"The Word of His Power"

They mock us for believing in the Second Coming and think they can rule out the supernatural because of the laws of physics. But they forget what makes those laws, laws. We have something more stable than the heavens and earth. A promise made by the same mouth that said, “Let there be light!” and there was light.

What Does 2 Peter 3:4-7 Mean?

2 Peter 3:4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? Ever since the fathers fell asleep, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

They attack the promise. This is strategic for Satan because the whole Christian life grows out of faith in God’s promises (see ch.1 verses 2-4). And this is the central promise. Without it, the whole of Christianity collapses. The fathers refers to ancestors long dead, probably the people in the Old Testament who received the promise of God’s coming (see Hebrews 1:1). Their argument is that from that generation until now everything has remained the same as it was from the beginning of the world until the fathers, therefore nothing will change substantially in the future.

2 Peter 3:5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.

Their insistence on clinging to their “nothing ever changes” opinion makes them forget the truth about the creation. The heavens and earth came into existence and were formed and subsist by God’s Word. God did it by separating the waters below from the waters above and causing dry ground to form (Genesis 1:6-10). In that sense, the creation came out of water and by means of water. The stability that the mockers think disproves the possibility of divine intervention is itself divine intervention.

6 By these also the world of that time was deluged with water and destroyed.

“These” probably refers to God’s Word (the nearest antecedent) and the water (the second-nearest). By God’s Word controlling the water, the world was destroyed. It was destroyed in the sense that it was returned to its pre-creation state (a watery abyss where humans can’t live) and “the world of the ungodly” (see 2:5) were killed. The stability the mockers appeal to is a function of God’s Word, not the creation itself.

7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

God holds the heavens and earth “in custody” awaiting their upcoming destruction, and that custody is inescapable. The ongoing existence and stability of the creation is God’s constant work. Nothing will be able to interfere with God’s planned judgment. The judgment will be on ungodly people, just as Noah’s flood was, but, also like the flood, it will affect the rest of creation as well.

Introduction: God’s Word

The heart and soul of today’s passage is a phrase that dominates verses 5, 6[1], and 7. It’s the phrase, God’s Word. Today’s passage is all about God’s Word, but it’s not referring to Scripture. I usually think of “God’s Word” as a synonym for the Bible, and many times that phrase does refer to Scripture or to the gospel. But not always. In a few places, Jesus is called the Word.[2] But in today’s passage, Peter speaks of God’s Word in a way you may not have considered, but it’s going to give us some great insight into science and how the world around us functions. And by the end we’ll understand why the Bible uses the phrase “God’s Word” to refer to Scripture, to Jesus, and to the creation. Once we understand what God’s Word is, we’ll see what those all have in common so that “God’s Word” is the best phrase to describe all of them.

Three Parts to Their Argument

So let’s first take a look at what their argument is, then we can watch it collapse when Peter tells us what they’re forgetting about God’s Word. They start by mocking the idea of the Second Coming in v.4.

2 Peter 3:4 and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming?”

And if you ask them, “How can you be so sure that it will never happen?”—here’s their answer.

2 Peter 3:4 … Ever since the[3] fathers fell asleep, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”

That’s kind of a two-part argument. They’re saying they don’t think judgment day will happen first because of the stability of the creation—everything goes on as it always has. And second because of the long delay—it’s been so long and nothing has happened yet.

Peter will answer the problem of the long delay down in v.8. We won’t make it that far today because Peter first wants to deal with the other part—the stability of the creation. And he especially wants us to understand the role of God’s Word in that.

God’s Creating Word

2 Peter 3:4 … everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.

Today people would say, “Since the big bang.”

Willful Ignorance

The big bang is their story of how matter and energy changed, but it doesn’t address the question of where it all originally came from—how it all came into existence in the first place. If you ask that question, the answer is always the same: “We don’t know.” They’ll give you guesses—maybe this, maybe that. But really they just don’t know.

And Peter reminds us that in many cases, that’s on purpose.

2 Peter 3:5 they deliberately forget

That could be translated, “They deliberately forget” or “They forget because they’re determined to cling to their view that nothing changes.” But either way, the point is that their ignorance is intentional. The answer is available, but they don’t want it to be true, so they close their eyes to it. Romans 1:18 says they suppress the truth because of the way they want to live even though God has made the truth about himself clear to every human being.

One of the favorite arguments lately with atheists is to say, “If God were real, he would know exactly what evidence it would take to convince me, so why doesn’t he just give me that exact evidence?” But when a person is determined not to believe something, no amount of evidence will convince them. And when you reject the evidence God gives, you lose your privilege of gaining more evidence.

And the evidence God has given us in his creation is overwhelming. The more you study the creation, the more obvious it is that there has to be a Creator—a Creator who is mighty, wise, beautiful, and personal. Where did the universe come from? God. That much should be obvious to everyone.

Creation Through Word

But Peter is a little more specific. Not just God—specifically, it came from God’s Word.

2 Peter 3:5 they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed

Word as a Power Source?

Now at first, that’s a little surprising because what is the normal purpose of words? Communication, right? You speak in order to tell someone something.

But when you open up the Bible, the first time you ever see God use words, he’s not even talking to anyone. When God says, “Let there be light,” who is he talking to? It’s not a conversation—it’s a command.

If you had no idea what the purpose of words was and you read Genesis 1, your first thought wouldn’t be, “Words are for communication.” No, your first thought would be, “Wow, God uses words to unleash awesome power!” A literal translation of Genesis 1:3 is this: “And God said, ‘Let light be! And light … was.” Before light existed, God spoke to it and said, “Light—be!” and there it was.

And light isn’t a simplistic, easy thing. It’s one of the most mind-boggling elements of the physical world. It’s so fast, for one thing. It’s always zooming along at the speed of light. It doesn’t accelerate to that speed—it’s instantly traveling that fast the instant it comes into existence. So if it were a train with a track that went all the way around the globe, and you fell on the track, you’d get run over 8 times per second. And it can travel millions of miles and never runs out of steam. And it behaves in ways that boggle the mind. And it’s the means of perception, it enables sight—it’s just incredible stuff. And God just called it into existence with a word.

That’s power. To use the phrase from Hebrews 1:3—”the word of his power.”

The Latin term for this is creation ex nihilo—out of nothing.

Hebrews 11:3 … the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Notice—he mentions the verbal part of it too—“at God’s command.” God spoke to what wasn’t there and it came into existence. That’s not just power. It’s power unlike any other kind of power we have no experience with. When we create things, we start with something that already exists and make changes to it. But God starts with nothing. In Romans 4 God is described as the one …

Romans 4:17 … who calls things that are not as though they were.

He speaks to things that don’t exist as if they did exist and when he does that, they start existing. Awesome power.

Only God can do that. I know the word of faith people claim we also have that power in our words, but we don’t. Our words do have power to be sure, but not that kind of power. Not power that can call things that don’t exist into existence.

No, what happened in Genesis 1 wasn’t something you and I could do. It was a display of awesome, divine, supernatural power. Or to be more precise, pre-natural power because it was before nature existed.

Why Words? Creation = Communication

So the first thing we learn in the Bible about God’s Word is that it carries awesome, divine power. But if the point is to emphasize God’s power, why bother with words? God could have created with a mere act of his will without saying anything. Why did God speak the world into existence instead of just willing it into existence?

The Reliability of God’s Promises

One reason is to show the power and authority behind everything God says. What God says, goes. Reality itself is determined by what God says. God wanted us to know right from page 1 of the Bible that his words carry both absolute authority and infinite power to back up that authority so that when he says something, the idea that his words could somehow fail is the most absurd of all possible absurdities. His words can’t be untrue because the definition of truth is whatever God says. And reality itself is determined by what God says.

God’s Promises Can’t Fail

Now, can you see why that’s relevant for what Peter is doing here in 2 Peter 3? Peter is confronting people who are mocking God’s what? His promise—“Where is the promise of his coming?” They’re calling it into question by saying, “Ever since the beginning of creation things go on as they always have” and Peter says, “Since you brought up creation … are you forgetting how creation happened?” God spoke the galaxies into existence with a word. Are you sure you want to doubt something he said? Especially the greatest and most solemn promise he ever made?

Peter is reminding us of this essential truth—don’t ever forget this: God’s words of promise are just as powerful as his words of creation. Every promise God makes to you in the Bible packs just as much divine power and certainty as the words “Let there be light.”

God’s Sustaining Word

It Never Has So It Never Will

OK, so that’s Peter’s response to the first part of their argument—the beginning of creation. He points them to the power of God’s creating word. Now the next part—the stability of the creation.

2 Peter 3:4 … everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.

Everything goes on as it always has—therefore Judgment Day will never happen. It will never happen because it never has? That’s like saying, “I’ll never die—after all, I never have.” So right away we can see there are some holes in their argument.

We Tend to Assume Continuity with What We Observe Now

But as silly as that sounds, we all naturally think that way. We all have a tendency to assume the way things are now is how they’ll always be. A teenager with a broken heart can’t even imagine ever being happy. “I’ll never love again!”

We never really grow out of that. Our perspective is so small, it really does seem like right now defines forever.

When the mockers say, “everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation”—that term “goes on” is a gnomic verb. The gnomic is a way of describing what a timeless, universal principle. They’re saying the functioning of the natural world is a universal, timeless, unchangeable constant.”

It’s the Supernatural They Mock

Does that mean they think the world will never end? No—they know it will end. In fact, the mockers of our day are the ones who are constantly predicting the end of the world. There’s always something they’re sure is going to wipe out humanity.

• Artificial Intelligence will kill us all,
• climate change, global warming, rising sea levels,
• another ice age, a pandemic,
• overpopulation, nuclear war,
• a comet slamming into the earth, the sun burning out,
• Donald Trump.

The mockers churn out end of the world predictions like hens laying eggs—every other day, there’s another one.

And none of those predictions get ridiculed. Even the goofiest ones are taken seriously. They won’t laugh at any theory as long as it follows one essential rule. Your end of the world theory must be about a natural cause.

It’s not the end of the world they object to—it’s the idea of God being involved. Look again at what they say.

2 Peter 3:4 … “Where is the promise of his coming?

They’re fine with the end of the world, just as long as it’s not God coming to do it.

When you see a cartoon with a crazy person with a sandwich board saying the end is near, it’s always a religious person. It’s never Al Gore or someone in a lab coat. The only end of the world predictions sound ridiculous to them are ones involving the supernatural.

The Second Coming Is Supernatural

And if you deny the supernatural, you’ll really deny the Second Coming of Christ because that’s the most supernatural event imaginable. To believe in the Second Coming, you first have to believe:

• Jesus rose from the dead
• that he still exists in bodily form thousands of years later, and
• that he will appear in the sky with multitudes of angels and all the saints of the ages in resurrected bodies filling the sky, followed by God judging every human who has ever lived with perfect justice and then consigning unbelievers to eternal punishment and inviting believers to spend eternity with God in a new heavens and new earth.

I don’t think you could even conceive of anything more miraculous than all that which means if you reject the supernatural, it’s the least believable promise in the whole Bible.

The World Is Incredibly Stable

Now, when they say the laws of nature are fixed and stable and unchanging, are they right? Yes. We live in an incredibly stable world. The atomic clock at NIST in Boulder could run 58 billion years without getting off by one second. Gravity is so constant and predictable that we can fire a rocket into space and do the math of gravity and the laws of motion and know the exact path it will take. There’s a reason we call the laws of physics “laws.” They really do seem unbreakable.

Why Is the World Stable?

Peter has no argument with any of that. Peter’s response is, “Yes, nature is stable—but have you ever thought about why?” The fact that it all runs so perfectly—the laws of motion and the stunning mathematical precision behind it all— If the universe is the product of a random, purposeless, meaningless, unguided explosion (or sudden expansion), would we expect it to be fine-tuned with greater precision and intricacy a Swiss watch? Or the world’s most sophisticated computer?

There is a tremendous force pushing the nucleus of every atom apart, what holds them together? They say, “Oh, that’s easy—the strong nuclear force holds them together.” And you say, “What is that?” And they say, “Well, something is holding them together. And it’s got to be stronger than the force pushing them apart, so we call it ‘the strong force.’”

“But what is it?” And where does it get all that strength? And why does it hold atoms together?”

And if you keep pushing, eventually you get the answer: “It all just happens by itself.” The universe powers itself.[4]

Deism

And sadly, a lot of Christians would agree with that. We tend to be a product of our culture. And a lot of Christians think God created the world, but then just wound it up like a clock and now it runs on its own power. If there’s a hurricane or a snow storm or termites in your basement—that’s not God. It’s nature just running on its own power. Gravity isn’t God acting. It’s just a property built into the creation. Once in a while God “intervenes” with a miracle, but other than that, he’s hands-off.

Reserved and Kept

That is not the Christian worldview. Peter is very clear. The reason the natural world is stable is that God is holding it steady and keeping it operational until Judgment Day.

2 Peter 3:7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment

Reserved and kept. The reason the material world doesn’t fall apart or disintegrate or blow up or peter out is because God is exerting power every second of every day to keep it up and running. And again, that power comes through his Word. Verse 7 begins “by the same word…” So first Peter pointed us to God’s creating word, now it’s God’s sustaining word.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory … sustaining all things by the word of his power.

The word of his power. Jesus is constantly commanding that the world remain up and running. He sustains it and holds it together. Jesus is the strong nuclear force.

Colossians 1:17 … In him all things hold together.

Atoms hold together because Jesus tells them to.

Revelation 4:11 … you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

If God stops willing the existence of something, it stops existing.

And this should be obvious if you believe God created the world. If light exists because God said, “Let there be light,” that means light depends on God for its existence—as does everything and everyone else.

God is the only one who possesses the power of self-existence. He’s the only one who has the power to exist in and of himself—everything else depends on God to remain in existence. That’s what it means that Jesus sustains and upholds the universe.

The laws of physics are only laws because God keeps making them happen every day. If an object at rest remains at rest, that’s divine intervention. If an apple falls from a tree, that’s divine intervention. If light travels at the speed of light and water freezes at 32 degrees and the sun rises in the morning—that’s all God. For the laws of physics to function today like they did yesterday requires divine intervention.

They think there will never be any divine intervention because they’ve never seen God intervene. But that’s only because they’re willfully blind to God’s work. God “intervenes” in every place every split second of every day.

And if you understand that, it’s not hard to imagine how God could destroy the world. All it would take would be for him to stop upholding everything for a moment, and poof—it’s over.

The Steel Plate

When people put their hope in the stability of the creation, and they think that gives them independence from God so they don’t have to worry about judgment, that’s childish. I would illustrate it this way: Imagine there’s a shipwreck and just before the ship goes under the water a man grabs his little son and the only flat surface he can find is a large steel plate. So he jumps into the water holding his son on top of the steel plate. But the man is an incredibly strong swimmer so he’s able to hold the steel plate treading water so the child could have a place to sit and stay dry.

But after a while, the child starts thinking, “What do I need my dad for? I’ve got this nice, stable platform to sit on.” So he turns against his dad. He won’t listen to him or do anything his dad says.

That’s the folly of the people who aren’t worried about Judgment Day because they have all their faith in the stability of the steel plate. And they deliberately forget who’s providing that stability.

God’s De-Creating Word

Forgetting the Flood

So Peter says, “Yes, the natural world is incredibly stable. But it’s only stable by the Word of God. And his reason for keeping it stable is to hold until Judgment Day when he’ll destroy it.”

And that brings us to yet another mistake the mockers make. There will be no cataclysmic, supernatural judgment because there never has been? Are you sure about that? Peter says, “Aren’t you forgetting something? Ever heard of a guy named Noah?” 2 Peter 3:6 … the world of that time was deluged with water and destroyed. Noah’s flood wasn’t everything just going on as it has since the beginning of creation. That’s a clear example of supernatural disruption of the natural order that the mockers are forgetting.

De-Creation

And notice how Peter ties the flood to the original creation.

2 Peter 3:5 … long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed[5] out of water and by water.

That’s a reference to days 2 and 3 of the creation week.

Genesis 1:6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” … 9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.”

God used the waters to carry out that part of the creation. With all the things God did in the creation, why does Peter single out the waters? Look at where he goes next:

2 Peter 3:6 By these also the world of that time was deluged with water and destroyed.…

It was destroyed in the sense that it was returned to its pre-Genesis 1:6 state (a watery abyss where humans can’t live).

The picture in Genesis 1 is of this watery chaos that is uninhabitable by man and God created a habitable world for us by separating those waters, organizing them, and structuring them to create a beautiful, habitable world. When God brought judgment on mankind in Noah’s time, he could have done it a lot of ways. But when God chose to do it with water—having the waters above collapse down and the waters from the ground rise up into a watery abyss that killed everyone (except Noah’s crew). That was very deliberate. It wasn’t just a random way of bringing judgment. It was God making a point that he was de-creating—doing the reverse of what he did in Genesis 1.

There was a sitcom years ago where the dad would tell his son, “I brought you into this world and I can take you out!” And then he said, “And I can make another one who looks just like you.” That’s what God was doing with the flood. I created this world and I can de-create it and then make a new one.

Through the Word

And how, specifically, did God make the flood happen? Look at what Peter says.

2 Peter 3:6 By these also the world of that time was deluged

“These” refers to God’s Word commanding the waters.[6] So can you see what Peter’s doing? First he talked about God’s creating word, then his sustaining word, and now his de-creating word.

Do you see the ramifications for understanding what it is that causes the stability in nature?. The water in Genesis 1 brought about a wonderful creation that was “very good.” The same water in Genesis 6 de-created the world and killed everyone. How could that be? Did the properties of water change? No. What made the difference was what? God’s Word.

If God says, “Creation” then the elements of the physical world form something wonderful and stable. But if God says, “Judgment,” those same elements will bring devastation. And if God says, “Hold,” then the elements remain stable.

So do you see how foolish it is for these mockers to put their faith in the elements of the physical world? They look at atoms holding together and say, “See—nothing to worry about. Nature is stable.” But what if the one holding all the atoms together just … let go? Peter tells us exactly what will happen.

2 Peter 3:10 … The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. 11 … everything will be destroyed … 12 That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.

The Meaning of God’s Word

So let’s go back to where we started. What is God’s Word? It’s communication and power. God’s Word is God revealing what’s in his heart and doing so in a way that exerts awesome power. Or you could say it the other way. God’s word is when God exerts his awesome power and authority in a way that reveals truth about him.

So can you see how the different ways that phrase is used aren’t really all that different? God spoke the creation into existence, speaking words that exerted his power in a way that revealed himself.

The Power of Scripture

The Bible is God speaking words that reveal truth about himself in a way that exerts divine power. That’s why the Bible is different from all other true writings.

Sometimes Christian counselors will say, “Psychology is just as good as the Bible for counseling because all truth is God’s truth.” All truth is God’s truth, but not all truth is God’s Word. God’s Word comes with power to transform the human heart. It’s living and active and it can judge the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. It has power to revive the soul and give joy to the heart and light to the eyes. It’s called God’s Word because it unleashes divine power.

And if the Word of God is when God reveals himself in a way that exerts his awesome power, what’s the ultimate embodiment of that? Isn’t it the Lord Jesus Christ? That’s why John calls Jesus the Word of God.

Conclusion: The Word Remains, not the Creation

Why Word Instead of Power—Because It’s about God’s Promise

One last question. If the main thing Peter wants to emphasize is God’s power over the creation, why not just use the word “power” instead of “word”? Why doesn’t he say, “Long ago, by God’s power the heavens existed and the earth was formed”? And “By his power also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed”?

If you want to know why he said word instead of power, think back to what the mockers are attacking—God’s promise. Not just whether or not Jesus will return, but the promise of his coming. The issue at hand is whether God can be trusted to keep his Word. And so Peter says, “Everything that’s reliable in the world is reliable only because of his Word.” All stability, all reliability, all certainty that exists is stable and reliable and certain only because of his Word. God’s Word is the only factor in the universe that determines reality.

God’s Word Is More Stable Than the Creation

It’s not surprising that the mockers would put their trust in the stability of the physical world because earth and the heavenly bodies are the most permanent, stable, long-lasting realities we can see. Just think of the stability of the earth. If you could watch the whole timeline of human history on a video and fast forward so you could watch it from beginning to end in 5 minutes, you would see huge civilizations rise, dominate the world, and fall in less than a second. Generations would be living and dying, coming and going, moving here and there, and in the background mountains would just be sitting there unchanged. This planet is almost exactly the same as it was thousands of years ago. When Noah looked up and saw the moon, he saw exactly the same thing we see when we look today. Compared to everything else we know, nothing has anything close to the stability of the heavens and earth.

And so they are what we base our stability on. We define “up” in relationship to the ground. Even though that points in a different direction everywhere in the world, since it’s round, still, that’s our definition of up because earth is our baseline foundation. If you’re up on some shaky, unstable perch, or you’re on a flight with really bad turbulence or engine trouble, you long to get your feet on solid ground. If you want to make sure a building doesn’t topple, you drive the footings where? Deep into bedrock. That’s our stability. Time is measured by the movements of the creation. When our calendars get off by a day on leap year, we adjust them to match what the earth is doing because that’s the baseline. There’s nothing more permanent than that we can see.

When the mockers say everything “goes on” as it always has—that word “goes on” can also be translated “remains.” The heavens and earth and laws of nature remain through the millennia.

I mention that because that’s the word used in Psalm 102, and there it is translated “remains.” But in that passage, it’s not the created world that remains. There’s something else that remains longer.

Psalm 102:25 In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 26 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.

The mockers say God’s promise has perished and the natural world remains. But the truth is the natural world will perish and God’s Word will remain forever.

And the writer of Hebrews quotes that psalm about the Word of God remaining longer than the heavens and earth. And guess who he applies it to?

Hebrews 1:8 But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever … 10 He also says, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. 11 They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. 12 You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed. But you remain the same, and your years will never end.”

God’s promise is just as durable as the Lord Jesus Christ because he’s the embodiment of the promise.

Mark 13:31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

He’s saying, “Compared to my words, the most stable, permanent thing you know (the universe) is transient.”

His words are the standard by which we measure which way is up and which way is down. His promises are the ultimate, final bedrock foundation upon which all stability must be built or fall. His words are our security when the earth itself quakes and the mountains slide into the heart of the sea. His words alone point us to true north. When our ideas and beliefs drift from reality, we correct them by syncing up to Jesus’ words. When the storms of life hit, those whose foundation is the promises of Christ can stand firm. And when the final storm of judgment day comes and the heavens roll up like a scroll and basic, core elements of the earth are destroyed with fire, even those who have footings deep into bedrock will fall. Only those whose lives are built on the words of Christ will stand. Only those people who are relying on those words, taking their direction from those words, looking at reality through the lens of those words will avoid being shattered along with the old heavens and earth.

Don’t trust in the stability of the steel plate. Trust the mighty arm of the one holding it stable. He’s the only one who can save you when that plate drops.

[1] In the Greek, God’s Word is the closest antecedent to the word “these.” The second closest is “water.” So the point is that the world was destroyed by God’s Word commanding the water.

[2] John 1:1, 14; Revelation 19:13.

[3] The NIV says “our fathers,” but the Greek simply says, “the fathers.”

[4] The mockers of our day—the naturalists who say there is no supernatural—say the physical world powers itself. The only thing that powers nature is nature.

That’s like a child who sees a helium balloon rise and can’t see anything pushing it up, so they assume there is some kind of power in the balloon. I can’t see the cause, therefore there is no cause. It just happens by itself. That’s their approach to things like gravity.

And a physicist might object and say, “Wait a minute. We never said there is no cause. We just haven’t discovered it yet. No doubt we’ll eventually discover some natural cause.” But if it’s a natural cause, you still have the same problem—what caused that? Imagine a heavy trailer that starts moving. So you investigate to see what’s making it move and you discover a hook attached to the front. Mystery solved—the hook is pulling it.

But what’s pulling the hook? You investigate a little further and solve that mystery—a link in a chain is attached to that hook. But what’s pulling that link? You study it—“another link!”

Well, what’s pulling that link? “We don’t know yet, but we’re sure eventually we’ll discover there’s yet another link. One thing we know for sure, there are only links—extending out forever. There’s definitely not some truck with a big diesel engine or anything like that. The whole chain just operates on its own.”

[5] The word “formed” is feminine, agreeing with “earth” and not “heavens.” This could be because Peter’s focus is on the earth. But WBC says “formed” should apply to both heavens and earth, since that’s obviously true) and it’s feminine just because of attraction to the nearest noun.

The world, however, was “formed” (synestōsa), that is, it took shape, “by God’s word.” Colossians 1:17 is a parallel text in some respects, for there we are told that “all things hold together” (synestēken) in Christ. The physical universe is preserved and maintained by Christ himself (cf. Heb 1:3). Peter emphasized here that the original creation was formed and took shape by God’s word.

[6] In the Greek, the nearest antecedent is “word” and the second-nearest is “waters.” The NIV takes “these” to refer just to the waters, but that ignores the nearest antecedent, and it also seems redundant because Peter says the world was deluged “with water.” So it would be “By these waters the world was deluged with water.” The focus of the verse before and after is the Word, so I think that’s also the focus of v.6.

 

[1] The reason Israel turned away from God was because of a memory problem. God warned them over and over—Don’t forget what it was like to be slaves, and don’t forget what I did to deliver you.” And what happened?Psalm 78:11 They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them. They forgot everything God told them to remember. But they did remember one thing. Numbers 11:5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost– also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. They forgot the misery of their bondage. But they remembered the food.

[2] From ch.7.