One Day is Like a Thousand Years
What did Peter mean by, “With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8)?
This is one of the most frequently used verses to try to get around those time statements that say the second coming would happen “soon,” that is, in the first century (James 5:8, Phil. 4:5, Heb. 10:37, Rev. 22:7). As the argument goes, God is outside time and experiences time vastly differently than we humans do. To God, one day is as a thousand years to us. Moreover, God gave the time statements from his perspective, not ours. Therefore, time indicators such as “soon” could equate to thousands–if not millions–of years! Conclusion: for all practical purposes, the New Testament’s time indicators can safely be ignored.
Response: First, if that were true, why would God chastise so severely the Israelites in Ezekiel’s day for dismissing his time statement? As Ezekiel explains, God had warned Israel that their judgment was imminent, that it was at hand; yet Israel was in denial and said it was “not at hand” (Ez. 12:22–26). So God charged these time indicator deniers with giving “false visions” and “flattering divinations.” These are serious charges–and rather unjustified–if “soon” and “at hand” can equate to thousands of years, as futurists claim. Note: futurists believe the second coming is a yet future event.
Second, if God’s time indicators were so nebulous and unknowable, why would God tell people to test his prophets by whether or not their prophecies come to pass within the stated time frame? “And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’–when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously” (Deut. 18:21–22). In fact, under the Old Covenant, the punishment for false prophecy was death (Deut. 18:19)! This shows that God expected people to take his time statements at face value. In other words, “soon” means soon!
Third, if God’s time statements are so elastic, why should we think the rest of his statements/promises are firm? After all, wasn’t the entire Bible given from God’s (elastic) perspective? Futurists are unwittingly explaining away much more than just those pesky time texts that oppose their creeds and traditions; they are essentially arguing that God’s words (the Scriptures) and human understanding (man’s ability to understand the Scriptures) are on such different wavelengths that we cannot really be sure about anything in the Bible.
“A day may not mean a day, nor a thousand years a thousand years, but either may be the other. If this were so, there could be no interpretation of prophecy possible; it would be deprived of all precision, and even of all credibility; for if it is manifest that there were such ambiguity and uncertainty with respect to time, there might be no less ambiguity and uncertainty in respect to everything else [in the Bible].”[1]
If we cannot understand God’s time statements (because God’s perspective and human understanding are so vastly different), then why should we think we can understand the rest of the Bible? Maybe our human understanding of “salvation by faith” and “Jesus is the only way” and “Jesus is the source of eternal life” is just as off. The futurist hermeneutic casts a dark cloud of uncertainty over the entire Bible.
How could we trust anything God said knowing that he might pull the rug out from under us at any moment with his elastic language? Futurists are essentially accusing God of using diverse weights and measures, of defining words as the polar opposite of what they mean to humans. “To ascribe to God a time scale different than our own [gives the Bible] a character of deception rather than revelation.”[2] How could the Bible be revelation in any sense of the word if we cannot even understand it (because God’s perspective is so vastly different from ours)?
Fourth, God did not write the Bible to himself; he wrote it to man. Therefore, it stands to reason that he would want man to understand it. It borders on absurdity to suggest God would write a book to man that man could not understand.
Fifth, even if timing indicators such as “soon,” “near,” and “in a little while” could be legitimately explained away–which they can’t, at least not without turning the rest of the Bible into meaningless, relativistic mush–that still would not account for all the other precisely worded time statements, such as Matthew 16:28, where Jesus said he would come within the lifetimes of his audience, or Matthew 24:30–34, where Jesus promised to come within a generation, or Matthew 10:23, where Jesus said he would come before the apostles finished preaching throughout Israel (a country about the size of New Jersey). These are precisely worded statements that cannot be explained away by appealing to vague language.
Sixth, the context of 2 Peter 3:8 (“with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years”) shows that Peter was not trying to explain away God’s timing indicators; just the opposite! Peter’s point was that when God says something will happen soon, it will happen exactly when it is supposed to, even though it may seem like it is taking longer than it should.
The chapter begins with Peter, in around AD 63, reminding his audience that scoffers would come in the last days (2 Pet. 3:2–3). Keep in mind, Peter had just said in 1 Peter that he was living in the last days (1 Pet. 1:20); so this was something that would happen in Peter’s generation (see Jude 1:1-8).
The scoffers ask, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Pet. 3:4). Translation: “Why hasn’t Jesus come yet? Didn’t Jesus promise during his ministry in AD 30 that he would come on clouds within a generation (see Matt. 24:30-34)? Well, it’s already AD 65…so where is he?” (Note: A biblical generation equals forty years–see Heb. 3:8–10, Num. 14:30–34, and Neh. 9:21.) It is in this context that Peter replies: “With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years” (2 Pet. 3:8). Translation: “Don’t worry, scoffers, Jesus is still coming, right on schedule. While it may seem like he is not coming, or that he is taking too long, he is still coming exactly when he had promised–before this (first-century) generation passes away!”
Peter then went on to explain that Jesus was merely waiting till the very last possible moment (of “this generation”) in order to give as many people as possible a chance to repent before the judgment hit: “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering [patient] toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9).
In saying “With the Lord, one day is like a thousand years,” Peter was not implying that God’s time statements cannot be understood by man. Just the opposite! Peter was affirming the absolute accuracy of God’s promises (time statements). Peter was assuring the scoffers that Jesus would come exactly when he had promised–no matter what it may seem like at the moment–within this generation (in the first century).
“To use 2 Pet. 3:8 to invalidate the inspired expectation of the nearness of the end misses the point that is being made [by Peter]. The scoffers were the ones who doubted the sureness and certainty of God’s promises, not the believers…Peter’s purpose was not to give greater elasticity to the time limitations of Christ’s parousia [second coming] but to bear witness to the veracity of God’s word.”[3]
The wider context also supports this interpretation. Peter had just said in 1 Peter that “Jesus is ready to judge the living and the dead…The end of all things is at hand…The time has come for judgment to begin” (1 Pet. 4:5–7, 17). Clearly, Peter expected Jesus to come at any moment! Therefore, Peter would not have contradicted himself such a short time later in 2 Peter by suggesting, “We don’t really know when Jesus will come because God’s time statements cannot be understood by man.” Just the opposite! Peter was making the very same point in both 1 Peter and 2 Peter, which was that the judgment/the second coming was about to happen, just as Jesus had promised during his earthly ministry.
If Jesus did not come within the lifetimes of the first-century scoffers–as Jesus had repeatedly prophesied (Matt. 10:23, 16:28, 24:30–34; Rev. 22:12)–then the scoffers would have been right to mock Peter because Jesus did not do what he promised. In other words, he was a false prophet.
Seventh, when Peter said, “With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years” (2 Pet. 3:8), Peter was alluding to Psalms 90:3–4, a passage about God’s sovereignty: “You turn man to destruction, and say, ‘Return, O children of men.’ For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.” This is a passage about God’s sovereignty, and the reason Peter alluded to it was to remind his first-century audience (and us today) that God’s promises are sure. When God/Jesus promises to do something–such as to come again before this generation passes away–he will do it.
For more about this topic, see my book The End Is Here, available summer 2024.
Alex Polyak, The Bible Fulfilled 1/26/24
[1] J. Stuart Russell, The Parousia, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990), 322.
[2] Max R. King, Cross and the Parousia of Christ (Warren, OH: Parkman Road Church of Christ, 1987), 91.
[3] King, Cross and the Parousia of Christ, 91.
