Suppose you were at a sports event in the United States. Before the game you hear music, but it is a tune you never heard before. Would you stand, believing they played our National Anthem? If you attended a special worship service in your local church, and the pamphlet listing the hymns to be sung showed Amazing Grace was the next hymn to be sung, but the organ player sounded out a popular song of the day, would you begin singing Amazing Grace (cp. 1Corinthians 14:8)? When Peter wrote his second epistle to the folks in the first century AD, they knew exactly what he meant, when he wrote in apocalyptic language that the heavens and the earth would pass away. They knew he wasn’t speaking literally, because they had been schooled in apocalyptic language. Just as sports fans, today, know the language of their favorite sport: homerun, strike, ball, touchdown, three-pointer etc. so the Jews of the first century AD knew what Peter meant when he wrote to them, saying the heavens and the earth would be burnt up.
Audience relevancy is important. Peter didn’t write to you or me specifically. We are able to benefit from what he said, but we need to come to understand how Peter’s original audience received his letter. How they understood him is important for our own benefit. For example, if Peter wasn’t really saying the universe would be literally destroyed, we could never benefit from his epistle, if we acted as though he did say God would destroy the universe, would we?
Let’s consider how David and Isaiah spoke of the Lord shaking heaven and earth and coming down from heaven to the earth. David, remember, was at one time pursued by Saul, and Saul wanted to slay him. So David prayed for deliverance from his powerful enemy. We have his prayer in Psalm 18, which expresses how he felt. Notice how David described the Lord’s answer to his prayer. The floods of ungodly men made David afraid (Psalm 18:4), so he called upon the Lord (verse-6). When the Lord heard David, the earth shook, the foundations of the hills were shaken, because God was angry (verse-7). Smoke came from the Lord’s nostrils and fire from his mouth (verse-8), and the heavens bowed and God came down, riding upon a cherub (Psalm 18:9-10). The Lord thundered from the heavens and hail stones of fire dropped to the earth to scatter David’s enemies (Psalm 18:12-14). The Lord took David (but it wasn’t a rapture) and drew him out of many waters (verse-16), and delivered him from his strong enemy who hated him (Psalm 18:17).
Yet, God didn’t literally come down from heaven to the earth. He didn’t literally breathe out smoke from his nostrils and fire from his mouth. The Lord didn’t literally shake the earth or cause hail stones of fire to fall on David’s enemies. The language is picturesque and apocalyptic. The language was understood by David’s original readers. They knew David was a poet and used apocalyptic license to express his praise for what the Lord had done for him.
In another example Isaiah wrote of the Lord’s judgment upon ancient Babylon in Isaiah 13. Isaiah claimed the Lord commanded his sanctified ones (verse-3), and the noise of their multitude was heard in the mountains. It is the noise of a great people, a kingdom of many nations (verse-4). They come from a far country, from the end of heaven! In other words, they would come from the Lord to destroy the whole land (verse 5). It was the Day of the Lord, and it would come as a destruction from the Almighty (verse-6). Notice that, although this judgment upon Babylon came from the Lord, armies of men were used to carry out that judgment.
In Isaiah 13:13 we are told that the heavens are shaken and the earth moves out of its place! Did the heavens literally shake during Babylon’s judgment? Did the earth really leave its orbit around the sun? Of course, these things didn’t literally occur, and Isaiah’s readers knew he wasn’t speaking literally. Yet, within 15 years of his prophecy, Babylon was destroyed, just as Isaiah had prophesied.
Once again, audience relevancy is important, if we could ever hope to understand what Isaiah claimed would occur. In the same way, we need to understand how Peter’s readers understood chapter three of his second epistle, if we would ever hope to benefit from understanding what he wrote. Peter spoke in very picturesque, apocalyptic language that concerned the destruction of the Old Covenant when the Roman armies came into the Jews’ land and destroyed both Jerusalem and its Temple. Thus, in a very grand mode of expression, Peter witnessed to the truth of Jesus’ prophecy that he would come to judge Jerusalem and end the Old Covenant during that generation that rejected and crucified him (Matthew 16:27-28; 24:30-34). So, if Jesus did what he said he would do, we need to honor his words and believe them (cp. John 10:37-38).
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