Question to this scripture mean II Peter 3:8?

Question

2nd Peter 3:8. It reads: "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

Now my wife thinks the earth is billions or millions of years old, but I oppose that. Now this is the scripture she used to argue with me. I am thinking it might be taken out of context?

Answer 1

You must read the whole chapter of II Peter 3, to really get the true meaning. This chapter deals with living in the hope of The Lord's coming, and concerning His promises.

Psalm 90:4 states: For a thousand years in thy sight are but AS yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Which means: A thousand years are like one day to God. This has nothing to do with how old the earth is. Time to the Lord is very short. In God's mind, if He said something will come to past, then it is as if it has already happened, because He has determined that it will come to past.

You know, it really doesn't matter how old the earth is. We know that God made it in His time. The important thing is do we know Him?

Answer 2

Time in the bible is relative.

Gen 1:1, 2 doesn't say when God created the heavens and the earth.

The 6 following days were preparing the existing earth for man to be able to live on it.

Hebrews Chapters 3 & 4 shows that the 7th day continued down to Paul time. Making the Sabbath day at least 4000 years long.

The book of Revelation is discussing the 'Lord's Day', and made to sound like it was in John's near future, yet it's been 2000 years.

The bible use the word day to represent 1000 years, 24 hours and 12 hours of sunlight.

If you use the 1000 years as a guide,

Man was created 6 days ago.

Christ came 2 days ago.

We come to realize that God is not slow in his promises.

.

Answer 3

You should read this link:
http://bythebible.page.tl/Creation.htm

Also, be aware that there is Biblical proof for that a creative day is at a very minimum 7000 years long.

However, since the Bible puts no terminating point on the length, your wife is actually right in thinking that this is not against the scriptures to assume this.

I say that the Bible permits it. However, I also believe that some of the assumptions of archeology in regard to aging are clearly that -- assumptions that cannot be proved.

Thus, there could easily be a middle road that could use what the Bible does say as a yardstick to adjust the extreme archaeological ages uses presently.

Personally, I do not like to fix these ages since no one really knows and the Bible doesn't specify.

Answer 4

No it is not taken out of context. The Bible tells us that God's timetable is unlike humans timetables. It is a proven fact that the earth was not created in six 24 hour periods. Scientists have verified that it took millions of years to create what we see on this planet. Therefore God took his time and made everything just so and so beautiful for humans to experience. We were to live forever on a paradise earth so why wouldn't he take his time to glorify his power with the wondrous works of Creation that we see. One day to Jehovah is as a thousand years. The Bible is accurate and does not lie so yes, your wife is correct.

Answer 5

This verse has nothing to do with that argument.
it is saying that to be with the Lord one day, is like being with the lord for a thousand year--that's how outstanding it is with him. The second part is saying
when you've spend 1000 years with Him, it will feel only as if a day, because he is so awesome.

Answer 6

Read the scriptures before and after to gain some contextual feel.

All it is - is an exhortation to patience; an understanding that GOD may not move as quickly as we would like on some matters because God's time frame of reference is totally different from ours.

Incidentally I am not all that interested in the mundane theological arguments - like how old is the earth. I bet when we get to the other side, no one even remembers to ask!

Answer 7

you could be right or she could be right , about the earth. but what That scripture is saying is that God's time is not our time, and that God is not bound by Time as we are . but this Scripture has nothing to do with when the earth was created.

Answer 8

It means that God's time is not our time. What we call one day, to God it could be millions of years. The Bible says, in Heaven there is neither night or day, that God is the light.

Answer 9

Yes it is taken out of context. God lives outside time. For us this is a concept beyond our comprehension as we live in time.
You should point out to your wife that the word day in Genesis is the Hebrew Yom which means 24 hours.
I believe the world is around 10,000 years old - for practical purposes the fall and the breaking up of the world's single surface (see Gondwanaland in google) happened AFTER man appeared.
In one sense it matters not a hoot if the world before Adam were proven to be zillions of years old - ie there might have been a space of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 but creation as we see it was made in 6 ( 24 hour day) time periods and the fall happened (and catastrophic breaking of the earth during the days of Peleg - when the earth was divided) and the moral dimension of man fell first before the earth / creation experienced the fall.

Why argue about the age of the earth. Argue about theistic evolution (God used evolution) all you wish - as if anyone believes that God did use evolution to get to Adam (sentient and moral man) then He must have used death as part of the natural order *(which He pronounced as very good) therefore the statement that death came through sin would be untrue and hence the entire gospel would be untrue.
THAT is worth arguing about! Nicely of course.


Exegesis of Genesis chapter one

(a) Firstly such a position invariably asserts that each ‘day’ of Genesis 1 is a long period of time. However this negates the text itself which has 'evening and morning' repeated 6 times in Genesis 1. All other uses of the word 'yom' in Scripture with 'evening and morning' always, without fail, mean a 24 hour day in Genesis as against the alternative meaning 'day of the Lord' (indefinite period of time) which is never associated with a numerical list or 'evening and morning' [3].

(b) Genesis 1 reads as historical Hebrew literature (not poetry). The characteristics of Hebrew poetry are parallelism and repetition. In his book The Great Brain Robbery, David C.C. Watson points this out by comparing Psalm 33 and Genesis 1. Psalm 33:6 reads, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." This is an example of parallelism and repetition which is quite absent from Genesis 1. That account is no poem. Rather, in a very matter-of-fact way, it is simply recorded, stage by stage, what God did.

(c) The context of Genesis 1 demands that the word 'day' be a literal 24-hour period. The original word 'yom' in the Hebrew can mean a period of time but it is always obvious from the context. In Genesis 1:5 the word 'day' initially signifies the daylight hours and then, in the same verse, goes on to refer to the completion of the first day of creation, thus implying literal 24-hour periods. Many have argued that 2 Peter 3:8 ("...with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day...") is justification for regarding the days as non-literal. But 2 Peter 3:8 does not say one day equals 1,000 years. Rather that with God time is of no consequence. The verses are in the context of teaching on the second coming of Christ. He is coming, but it may be in some thousands of years and not in days. The word 'day' here is still meaning a 24-hour period. As David C.C. Watson has aptly commented, "To toss 2 Peter 3:8 into the middle of Genesis 1 is about as sensible as to affirm that Matthew 27:63 means 'After three thousand years I shall rise again'!" When 2 Peter 3:8 is best understood in the light of Ps 90:4 "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night".

(d) The most conclusive of all arguments concerning the days of Genesis 1 being literal 24-hour periods is to be found in Exodus 20:8-11. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy....For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day...". Although opponents of a six literal day creation assail many of the other arguments listed here, it is very rare that Exodus 20 is brought into their reasoning. Of course this is hardly surprising since it is impossible to force the word 'day' to mean a 'period of time' in the context of the fourth commandment. The creation ordinance, repeated by Moses in this passage, is that man is to keep every seventh 24-hour period - not every seventh week or century! It clearly states the reason - "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth". (where the word 'made' is 'asah' and is the same as that used in Gen. 1:31 - 'God saw everything that He had made' - and is widely used in the Genesis accounts for God's creative acts. The other word 'bara' is reserved for God's creation out of nothing as in Gen. 1:1.)

Hope this helps.

Answer 10

I think that time was created to keep everything from happening all at once here on earth. In heaven time is meaningless.
Peace