(This is not an accident. The various passages covering the topic of the Lord’s return are intended to be encouraging for God’s people. They are intended to keep us thoughtful about His return.)
Ah, but it turns out that God reserves the right to define “soon.” That’s one of Peter’s main points. That’s why he chose to quote from a Psalm which spells out the fact that God is not like us, that God’s very eternality should be a warning to the scoffers who were ULTIMATELY just scoffing about the fact of the Lord’s DELAY (and trying to use the DELAY as a basis for insinuating that He is NOT GOING TO COME BACK).
This is what the full-preterists have never faced squarely. They ignore 2 Peter 3 while pretending to interpret it.
So, in a peculiar way, the passage is ultmately a warning about today’s full-preterists. Like the scoffers in Peter’s day, they say the Lord is NOT COMING BACK. To be more specific, they say that if God never had any intentions of sending His Son back to earth in a way which was HUMANLY soon, then God is a LIAR.
So, don’t be fooled by the full-preterists’ smarmy arguments invoking a Bodily return by Christ in 70 A.D. They have to be disfellowshipped. They are scoffers who are just hiding behind the intepretive difficulties inherent in the Olivet Discourse. At the bottom-line, they really are calling God a liar while pretending to interpret His words. My goodness, they are DEFYING the ENTIRE POINT of 2 Peter 3.
(I would use basically the same argument in applying to them Paul’s condemnation of Hymenaeus and Philetus. As you know, the full-preterists say that the warnings against the doctrine of Hymenaeus and Philetus don’t apply to them in view of the events of 70 A.D [i.e., shortly after Peter’s epistle]. But we mustn’t be spiritually naive. We musn’t be fooled by the Satanic shell-game which the full-preterists are playing. We need to notice that their position renders Christianity essentially MEANINGLESS. We need to notice that they are trying to DESTROY the hope of the Church.
We don’t have to understand the Olivet Discourse to realize that. On the contrary, we ought to realize that the full-preterists’ interpretation of the Oiivet Discourse is the very first one which we can rule OUT!)
Getting back to 2 Peter 3, I would say that 2 Peter 3 is important in warning us that goofball eschatology is not to be coddled. Considering Peter’s scathing characterization of the scoffers as "walking after their own lusts," we need to notice that a sinner’s bad eschatology can amount to a revelation that he is just plain LOST.
(I will grant that we can’t always tell the difference between a lost person and a genuine Christian who has lapsed into carnal stupidity in matters such as eschatology. But this fact is automatically a warning that a lot of folks who get pronounced saved are not saved. And in movements where stupid eschatological positions are exalted at the expense of the gospel and the True Hope of the Church, a lot of folks will be discovered on Judgment Day as having been lost the whole time. They will be revealed as idolaters.)
In short, 2 Peter 3 is an extraordinarily serious text!
More later.
In effect, they are scoffing at Peter.
***
As an important aside, let me point out that I conceded that even heretics like the full-preterists sometimes grasp some things in the Bible. They just get a bad case of brain-fog in the really crucial areas.
Remember: James Stuart Russell was correct in pointing out that the Bible itself definitely caused the people of the apostolic period to hope that the Lord would return for them soon. But Russell never figured out what that idea of soonness meant. Russell had zillions of proof-texts for his position, but Peter bluntly overrules Russell’s overall interpretation. (It’s actually rather funny when you think about it.)
Am I saying that Russell ignored 2 Peter 3? You bet I am.
Am I saying that Russell did not even expound 2 Peter 3? No, he definitely did expound it. But he expounded it in a completely asinine way which ultimately IGNORED what Peter was saying.
Again, Russell was a scoffer. And by his carnal stupidity in the way he “interpreted” 2 Peter 3, Russell really was scoffing at Peter.
***
I want you to see from all of this stuff that eschatological scoffing is damnably serious. And since the premills often claim that the amills are ungodly eschatological scoffers--and occasionally vice versa!—we ought to be willing to go to considerable lengths to find out which side is guilty of carnal scoffing.
I would also dare to suggest that the overall outline of the mess which the full-preterists like Russell are in should be used as the outline for our investigation. Specifically, we need to keep in mind that
1) Russell was CHARITABLY REGARDED by many if not most of his ministerial colleagues as a Christian, when he should have been quickly disiplined as a heretic. POINT: There really are eschatological scoffers within the professing Church. And the Church has not been apostolically bold in confronting them (not even the really BAD guys like smarmy, lying Mr. Russell).
In other words, the Church as a whole has not followed Peter’s apostolic lead in denouncing eschatological scoffers very much better than the scoffers themselves have followed Peter’s lead. We need to change this! That being the case, if anyone thinks that this millennial topic is too divisive for serious, even confrontational discussion, I say that they need to change their carnal minds. They need to be a whole lot more apostolic. (The really brattish folks are the ones who inscessantly gripe at any serious and Scripturally faithful discussion leader as surely just a decidedly awful troublemaker!)
2) Russell had ZILLIONS of proof-texts for his full-preterism. POINT: You can have lots of proof-texts and still miss the point of what these texts are saying. And I say that this is the case with either the premills or the amills in the present controversy. (I cheerfully admit that I am leaving out the post-mills. I am an amill, of course, and my really serious disagreement is with the premills. The sub-controversy between amills and post-mills can be worked out elsewhere. Besides, the amills and the post-mills are relatively close together anyway.)
3) Russell DID expound 2 Peter 3. But his exposition was asinine. He was just trying to expound 2 Peter 3 in a way which propped up his larger eschatological error. In this way, he ignored what Peter was really saying. POINT: One of the two factions in the present controversy between the premills and the amills is WRONG in its interpretation of 2 Peter 3. One of the two factions is being weirdly DISHONEST concerning what Peter is saying.
The really scary thing about this is that the bad interpretation of 2 Peter 3 is succeeding in the overall deception. There is a nasty party spirit which has made one of the parties carnally stupid in regard to what Peter is actually saying. (Hey, Russell’s goofy and much-too-smug followers also think his exposition of 2 Peter 3 is lovely--when it is nothing but sheer crap.)
***
I trust that you will appreciate my tedious approach. I will not continue to bash Russell incessantly in the remainder of my posts concerning 2 Peter 3. I just want you to realize that this investigation of the matter of eschatological scoffing is much too serious for treating as a chatty coffee-table discussion. By my willingness to attack Russell’s camp with all vigor, I want you to see that my approach to exposition is one of application. I say that we must not try to interpret Scripture in a way which is intellectually and spiritually isolated from the controversy we are trying to address.
To conclude this e-mail, I would say that I intend to key on my Point #3, presented above.
Why? It’s BECAUSE of what I said in my previous two points. We need to get SERIOUS about following Peter’s apostolic lead. We need to make sure we DON’T make the carnal mistake of bringing Biblically confused presuppositions to 2 Peter 3.
In other words, we need to figure out WHICH side in the present controversy is “interpreting” 2 Peter 3 in a way which inadvertently SCOFFS at what PETER is saying.
(Having framed the controversy in that way, you should already see that the amills are correct. No kidding. But some of you party-spirit folks are spiritually dull. No kidding [grin].)
More later.