Work Through the Whole Bible, Part 14Sample

Does our earthly work matter to God? Yes. Our work is ultimately valuable because the fruits of our labor, having been redeemed and transformed, will have a home in heaven. But 2 Peter 3 seems to call that into question. Peter is responding here to lawless scoffers who claimed that God would not intervene in history to judge evil (2 Peter 3:3–4). He appears to describe a future that lacks all continuity with the present world.

Peter is using end-times imagery commonly found in Old Testament prophetic books to assure his readers of God’s impending judgment. The fire and melting imagery can be understood as a metaphor for the process in which God separates good from evil.

Peter’s reference to the flood of Noah’s time (2 Peter 3:5–6) should caution us against reading “deluged” to mean total annihilation. The world did not cease to exist, but was purified of all humanity’s wicked­ness. Humanity’s goodness—limited to Noah, his family, their posses­sions, and their work of tending the animals on board—was preserved, and life resumed on the physical earth.

Peter’s positive vision of the ultimate future describes a re­newal of the material order: “But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home” (2 Peter 3:13). This is no thin, disembodied netherworld, but a new cosmos that contains both a “heaven” and an “earth.”  All evil will be utterly consumed, but all that is righteous will find a permanent home in the new creation. Fire not only consumes, it purges. The dissolution does not signal the end of work. Rather, work done for God finds its true end in the new heaven and new earth.

Jesus, thank you that work done for you has eternal value. Amen.

You've completed Part 14 of the Work Through the Whole Bible reading plan! To read more, view the complete list (Genesis through Revelation) of Work Through the Whole Bible reading plans here.