What Kind of People Should We Be While We Wait?
There is a restlessness that most believers carry around without quite being able to name it. It surfaces when you look at the state of the world and feel a deep, aching sense that something is fundamentally wrong. It shows up in the exhaustion of hard work, strained relationships, and bodies that remind you every morning in the mirror that they are not built to last forever. It is the feeling of not quite being home.
That feeling is not a malfunction. It is a signal. Scripture describes believers as elect exiles, people chosen by God for salvation who, because of that very choosing, no longer belong to this world the way they once did. And if you have ever felt that particular kind of spiritual homesickness, you are not alone, and you are not losing your faith. You are simply becoming more aware of what has always been true.
The apostle Paul explains in Romans 8 that the entire created order has been subjected to futility. Sin entered the world, death followed, and the ground itself was cursed. That is why work is exhausting, relationships are fractured, and creation groans like a woman in labor. Everything we see and touch and love in this world is straining toward something it has not yet reached. And so are we.
This is the backdrop against which 2 Peter 3 speaks. After warning his readers at length about false teachers and the dangers of deception, Peter turns their attention to the second coming of Christ. It is not an accident that he ends there. The promise of Christ's return is the very thing that false teachers attack, scoffers dismiss, and a jaded, discouraged heart is most tempted to quietly abandon. Peter will not let that happen without a fight.
His question in verse 11 cuts straight to the point: since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be? One commentator has suggested that phrase could be rendered, "how astonishingly excellent you ought to be." That reframing alone is worth sitting with for a while.
The World Is Not Being Destroyed. It Is Being Set Free.
Before Peter answers his own question, it is worth pausing on what he means by dissolution. The Greek word translated as "dissolved" does not mean annihilation. It means to loose, to unbind, to let go. It is the same word Jesus used in John 11 when Lazarus stumbled out of the tomb still wrapped in grave clothes and Jesus said, "Unbind him and let him go." It is the same word used when the disciples were told to untie the donkey before the triumphal entry.
This matters enormously for how we understand what God intends to do with creation. The fire described in 2 Peter 3 is not the fire of destruction. It is the fire of purification. In the Old Testament, everything consecrated to God had to pass through fire. What Peter is describing is a re-consecration of the entire universe, a setting free of all that sin has bound and broken. Romans 8 confirms this, describing creation itself eagerly waiting for the freedom it will receive when God's children are fully redeemed.
God is not planning to reduce the universe to ash and start from scratch. He is planning a resurrection.
Three Marks of People Who Actually Believe That
So what does it look like to live in light of that promise? Peter points to three characteristics.
First, we are to be a distinct people. Holy and godly, he says. Holiness is not primarily a list of things to avoid. It is a state of being set apart for God, consecrated to him, belonging to him. Godliness is the ongoing work of becoming more like Christ. Together, they describe a people whose lives look different from the world around them, not because they are trying to be strange, but because they represent a different kingdom. When we understand that this present age is coming to an end and something infinitely better is coming, we stop trying to keep up with the world and start living like citizens of the country we actually belong to.
Second, we are to be an expectant people. Peter says we are to be "waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God." The waiting he describes is not passive resignation. It is eager anticipation, the kind a child has on Christmas morning, the kind a traveler has when a long-planned journey is finally within reach. The hastening is not about manipulating the timeline. It is about the way time collapses when you are fully absorbed in living for something. When the return of Christ is the deepest longing of your heart and your days are ordered around his purposes, the years get short and what seemed impossibly far away draws suddenly near. Revelation 21 gives us the destination: a new heaven and a new earth where God himself wipes away every tear, where mourning and pain and death are gone, and where the Alpha and Omega declares, "Behold, I am making all things new." That is worth being eager for.
Third, we are to be a peaceful people. Verse 14 calls believers to be diligent to be found by him "without spot or blemish and at peace." Peace here is not simply a calm mood. It is a fundamental reorientation of relationship. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, we have been justified and reconciled to God. The enmity is gone. We stand in good standing before the Father through the blood of his Son. That is the peace we rest in. And because we have peace with God, that peace shapes how we relate to one another. It produces patience, grace, and the kind of community where suffering members are surrounded and rejoicing members are celebrated together.
Come, Lord Jesus
The world will continue to press in. Scoffers will keep asking where the promise of his coming is. The spirit of the age will keep working to drain believers of hope and leave them jaded. But the answer to all of that is not more information. It is deeper formation into the kind of people who are distinct, expectant, and at peace.
Every question will be answered. Every injustice will be addressed. Every broken thing will be made new. Not because we have figured it out, but because the one who said "I am making all things new" is faithful to his word.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
That feeling is not a malfunction. It is a signal. Scripture describes believers as elect exiles, people chosen by God for salvation who, because of that very choosing, no longer belong to this world the way they once did. And if you have ever felt that particular kind of spiritual homesickness, you are not alone, and you are not losing your faith. You are simply becoming more aware of what has always been true.
The apostle Paul explains in Romans 8 that the entire created order has been subjected to futility. Sin entered the world, death followed, and the ground itself was cursed. That is why work is exhausting, relationships are fractured, and creation groans like a woman in labor. Everything we see and touch and love in this world is straining toward something it has not yet reached. And so are we.
This is the backdrop against which 2 Peter 3 speaks. After warning his readers at length about false teachers and the dangers of deception, Peter turns their attention to the second coming of Christ. It is not an accident that he ends there. The promise of Christ's return is the very thing that false teachers attack, scoffers dismiss, and a jaded, discouraged heart is most tempted to quietly abandon. Peter will not let that happen without a fight.
His question in verse 11 cuts straight to the point: since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be? One commentator has suggested that phrase could be rendered, "how astonishingly excellent you ought to be." That reframing alone is worth sitting with for a while.
The World Is Not Being Destroyed. It Is Being Set Free.
Before Peter answers his own question, it is worth pausing on what he means by dissolution. The Greek word translated as "dissolved" does not mean annihilation. It means to loose, to unbind, to let go. It is the same word Jesus used in John 11 when Lazarus stumbled out of the tomb still wrapped in grave clothes and Jesus said, "Unbind him and let him go." It is the same word used when the disciples were told to untie the donkey before the triumphal entry.
This matters enormously for how we understand what God intends to do with creation. The fire described in 2 Peter 3 is not the fire of destruction. It is the fire of purification. In the Old Testament, everything consecrated to God had to pass through fire. What Peter is describing is a re-consecration of the entire universe, a setting free of all that sin has bound and broken. Romans 8 confirms this, describing creation itself eagerly waiting for the freedom it will receive when God's children are fully redeemed.
God is not planning to reduce the universe to ash and start from scratch. He is planning a resurrection.
Three Marks of People Who Actually Believe That
So what does it look like to live in light of that promise? Peter points to three characteristics.
First, we are to be a distinct people. Holy and godly, he says. Holiness is not primarily a list of things to avoid. It is a state of being set apart for God, consecrated to him, belonging to him. Godliness is the ongoing work of becoming more like Christ. Together, they describe a people whose lives look different from the world around them, not because they are trying to be strange, but because they represent a different kingdom. When we understand that this present age is coming to an end and something infinitely better is coming, we stop trying to keep up with the world and start living like citizens of the country we actually belong to.
Second, we are to be an expectant people. Peter says we are to be "waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God." The waiting he describes is not passive resignation. It is eager anticipation, the kind a child has on Christmas morning, the kind a traveler has when a long-planned journey is finally within reach. The hastening is not about manipulating the timeline. It is about the way time collapses when you are fully absorbed in living for something. When the return of Christ is the deepest longing of your heart and your days are ordered around his purposes, the years get short and what seemed impossibly far away draws suddenly near. Revelation 21 gives us the destination: a new heaven and a new earth where God himself wipes away every tear, where mourning and pain and death are gone, and where the Alpha and Omega declares, "Behold, I am making all things new." That is worth being eager for.
Third, we are to be a peaceful people. Verse 14 calls believers to be diligent to be found by him "without spot or blemish and at peace." Peace here is not simply a calm mood. It is a fundamental reorientation of relationship. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, we have been justified and reconciled to God. The enmity is gone. We stand in good standing before the Father through the blood of his Son. That is the peace we rest in. And because we have peace with God, that peace shapes how we relate to one another. It produces patience, grace, and the kind of community where suffering members are surrounded and rejoicing members are celebrated together.
Come, Lord Jesus
The world will continue to press in. Scoffers will keep asking where the promise of his coming is. The spirit of the age will keep working to drain believers of hope and leave them jaded. But the answer to all of that is not more information. It is deeper formation into the kind of people who are distinct, expectant, and at peace.
Every question will be answered. Every injustice will be addressed. Every broken thing will be made new. Not because we have figured it out, but because the one who said "I am making all things new" is faithful to his word.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Posted in At Home in Hardship
Posted in #SecondComing, #Hope, #Holiness, #Godliness, #Resurrection, #NewCreation, #NewHeavenAndEarth, #Eschatology, #redemption, #Judgment, #Eternity, #AllthingsNew
Posted in #SecondComing, #Hope, #Holiness, #Godliness, #Resurrection, #NewCreation, #NewHeavenAndEarth, #Eschatology, #redemption, #Judgment, #Eternity, #AllthingsNew
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