Looking Back to Understand the Future, 2 Pet 3:1-18

INTRODUCTION

As defenders of the Genesis account of creation, we are in the habit of viewing Noah’s Flood through the lens of geology and the fossil record. As we well should, for the earth history gives powerful testament to a global cataclysm by water.

 

This essay will examine the flood through the lens of Christian worldview. The benefits of doing so are manifold. Worldview involves the study of presuppositions (when we study origins from a worldview perspective, we find that evolution is as much a philosophy as it is an unproven theory).

 

Worldview is Foundational to a Person’s Understanding of Reality.

Evolutionary Humanism’s Distorted Lens: Human Intellect + Facts = Truth

 

We study presuppositions not only to articulate and defend the Christian faith, but also to better understand the false starting point (false assumptions, and false core beliefs) of skeptics. All investigation begins with a faith choice (God’s lens or the lens of autonomous human reason). (“Faith choice” is another way of saying presupposition. Study by means of worldview helps us “x-ray” the depraved reasoning processes of the unregenerate.)

Every man interprets the facts around him through the framework of his worldview. Every worldview is anchored in an ultimate starting point, or core belief. All investigation and interpretation of facts begins with FAITH in one of two starting points – 1.) FAITH in the God who was there, OR 2.) FAITH in the philosophies of men who weren’t there (i.e. Darwin).

The Christian Worldview lets us see the Facts through God’s Lens.

The parts of our Christian worldview fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces.Distort one piece, and it affects the shape of all the other pieces. Every time I meet a person who regards six-day creation to be too fantastic, I also find that their skepticism regarding creation carries over into the Genesis account of the flood.

When we ask the question – “Why is the Genesis flood so important to our Christian worldview?” – we discover that the answers are concentrated in 2 Peter chapter 3. In that chapter, the Apostle Peter gives us the reasons why Noah’s Flood is one of the pillars of our Christian worldview. In God’s inspired Word we find that Bible doctrine is inseparably linked to events in history.

 

It’s fascinating to think that of all the ways Peter could have chosen to refute those who deny the return of Christ, Peter chose to use the historic fact of Noah’s Flood. The Apostle thunders out the truth that Second Advent of Christ is not a notion held in the heads of religious people, it is anchored in the historic fact of a previous universal judgment – Noah’s Flood.

By contrast, uniformitarians assume that the world has always been this way, but Peter is going to uncover the assumptions that lie behind their twisted worldview. At the same time he is instructing Christians to arm themselves against the dangerous teachings of the coming mockers.

2 Peter 3 can be broken down into six commands to believers:

The Commands of 2 Peter 3: (Know the Prophecy of the Lord’s Return!)

1. “REMEMBER” what our Lord said about His return (vv. 1-2).

2. “KNOW” that Mockers will abound in the Last Days (vv. 3-7).

3. “TAKE NOTICE” of God’s Reason for the Delay of Christ’s Return (vv. 8-9).

4. “LOOK FOR” the Day of the Lord with Eagerness (vv. 10-13).

5. “BE DILIGENT” in your Readiness for the Day of the Lord (vv. 14-16).

6. “BE ON GUARD” against the Danger from the Mockers (vv. 16-18).

I. “REMEMBER” what our Lord and His Apostles said about Christ’s Return (vv. 1-2).

Stir up your sincere (pure) minds by putting into remembrance what you already know about Christ’s return (think through, reflect, meditate upon). A pure or sincere mind is not sullied by vices, heresies, or false ideas. Focus on the most important spiritual truths – this is needful because we are constantly bombarded by the trivial.

The aim of Peter’s reminder is to promote the welfare of his readers. In light of the difficult days coming, in which world rebellion against God will intensify, they were to hold fast to their first beliefs as a safeguard against the influx of false teachings.

Take heed to the O.T. and the N.T. Scriptures, for as the Lord’s coming draws near, false teachers will proliferate (Matt 7:15; 24:4-5, 11; Mark 13:22-23). The commandment of our Lord and Savior is, “be ready!” “Be on the alert!” (Matt 24:36-44; Mk 13:32-37; Luke 12:35-40).

At the close of the Apostle Paul’s ministry he gives a very similar warning in 2 Timothy 3-4 concerning the spiritual climate of the last days – the bulk of the world’s population will refuse to know and practice the Holy Scriptures.

II. “KNOW” that Mockers will abound in the Last Days (vv. 3-7).

 

vv. 3-4 -- The Apostle warns of the certainty of their coming. Skepticism concerning creation and the second coming will reach a crescendo of mockery in the last days. (The “last days” refers to the time period that will close the present age.)

The mockers have a scornful disregard of sacred spiritual things (Ps 1:1; Jude 18).The fact that they walk after their own lusts connects them to the false teachers of chapter two (chap. 2 exposes their licentious conduct and their self-willed opposition to the Law of God – Rom 8:5-8).

Our passage makes the point that sinners select a worldview that permits the expression of their lusts (note Romans 1:18ff.). The way these false teachers/mockers reason concerning the apparent delay of the parousia clearly contributes to their apostasy (Matt 24:48-51; Zeph 1:12). “Parousia” – coming, arrival, presence of the Lord. 

They have a vested interest behind their worldview of skepticism and –namely that they might indulge in immoral behavior (note that the downward spiral of suppression of God’s truth described in Romans 1 effectively opens the floodgates of immorality).

The false teachers mock the promised appearing of the Blessed Hope, even though the “Promise of His Coming” is Christ’s own promise – Matt 10:23; 16:28 (God warns that He will destroy those who desecrate the sacred things of God by false teaching – Jude 10).

The greater part of the world’s population is utterly indifferent to this promised hope. Most people entertain a “hope” for global change that looks to a world system based upon evolutionary humanism RATHER than looking for God to return to His creation.

For” (Greek - gar) shows that these false teachers and skeptics can use the language of reason (though the stated reason is neither logical nor scriptural). “Fathers” refers to the O.T. fathers -- the Genesis patriarchs.

By using the terminology, “fell asleep” – the mockers formulate their argument against the parousia in the language of the orthodox faith. (Jesus and the Apostles used “fell asleep” euphemistically to refer to physical death – Mark 5:39; Acts 7:60; 1 Thess 4:13-14; 1 Cor 15:6, 18, 20-21). The scoffers are not hard line atheists.They don’t maintain an eternally existing universe. They recognize a god, but not the God of revelation revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

The scoffers base their claim of rejection of the parousia upon the belief that all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. “All things,” (Greek, panta) denotes the entire observable cosmic system. They appeal to observation: the laws and processes that govern nature today have always been the same in the past. Evolutionary uniformitarianism dominates the scientific and educational establishments of every nation in the world today.

 

Uniformitarianismis the theory that all geological phenomena may be explained as a result of existing forces having operated uniformly from the origin of the earth to the present time. “The Present is the Key to the Past.”

 

The Flood Theology of 2 Peter 3: God has woven into earth history, human history, and divine revelation a testament to global judgment. Peter’s argument for the coming universal judgment by fire is based upon the historic fact of universal judgment by water. “The Past is the Key to the Present and the Future.”

Their argument against the parousia is taken from the uniformity of nature. They state their case as if it is clear and demonstrable. There is no place in their worldview for a cataclysmic upheaval such as the Bible’s teaching on parousiaTheir flawed logic could be paraphrased as follows: Since God has not previously invaded human history in order to judge sin decisively and universally, we have no reason to believe He ever will do so. You might say these mockers were “moral uniformitarians” as well! They reject any view of divine intervention in judgment. They are willingly ignorant of the four universal judgments of God in history.

The Four Universal Judgments of God in Human History: 1. The Fall, 2. The Flood, 3. The Cross, and 4. The Day of the Lord.

vv. 5-6 – Evolutionists of every stripe (atheistic, deistic, pantheistic) ignore God’s clear testimony that heaven and earth did not evolve, but were called into existence by God’s omnipotent Word (by God’s almighty Word the creation was called into being fully complete and functioning from the beginning).

 

Peter is going to expose the fallacy of the mockers’ claim. Their self-willed reading of the past is false. When they assert that the world continues without great convulsion from the beginning, they do so by deliberate exclusion of evidence. A true reading of past history reveals a cataclysmic destruction by water.

Peter describes the period before the flood. The world had equilibrium; a created order. “Out of water,” and “by water,” is a summary of Genesis 1:2-10. The primeval earth was surrounded by water. It was suspended in water. A firmament was put between the “waters above and the “waters below (this agrees with the two sources of water for the flood in Gen 7:11). Then God placed a great quantity of the “waters below beneath the surface of the earth (these became the fountains of the deep) until the flood. Truly the earth is the “water planet.”

By the “Word of God” stresses that the world came into being not by chaos and spontaneous generation, but by divine fiat (“and God said”). The false teachers held to the self sufficiency and immutability of the natural order.

 

v. 6 – The antediluvian world overflowed with primeval waters from above and below the firmament (the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven). The existing antediluvian world order was broken up and destroyed so that it perished (it was not annihilated, but transformed, radically changed, and utterly devastated). The flood destroyed the world under the direction of God’s Word (Ps 29:10). The Greek word for “flood,” katkluzo means to surge over completely, to totally inundate, to flood.

So different was the world before Noah’s flood, that Peter designates the antediluvian world of Noah’s day, “The world that then was.” According to Peter, there will be three worlds in human history. Each of the three have a radically different order in nature. 

 

The Three “Worlds” of 2 Peter 3:6-7 – 1. The World that then was, 2. The Present Heavens and Earth, and 3. The New Heavens and Earth.

The mockers willfully deny God’s acts in history. Peter said it would be so in the last days. Even though the words of Christ, the Apostles, and the Prophets confirm the inspired record of the Genesis flood, and the genuine facts of science and history point to its reality, the mockers willfully deny that that the flood ever happened.

 

v. 7 – Peter presents us with a flood theology” so to speak. The Apostle affirms that one global cataclysmic judgment establishes that there also may be another.Scripture demands that believers view Noah’s Flood as a paradigm for future global judgment (Luke 17:26-27; Matt 24:37-39).

Peter’s “flood theology” helps us see clearly the parallels between the judgment and deliverance of the Genesis Flood and the judgment and deliverance of the Day of the Lord.

Peter’s Flood “Theology” -- The Doctrines Revealed through the Genesis Flood:1. Grace before Judgment, 2. Perfect Discrimination, 3. One Means of Salvation, 4. Appropriation by Faith, and 5. Replacement of the Whole World.

Peter turns uniformitarianism on its ear by informing us that when it comes to the works of God, the past is the key to the present, and to the futurenot the other way around as the uniformitarians maintain!

A significant feature of our worldview is that in the present heavens and earth will NOT continue in perpetuity. The present cosmos and the processes that occur in it are under a conservation domain (an observable uniformity based on the Noahic Covenant – Gen 8:22), the conservation of the present world is headed toward one great consummation and purpose – the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire.

By the same “Word of God” that called the creation into existence, the present heavens and earth “are stored up” for fire (Grk. thesaurizoto treasure up, to store up, to reserve).

 

The present heavens and earth are not permanent and immutable. A future cataclysm will bring a determined end to the present cosmic system. The world and the cosmos are utterly dependent upon the omnipotent Word of God (Col 1:17; Heb 1:3). They await a cataclysm by fire. The present heavens and earth are “stored up” with a view to their predetermined destiny of conflagration.

 

Peter’s picture of judgment by fire is not confined to the earth; it includes the heavens as well (note the O.T. passages – Is 66:15; Dan 7:9-10; Mic 1:4; Mal 4:1, also the N.T. – Mt 3:11-12; 2 Thess 2:7-8). The present earthly order is kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. (For the mockers to believe this would be to condemn themselves and admit that they must deal with God who judges.)

The heavens and earth have not been “dismissed” to go their own way (as the scoffers and deistic evolutionists maintain), subject only to the laws of nature.

Unbelievers act as if by sinful rebellion they have won freedom from God’s moral government – 2 Pet 2:19; Ps 2:1-5; Rom 6:16; Jn 8:34. Not so! The controlling hand of the Creator is upon the world. This is central to our worldview. The judgment of the ungodly is certain. The doctrine of imminent judgment is inseparably connected to creation and the Genesis Flood. The ungodly will not face extinction, but everlasting torment (Rom 2:1-16).

III. “TAKE NOTICE” of God’s Reason for the Apparent Delay of Christ’s Return (vv. 8-9).

Now Peter gives the needed instruction to readers regarding Christ’s apparent delay. His readers had been taught to live with the expectation of Christ’s return. The readers of the epistle must not do what the mockers are doing – they must not interpret the delay as an indicator of unending uniformity.

Peter’s explanation begins with a statement about God’s relation to time. (This verse is commonly misinterpreted to support the Day-age theory, but the verse is not a reference to creation week (1000 yrs = a day is NOT a math formula or an equation).

God uses time redemptivelyConcerning the timing of Christ’s return – theparousia has not failed when we view the apparent delay from the vantage point of God’s relation to time. God’s relation to time invalidates the objection of the skeptics (Ps 90:4).

God’s use of time cannot be conformed to our finite viewpoint and schedules.God’s use of time is not that of human conception. He may do in a brief time what we may feel could only be done in thousands of years. Or He may do in thousands of years what we feel should be done in a day (from the time of childless Abraham until the conquest of Canaan was over half of a millennium!).

God can do profound things in a short amount of time. Consider the intensive character of creation week – six 24 hour days to make the universe and the world (and, as Dr. Morris reminds us, it only took that long to provide the pattern for man’s work week).

The Only Begotten Son of God exhausted the curse of God against the sins of the elect in only six hours on the cross.

God’s apparent delays should never be interpreted as inability to perform. God is not holding back on the promised fulfillment of Christ’s return. (The intensive character of the Day of the Lord will shock the world; it will be unbelievably terrifying for unbelievers when it hits.)

Peter’s exhortation is a warning to Christians to not be affected by the teaching and influence of the scoffers and skeptics. If we understand the reason for the apparent delay, we will be better fortified against what the Scriptures call “fainting” (Heb 12:5).

The reason for the apparent delay (a delay from our perspective) is that God is exercising self-restraint in the face of deliberate provocation by sinners. His exercise of longsuffering patience is designed to give ample room for repentance (Rom 2:4-11). (God’s common grace postpones wrath and judgment, but onlysaving grace removes God’s wrath from repenting sinners.)

Patient toward “you-ward” is a reminder to Peter’s readers that they themselves have experienced this fact of God’s loving patience.

God’s patience and longsuffering are an expression of His genuine desire that for the salvation of mankind (it is not a reference to the determining will of God).The word “wishing” here in v. 9 is a description of God’s disposition toward sinners, not an explanation of His sovereign plan for individuals (see also Ez 18:23; 33:11).

The goodness of God is ever seeking to lead men to repentance (Rom 2:4). Men must make room for such comprehensive change in their lives. God in His mercy is giving men as much time as possible to repent. At Christ’s return (the Day of the Lord) it will be too late.

IV. LOOK FOR” the Day of the Lord with Eagerness (vv. 10-13).

Warning! None should presume upon the apparent delay regarding the Day of the Lord -- as if an open-ended amount of time remains. The Day of the Lord will come as a thief (sudden, unexpected arrival, “as a thief,” – Matt 24:43-44; 1 Thess 5:2, 4; Rev 3:3; 16:15).

The Day of the Lord will: 1. Come as a thief (Rev 6:12-17). 2. Sweep away every lie (Is 28:17). 3. Destroy all human authority (Dan 2:44-45). 4. Shake the existing order into oblivion (Heb 12:25-29). 5. Reclaim God’s rightful authority over all creation (Rev 11:15).

The first part of the Day of the Lord is very sudden. It will come with undeniable reality. There will be irreparable loss for the unprepared, but eternal blessing for those living in expectation of Christ’s coming (1 Thess 5:4-10).

 

The events associated with the Day of the Lord involve a cataclysm by fire. (God warned Noah of things yet unseen by humans – Heb 11:7. God warns us through the Apostle Peter about things not yet seen. We can hardly imagine a cosmic cataclysm by fire. We’ve seen nuclear reactions at a distance in the stars, and relatively close up in nuclear detonations on earth, but we cannot imagine a thermo nuclear reaction that envelops the entire known universe.)

 

The scoffers asserted the durability of the present cosmological arrangement (order). Peter says that there will be a cosmological (eschatological) purging that is indescribable in scope. How reminiscent this is of Jesus’ words (Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33).

 

The heavens shall pass from one state of existence to another. All evidence of sin’s consequences; decay, death, and deterioration will be burned up. A global and cosmic atomic fission reaction, or explosive disintegration will involve the transformation of chemical energy into heat, light and sound. The elements will be dissolved, loosened, broken up into their component parts, like a building torn down into bricks (disintegration, not annihilation).

The Greek supports this picture of renovation – Grk. word for “elements” is stoicheionmeaning fundamental constituents.

 

There will be a cleansing away of the bondage of corruption and futility. The old cosmos will be made fresh and new by the Word of God’s power. The picture of the future drawn by Peter is the very opposite of that drawn by the mockers and scoffers.

 

The earth and its works will be burned up. God’s judgment of earth lays bare what is worthless in all human achievement apart from Him. Nothing survives to enter the Kingdom of God but the righteous and their deeds. The world is passing away (1 Jn 2:15-17).

The parallel Peter is making to the Genesis flood is unmistakable in our text. When God establishes His eternal kingdom, He will overturn and destroy the present world order as well as the physical cosmic order.

The Day of the Lord will sweep away the refuge of lies (Is 28:17). It will grind all human authority into powder (Dan 2:44-45). It will shake every created thing into oblivion (Heb 12:25-29), with the exception of those who are in God’s kingdom.

When God evicts the wicked from His creation, their homes, property, their bodies, possessions, the terra firma they have walked on will all be relinquished – “no place was found for them,” it says in Revelation 20:11. When the contaminated universe goes out of existence, there will be no place left for those contaminated by sin but hell itself.

The Day of the Lord is not a single event, but series of events in the unfolding of God’s end time program. It includes the rapture of the Church, the tribulation, Christ’s millennial reign, and the great white throne judgment, and the making of the new heavens and earth. The Day of the Lord (God’s Day) will last approximately 1007 years total. It is uniquely, “God’s Day.”

V. BE DILIGENT” in your Readiness for the Day of the Lord (vv. 14-16).

In view of the imminent Day of the Lord, believers have the duty to live holy lives. Peter reminds his readers of the strong link between Christian hope and daily conduct. He presses upon them the impact that the prospect of the Day of the Lord must have.

All holy living involves separation from evil, and it involves dedication to God in all our conduct. (“Make no provision for the flesh,” – Rom 13:14). Holy living is seeking to please God.

Peter urges them to have expectancy – to continually turn their minds toward the future. Amidst the pressures around them, they must set their minds on things above (to the point of having an eager desire to be with the Lord – Rom 8:23).

In v. 13 – Peter includes himself in this hope and expectation whereby we are looking for new heavens and earth where righteousness dwells. The renovated world will have the moral quality of righteousness. The justified will no longer be wanderers, pilgrims with a foreign citizenship, we will dwell securely in our eternal home.

The program of God for mankind will be brought to its consummation. There will be a cataclysmic, comprehensive judgment upon all evil, and a culmination of that judgment in the eternal reign of righteousness. Everyone entering this new world will be in perfect agreement with God’s sovereign will.

“Things not yet seen” belong to the Flood and the Day of the Lord:

The “Things not yet seen” by Noah (Heb 11:7): A Global Cataclysm by Water with all of its accompanying Catastrophes. The “Things not yet seen” by our generation: Cosmic Thermonuclear “Fire” and the “New Heavens and the New Earth.”

Empirical science is filled with limitations, for God in Christ has asserted unseen realities that are beyond our powers of observation.

 

Those who depend upon their five senses instead of the Word of God will be unprepared when the Day of the Lord arrives. The Christian must be careful not to be influenced by the scoffer. Skeptics take a “wait ‘n see” attitude about the promised coming judgment, therefore it will take them by surprise.

 

v. 14 – Peter speaks with a shepherd’s heart. The word “therefore” links together faith and conduct. “Be diligent!” We can’t live in idleness; we must be diligent, zealous, making every effort to fulfill the duty of holy living. Only the righteous will attain that world. The prospect that we will soon stand before our Judge is to have a profound effect upon us (those who abide in Christ and have expectancy of His return will be purified in the process of living in that manner – 1 Jn 3:3).

v. 15 – Believers are exhorted to hold a right view of the delay. The false teachers (mockers) concluded that our Lord’s failure to return was proof that our hope was a delusion. Believers must take into account daily, continually, that the purpose of the Lord’s apparent delay is the exercise of His longsuffering which results in salvation.

While God is waiting, He is giving both time for the unbeliever to be saved and for the believer to be “working out his salvation,” (Phil 2:12-13). We are to regard God’s patience to be our salvation.

2 Peter 3 is a litmus test that explains the contrast between a true believer and a false teacher. The test is, “How will you evaluate the delay of the return of Christ? And how will you order your life in consequence of that delay?” Those two questions cut to the heart of the matter.

In the final three verses of this chapter, Peter summarizes his warnings about scoffers. Their teaching and lifestyle present a very real danger to Christians (Note Psalm 1:1).

VI. BE ON GUARD” against Danger from the Mockers (vv. 16-18).

v. 16 – The false teachers misused the Apostle Paul’s teaching on grace (easy-believism – no life change). They turned grace into licentiousness and antinomianism (we know this from the little book of Jude). They took the life-giving Word of God and twisted it, distorted it, and wrested it to their own destruction. They did violence to the laws of biblical interpretation. (In attempting to destroy the Bible, men destroy themselves.)

How relevant this exhortation is to our subject of origins. It is so dangerous to wrest the Scriptures and attempt to justify compromise with the ungodly philosophies of evolution and humanism.

 

The wicked twist the Word to fit their own opinions. They willingly distort the truth of God in order to accommodate their inner desire for self indulgence. They dishearten the righteous by mocking the reasons for holiness.

 

v. 17 – The Apostle’s exhortation can be broken into two parts; a negative, or prohibition, and a positive, or injunction. Both parts of the exhortation must be obeyed if we are to be protected from the danger of the mockers.

1.) the negative exhortationkeep guarding yourselves, beware of falling – guard against being carried away and led astray by keeping too close company with false teachers and wavering professors. (We must have a habitual sense of our own weakness and the ever present danger that surrounds us. Maintain a spirit of perpetual vigilance and steadfastness.

2.) the positive exhortation: grow in grace and keep on growing. Growth is a positive duty. Advancing in grace counterbalances us, safeguards us against falling. Effective growth involves removing the hindrance of making provision for the flesh. Growth in doctrine and practice must work together. Each is inadequate in itself.

Believers are already in the sphere of grace. We grow in grace when we apprehend grace in Christ with ever increasing faith. When we order our lives by the grace of Christ, enjoying it more richly, our character and relationship with the Lord develops and grows.

CONCLUSION

We’ve seen clearly that our hope and expectation of Christ’s return is necessarily linked to our conduct. All the godly who have gone before us have by faith weighed the infinite riches of the glory to come against the passing pleasures of this world. The godly have said along with Paul, “Momentary light affliction is working for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17).

The faithful have decided along with Moses that the “reproach of Christ is greater riches than the world” (Heb 11:26).

 

When a person denies the universal judgments of God it sows to an immoral lifestyle – it works against the fear of God (cynicism about the delay of Christ’s return, twisting the Scriptures, denial that man shall wax worse and worse as in the days of Noah all shape a person’s moral profile).

 

The worldview of the unbeliever is that sin, death, and decay is normal. Last Days skeptics deny that death has a moral cause; they are willfully ignorant of the fact that human sin is the cause of a cursed creation. Is it any wonder that they resist God’s merciful plan of deliverance? (They subscribe to a worldview that blinds them to man’s need and to God’s purposes).

 

Genesis records that fact that God in the past has already delivered the righteous, and evicted earth’s evil tenants once before. God will do it again -- the Genesis flood is a model of future eradication of evil from man and nature. God has once before changed the workings of nature on a global scale. He will do it again on an infinitely larger scale.

 

This fact totally conditions the way you view Christ’s return. Instead of appearing as a fanatical religious belief in the minds of lunatics, Christ’s glorious return has a basis in physical history, the Genesis Flood.

 

Through Peter, the Holy Spirit has taken the significance of the Genesis Flood right into the present and the imminent future. Through His inspired Word, God has taken the historic fact of the global flood and shown us its direct correlation to worldview and its consequent conduct and ethics.

 

Once we begin to understand just how unified our Christian worldview is, it will make us more bold to preach the Gospel. What God has done on a global scale, He will do again. Our doctrine is not merely propositional spiritual truth, Bible doctrine is inseparably linked to earth history and human history. This is a cause for fear of God, not fear of man.

Salvation is physical as well as spiritual. God will purge the last vestiges of evil from the universe (except for the lake of fire). Are you ready to stand in His protection in Christ as Noah and his family in the ark?

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker and Kohlenberger, eds, Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary, Zondervan, 1994.

Hiebert, Edmond, Second Peter and Jude, Unusual Publications, 1989.

Lloyd-Jones, D. M., Expository Sermons in 2 Peter, Banner of Truth, 1983.

Morris, Henry, M., The Defender’s Study Bible, World Bible Publishers, 1995.

Our Evangelistic Strategy is Guided by the Nature of Faith

I. Scripture reveals the nature of faith and the condition of the

heart.

 

A. Scripture never describes the heart of the unbeliever in a favorable

light. The Word of God depicts unbelief as an expression of the moral

state of the inward man. In order for faith to germinate in the heart of a

man, there must be a moral change in the heart (John 8:43-45; 1 Cor.

2:14; Ez. 36:26,27; Luke 18:26,27).

B. An understanding of the nature of faith is essential in shaping the

method by which the sinner’s need is addressed.

 

1. Is the issue of unbelief a matter of rebellion, or lack of data, or both?

Scripture affirms that it is rebellion. The sinner is already hostile to

the light he has been given – the suppression of God’s truth has been

his practice, prior to hearing the truth of the gospel (Rom. 1:18-23).

2. Only a moral change of heart can reverse this (Matt 12:33).

C. In his book, Always Ready, Greg Bahnsen notes that Scripture gives us

numerous descriptions of a fool. When the Bible speaks of a fool, it

does not refer to a dimwitted buffoon. The biblical meaning of a fool has

to do with the person whose unbelief is expressed as disregard for God

and His truth.

1. The fool is characterized by self trust – this is why he lacks wisdom. He has forsaken God, the only source of true wisdom.

2. The fool relies upon his own (allegedly) self-sufficient intellectual powers. He thinks that his mind can operate effectively without being informed by Scripture. As a result, he is not teachable (Prov. 1:7;10:8; 15:5; 1 Cor. 1:20). [i][1]

3. From God’s omniscient perspective, the fool lives a life of vanity and folly. The fool is his own worst enemy, he opposes himself by rejecting God, the source of life. (By rejecting God’s offer of life and forgiveness, the fool makes a choice for his own destruction, thus he proves to be hostile to his own eternal welfare.)

4. Jesus alluded to the fool’s value system when He said, “For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

D. The biblical fool may have a normal intellect, but he is characterized by

the misuse of his intellectThe following thought behaviors are

 descriptive of the fool:

1.) He avoids the topic of his creaturehood and origin. He operates from a position of “non-createdness.”

2.) He does not distinguish between his own thoughts and God’s thoughts.

3.) He views himself as the ultimate authority for determining truth.

4.) He attributes God’s attributes to himself (as if he, the finite creature, has the power, unaided by Scripture, to answer ultimate questions and uncover universal truth by the use of autonomous reason).

5.) He denies God’s authority and absolute claims upon his life.

6.) He says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalm 14:1; 53:1).

 

E. The biblical fool does not make God and His revelation the starting point in his thinking. Therefore, in his reasoning, he is antagonistic toward God. In his mind, he is an enemy of God because he uses his God-given intellect to obviate the Holy Scriptures (Col. 1:21; James 4:4; Mark 7:8-13).[ii][2]

1. Man’s break from God ethically, was also a break from God intellectually. God bears witness in the Scriptures as to the nature of man’s fallen intellect (Romans 1:18-23; Eph. 2:3; 4:17,18).

2. When fallen man regards himself as the ultimate reference point, he puts himself in a position tonot understand God’s truth (Romans 3:10,11). (Since his heart is in a state of enmity against God, he is in no position to independently verify divine truth.)[iii][3]

3. The natural man’s rebellion is seen in his covert enmity toward God’s claims upon him – though the unbeliever assumes the posture of a “truth-seeker who lacks data,” he is actually committed to his own independence from God. (Proofs from the wonders of nature and the creation will not overcome the unbeliever’s enmity toward God. As long as his core commitment is to autonomy, he will continue to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.)

4. Frequently, the unbeliever describes himself as neutral when it comes to the testimony of Scripture. He pretends to be objective. The Bible exposes this as a façade. For God’s claims upon a man eliminate every notion of neutral ground. There is no neutral spot in the universe and there is not a single rational creature in the universe who is neutral (the two orders of rational creatures are men and angels).

5. The Creator will not leave a man’s imagined autonomy in tact – instead God in His Word, confronts it head on and exposes it as rebellion.[iv][4]

II. When considering absolute truth, there are only two philosophies.

A. The first philosophy is what the Bible commends as genuine faith. It submits to the authority of God’s Word – this submission involves a presuppositional commitment to the veracity of the Scriptures.

1. The faith of Abraham perfectly illustrates this confidence in the reliability of God’s Word – Romans 4:14-22;

Hebrews 11:8-10, 17-19.)

2. God and His Word are self-authenticating. God doesn’t go outside Himself to define, understand or present Himself. There is no truth standard outside of God. There is no truth “magnifying glass” large enough to place over God and His authoritative Word -- every imaginable scholastic discipline is but a “particular.” Only God is the concrete universal absolute.

3. Without God’s ultimate truth, man attempts to create his own reality. Such an attempt moves man from reason to irrationality. Ultimate truth cannot be argued independently of the preconditions inherent in it. One might as well say, “Let’s stop breathing oxygen while we debate the necessity of that gas.” The only way we know anything with certainty is by God’s authoritative revelation - Psalm 36:9.)[v][5]

B. The second of the two philosophies is the commitment to self as the ultimate authority. 

1. As a result of mankind’s fall into sin, there is a universal commitment

to self as the ultimate starting point for all knowledge.

 

2. The debate between the two philosophies is over ultimate authority.

Where does the ultimate authority reside? Does it reside in God or in

man?

3. Jesus Christ is God’s reference point for man (Col. 2:3). He is the

source of absolute truth and He is the source of

ultimate answers to ultimate questions.

III. Because the two competing philosophies constitute a clash between

sources of ultimate authority, they totally condition the process of

interpreting facts.

A. These competing philosophic systems govern a man’s philosophy of facts. Every personinterprets facts according to one of these two philosophic systems.

1. When the natural man is confronted with the witness of God in

creation, he studiously suppresses the truth or holds it down by

means of false interpretation. His use of autonomous reason as the

starting point means that he will be an untruthful interpreter.

2. Man’s consciousness is a covenant consciousness. In other words,

God placed man on this planet to be a steward over the works of His hands (Psalm 8).

3. That stewardship involves covenant obligations – the Creator’s

ownership is upon man, for man is the “image-bearer” of God. This

is an immense privilege – man has a great purpose because he is

created for a great task. Central to this covenant responsibility is

man’s calling to be a truthful interpreter of God, creation and

humanity (Genesis 1-2).[vi][6]

4. Scripture proclaims that God’s attributes, power and divine

nature are clearly seen, yet the natural man interprets these facts of

creation untruthfully. He resorts to speculation and futility of mind

and becomes a fool as a consequence. Man’s unbelief in God’s Word

issues forth in disobedience to covenant obligations.

5. The Scripture says that unbeliever is without a defense (Greek,

apologia) or without excuse before God (Romans 1:18-23). They

 have no excuse because God has clearly shown Himself to mankind.

6. Remember, one’s world view is inseparable from one’s theory of

knowledge. The natural man “worships” his own mind as ultimate;

he has a theory of knowledge that exalts autonomous reason. As a consequence, he rebels against God’s authoritative revelation. His world view reflects his commitment to think independently of God.

B. According to God’s Word, human reason is to be the servant of divine

revelation.

1. Reason is a faculty designed by God for the task of interpreting

truthfully. The divine mandate of interpreting truthfully can only

be fulfilled when man is in submission to the Word of God,

thinking God’s thoughts after Him.[vii][7]

2. When men reject the Word of God, their interpreting will always be

false. The refusal to follow God’s truth will lead a man into error in

all fields of thought. (An erroneous starting point necessarily leads

to erroneous conclusions concerning the origin and meaning of

every fact in the universe.)

3. When men interpret falsely it is because they have regarded their

reason to be an independent and neutral faculty, not the servant of

divine revelation.

 

 C. God’s Word puts the sinner’s intellectual assumption of autonomous

reason on trial. Holy Scripture turns the tables on the unbelieving

sinner. Though unbelievers talk as if God and His revelation are on

trial, the Word of God places the sinner’s errant heart on trial.

The divine arraignment of the sinner is cast in a fourteen point

indictment found in Romans 3:10-18:

“There is none righteous, not even one;

There is none who understands,

There is none who seeks for God;

All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

There is none who does good,

There is not even one.”

“Their throat is an open grave,

With their tongues they keep deceiving,”

“The poison of asps is under their lips”;

“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness”;

“Their feet are swift to shed blood’

Destruction and misery are in their paths,

And the path of peace they have not known.”

“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

D. God’s indictment of Adam’s sinful race reveals why no man can

reason his way to God. Man’s mind is not neutral, but in rebellion.

The natural man uses his mind to sin against God. (God has

endowed man with the gift of reason and logic in order to receive

divine revelation. The independent exercise of reason will always

 result in erroneous interpretation.)

IV. Without reverence and faith, there is no understanding of God and all

He has made.

A. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise

wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). (Those who fear God are in

awe of His sovereignty. They maintain a deep reverence for the His

unbreakable Word.)

B. Faith in God is NOT based upon autonomous proofs that satisfy our

intellects.

1. God demands faith in His Messianic Son (John 6:28,29).[viii][8] There

is NO knowledge of spiritual things until a person has savingly

believed upon Christ. For Christ is God’s authoritative Interpreter

 put over man as sovereign Lord.

2. Rejection of Christ is rejection of God the Son as Interpreter of the

world (Christ has absolute epistemic authority in all fields of knowledge – Col. 2:3).

3. When man arrogates to himself the position of epistemic

authority, he defies God’s authority and God’s appointed

Representative, Jesus Christ (Phil. 2:9-11; Ps. 2). (The field of

epistemology concerns the origin, validity and structure of

 knowledge – it deals with how we know what we know with

certainty.)

C. Faith therefore has a moral basis – it reveals what is in the heart of a man.

1. When a man’s heart is wrong in the sight of God, his thinking will

correspondingly be futile. Unbelief is not an error in judgment, unbelief is the fruit of a heart in rebellion against God (Heb. 3:12).

The opposite of truth is not ignorance, but rebellion.[ix][9]

2. Jesus declared that the means by which a person knows and

understands spiritual truth with certainty is by being willing to do

God’s will (John 7:17).[x][10] According to the Son of God, understanding

 is the reward of faith.

3. As long as a man uses his depraved intellect to “put God on trial,”

(or judge God), he cannot know or understand God. Human reason

cannot be the support of faith, for the object and

source of faith is God and His revelation (Rom. 10:17).

V. Man cannot reason his way to God.

Genuine faith does not depend upon what it sees, but upon the self-

attesting veracity of God’s Word (Heb. 11:1-6). Faith submits to the

dependability of Holy Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16,17). [xi][11]

A. There can be no “flat line” reasoning to God. There are two important

reasons for this. First, when one argues for an ultimate intellectual

criterion, circularity in reasoning will be unavoidable. Every world view

and every argument must have a starting point that is unquestioned,

authoritative and self-authenticating.

1. Without this ultimate starting point, facts will be unrelated and

“brutish,” (isolated, without interpretation by a universal). (One

cannot even begin to evaluate the very first fact he encounters

without a set of non-negotiable presuppositions about knowledge and

the universe in general.)

2. Every world view or philosophy of necessity must use its own

standard of truth to prove its conclusions. There is no standard for

 truth that sits above the Scriptures and there is no fact in the

universe more certain than the Scriptures.

3. The Bible believing Christian affirms that there are no neutral

facts that hold an authority independent of a scriptural interpretation. “They are God’s facts. And they are to be interpreted according to God’s Word.”[xii][12]

4. Reason either begins with God or self. Reason that begins with

God involves thought dependent upon God’s revelation. Reason that

begins with self assumes the false presupposition that man’s mind is

ultimate.

B. Second, those who come to know God have had a radical overturning of

their presuppositions about autonomous reason. The ability to

understand God is stipulated upon faith. Faith is the soul’s

“abandonment” of itself to God and His Word. Thus the only way to

know God is by forsaking one’s independent thinking about God. This is the very opposite of attempting to reason in a “flat line” manner.

C. God commands unbelievers to renounce their antagonistic reasoning and

to embrace a new system of thought (John 8:24).

 

1. Repentance (which always accompanies genuine faith) involves

radical abandonment of autonomous world views and independent

thinking about God.

2. Where there is true faith and repentance, there is a submission

to the mind of God and a new commitment to think God’s thoughts

after Him. The renewed mind embraces an entirely new epistemology

in which Christ and His Word are the final reference point and

authority for knowing (1 Cor. 2:14-16).

3. Repentance puts a halt to man’s judging God – it terminates a

man’s commitment to think “ultimately” (or with autonomous

reason). Repentance by means of God’s authoritative truth

mortifies the natural man’s view of self. It destroys his

presuppositions of ultimate thinking. It brings to bear the full

weight of God’s claims upon him.[xiii][13]

4. There is a self-renouncing character to saving faith – it looks

away from itself to God as the source of truth and life. Thus faith

cannot be grounded in man’s self-reliant thinking – in true

repentance, the final reference point and starting point shift from self

to God (Phil. 3:3; Jer. 17:5; Prov. 28:26; 1 Cor. 2:4,5).

VI. The point of contact of God and His truth with sinful man is at the

point of man’s rebellion.[xiv][14]

A. Though the sinner is commanded to seek God, he cannot take a step

in God’s direction without divine assistance (John 6:44,45; Is. 55:1-

11). When the sinner cries to God for mercy, he is also pleading for

the ability to come to God, believe and be saved (Luke 18:13).

1. God makes Himself known to the unbeliever by FIRST setting

forth the man’s predicament. His habitual breaking of God’s

law, his ill-desert, his legal guilt and his moral failure must be stated.

When the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin, He “shows the sinner

his chains and the weight of his guilt.”

2. Men are not ready for the good news of the gospel UNTIL their

consciences have been educated concerning the seriousness of God’s

claims upon them (Gal. 3:23,24; John 16:13).

3. Man’s spiritual apathy constitutes rebellion. Man’s apathy is a

symptom of a heart dead to the things of God. The Scriptures

state that the solution to man’s spiritual deadness is the vivifying

power of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2:1-5):[xv][15]

“And you were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)…”

4. Christ is God’s comprehensive answer to man’s predicament. God

commands sinners to appeal to Christ for a new heart of faith and

repentance. Man’s number one duty is to come to Christ and be

forgiven (Rev. 22:17).

B. The unbeliever’s arguments sound “rational” until he is taken back to

his world view and presuppostional starting point.[xvi][16] At that juncture,

his system falls apart – man’s existence in order to be meaningful

cannot be grounded upon chaos, chance and absurdity.

1. Even unbelievers presuppose theism in order to reason at all. There

are certain “preconditions” of knowledge that only an almighty

Creator can supply.

2. These preconditions include the following: God knows all things

exhaustively, God is the concrete universal that unites all particulars,

God’s control over the universe is manifested in the uniformity of nature,

God is the source of morals, God is the source of logic, God supplies the

categories of knowledge, God has interpreted all things, God answers

every ultimate question, God rules the universe according to His purpose

and plan.

3. Without these preconditions of knowledge, man is unable to predicate

anything. He is adrift upon a sea of epistemological despair –

certainty and rationality are ever out of reach. Man can only retreat

into solipsism (solipsism is the theory that the self is the only thing

that can be known and verified – self is the only reality).[xvii][17]

4. “When one willingly limits his faith, presuming to question the ability

or truth of God based upon human intellect or argumentation, it is a

serious provocation before the Lord – e.g., Psalm 78:18-22” (Greg

Bahnsen, Always Ready, p. 93).

5. A universe without God’s sovereign moral authority and rule is a

universe based upon chance. The natural man clings to chance in

order to escape the claims of God. To opt for a chance universe is to

reject the God of the Bible.[xviii][18]

6. The natural man’s theory of knowledge is synonymous with his world

view. Since the unbeliever trusts in the ultimacy of his own mind, he

correspondingly rejects the authority of God’s Word. His world view is

necessarily constructed so as to invalidate God’s claims upon the

creature.

7. God’s almighty control of all things is manifested in His preservation

of His Word, the Bible. In a universe where chance is ultimate, the

Word of God is necessarily falsified by man. Thus, chance destroys

the infallibility of the Scriptures and the Gospel. (The unbeliever’s

system of thought is internally rotten. He cannot have it both ways –

he cannot have rational universe and at the same time, have a

universe based upon chance. Reason is slain on the altar of chance.

The God of the Bible is the precondition of knowledge and rationality.)

C. The nature of biblical faith governs our apologetic method.

The nature of belief must guide our strategy when defending the faith

and evangelizing the lost. As a result, we never hold the ultimate

authority of God’s Word in abeyance for the sake of neutrality amidst

argumentation.

1. When defending the faith, we do not appeal to autonomous empirical

“sight,” instead, we proclaim the a priori Word of God.[xix][19]

2. Man is utterly dependent upon God for existence and meaning. We

are God’s thought and creation, upheld and sustained by Him every

moment (Col. 1:16,17; Acts 17:24-27).

3. It is absolutely impossible to find a vantage point that is neutral,

objective and autonomous from which to scrutinize God and His

Word. There is never a moment when the claims of the Creator are

not resting upon the creature.

4. When men pretend to operate from a neutral vantage point, they are

in reality revealing a heart full of revolt against God. Their greatest

need is not a superior vantage point, it is repentance and faith toward

God.

Endnotes

[i][1] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, (American Vision, Atlanta, 1996) 55.

[ii][2] Ibid., pp. 65-67.

[iii][3] James F. Stitzinger, Apologetics and Evangelism TH 701, (Syllabus from The Master’s Seminary, Sun Valley, CA copyright 1999) 84,85.

[iv][4] Ibid., pp. 84,85.

[v][5] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, pp. 66-68.

[vi][6] Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, (Presbyterian and Reformed, Phillipsburg, 1955) 90-95.

[vii][7] James F. Stitzinger, Apologetics and Evangelism, p. 17.

[viii][8] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, pp. 87,88.

[ix][9] Ibid., p. 88.

[x][10] Tom Wells, The Moral Basis of Faith, (The Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, 1986) 9-11.

[xi][11] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, p. 89.

[xii][12] Michael J. Kruger, “The Sufficiency of Scripture in Apologetics” in The Master’s Seminary Journal, (12:1, Spring 2001) 70, 81,82.

[xiii][13] James F. Stitzinger, Syllabus, p. 89.

[xiv][14] Ibid., p. 104.

[xv][15] Ibid., p. 103.

[xvi][16] Ibid., pp. 58,99,101,113.

[xvii][17] Greg L. Bahnsen, A Critique of the Evidentialist Apologetical Method of John Warwick Montgomery, pp. 5,11.

[xviii][18] Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, pp. 140-150.

[xix][19] Greg L. Bahnsen, Always Ready, pp. 91-93.