A thousand years are like a day
2 Peter 3:8 - God will answer your prayer, but on His schedule and in a way that blesses you the most, not necessarily the way you want to be blessed.
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“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”
2 Peter 3:8 NIV
2 Peter 3 is the final chapter in the second epistle by the apostle Peter to churches in Asia Minor. It is thought to have been written sometime between AD 64-68, near the time that Peter was martyred by the Roman emperor Nero.
Many Bible commentators note that this verse is (and has been) widely misinterpreted, and I have to admit that I had personally looked at it for years with a different interpretation. In this verse, Peter called upon his knowledge of Scripture, paraphrasing Psalm 90:4 (“A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night”).
Here are some commentaries from Precept Austin that discuss the misinterpretation of 2 Peter 3:8 and also clarify the actual meaning:
Peter uses thousand to picture any long period of time as contrasted to a very short period and therefore does not convey a precise mathematical significance. God is not limited to our time schedules to fulfill His purposes. Peter is not saying that the Lord is timeless (which of course He is) but that His relation to time must never be confused with our relation to time. For example, a 24 hour day seems relatively short to us (depending on what kind of "day" you are having!) while a thousand years is a very long time. With the Lord a 24 hour day is no different than 1000 years and vice versa. Whether it is a day or a thousand years as we count time, both are really the same with the Lord. Neither hampers nor helps Him.
Even the Reformation Study Bible agrees that this passage is often misinterpreted and misapplied…
Though this passage—and Ps. 90:4 upon which it is based—is sometimes implausibly cited in support of the theory that when a “day” is mentioned in biblical prophecy a literal thousand years is meant, Peter’s point is to assert that God is sovereign over time and that His perspective on time differs radically from ours.
Richison comments that believers…
need to focus on the principle of God’s essence. His essence does not operate on human timetables. He operates on His own timetable. We need to be patient in our understanding of how God operates. We should understand that God will fulfill His promises in His own good time. (Verse by Verse)
A B Simpson writes that…
The apostle lays down a great principle with regard to our calculations of dates and chronologies. "Beloved," he says, "be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." (2Pe 3:8) That is, we cannot fix the date of the Lord's coming by our chronometers or chronologies. It is fixed rather by spiritual conditions. One of our days may hasten it a thousand years, and one of our decades may mean little or nothing to bring it near. (A. B. Simpson. Christ in the Bible -- 1 & 2 Peter)
The key points? God is sovereign over time, His perspective on time is completely different from ours, He doesn’t operate on human timetables, and He will fulfill His promises in His own good time!
Here’s some similar commentary from Enduring Word:
What seems like forever for us is but a short time for God, just as an hour may seem to be an eternity for a child but a moment for an adult.
i. Peter quoted this idea from Psalm 90:4: For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night.“All time is as nothing before him, because in the presence as in the nature of God all is eternity; therefore nothing is long, nothing short, before him; no lapse of ages impairs his purposes.” (Clarke)
ii. “All things are equally near and present to his view; the distance of a thousand years before the occurrence of an event, is no more to him than would be the interval of a day. With God, indeed, there is neither past, present, nor future. He takes for his name the ‘I AM.’ … He is the I AM; I AM in the present; I AM in the past and I AM in the future. Just as we say of God that he is everywhere, so we may say of him that he is always; he is everywhere in space; he is everywhere in time.” (Spurgeon)
iii. Peter did not give some prophetic formula, saying that a prophetic day somehow equals a thousand years. He instead communicated a general principle regarding how we see time and how God sees time. When people use this verse as a rigid prophetic key it opens the door for great error.
iv. “God sees time with a perspective we lack; even the delay of a thousand years may well seem like a day against the back-cloth of eternity. Furthermore, God sees time with an intensity we lack; one day with the Lord is like a thousand years.” (Green)
Item iii in the commentary above is how I personally misunderstood this verse! In my feeble defense, I have been an engineer and techie my entire life, and as such I tend to look at things mathematically. But instead of literally meaning 1 day = 1,000 years, Peter (and the psalmist before him) were explaining that God and humans don’t see time the same way.
Here’s another very good commentary from David E. O’Brien via Precept Austin:
It means there is no relationship between what we think of as time and the schedule God operates under. It doesn’t mean that days in heaven last a thousand years. By using a small number and a large number Peter set up a contrast to warn us against any attempt to concoct time tables for divine activity. We cannot unravel the mystery of the end time and its date by understanding some detail of biblical chronology because God does not use our time scale. (Today's Handbook for Solving Bible Difficulties)
I’ll end today’s devotional with a personal view. In intercessory prayer, the people we’re praying for often say “I’ve been asking God for this for XX years and He hasn’t answered.” That’s not a reason to stop praying, nor it is guaranteed that God will even answer a prayer in your human lifetime! God will answer your prayer, but on His schedule and in a way that blesses you the most, not necessarily the way you want to be blessed.
This goes back to Barb’s devotional for May 20th, which tells of the prophet Daniel praying and denying himself for 21 days before receiving an answer from God via one of God’s messengers. From one of the commentaries quoted, “Since the angelic victory came on the 21st day, we can surmise that if Daniel would have stopped praying on the 20th day, the answer may not have come.”
Never stop praying!
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Lord, thank You for the wonderful fact that You created time and are not constrained by it. You are unchanging, the same in the forever future as you are today and in the past. Please give me patience as I wait for Your return and the answers to the many questions I have about You! I know that Your timing is always perfect, and I can rest easy knowing my times are in Your loving and merciful hands. AMEN.
Beautiful message and one I needed to hear