Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12
waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
The description of the Lord’s return here in Peter’s words is similar to what we find in the teaching of Jesus and in the book of the Revelation, although with much
greater detail. These descriptions use ‘apocalyptic language’ and should not be understood literally. The point is that this is cataclysmic…everything will be affected; the stars, (Is.34:4) the heavens, the earth and all mankind. When Jesus says He is making
all things new, He means ALL things!
The Bible says much about this day, what will happen and what will commence afterwards. The prophets especially point to the consummation and the book of the Revelation
is filled with description after description of such things. We could spend our time this morning looking at the many passages that prove the unifying message of the end of days.
However, I am more interested in verse 11. Peter has told us that the Lord is coming, that He is patient as He waits and gives humanity time to repent and cry out
to Him. With all of this being the case, the Lord’s imminent return, Peter asks a penetrating question: What sort of people ought we to be?
Peter’s assumption is that if anyone takes the return of the King seriously, if he or she really believes this, then it will determine and form the character of one’s
life. In other words, the way we live our lives, will reflect that we believe, hook, line and sinker that our Savior will come and bring those whom He loves into the New Heavens and the New Earth.
He even describes for us the character that will belong to those who believe the word of God.
Holiness: The word holiness in both the Old Testament Hebrew and the New Testament Greek, means to be set apart. When we say that God is ‘holy’ we mean that
He is set apart from everything else. He stands alone exalted. Everything that has been made owes Him allegiance, honor and reverence. Even the utensils used for washing in the Temple were called, “holy”. That is to say they were set apart for specific purpose
and use to the Lord. When He calls us to be holy, when we are described as His ‘holy people’ it doesn’t mean we are perfect, rather, that we too have been set apart; set apart for Him, for His purposes, desires, and glory. The Heidelberg Catechism describes
the comfort as well as the heart of being set apart unto God with this question and answer:
Q.
What is your only comfort
in life and death?
A.
That I am not my own,
but belong with body and soul,
both in life and in death,
to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins
with his precious blood,
and has set me free
from all the power of the devil.
He also preserves me in such a way
that without the will of my heavenly Father
not a hair can fall from my head;
indeed, all things must work together
for my salvation.
Therefore, by his Holy Spirit
he also assures me
of eternal life
and makes me heartily willing and ready
from now on to live for him.
That describes being holy…set-apart. If you are a Christian, then this is your life. If you believe that Christ is coming again to once and for all separate the holy
from the unholy, then this is the kind of person you aspire to be…set apart for the honor of Jesus Christ.
Godliness: Paul defines godliness by describing Christ’s incarnation, life, resurrection (which he calls His vindication) ascension and His being proclaimed
in the world. One chapter later, he says, “…train yourself for godliness”, and then later, “pursue godliness” ( I Timothy 3:16, 4:7, 6:11) Peter, you may remember told us back in 1:3 that we have been given everything we need FOR godliness. To
be godly simply means that we conform to the laws and desires of God. If we believe that Christ is coming again to begin His visible and eternal reign in perfect peace as the Bible teaches, then we will seek to be like Him. We will desire to conform to what He
wants, to delight ourselves only in the kind of life that brings Him joy. We are not about pursuing OUR happiness, but His…not what WE want, but what He has revealed is His pleasure.
Waiting for and Hastening His coming: We might wonder how we would “hasten His coming”, how we might speed it along so to say. The Lord told us to pray, “Your
kingdom come” And in Peter’s sermon in Solomon’s Portico, on the east side of the outer Temple court, we read in Acts 3 that he told the Jews that their repentance would be a means of hastening the Lord’s return. “Repent, therefore, and turn again that
your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Christ…whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things…” The point is that we are not to wait for the Lord in passivity
or inactivity. We are waiting in action, and chief among those actions, the liturgies of our lives, is repentance. We must always be deepening our understanding of both the malevolence that is in our hearts, and our love for and clinging to the grace and mercy
of our God. It would be like children who are excitedly waiting for Dad to come home…their excitement only encourages him to get home faster!
The very thing that Peter compares to the worst and most unwelcome surprise for the unprepared and the unwatchful is called elsewhere the Christian’s “blessed hope.”
This is a noteworthy feature of the Bible’s depiction of the Second Coming: it is utterly unsentimental. Salvation for some is doom for others. Tolkien described the Second Coming as the eucatastrophe; that is, the good catastrophe, the happy catastrophe!
It cannot be otherwise. Victory for one must be defeat for another.
And so, it is that Peter’s description of that terrible day with its catastrophic destruction will also usher God’s people into new and eternal goodness. And so, it
is and must be. As the people of God, the coming of Jesus leads us, dictates to us, the way we live our lives; set apart (holy) for godliness, (conforming to His law and desires) and anticipating with joyous expectation, even if possible, to ‘hurry Him up’,
that we might dwell with Him in righteousness!
Prayer: Father, may my life reflect the glorious hope that I have in the soon coming manifestation of the King. Help me to live as one set-apart for my Savior’s
glory and my I pursue godliness, becoming more and more conformed to my Savior. Thank you for Your word, may I heed what you have said, and walk with the Spirit that I might in no way be conformed to this world or the desires of sin, through Jesus Christ my
Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Lo He Comes, With Clouds Descending