now we're going to talk about some pretty controversial issues which sincere, Bible-believing, genuine Christians have been debating since the early days of Christianity. And let me just say up front, we are not all going to agree on the conclusions. I am not going to be able to answer all your questions. I don't pretend to have all the answers, nor do I believe that I have the market cornered on truth or understanding. We should approach a debate like this from the humble position that we are like a class of kindergartners debating who reads best. The fact of the matter is we are all still infants, and one day God will mature us and give us perfect understanding, but we are not there yet. As with any controversial topic, then I would urge you to know what you believe and to try to understand the other side well enough to know where it fails to persuade you. So first I'm going to explain what I think Peter is saying in the context, then I'm going to briefly summarize the debate and finally we will apply our understanding of 2 Peter to the debate. As good Bible students, we want to avoid approaching 2 Peter with a definite question in mind that we want this verse to answer. Rather, we should approach the text with no agenda other than to see how it fits into the letter in context. What did Peter think he was saying? That's our goal. What did Peter mean to say here? We want to forget all about the debate and figure out how these verses fit into the flow of what Peter has been saying. Then once we understand Peter in context, we'll go back and apply that understanding to the debate and see what we can learn. Now remember, Peter began the chapter by saying that he wrote these letters to wake up his readers. He wants them to remember the unified message of the prophets and the apostles, and he believes we must keep our eyes firmly fixed on our future hope so that we will know how to live wisely and well today. He warned that mockers are coming who are going to scoff at this future hope and scoff at the belief that Jesus will return. The mockers say, Where's the promise of his coming? I mean look around, he's not back yet. Life is going on the way things have always gone on and they always will, expecting Jesus to break into history one day and bring all this to a halt, well that's just silly. He hasn't come yet, so he never will. That's what the mockers are saying. And Peter began his answer to the mockers by pointing out that at least twice before we have had cataclysmic change and life did not just continue on as normal. The first cataclysmic change he points to is creation itself. God created the heavens and earth out of nothing, and then he created order and structure out of the chaos and void through his word. The second cataclysmic change was when God destroyed all life on the earth except for Noah's family during the flood. And again, Peter emphasized that came about through God's word. He argues that we have seen God intervene twice before in history, once in creation itself and once in the judgment of the flood, and we have every reason to believe that He will intervene once again to destroy the current world in judgment and replace it with a new creation where His righteousness rules. Both these first two events came about because of the word of God. God has told us a third event is coming and we should believe him. Now three, eight and nine are a continuation of this response to the mockers. Let me read them for us. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is 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. The mockers have argued, look, the world has been cruising along for years and years, how could it ever change? And Peter reminds them God does not think about time the way we think about time. And Peter seems to be borrowing his language from Psalm ninety, which is a Psalm of Moses. This is Psalm ninety, the first four verses. A prayer of Moses, the man of God Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations, before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You return man to dust and say return, O children of man, for a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. If you read through the rest of the Psalm, you'll see that Moses is contrasting the time span that God works with and the time span that we humans work with. Because of God's wrath against the sins of the people, mankind has been allotted a short time on earth, our days are numbered and are quickly gone, and in contrast, God is our dwelling place for all generations, as he says in ninety one, and he is from everlasting to everlasting, as he says in ninety verse two. And then he goes on in five through seven. You sweep them away as with a flood, they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and is renewed, in the evening it fades and withers, for we are brought to an end by your anger, by your wrath we are dismayed. To God, the passing of a thousand years is like the passing of one day into yesterday. One day goes by and now it's yesterday, and that's what a thousand years are like to God. Or it's like a watch in the night, which is just a set period of time, usually three to four hours. The watch is the fixed period of time that a shepherd might be tasked to stay awake to guard the sheep, or a guard in a tower might be tasked with staying awake to watch over the city. And Moses says a thousand years to God is like that one short watch in the night to us. Mankind's time is short, whereas God inhabits all of eternity. He is from everlasting to everlasting. Now Peter doesn't quote this Psalm verbatim, but he does seem to be borrowing the language. But Peter makes the comparison in both directions. Moses says to God a thousand years is like one day, and Peter says to God one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. To understand his point, we have to consider how we respond to these time periods. To us, we look at one day and we think that's just way too short. It is not nearly enough time to get done everything I have to get done. And we're always wishing that we had more hours in the day and we had more time. On the other hand, to us, a thousand years, well that's just way too long. That's too much time to do anything. We couldn't possibly keep a project going that long because we don't even live that long. To us, if something takes a year to accomplish, that's a really long time. So a thousand years, well that's not even worth talking about. But God doesn't see it that way. One day is not too short for God. He can do anything he wants to in one day. He can create the heavens and the earth in a day. The limits of a day are no limits at all to him. And likewise, a thousand years is not too long for God. He is well content to have his plan play itself out over thousands of years. It's no big deal, it's the same as a day. So why does Peter quote this? Well the mockers have said it's been so long that it's obvious that Jesus isn't coming back. If he was coming back, he would have done it by now. And Peter responds, It's foolish to see any length of time as evidence that Jesus will not return. That kind of argument would be true only if God saw time the way we see time. But God does not in fact see time like we do. God has shown himself to be the kind of God who works out his plans over thousands of years. If his plan is best suited to play out in forty years, that's what he does, or seventy years or a thousand years, that's what he does. He's not limited by time. A thousand years is no big deal to him. The mocker's complaint is based on a very human conception of time. If we have to wait several years for anything, we consider ourselves deprived and neglected and punished for such a long wait. We consider ourselves ill treated. But the God of the Bible does not see time that way, and it makes no sense to criticize the prophetic message for being slow in coming when God has shown himself to be a God who takes whatever time he thinks is best. And if you read through the Old Testament, it becomes painfully obvious that God does not follow a timetable that makes us comfortable. He follows a timetable that suits his purposes. Just read through the Psalms and notice how many times you see the phrase how long, O Lord. That's the cry of our hearts. Lord, this is taking too long. How long, how long? And yet we know that God always keeps his word and ultimately what God speaks will happen and he will fulfill his promises. It makes no sense to conclude that the Messiah is never coming back because he has not come yet. That's not the way God has worked in our history, and that's not the way he thinks about time. It never has been. So having just said in three eight that God uses time to accomplish his own purposes and he doesn't view time like we do, Peter goes on in three nine to say something about the purposes of God in relationship to time. Let me read the verses again. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is 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. That phrase not wishing that any should perish, that's the controversial phrase in the debate, but we want to forget about the debate right now and just think about how this verse fits into the context and the situation which Peter addresses in this letter. Peter is writing to a church that is plagued by false teachers who claim to be believers. The church probably has some teachers who are true and right and genuine, and some who are false. Some of the mockers are probably actively hostile to the gospel, and some may just be deceived by the false teachers. And the mockers are saying it's been so long, it's clear Jesus isn't coming back. If he was coming back at all, he would have come by now. And Peter says you make that claim as if it somehow discredits God. You say that as if this promise that the Messiah will return is not going to come true because it's been too long. But the fact that the Messiah has not yet returned is not a black mark on God. Quite the contrary, it is to God's credit. He is not being slow, he is being patient. He is giving you ample time to come to your senses and repent. This word patient in three nine is the long suffering kind of patience. It's not the patience where you don't get your feathers ruffled and you're not bothered by anything. This is the slow to anger kind of patience, where someone is messing up and you keep giving them more slack and more time, holding off your anger so that they might see the error of their ways. You're patiently working to teach them something and you want them to see the error of their ways. It's that kind of patience. Peter says God is not being slow to keep his promises, he is being slow in not coming back to destroy his enemies. He is slow in not condemning you who are mocking him. Let me give you an analogy. Suppose I tell my daughter I'm leaving for a while, and while I'm gone, I want you to clean up your room. When I return, I'm gonna take you out for ice cream if your room is cleaned up. And then I leave, but I don't come back when my daughter expects me to. How should my daughter interpret my delay? She could say I am being slow about my promise to take her out for ice cream, but if she is wise, she would interpret the delay as my kind patience. I am not coming back because I want to give her plenty of time to get her room cleaned up, so that when I do return I don't have to say, Oh, messy room, no ice cream. That's the kind of patience we're talking about. It's a waiting so that the other person has time to do the right thing. And Peter says, You mockers, you should interpret the slowness of Christ's return like the wise daughter. You should take this time to repent because one day it's gonna be too late to repent. You mockers should be glad he's not here yet. The fact that he has not returned is a good thing for you because you still have time to repent. God's delay is to his credit because he's giving you a chance to repent. I think that's his point. And he's gonna make this same point explicit when we get to three fifteen. In three fifteen it says, And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. Now that word patience in three fifteen is the same word, the kind of patient long suffering. And he says, Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. Don't think of the delay as a bad thing, see it as God's long suffering patience so that you might arrive at salvation. Now it's interesting that Peter says Paul wrote the same thing. So as good Bible students we want to ask, well, where did Paul say that? It could be that Peter is referring to a letter that Paul wrote that we don't have, a letter that didn't survive, but I think most likely he's referring to Romans two. Tradition tells us that Peter wrote this letter from Rome shortly before his imprisonment and execution, and if that were the case, then Peter would likely be familiar with the letter that Paul sent to Rome. And in Romans two three, Paul writes, Do you suppose, O man, you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Now notice both Peter and Paul speak of the long suffering patience of God, and both of them say the goal of God's patience is that we might repent. But the situations they are addressing are different. Peter is addressing mockers who dismiss the second coming of Christ because he hasn't come back yet. Paul is addressing those who consider themselves righteous. He is speaking to those who condemn others, and yet they are just the same as the people they are condemning. And Paul accuses them of thinking lightly of the riches of God's kindness, forbearance, and patience. These folks look at their lives and say, Look, everything is going fine right now, so I must be okay, God must be pleased with me, because hey look, life is good. And Paul warns them what you're experiencing is not God's approval. What you're experiencing is God's long suffering patience. He is not condemning you, not because he approves of you, but rather because he wants to give you ample time to repent. The fact that God has not yet judged you is not evidence that you are righteous. It is evidence that God is kind and patiently giving you time to see the error of your ways. But ultimately, judgment is coming, and Paul goes on to talk about that. So we see Peter and Paul addressing different sorts of people, but these groups have something in common. Peter's mockers and Paul's hypocrites are both drawing the wrong conclusion from God's lack of activity. They look at the fact that God has not acted and then they draw the wrong conclusion from it. Peter's mockers are looking at the fact that Jesus has not come back yet, and Paul's hypocrites are looking at the fact that God has not judged them. Peter's mockers have concluded, well, look, Jesus is never coming back, and Paul's hypocrites have concluded, hey, God must be pleased with me. So both Peter's mockers and Paul's hypocrites have drawn the same wrong conclusion, that is, God has not acted yet, so he never will. But both Peter and Paul say, wait, you have misunderstood. The fact that God has not yet acted does not mean he never will. God is delaying to give you time to repent. The delay shows that God is kind and gracious and slow to anger. And the appropriate response to his delay is to repent because ultimately God is going to act, and those who have refused to repent will be destroyed. I think that's Paul's point in Romans 2, and I think that's Peter's point in this letter. God's lack of activity is your chance to reassess your situation and repent. And I think that's the connection that Peter is drawing on in 315 when he says Paul also wrote to you that the patience of God is your salvation. I think Paul makes the same point in Romans 2. God's lack of response is meant to give you time to repent. So that's the context for our verses in 3, 8, and 9. Peter is responding to mockers who are claiming that because Jesus has not come back yet, he never will. Peter says you're drawing the wrong conclusion from God's lack of activity. The fact that God has not yet acted does not mean he never will. God has not yet acted because he wants to give you time to repent and you are fortunate that he has not yet acted. God doesn't think about time the way we humans do. He's willing to spend thousands of years to work out his purposes, and in this case you are lucky that he is taking his time because his patience is all that separates you from your final destruction. That's Peter's overall point, and it's the next part of his response to the mockers. So that brings us to this phrase in three nine that's the center of the debate over the sovereignty of God and human free will. Three nine again says, The Lord is slow to fulfill his promises as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. So that phrase, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance, that phrase from this verse is frequently quoted on the Arminian side of the debate, and they use it to argue their case. For those of you not familiar with the debate, let me give you a very brief summary. I have a more in-depth talk on this debate, which I will link to in the lecture notes. But briefly, this debate goes all the way back to Augustine and Pelagius early in Christian history in the fourth century AD. Pelagius believed that we are capable of obedience. He claimed moral responsibility by definition carries with it moral ability. In other words, if God requires Us to be holy, then we must be able to be holy. God would not require us to be something that we can't be. If God requires us to be holy and obedient, then we must be capable of being holy and obedient. Pelagius argued that grace then facilitates our quest for holiness, but grace is not necessary for us to reach it, and that's the crucial distinction. He argued that grace helps us in our quest to be holy, but it is not necessary. We are capable of holiness without it. Augustine, on the other hand, believed that we are not capable of obedience. He argued that the Bible teaches what we call total depravity today. And by total depravity I mean every part of us is corrupted by sin. It is total in the sense of every square inch. It's not total in the sense that we are the worst we could be, it is total in that we are completely corrupted. There is no corner of our being left over unmarked by sin. We are not capable of obedience on our own without the grace of God. We are not capable of doing good because all our acts of kindness, compassion, and generosity are corrupted by our fallen, sinful nature. So Augustine believed that grace not only facilitates our quest to obey God, but because we are fallen, grace is absolutely necessary to obey God. Augustine argued that God required holiness both before and after the fall. The fall didn't change God's requirement, the fall changed us. Before the fall we were capable of being holy, but after the fall, apart from the grace of God, we are not capable of being holy. The Pelagian controversy ended with the church condemning Pelagius and his followers as heretics. But Augustine's views were not universally embraced and there arose a new challenge which has become known as semi Pelagianism or Arminianism. Because this view is best represented by James Arminius, who was born in fifteen sixty. Unlike Pelagius, Arminius argued that grace is necessary for salvation, but he argued that grace does not ensure salvation. So he thought grace is a necessary condition for salvation, but it is not a sufficient condition. When God elects you, he argued, God chooses you to receive forgiveness, but election alone, God's election alone does not guarantee you will be saved. Before God's election you were unable to obey, and then Arminius thought, after God's election you are able to obey, but there is no guarantee that you will do so. So let me illustrate the difference. Suppose you are drowning in the middle of the ocean and God throws you a life preserver. That's grace. God sent his son to die for you, providing a means for your forgiveness which you didn't deserve, and that is represented by his throwing you a life preserver. That's grace. But you have to reach out your hand and grab it. And whether or not you grab the life preserver is up to you. You can cooperate in your salvation by grabbing the life preserver or you can refuse and you can drown. God's done his part, now you have to do yours. That's the view of Arminius or semi-pelagianism. The reformed view, on the other hand, would argue you're already dead. You are already drowned and you are fish food on the bottom of the ocean floor, and throwing you a life preserver is not going to help you because you can't reach out and grab it. You're already dead. Grace is God making you alive again because of the blood of Jesus. So the reformers and the Arminians differ on what makes the difference between the elect and the non-elect, or the saved and the unsaved. Arminius would say the difference between the saved and the unsaved is whether or not they reach out and grab the life preserver. And what determines whether I grab it or not? Well, most Arminians would answer whether or not I have faith. If I have faith I grab it, and if I don't, I drowned. So under the Arminian view, it's quite possible that Christ's death on the cross saved no one. Under their view, there's a sense in which Christ is a potential savior. His death is sufficient to satisfy God's demands for justice, but it does not guarantee salvation for anyone because we have to add through our own free will choice our faith into the equation. So Christ's death provides the life preserver, but it's possible, at least hypothetically, that no one would in fact actually grab it because no one had faith. So under the Arminian view, Christ's death is not guaranteed to be efficient for everyone. It is efficient or efficacious only if I have faith. If faith is necessary for atonement, then Christ's death merely makes salvation possible, but it does in fact not save anyone. So in Arminian theology, faith comes first. Faith precedes regeneration. God throws me a life preserver in Christ's death and resurrection, and if I have faith I grab it and then I am saved. This is where the reformers disagree. Reformers say salvation comes first or regeneration precedes faith. Reformers say I am in a state of total depravity, I am unable to take that initial step toward God. But God in his mercy, because of the blood of Jesus Christ, makes me alive again and gives me the faith to turn to Him. So reformers say if I have to reach out and grab the life preserver, that makes faith a work of man. That makes faith something I do or don't do, and my salvation depends on whether I do it or not. Faith then becomes something I have or don't have, which determines whether or not God's offer of grace really saves me or not, and that is salvation by works. You'll hear scholars framing this debate in terms of monergistic or synergistic regeneration. That's the theological terms. Monergism is something that operates by itself or works alone as the sole active party. So you can think of a saw. One person uses it, one person activates it. The opposite of monergism is synergism. Monergism is one person alone, synergism is two or more cooperating. So then we apply that to regeneration, and by re regeneration we mean the Holy Spirit working on our hearts. The question is, does the Holy Spirit work with our assistance, with our cooperation or without it? Now remember, for this debate, the issue on the table is the beginning of salvation, not the entire process. We're talking about that moment where I become saved. So in one moment I am not saved, I do not have faith, I am not saved by the grace of God, and the next moment I am. In that moment, in that moving, that regeneration from being unsaved to saved, do I cooperate or not? Now Augustine would say it is a monarchistic work of God that changes the human heart from spiritual death to spiritual life. Augustine would say it is God's choice, not mine. It is God's grace that changes the sinner from someone who is unwilling to believe, who is a rebel to the things of God, and changes that person into someone who is now willing and eager to follow Christ. The sinner's not dragged to Christ, kicking and screaming, he's not forced to do something he doesn't want to do, he is changed to be the kind of person that now loves the things of God. And that initial step is monergistic. It is God working alone. Arminianism, on the other hand, says it is synergistic from beginning to end. So Arminians would say that the will has been crippled by sin, but we have a certain freedom left such that we are able to return to God. So we're sick, but we're not dead. We're wounded by sin, but we're not mortally wounded. And grace then helps our crippled nature turn back to God, but we have to cooperate it with it. So for Arminians, the process is synergistic from the beginning. That crucial distinction is that the sinner must cooperate with that first initial step toward salvation. So for the Arminians, faith precedes regeneration and is synergistic. For the reformer, regeneration precedes faith and it's monergistic. Now, the Arminian side of this debate quotes 2 Peter 3.9 as one of its key supporting texts. Second Peter 3.9 says that God does not wish that any should perish, but all should come to repentance. If God's doing the choosing, he would choose everybody, since he wants all to come to salvation and no one to perish. Clearly, some do perish. Therefore, Arminians claim God is not the one doing the choosing alone, rather, he is leaving it to our free will. And you can see there is some sense to their argument. We have Peter telling us that God passionately wishes everyone to be saved, and then we see him condemning certain people. Well, how do I put these two things together? How does it make sense for God to say, I really want you to be saved, but I'm not going to save you? And the Arminians say, Well, we've solved this problem. It makes sense because salvation and faith is a choice of our free will. God wants everyone to be saved, he throws everyone the same life preserver, but some of us do not have the faith to reach out and grab it, and therefore some of us perish. As much as God might want us all to be saved, he limits himself by our free will. Alright, so what do the reformers say? Well, the reformed theologian R. C. Sprawl responds with, wait a minute, there are at least three ways to think about God's will, and you are mixing them up. There's God's will of disposition, that is what God likes, how he is disposed toward things. For instance, he loves grace, mercy, charity, generosity, he dislikes sin, therefore he wants things to be a certain way and to conform to what he values. So that's God's will of disposition, how he is disposed, what he likes. Secondly, there is God's preceptive will, precepts as in commands. These are the things that God commands that we must follow. And third, there is God's decretive will, that is what God has decreed and determined will in fact happen in history. To simplify that, God likes things a certain way, He commands certain things, and He sovereignly determines in history what will happen. And we can make a distinction between those levels of God's will, what He likes, what He commands, and what He determines. Now Arminians respond, okay, that is unnecessarily complicated, and you are making distinctions that don't need to be made. But I would say we actually make these kinds of distinctions frequently. For example, Paul uses this same word we have for wishing in Philemon. And you'll recall that Paul's letter to Philemon is a personal letter. It is written to Philemon about a slave Philemon had, Anesimus. So Anesimus was a slave in Philemon's household and he ran away. He meets Paul in Rome and becomes a believer. Philemon has also become a believer, and Paul is sending Anesimus back to Philemon along with this letter of explanation. And Paul tells Philemon, your former slave is now your brother in Christ, and I ask that you receive him as you would receive me. And in that letter, Paul writes, this is Philemon one twelve through fourteen, the Numeric and Standard Version. I have sent him back to you in person, that is sending my very heart, whom I wish to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel, but without your consent I do not want to do anything so that your goodness would not be in effect by compulsion, but of your own free will. Now that word in one thirteen, whom I wish to keep with me, that's the same word we see in Peter. But notice in this situation we have Paul saying I want to do one thing, but I am in fact doing another thing. Paul says I would like to keep Anessimus with me, but I am not keeping him with me because I think something else is the right course of action. Now, if you're interested in what's going on in Philemon, I'll put a link to my Philemon talks on in the lecture notes. I don't want to get into that debate other than to notice what you have here is Paul saying I wish to keep him, but I didn't keep him, so I'm sending him back to you because there's something I want more. Now we could apply R. C. Spurl's distinctions here. Paul's will of disposition is to keep Anesimus with him. That's what he'd like to do, that's how he's disposed. But his decretive will is that Anesimus return. That is what he actually did. Because there was something else he wanted more. He did not want to keep Anesimus with him without Philemon's consent. Now that's a situation we can all relate to. We all face situations where we have multiple desires and they conflict, and some are more important than others. So when our desires come into conflict, we act on the desire that is of higher importance to us. We've seen this in real life all the time. Parents may say, I don't want to discipline you, my child, but I am going to do it because it's for your best interest. You know, you've always heard mom say, you know, this is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you. Well, why? Because parents have a genuine and real desire to love and spoil their children, but they know it is more important that children learn right from wrong than that they get spoiled. Well, that's exactly the kind of distinction we could make in Second Peter. It seems very natural to say that God wants something in one sense or at one level of his will, but he does not want it in another sense, at another level of his will. That's what we humans do all the time, and it's fair to say that we get that knowledge, that ability to make that kind of distinction from our Creator. In fact, I would argue the ability to make that kind of distinction between self-control and acting on every desire is one of the things that Peter said the false teachers have lost. Remember in 212 he said they were acting like unreasoning animals, following instinct, acting on every desire without distinction. It is this kind of distinction we're talking about. So I don't think it's unreasonable to make a distinction between levels of desires, different kinds of desires or levels of God's will. Second, I would argue that the Arminian position also requires a distinction between two aspects of God's will. Peter says God does not wish any to perish, but Peter has also said judgment is coming and God will destroy his enemies when judgment comes. And we could describe that in theological terms. God's will of disposition, what he would like is that no one would perish, but God's decreed of will, what he actually does, is that those who rebel against him will perish. And the Arminians have to make that same distinction. They have to say yes, he wants everyone to be saved, but it's more important to him not to violate anyone's free will. What he wants more is to maintain the integrity of free will. So in order not to perish, we have to respond with faith, and God is not willing to violate our free choice there by making us respond in faith. If we fail to respond to faith, then God's willing to let us make that choice and we perish. On that level, both the Reformers and the Arminians agree. There is a sense in which God wants everyone to be saved, and yet He doesn't save everyone because there is something He wants more. So both sides are making a distinction between levels of God's will. He wants everyone to be saved on the one hand, but he wants something else more on the other. Both acknowledge that we can want something in one sense and we can want something else more, and that something else determines how we act. Where the two sides differ is on what it is that God wants more. Armenians say that what God wants more is to maintain the integrity of human free will and therefore he does not intervene when we reject the life preserver. Reformers would say God has an overall purpose for creation and for redemptive history, and in that purpose he has decreed that some will perish and some will receive grace. So God has a story he wants to tell, and that story requires both judgment and mercy. Now that's about as far as I'm going to go into the debate. I have some talks on it on my website, which I'll link to in the lecture notes, and I'll give you some other resources if you want to delve into it further. I will tell you that I land firmly in the reformed camp on this one. I think the Armenian view is wrong. I think that scripture teaches that we are saved by grace through faith, and that faith is a gift of God, and if God did not reach out and change us to give us faith, none of us would be saved. I would even go one step further. I don't think there is a contradiction between human free will and God's sovereignty such that you can't have both. I think there are ways of putting those two things together. Okay, but let's take all that back to first Peter then. Peter says the Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. Now the Arminian side claims the most natural and obvious way to understand three nine is that God wants everyone to be saved, but he values free will more and so he lets some perish. I would argue that is only the natural and obvious way of reading this verse if I start from the Arminian assumption. If I am already coming from the Arminian worldview and I bring those theological presuppositions to Second Peter, then yes, that is a natural and obvious reading. But the verse itself does not say that God's highest motive is not to violate our free will. In fact, the verse says nothing about free will at all. You have to assume that free will is one of God's highest values and read that understanding into the verse. The verse implies that God wants something else more and we have to figure out what that is. Peter isn't addressing that issue, so we have to look at our presuppositions and other scriptures to try to fill in that question or to answer that question. And if we start with the Arminian perspective, then we will answer it that way. If we start with the reformed position that God is telling a story in creation and that story involves both judgment and grace, then the quote obvious and natural reading of 2 Peter will sound very different because we're filling in the answer to that question with a different presupposition. And that brings me to a very important Bible study point. Presuppositions matter. What we bring to the text can help us or it can hurt us. If we bring the wrong assumptions to the text, we will ask the wrong questions. And get the wrong answers. And as we study, we have to be aware of what we're bringing to the text. We are always building a worldview. And we have to be willing to stop and think wait, is my worldview right here? Does my presupposition fit? Am I reading into the text? Am I willing to abandon or revise that presupposition based on what I learned? Now, Arminians and reformers agree there is a sense in which God wants everyone to be saved, and yet there is something he wants more such that he lets some perish. And I would argue that 2 Peter 3 9 alone cannot settle this debate. We have to look elsewhere in the rest of Scripture to try to sort that out. And I think the Arminians are wrong to use this verse as if it settles the debate once and for all. I don't think it settles it by itself because of what we just had talked about about presuppositions. It only settles it if you assume that perspective going into the verse. We have to look at the rest of Scripture to figure out why God would wish something that He does not decree. Now, what might that be? Again, scholars have debated this for centuries. I do not have all the answers, I do not have time to really go into this debate, but let me at least give you a little bit of the other side. We can think of God's relationship to creation like an author's relationship to the story he writes in a book. So think of God as a novelist. But as a novelist, he has written himself into the story. So he is both the author of the story and he acts as a character in the story, and we have to understand those roles differently. As a character in the story, inside the novel, he wishes that nothing bad ever happens to one of his characters and that no character turns out to be evil. As the author of the story, outside the novel, he has a different agenda. He has a purpose in writing the story, and to fulfill that higher purpose, bad things happen to his characters, and some of them turn out to be evil. Inside the novel, he encourages his characters to do the right thing, to return to a wise way of living and to repent of their evil actions. Inside the novel, he waits patiently for their response, enduring their scorn and ridicule in the meantime. And inside the novel he might say he wants everyone to be saved, and on one level, he does want everyone to be saved. Outside the novel, as the author, he has written that some will receive grace and some will not because that fits best his purpose for writing the novel. Outside the novel, it is a better story if there is both judgment and mercy. Outside the novel, judgment and mercy fit his creative purpose best. Now I would argue that we are not in a position to judge whether God has a right to tell a story that involves both judgment and mercy. And that's I think what Paul argues in Romans 9. We are God's creatures, we are not his peers, and it is not our place to judge him as the author and creator of the universe. Now for our purposes here, we have to recognize that when we're studying a particular passage, sometimes the writer is talking about God as author, and sometimes the writer is talking about God as a character in the novel. For instance, when Jesus says, No one comes to me except the Father draws him, that sounds to me like a description of God as the author, the transcendent creator of the universe. The author and creator of the universe is reaching into his creation and calling some back to him, and he gives faith to those he draws. But other times the Bible speaks from our perspective, from the perspective of God as a character in the book. So Jesus says, knock and the door shall be opened, ask and it shall be given to you. From our perspective, we ask for faith. We seek God, we choose to knock and seek, and that is speaking of God as a character in the story. Here, Peter could be describing God's desires as a character in the novel, or he could be describing God's desires as the transcendent creator of the universe. Now I'm inclined to think that Peter is speaking from our perspective in this verse. He is writing to an audience that includes genuine believers, false teachers, and those who are considering joining the false teachers. And he seems to be saying, God is giving you time to repent. God has not acted because he wants you to repent and come back to him. And that is looking at the situation from our perspective as characters in the story. God is giving you time to repent so that you might find life. So listen and repent. Just because you have been a mocker and been a rebel does not mean it's too late. God's desire is that even the mockers and scoffers should not perish. You still have a chance. It's not too late. You have not blown it such that God will reject you if you repent now. You can still repent. That appears to me to be the flow of thought in Second Peter. God's giving you time to repent, so use it well. From my perspective, I desperately need to grab hold of the life preserver. But if we part the curtain and look at the author behind the curtain, then we see there's another layer to the story, and I only want to grab the life preserver because God has been working in my life to open my eyes to see it and want it. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to apply serious Bible study to real life and to help you learn how to study. Please tell your friends about this podcast. It's really easy to subscribe. Just go to wednesdayintheword.com and click on subscribe to this podcast, and it will show you how.org, and I invite you to check out his wonderful music. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word. In the meantime, I hope you find some time to visit my website, wednesdayintheword.com, and take advantage of some of my free Bible study materials.