Will the earth be destroyed, according to 2 Peter 3:10? (Tom Wright)

It is often thought that 2 Peter 3:10 speaks of the earth being burned up in the future. In a previous post I referred to Dr Christopher Wright's view on this matter. In this post I will refer to Bishop Tom Wright's view on this verse. The following is taken from his devotional commentary, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, pages 119-120.

"As with the rest of the New Testament, Peter is not saying that the present world of space, time and matter is going to be burnt up and destroyed. That is more like the view of ancient Stoicism - and of some modern ideas, too. What will happen, as many early Christian teachers said, is that some sort of 'fire', literal or metaphorical, will come upon the whole earth, not to destroy, but to test everything out, and to purify it by burning up everything that doesn't meet the test. The 'elements' that will be 'dissolved' are probably the parts of creation that are needed at the moment for light and heat, that is, the sun and the moon: according to Revelation 21 they will not be needed in the new creation. But Peter's concern throughout the letter is with the judgment of humans for what they have done, not with the non-human parts of the cosmos for their own sake.

The day will come, then, and all will be revealed. All will be judged with fire. That is the promise which Peter re-emphasizes here over against those who said, at or soon after the end of the first Christian generation, that the whole thing must be a mistake since Jesus had not, after all, returned. Many in our own day have added their voices to those of the 'deceivers' of verse 3, saying that the early Christians all expected Jesus to return at once, and that since he didn't we must set aside significant parts of their teaching because, being based on a mistake, they have come out wrong. But this merely repeats the mistake against which Peter is warning - and, in fact, this is the only passage in all first-century Christian literature which addresses directly the question of a 'delay'. It doesn't seem to have bothered Christian writers in the second century or thereafter. They continue to teach that the Lord would return, and that this might happen at any time (hence: 'like a thief', in verse 10, picking up an image from Jesus himself)."

(Click here for the previous post on this topic.)

Will the earth be destroyed, according to 2 Peter 3:10? (Christopher Wright)

In his book, The God I Don't Understand, Dr Christopher J H Wright has the following to say about 2 Peter 3:10. Dr Wright challenges the thought that the earth will one day be destroyed entirely (ie. "burned up").

"At the time of the King James Version, the only available Greek manuscripts had the final verb of that sentence as 'will burn up', and so this thought entered Christian expectations. Much earlier manuscripts that have since been discovered indicates that the original word was 'will be found'. What this probably means is that as the purging fires of God's judgment do their work, the earth and all deeds done on it will be fully exposed and 'found out' for what they really are. The same Greek word 'found' is used in a similar way in 1 Peter 1:7, also in the context of the purging judgment of fire: '... so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which purges even though refined by fire - may be proved [found] genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed' (same word, my emphasis)." (pages 199-200)

Dr Chris Wright then cites the newer English translations, NET, NRSV and ESV, to illustrate this point. Then he says,

"So we should understand the destructive fire of this passage as the fire of God's moral judgment, which will destroy all that is wicked. In this sense it is exactly parallel to the destructive water of God's judgment at the time of the flood, which Peter uses in the preceding verses as the great historical prototype for the final judgment to come: 'By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed [same word as in vv. 10 and 11]. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly' (2 Peter 3:6-7, my emphasis).

"The language is the same: destruction. But what was destroyed in the flood? Not the earth itself, but the wicked people on it at the time. Likewise what will be destroyed in the fire? Not the earth itself, but all that is sinful upon it. That is why Peter can urge his readers, in view of the coming destruction, not to try to escape out of the world but to live morally godly lives in it (2 Peter 3:11), in preparation for the new creation, 'where righteousness dwells' (v. 13). Thus, we should not see in this passage an obliteration of the universe, but a moral and redemptive purging of the universe, cleansing it of the presence and effects of all sin and evil." (page 200)

(Click here for another blog post on this topic, which refers to Tom Wright's book.)