2 Peter 3:12-13
A. NT Context: Waiting for the Consummation.
These verses come at the end of a unit (3:3-13) in which Peter exhorts his readers to live in the light of the anticipated consummation. Living one's life as if this world is all that matters is both shorshighted and stupid; worse, it belongs to the scoffers who "deliberately forget" (3:5) the patterns of God's thorough judgment in the past, not least in the deluge. The only reason that the final judgment has not already taken place is the final judgment has not already taken place is that God "is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (3:9 [cf Romans 2:4]). But "the day of the Lord" (3:10) will come. Christians who live in the light o that anticipated judgment and consummation understand that it shapes how they live right now: "Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and glodly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwell" (3:11-13 TNIV) In these lines Peter has picked up at least three OT allusions. One of them, "the day of the Lord" or "day of God" (and the NT adds "day of Christ"), as we have seen, is so common that it cannot be traced to a single OT text, but the other two found in the present passage are distinctive.
B. OT Context. The two distinctive OT allusions are as follows. (1) Peter says that his readers "look forward to" the day of God, but he also says that they "speed its coming" (3:12). This latter clause ultimately depends on Isaiah 60:22. The entire chapter of Isa. 60 has been promising the future glory of Israel, God's covenant people. The language is spectacularly evocative. And at the end of it God promises, "I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it." Here, of course, it is the Lord who is hastening the day, not his obedient people. (2) Peter says that the day of the Lord brings both catastrophic judgment and triumphant renewal. On the one hand is the conflagration that burns up everthing (3:12b); on the other hand is the promise of "a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells" (3:13). Here too Peter is drawing from Isaiah: "'Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.....''As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,' declares the Lord, 'so will your name and descendants endure'" (Isa. 65:17; 66:22 NIV)
C. The Context in Judaism. (1) The notion of God hastening the day of judgment or vindication is picked up in the literature of early Judaism, for the most part making it clear that God, not the believers, is hastening the day (e.g., Sir. 36:10; 2 Bar. 20:1-2; 54:1; 83:1; L.A.B 19:13). In rabbinic circles another tradition affirms that God hastens or delays the day based on Israel's repentance or lack of repentance (see esp. b. Sanh. 97b-98a; see also y. Ta'an. 1:1; b. Yoma 86b), though it is uncertain that any of these traditions reach back to Peter's time. Some have interpreted Acts 3:19-20 in the same light: "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah...." (2) The need for a renewal of creation is also widely recognized in this literature, though usually not with the terminology of "a new heaven and a new earth" or the like (e.g., Jub. 1:29; 1 En. 45:4-9; 91:16; 2 Bar. 32:6; 47:12; 4 Ezra 7:7; L.A.B. 3:10). For a fuller discussion, see Bauckham 1988: 326.
D. Textual Matters. (1) The notion of hastening is found in the MT. It appeats that the LXX translator had difficulty with the notion of God "hastening" the day, and gave an entirely different meaning ("I the Lord will gather them according to the time"). Nevertheless the "hastening" idea reverberates (as we have seen) through later Jewish thought. It should be remembered that the context of the Isaiah reference includes descriptions of cosmic phenomena (60:18-21, overlapping with, though not identical to, those found in 2 Peter 3:10-13) and mention of the people's eternal righteousness (cf 2 Peter 3:13, which thinkks of the new heaven and the new earth, promise in Isa. 65 and 66, as "the home of righteousness"). The verb rendered "look forward to" or "wait for" in 2 Petere 2:12b is prosdokeo; the corresponding verb in Isa. 60:22 LXX is hypomeno. Aquila's Greek translation of the verb, however, coincides with that of 2 Peter, as does the usage in 2 Bar. 83:4. Peter may be relying on a Greek translation other than the LXX. (2) In 2 Pet. 2:13 Peter follows the LXX's singular "heaven" rather than the Hebrew plural "heavens".
E. Peter's Use of the OT in 3:12-13. The appeal to the OT to point forward to the consummation of the kingdom is in line with the structure of NT eschatology elsewhere. That Isa. 60 - a passage filled with promises for the restoration of Israel - can be cited in this regard and applied to the consummation of the entire church presupposes one of the commonest typologies that link the OT and the NT.
It may go beyond the evidence to argue that Acts 3:19-20 argues for a set of assumptions to the effect that Christians can actually hasten the time of Christ's coming by their conduct; strictly speaking, it does no such thing but instead simply insists that certain things must take place before the return of Christ will thereby be expedited. Here in 2 Pet. 3:11-12, however, the ntion of hastening the day of the Lord's return is unavoidable. In one sense, of course, this is the corollary of God's delaying the parousia in order to give more people time to repent (Rom. 2:4; 2 Pet 3:9). "Their repentance and holy living may therefore, from the human standpoint, hasten its coming. This does not detract from God's sovereignty in determining the time of the End...., but means only that his sovereign determination graciously takes human affairs into account" (Bauckham 1988: 325 [cf. Moo 1996: 198-99]).
F. Theological Use. The Isainic promise of "a new heaven and a new earth" (LXX) is also picked up by Revelation's final vision: Rev. 21:1, with its promise of a new heaven and a new earth, introduces the glorious description of the final state that follows the millennium and the judgment of God. The same vision can be cast without using the same words that Peter uses: the appostle Paul talks about the anticipated liberation of the entire creation from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:18-25). It is doubtful that either Christian steadfastness or Christian morality, let alone Christian spirituality and Christian eschatology, can long be maintained without the dominance of this vision.