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2 Peter 3:3–4
“Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.’”
Having called his readers to remember the words of the prophets and Apostles (2 Peter 3:1–2), Peter now explains why that remembrance is so urgently needed: Scoffers are coming who will attack the very heart of the church’s hope. In today’s passage, he warns that “scoffers will come in the last days” (v. 3). These are not honest inquirers wrestling with difficult questions about eschatology but mockers, people who deride the promise of Christ’s return to justify “their own sinful desires.” Their skepticism is not intellectual but moral; they deny judgment because judgment would condemn them.
Their argument, stated in verse 4, has a surface plausibility: “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” “The fathers” most likely refers to the Old Testament patriarchs and forefathers (see John 6:31; Acts 3:13), since Peter has just mentioned the predictions of “the holy prophets” in 2 Peter 3:2. The scoffers argue that generation after generation has come and gone since the days of the patriarchs, the world keeps turning, and nothing catastrophic has interrupted the natural order. Therefore, nothing ever will. The return of Christ is a myth that history itself has disproved.
This reasoning rests on a philosophical assumption that Peter will challenge in the verses that follow: the idea that the natural order is self-sustaining and immune to divine intervention. It is a form of practical naturalism—not necessarily a denial that God exists but a denial that He acts decisively in history. The world runs on its own, they claim, and it will continue to do so indefinitely. The logic is seductive precisely because it appeals to ordinary experience; the constancy of nature does seem to argue against catastrophic intervention.
We should note that Peter identifies the entire period between Christ’s first and second comings as “the last days,” which means that scoffing at Christ’s return is not a sign that the end is necessarily imminent in our generation but is a feature of every generation between the advents. The persistence of this scoffing is itself a fulfillment of prophecy, which should strengthen rather than undermine our confidence that every other prophetic promise will also be fulfilled, including the promise of Christ’s return. The mockers, by their very mockery, are proving Peter right, and the God who predicted their scorn will vindicate His promises in His own time.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Every generation between the advents has heard voices mocking the hope of Christ’s return, and every generation of mockery has unwittingly confirmed the Apostle’s prediction. The scorn of unbelief is no reason for discouragement; it is reason for deeper confidence that the God who foretold such resistance will also keep His promise to bring history to its appointed end.
For further study
- Psalm 2:1–6
- Matthew 24:42–51
- Acts 17:30–31
- Jude 17–19
The bible in a year
- Psalms 96–98
- Romans 13