The Longsuffering of the Lord

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

If after thirty years people were already asking, “where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Peter 3:4), how much more so after 1,980 years?

These days you might still hear the phrase, “slower than the second coming,” to describe someone or something that is not moving very quickly. That type of phrase says much about people’s attitudes toward the Lord’s return: it’s taking a very long time. It seems slow! To many it has become almost a joke. Many believers have come to experience “apocalyptic fervor burnout” on account of the continual drumming up of the expectation of the Lord’s imminent return only for time to continue on yet again. Some have come to discount the eventual return of Jesus completely; some suggest it happened in a “spiritual” way in the past, while others think of it as a relic of an earlier, more eschatologically-minded age. Even among those who do look forward to the day of the Lord’s return, it seems remote, something not highly likely to happen within our lifetimes. The Lord’s return, therefore, becomes a very abstract and almost academic matter.

The Apostles expected this kind of mockery and fatigue. Paul warns the Thessalonians about staying awake, ever ready and vigilant for His coming, as it will be like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10). Peter, in 2 Peter 3:1-14, also speaks directly regarding the expectation of the Lord’s return, especially in light of those who mock and deride the suggestion that the Lord would return. He wishes to remind such people about the great Flood of Genesis 6:9-8:22: it came with plenty of warning and yet happened suddenly (2 Peter 3:5-7).

Yet Peter’s very potent argument involves a challenge to our expectations: why do we think that the second coming is “slow” to happen? Why do we consider the 1,980 and counting years as a reason to doubt God’s faithfulness? Peter quotes Psalm 90:4 in 2 Peter 3:8 to underscore the challenge: to God a thousand years is as one day, and one day as a thousand years. God transcends the space-time continuum; time does not matter to God. A thousand years, which is a long time to humans, is likened to a very short time in God’s estimation (one day). And one day, which we consider a short amount of time, can yet be understood as a long time, a thousand years, in God’s sight. 1,980 years? Simultaneously like less than two days or as much as 723 million years. Time, therefore, is irrelevant when discussing God and what He is doing. Nevertheless, why is it that the Lord has yet to return?

In 2 Peter 3:9, Peter makes it clear that it is not a matter of time. God is not slow; the return of Jesus is not “delayed”; the Lord’s return should not be used by us as a marker for someone or something’s lack of speed. Instead, He is patient, “longsuffering” toward us, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

Peter will go on to warn everyone that just as the Flood came upon people quickly, so Jesus will come like a thief in the night, and that is a good warning to heed: when the Lord returns, it will be very fast, and there will not be time for any more second chances (2 Peter 3:10). In light of all this, believers should live holy lives, waiting earnestly for the day of God, ever prepared and vigilant whether He comes or not (2 Peter 3:11-14). And then he encourages believers to consider the longsuffering of the Lord as salvation (2 Peter 3:15).

It is for our benefit, then, that the Lord has yet to return. We can certainly personalize this truth: if you are a believer in Christ, and have submitted to the Lord through belief, confession, repentance, and baptism, and walk with the Lord as His follower, when did you come to that faith and obtain your salvation? Now ask yourself: what would my fate have been if the Lord had returned the day before? God facilitated your salvation through His patience; why now would you impose on that patience? Perhaps today is the “day before” or the “day of” the obtaining of salvation for another, and that person has as much a right and access to God’s patience as you.

The Lord, therefore, has been longsuffering toward the world for 1,980 years. It is good for us to consider the longsuffering of Jesus toward us: how many times have we grieved Him because of our sins, weaknesses, and immaturity? What if the Lord were not as patient and longsuffering toward us as He is? What would our fate be? And, God forbid, what if the Lord was as patient with us as we are with our fellow human beings? If God were only as patient as we are, the world would have ended a very long time ago!

Peter well defines the longsuffering of the Lord as salvation: if the Lord were not patient with the creation, we might never have enjoyed the opportunity to live, or, in a darker light, perhaps would live in sin and be condemned before we might have turned in repentance back to the Living God. God’s longsuffering has allowed for our rescue, and how many times do we continue to depend on the longsuffering of God as we seek to grow in maturity? As it is with us, so it is with others. The world continues because the Lord is showing longsuffering toward them as well. As God has been patient with us, and that patience allows for our salvation, so we do well to be patient with others, both within and without the household of faith. We needed some time and wherewithal to recognize our challenges and to come to the Lord for healing; so do others. We have needed our time to grow in the faith and come to understand many of its precepts in greater clarity and understanding; so do others. We may have gotten further on the path of Jesus than others, but just as we needed to cross that terrain, so do they, and we do well to seek to truly build them up and strengthen them through that process just as we were, or at least should have been, built up and strengthened at that stage ourselves.

God is faithful to His promises. Jesus will return. Until then, let us not think of Jesus as slow or delayed; let us recognize that God is patient and longsuffering toward us, and be thankful that we have been able to obtain salvation through that patience of God. Let us account the longsuffering of God as salvation and praise and glorify Him in Christ in all things!

Ethan R. Longhenry

In God’s Good Time

And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them their land for an inheritance, for about four hundred and fifty years: and after these things he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet (Acts 13:19-20).

As Paul begins his exhortation to the Jews and allies in the synagogue of Antioch of Pisidia, he relates some of Israel’s history, emphasizing God’s direction of the people through His leadership and the agents whom He chose, culminating with David and the promise of the Messiah through his lineage (cf. Acts 13:17-23). Having discussed the exodus from Egypt, the wanderings in the wilderness, and the conquest of Canaan, and just before he begins discussing the judges to Samuel, Paul mentions how these events lasted “around four hundred and fifty years” (Acts 13:19 or Acts 13:20, depending on the translation). For that matter, he speaks of the time in the wilderness as forty years (Acts 13:18) and speaks of Saul’s reign for forty years (Acts 13:21). Why does Paul provide these details?

In the Bible, forty years has powerful symbolism: it signifies completeness and fullness. The four hundred and fifty year period is a bit more controversial. Some manuscripts seem to suggest the four hundred and fifty years describes the period between the conquest and Samuel, as the KJV rendering of Acts 13:20 would suggest: “And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.” Yet this causes great difficulty, since 1 Kings 6:1 suggests there are 480 years between the Exodus and Solomon’s fourth regnal year; this, and the historical record, do not easily allow for a four hundred and fifty year period for the Judges. There is better evidence for the reading found in the ASV and also in the ESV for Acts 13:20: “All this took about 450 years. And after that he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet”. Four hundred and fifty years for the Exodus through the conquest makes a bit more sense: around four hundred years for the sojourn in Egypt (cf. Genesis 15:13, upward to 430 in Exodus 12:40-41), forty years in the wilderness (Numbers 32:13, Acts 13:18), and thus no more than ten or so years for the conquest described in Joshua 1:1-12:24. Thus it took between 441 and 490 years; “around four hundred and fifty” makes the point well.

But this still does not get to the heart of the matter: why all the numbers? What is Paul trying to communicate?

It is not as if these numbers are new to the Jewish people who have gathered at the synagogue; in fact, if they were new, they would have been detrimental to Paul’s purposes. If the numbers were not familiar to them, they would likely begin mentally questioning the legitimacy of those numbers and therefore get distracted from Paul’s message and what he is really trying to communicate. The Israelites know their story and they know how long it took for the events described to take place. And that is precisely Paul’s point.

When Paul begins his message by speaking about “our fathers” (Acts 13:17), he is not just talking about the Israelites in Egypt, but the Patriarchs who came beforehand. The one to whom all Israelites looked was Abraham and the promises God made to him: he would become the father of many nations, whose offspring would be numerous and inherit the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:4-8). God reiterated these promises to Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5) and Jacob (Genesis 35:10-13) in turn. It would take about four hundred and fifty years, but God would fulfill these promises. Abraham had become the father of the Edomites, Israelites, and many of the tribes of the Arabs; Israel had grown numerous; God was the God of Israel, and had given the land of Canaan to them as an inheritance. It had just been done in God’s good time.

Paul reminds his audience of God’s faithfulness to His promises over time in order for them to accept how God has again proven faithful to His promises over time: of David’s offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He had promised (Acts 13:23)! It had taken about a thousand years from the original promise to David (a time-frame which Paul leaves unstated), and actually around four hundred and fifty years from the end of the prophetic period (Malachi 4:5-6). God fulfilled His promise: the throne of David was given to his Offspring forever; the rule of the Messiah had begun; Israel’s hope was satisfied in Jesus. It had just been done in God’s good time.

Forty years; four hundred and fifty years; a thousand years: these are large chunks of time in the eyes of mankind. These days we barely have the patience to wait a few seconds for our technological devices to work! We expect things to be done already; the prospect of having to wait for anything is unpleasant and even provides reason for doubt. We expect God and everyone else to do things according to our time-frame and time scale.

But God has never acted on man’s time scale; time is immaterial to Him (cf. 2 Peter 3:8). He acts in His good time. Things take place within or according to His will, even if we do not understand why or how (cf. Isaiah 55:8-9).

It is good and right for us to seek to align our will to God’s; we do well when we seek to discover what God is doing around us and begin participating in that work (Romans 8:29, Ephesians 3:20-21). But we need to be careful about our interpretation of our actions and our perception of God’s providence and will. We are liable to make snap and hasty judgments; when things do not pan out as we imagine they should, we too easily want to give up or declare that it is all to no avail.

Such is only true according to our time scale. How many times have we been humbled and astounded to see God’s powerful action accomplished in His good time? Sometimes it takes years for fruit to start appearing. Sometimes it takes decades for people to come to an understanding of the truth. Often times we find ourselves under God’s discipline when we thought we were entering His joy, or perhaps vice versa. The list goes on and on.

In all of these things, short-sighted reflection proves less faithful and rather faithless compared to the long-term impact. Such is why we do well to always remember how God works in His good time, and that often takes far longer than we can ever imagine. God is faithful; He makes good on His promises, even if it takes longer than we would like. Let us entrust ourselves to God and seek to glorify Him in His good time!

Ethan R. Longhenry

Time and God

But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8).

To say that we live in a fast-paced world might be one of the greatest understatements of the age. Technological advances allow us to get things done more quickly and efficiently than ever; communication can happen instantaneously. We now expect things to be done already; we have very little patience to wait for anything that we feel takes too long. A package may take a week to ship; a website might require a few additional seconds to load; we chafe and chomp at the bit, wanting to have it or to see it already.

Meanwhile, Jesus died, was raised in power, and ascended on high almost two thousand years ago. For two thousand years we have been waiting for His return and for the consummation of all things (cf. Romans 8:17-24, 2 Peter 3:1-14). And to think that even within a hundred years of Jesus’ death people were scoffing, wondering when He would return (2 Peter 3:4)!

Peter wants to encourage Christians regarding this dilemma: why is God taking so long to accomplish His purposes? But before he can provide an answer, he must first establish the proper perspective on all of these matters.

Peter declares that one day is as a thousand years to God, and a thousand years as one day (2 Peter 3:8). It has been tempting for people to emphasize one half of this verse over the other half, suggesting that one “Biblical day” is really a thousand year period; from the second century until today people attempt to hypothesize how much longer we will be around on the earth based on this suggestion. But Peter’s statement is not that one day is a thousand years, or, for that matter, that a thousand years is one day. Peter uses a simile: to God, a thousand years is like a day; a day is like a thousand years.

Such a statement, on its surface, seems ridiculous. It is ridiculous only when one seeks to literalize the statements or try to use the statements to make some declaration about the nature of time in the Bible. Peter is not providing a cipher with which one can unlock the numerological mysteries of the Bible; instead, he uses a simile to communicate how God transcends time. A day, a thousand years; it does not matter with God. God is above time, eternal in nature, from everlasting to everlasting (Romans 16:26, Psalm 41:13).

Therefore, even though we are bound by the constraints of time, spending our few decades up to perhaps a century on the earth, we should not impose such constraints upon God. Sure, to humans, two thousand years seems like a long time; yet, on the divine scale, one could compare it to two days. Then again, humans believe that two days is a short period of time; yet, on the divine scale, one can compare it to two thousand years! God cannot be so easily compressed and fit into the boxes that dictate our existence!

Peter says this in order for us to take comfort and be encouraged. The fact that two thousand years have transpired between the momentous events of the first century and the present day does not mean that God has neglected or abandoned us. It does not mean that God is slow as humans would consider slowness. Time is meaningless to Him; He has His purposes, He is carrying them out, and when His purpose has been fully accomplished to His satisfaction, the end will come and we will understand better.

God promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan; 500 or so years later, they obtained it (Genesis 17:1-14, Joshua). God promised Israel through Moses that He would raise up a prophet like Moses for the people; 1,450 years later, Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled the promise (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). When God cursed mankind, He provided the promise of the One who would bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15); it took no less than 4,500 years before Jesus’ death and resurrection allowed anyone to be freed from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-4). God will do what God does according to His purposes, and He is not limited to our time-frame or our scale of time. Let us therefore be patient and maintain our trust in God and His purposes for us in Jesus Christ!

Ethan R. Longhenry