But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
We are seized with two opposite diseases at once: impatience for Christ's coming, and sleepiness about it. Peter shakes off our drowsiness here, that we may always watch. Those interpreters who spin out elaborate theories about fire and storm miss his point entirely, he writes to stir us to newness of life, not to satisfy curiosity about the mechanics of conflagration.
AI summary
Peter repeats his Lord's image of the thief, remembered from the conversation in which he himself took part. The rushing noise will be like a whizzing arrow or devouring flame. The elements, the component materials of the heavens, including the sun, moon, and stars, will melt, as the works of nature and art are dissolved.
AI summary
The Lord will come as a thief in the night, suddenly, at an unawares, when least expected, to the great surprise of the scoffers. The heavens will pass away with a great noise; or swiftly, as the Greek permits. Not the throne of God itself, but the starry and airy heavens, changed in their accidents and present use.
AI summary