Jesus called the generation of Jews living during the days of his earthly ministry a generation of vipers (Matthew 23:33), and he told them to fill up the cup of their fathers who had killed the prophets of God (Matthew 23:29-32). Moreover, Jesus told the Jewish authorities there in Jerusalem that he would send to them wise men and scribes whom they would kill, beat and persecute from city to city, and in the process of the wickedness they would bring upon their own heads the bloodguilt for all the righteous who were ever slain and persecuted. They, that faithless generation to whom Jesus spoke, would be held accountable and judged for it all (Matthew 23:34-36).
I had shown in previous studies that Peter had foretold of these very things in both of his epistles, but especially in the third chapter of his second epistle. There he claimed that the heavens and earth that stood in Peter’s days were held in store by the word of God and reserved for fire for the Day of Judgment, when God would destroy the ungodly men (2Peter 3:7). In other words God was bringing an end to his covenantal relationship with the nation of Israel. He would judge the wicked and preserve the righteous.
How did Peter know these things? Did he simply imagine them and attribute his thoughts to the Holy Spirit? I don’t think so. I believe he got his information from the Song of Moses. When Moses was about to die (Deuteronomy 31:14), he gathered all the people together to tell them what the latter end of them as a people would be. Moses told them they would become utterly corrupt (Deuteronomy 31:29):[1]
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Deuteronomy 32:20-22)
Notice that God said he would hide his face from them. According to Romans 1:18-32 God first withdraws from men when they don’t glorify him in the knowledge they have of him (verse-21). Afterward, men participate in all sorts of unclean behavior, believing they were wise in doing so, but in reality they only exposed their own foolishness. Their unrepentant behavior continued, until they no longer desired to know God, and again and again God gave them up to their desire by withdrawing further and further away (verse-28). So, Paul shows us how and why God hid his face from the Jews, and God said that he would “see their end” (Deuteronomy 32:20). That is, he would allow them to come to the end of themselves—to know what unrepentance brought them.
This steady unrepentant behavior throughout their history would be brought to an ultimate climax in the final generation of a faithless, perverse people. They moved God to jealousy through their behavior, so he would move them to jealousy by rejecting and judging them, while having mercy upon a nation who was not his people (cf. Hosea 1:9-10; 2:23; Romans 9:25-26). The fire Peter mentioned in 2Peter 3:7 is the fire of the wrath of God in Deuteronomy 32:22. Nothing is said of the literal universe catching fire and being destroyed. Such an understanding comes out of the imaginations of the hearts of men and imposed upon the text. There is no proof at all for the modern doctrine that God would bring an end to time and space. This is an evil doctrine that has produced only evil fruit. Don’t have anything to do with it.
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[1] This study was inspired by Dr. William Bell’s You Tube video: Reserved for Fire.
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