The Reason for the Lord's Delay

2Pe 3:9  The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Welcome to the one of the most misused verses in the entire Bible.  It is often used to teach that the Lord hasn’t returned yet so that more people can be saved; that he has provided salvation and is waiting to see how many will take advantage of it.  Along with that, it is also used to suggest that it isn’t God’s will for any to be lost but wants everyone to be saved equally.

Of course, for any of that to work the assumption is that man has a freewill that is independent of the Lord’s will and capable of obeying him and so the Lord has done everything he can do to save us and the deciding factor is whether we will accept his “offer” or not.  One problem is that the Bible never mentions that we have wills that are free  of sin’s effects and can decide to obey the Lord.  It does teach, though, that our wills are in bondage to our sinful nature and so can only rebel at God, Rom 8:7  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Rom 8:8  Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  Rom 3:10  as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; Rom 3:11  no one understands; no one seeks for God.  Rom 3:12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."  Joh 6:44  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.  Eph 2:4  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, Eph 2:5  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.  Well, you get the idea.

There are some other reasons why 2 Peter 3:9 can’t mean what some want to make it mean; that is, man can make a decision that he is by nature incapable of making.  For instance, the longer he waits to return the more people are going to Hell so it kind of works against the point.  Hell is growing bigger by leaps and bounds the more time he gives this world to rebel.  If he wanted fewer people in Hell he should have come back immediately.  In fact, if all God is concerned about is for people not going to Hell, why create us to begin with or allow Adam to fall? 

Thirdly, if he is being patient and giving everyone a chance then every time a baby is born he can’t come until this child grows up.  Even if we assume that a baby will go to heaven, there is always children reaching the age of reason who are clearly not saved so doesn’t God have to give them a chance if this is what the verse is saying?  So unless God stops us from populating the earth he can never come back because he wants everyone to have a chance to be saved because there are always children being born who need some time to “get saved”!  This is where we end up when we err in the doctrines of God’s sovereigny, election, the bondage of the will, etc.  When we are more concerned that man has the ability to determine his own future than we are God’s freedom to glorify himself as he wants, then there is no way we can understand the Bible or not fall into error.

Fourthly, I might add that if God wanted as many people to be saved as possible then why did he only give any light to the obscure, tiny nation of Israel back in Old Testament times and not all nations?  Actually, the biblical record proves differently.  Why would the Lord command Israel to destroy every man, woman and child in Canaan if he is hoping they will come to him?  Why does he send storms to kill the lost, etc.  If God is giving everyone the opportunity to believe then why is he constantly shortening and ending the opportunities?  Those swept away in the tsunami weren’t given a patient chance.  This verse simply can’t be taken that way in light of what has been happening in human history.

But exegetically Peter is speaking to “you”, the church, not the lost, vs. 1 says,  This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder.  What promise is he referring to?  That they reach repentance; his promise to save the elect.  When God chose to save the elect from eternity he decreed or we might say he promised to save them; we are elected “unto salvation”, Eph. 1.  He isn’t coming back until all that he has decreed to save are saved.  Obviously he isn’t going to end human history if all the elected haven’t been born and brought to salvation.  If he did come back before that it would make election nonsensical.  Vs. 15 of 2 Peter 3 says,  And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him.  The elect don’t all live at the same time so until they all are born and grow up and hear the gospel he isn’t coming back. 

Gen. 6:18 says that before the ark was even built, God told Noah that it was only going to hold eight.  Noah was a preacher of righteousness as he built the ark proclaiming the coming judgment of God.  He wasn’t calling the people to buy a ticket or “get saved”; the Lord was only always going to saved just eight souls.  1 Pet. 3:20 says pretty much the same thing, Because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.  Notice how the Lord’s patience was so Noah’s family could be saved, not to see if any more would enter the ark. 

Perhaps the clearest passage that teaches this is in Rev. 6:10-11.  Here the martyrs in heaven are asking the Lord why he hasn’t avenged their blood yet and here is what God tells them, Rev 6:10  They cried out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" Rev 6:11  Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

It should be obvious; God has already determined who was going to be given grace and saved by the sacrifice of his Son on the cross.  So it would make no sense for him to be waiting to come back so more people could be saved than he has elected.  He is building a kingdom of priests; he is building a temple of living stones.  And when the last sinner chosen before the world began is saved then he will come back and destroy this fallen universe and reform it into the new heavens and earth.