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Hi to all
“But do not forget one thing, dear friends: in the sight of the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (2 Peter 3:8).
Context is key to determining the correct understanding of this passage, especially the comparison of a thousand years to a day. THE CONTEXT OF 2 PETER 3 IS THE RETURN OF THE LORD to deliver his people. Peter tells persecuted believers that scoffers will come and laugh at the idea that the Lord will return. They will say something like, “He is long gone; He will never return” (see verse 4). While Christians are persecuted and continue to wait for the Lord to deliver them, it seems that his coming is “delayed”.
Peter reminds believers not to be discouraged because God is working on a different schedule. For a human being, if something doesn’t happen in a few years, then we may miss it. God, however, is not limited by the same time constraints because “to the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day.” Time is simply not a problem with God because he has an unlimited amount of it.”
EXTRACTED from https://www.gotquestions.org/2-Peter-3-8-thousand-years-day.html
God bless
Mike…….. what does the scripture that says, “there remains a sabbath rest unto the God” , if the people of God were keeping the true 24 hr day Sabbath of God , then why does there remain a sabbath rest to them?, I will give you the answer ok, it is because the Sabbath of God, is a thousand year period of time , that has not even started yet, it starts at the return of Jesus Christ, and goes for a thousand years. The 24 hr sabbath God forced (by law) on those Isrealites, was forced on them because of unbelief just as scripture shows, and says, they could not inter into (God’s rest), because of unbelief. therefor there “REMAINS A SABBATH REST TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD” , (the true believers in God). That rest is a, “ONE THOUSAND YEAR REST’. not a 24hr day rest.
The words of Peter stand , “a thousand years is as a day, with God , and a day is as a thousand years.
Peace and love to you and yours Mike……….gene
Hi Berean
You: THEREFORE THE FIRST STEP IN THE CREATION PROCESS IS THE HEAVEN AND EARTH AND NOT LIGHT.
ME: How in your opinion, always based on scripture,
IN GENESIS 1:1 GOD CREATED HEAVEN AND EARTH?
Peace and love in Jesus Christ
Hi Carmel
How in your opinion, always based on scripture,
IN GENESIS 1:1 GOD CREATED HEAVEN AND EARTH?
Hebrews1 help us
Hebrews1 :10-11
And, Thou, Lord [Jesus], in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:
[11] They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;
[12] And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.To be continued
God bless
Job.38
[4] Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
[6] Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;Prov.8
[29] When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:To be continued
The words of Peter stand , “a thousand years is as a day, with God , and a day is as a thousand years.
True. Many times in scripture we read about weeks, times, etc. And often they seem to play out on scales beyond our expectations and can span many generations. We read in scripture for example about the Lord’s return is at hand. Then people ridiculing the idea of his return because his expected time is much later.
God plays the long game. People forget this and expect him to be more like us. But he is not like us.
Proclaimer
Context is key to determining the correct understanding of this passage, . THE CONTEXT OF 2 PETER 3 IS THE RETURN OF THE LORD to deliver his people AND NOT THE BLIND INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS 1 THAT ONE DAY EQUALS A THOUSAND YEARS.
Berean.
If this is true then, it is likely true overall.
Or are you and the SDA making the argument that a day to the LORD only is like a thousand years in that one instance? Because that is what I think you are saying and that seems absurd.
In the SDA community, we generally have a fairly broad view of things, but we are very attached to CONTEXT when it comes to interpreting a text, an expression, a symbol, a historical fact, etc…
Good dayYou dodged my question Berean.
I will say it again:
Are you making the argument, that a day to the LORD is like a thousand years, in this one instance only?
Carmel: EXODUS DOES NOT SAY:
GOD CREATED HEAVEN AND EARTH!BUT
for in six days the LORD made the heaven and the earth,
Also, Genesis is clear and in verse 3, it says: …………and there was evening and morning one day.
Thus Genesis 1:3 is the first day! Not before!
From this particular day, GOD STARTED TO MAKE HEAVEN AND EARTH!
Oh brother. 🙄 Carmel, please tell us the difference between “created” and “made”. Webster’s lists them as synonyms…
And then there are the many scriptures that attest…
Mark 10:6… However, from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’
Notice that Jesus used “create”, not “made”.
Acts 4:24… When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.
Jesus’ apostles used “made”, not “create”.
Revelation 10:6… And he swore by Him who lives forever and ever, who created heaven and everything in it, the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it: “There will be no more delay!
The angel standing on the sea used “create”, not “made”.
Jeremiah 27:5… By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.
Yahweh used “made”, not “create”.
Mark 13:19… Those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now—and never to be equaled again.
Jesus again used “create”, not “made”.
Are you getting the picture? The words are interchangeable. There is not one meaning to “create” and another meaning to “made”. They both mean the same thing.
You seem to be trying to build a doctrine out of the fact that sometimes it says, “God MADE the earth”, and other times it says “God CREATED the earth”. Please explain to us what the difference is.
For example…
2 Kings 19:15… And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: “LORD, the God of Israel… You have made heaven and earth.
What does Hezekiah mean when he says God MADE the earth? And what other thing would he have meant if he said God CREATED the earth? Explain to us the difference. In fact, here’s one that uses a lot of different words…
Isaiah 48:15… For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
Here we learn that God created the earth, formed the earth, made the earth, and established the earth.
What does it mean that God CREATED the earth?
What does it mean that God FORMED the earth?
What does it mean that God MADE the earth?
What does it mean that God ESTABLISHED the earth?
See Carmel, you a playing a semantics game that you can’t win. Gen 1:1 through 1:5 reveals things that all occurred ON the first day. There isn’t a break in time after 1:1… and you only IMAGINE a break there because to read the words as they were written would require you to acknowledge that the Bible and Scientism are incompatible. (Actually, the entirety of Genesis 1 is incompatible with Scientism even after you INVENT a break after 1:1 – so you’ve really gained nothing by butchering the teaching.)
You say that when God says He MADE the heaven and the earth in six days, it means something different to God CREATING the heaven and the earth in six days. Prove it using the verses I provided in this post. Explain to us what they mean how they were written, and what it would have meant if they had used “created” instead of “made” – or vice versa.
Proclaimer
Are you making the argument, that a day to the LORD is like a thousand years, in this one instance only?
Me
Excuse me but THIS IS not a dodg ,I thought I answered well.
My answer IS NO.
Well, We’re not applying 2 Peter 3:8 to Genesis 1, that’s for sure.
For the rest, I believe that it is a question of appreciation of the text with there still the context.
2 Peter 3:8 refers to the return of the Lord, but that could be another event. The point is that God values time totally differently than we humans do.
This is what I believe Psalm 90:4 expresses:
“For a thousand years in TY SIGHT are but as YESTERDAY when IT IS PAST, and as A WATCH IN THE NIGHT.”Regarding the thousand years (Millennium) of Revelation 20, we believe these are literal years.
So MANY Problems With Proclaimer’s Argument!
Proclaimer: You can’t impose your standard units of time back to when God created the universe.
What I can do is trust God when he tells HUMAN BEINGS that He did something in six days. If God did something over the course of a thousand, million, or billion years, He dang sure wouldn’t tell HUMAN BEINGS that He did that thing in one day. Because no human being would think God saying “six days” really meant a period of time spanning billions of years. Like Berean has already pointed out, you are making God out to be a LIAR by telling HUMAN BEINGS that He did something in a time frame that they’d understand as six literal days – when He really did that thing over the span of billions of years.
Proclaimer: You have no scientific or biblical precedent for doing so.
I have EVERY Biblical precedent – as I’ve clearly pointed out to you: EVERY time in the entire Bible that God talks to HUMAN BEINGS about day(s) – and includes a specific NUMBER – He is ALWAYS talking about literal 12 or 24 hour days. NO EXCEPTIONS.
I also have EVERY scientific precedent to do so, since actual science aligns with a 6000 year old earth that underwent a worldwide flood about 4500 years ago.
Proclaimer: If the scripture says that a thousand years is like a day to God, then when God creates in 6 DAYS, then that is 6 x this very long period overall, but divided into 6 stages. That is all you can conclude here.
Unless you are able to apply that same formula to EVERY time God talks about days to humans, a rational person wouldn’t make such a conclusion at all. So apply your formula here and see if it works…
Exodus 13:6… For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the LORD.
How long were the Israelites supposed to eat unleavened bread, Proclaimer? Seven literal days? Or seven “very long periods”?
Proclaimer: You either believe what Peter said or you don’t.
Well, aside from Peter’s metaphorical statement not even being written down until 1400 years after God gave His history lesson to the Israelites in the wilderness, a rational person would understand that – regardless of how God experiences time – He would still talk to human beings about matters of time using terms that they would understand.
Proclaimer: You are simply ignoring it because it doesn’t fit with your view. That is not how a child of God should act.
Exodus 20:16… Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Rather than ignore Peter’s metaphorical statement, I have addressed it NUMEROUS TIMES. It has no bearing on the discussion unless you can demonstrate that any human being in the entire Bible (including the Israelites to whom God described His creation of the heaven and the earth) has EVER understood God’s use of the word “day(s)” – when He includes any particular NUMBER – as being anything other than literal 12 or 24 hour days. Can you do that? Of course not.
Proclaimer: I win this point Mike, because I have provided a clear scripture that you are trying to ignore or remove from the evidence.
Exodus 20:16… Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Again, I have never ignored your attempt to force a metaphorical statement from Peter – 1400 years after the fact – into meaning that when God spoke to Moses about things He did in six days, He was really talking about six very long time periods. I have addressed the scripture head on more times than I can count. Please stop bearing false witness against me by saying I have “ignored” it or “want it removed”. Btw, if God is “outside of time”, then the same “God Day” that can seem like a thousand years in human time can also seem like a second in human time. God knows the ending of the day from the beginning, and therefore a 24 hour day to us is also like a split second to God.
I would make a facetious argument that maybe when God said He created heaven and earth in “six days”, He was really talking about six split seconds… but then I’d have to explain WHY God described those six time periods as “days” to human beings, who clearly wouldn’t take it to mean six split seconds any more than they’d take it to mean six billion year periods.
Proclaimer, do you have any evidence to suggest that when God told the Israelites who lived 1400 years before Peter that He created heaven and earth in six days…
- God was talking about six very long periods of time?
- Moses or any other Israelite contemporary thought God was talking about six very long time periods?
- Anyone in the entirety of the holy scriptures ever thought God was talking about six very long time periods?
Proclaimer: But you cannot remove it because it is scripture and it is defining what a day is to God and we know that God created most things before man, thus you cannot impose man’s limited experience to an eternal God.
I have never tried to “remove it”. I have, however, tried over and over to show you that how God may or may not personally experience any amount of time, it is completely ABSURD to suggest that God would LIE to human beings by saying He did something in “six days” when He really did that thing in six seconds, or in six billion year periods.
Maybe this will help you out… You recently parroted some Scientism claim that a day on Mars is different than a day on earth, right? Putting aside the fact that this is utter nonsense, let me use your premise for an analogy that you might just understand:
Let’s say you live on Pluto and I live on earth. To save the universe, you and I have to both shoot a laser beam at the sun at PRECISELY the same exact time. Your days on Pluto last 153 earth hours, while my days on earth are only 24 earth hours. But I don’t know that your days are 153 earth hours. And to save the universe, both lasers must be fired in unison in exactly one Pluto day from now. Knowing all of this, would you tell me to fire my laser at the sun in “exactly one day from now”?
Of course not, because you know that I would fire my laser in exactly 24 hours – 129 earth hours too soon to save the universe, right?
Likewise, if it was important to you that I know that it took you six Pluto days to build your laser (38.25 earth days), you would not tell me, “In six days, I built my laser and all the necessary components.” Because you’d know that I would take that to mean six earth days. Remember, YOU know that your days are different than mine, but I don’t. So you’d basically be lying to me by saying you built it in “six days”, because that would equate to only ONE Pluto day and not the six Pluto days it actually took you to do the job.
Now, I went out into sci-fi fantasyland because I know you are all into that kind of nonsense. And I hope that by putting it into an analogy that you can wrap your adolescent mind around, you’ll be able to understand that if a “more evolved space species” experiences time differently than we humans do, they are going to put things into OUR perspective to teach us things. If these “advanced space civilizations” know that the earth is going to blow up in six million earth years from now, they’re dang sure not going to tell us that it’ll blow up in six DAYS – knowing how we’d understand the word “day”.
Neither would God LIE to us by doing such a thing. He would never tell us that the earth is going to be flooded in “seven days” if He was really talking about seven “million year periods” or whatever. Nor would He tell us that He created heaven, earth, and everything in them in “six days” if He really meant “six seconds” or “14 billion years”.
Proclaimer: But if you were reasonable, you would just conclude that the word day is dependent on the context.
I have not only concluded this, but have already said that the Hebrew word “yom” is used EXACTLY like the English word “day” is used.
Proclaimer: But for us, it is mostly 12 or 24 hours because they are the most common stages for us by far.
Yes… it is always a 12 or 24 hour period for us unless we are clearly talking about an unspecified period of time, like “back in the day of my mother”. Of course we don’t use numerical values when using “day” to refer to an unspecified period of time. We don’t say, “back in the FIRST day of my mother”, or, “back in the THREE days of my mother”. Once we add a specific number into it, we’re talking about a literal 12 or 24 hour day.
*Disclaimer: Today we sometimes use the number “one” to refer to a FUTURE unspecified time period. It is rare, but still possible for an English person in the 21st century to say something like, “one day the sea ice will melt and the ocean levels will rise”.
- It is clear from the context that a literal day is not meant in this case.
- It is only used with the number “one”.
- It was not an Israelite/Jewish idiom, and so there are no instances of it in the Bible.
- It is only used for the future, not the past – as with the six days of creation.
Proclaimer: But for God, a day to him is like a thousand years. You cannot change this truth.
While the weakness of your argument is made abundantly clear by the fact that you cling so steadfastly to 2 Peter (because you have absolutely nothing else), it’s made even weaker by the fact that you must eliminate the “thousand years” that Peter actually wrote. Like this:
Mike, for God, a day to him is like a thousand years! You cannot change this truth! This is scripture, dammit!
So then God created the heaven and earth in six one thousand year periods?
No Mike! Peter was being metaphorical with the thousand years part – but the rest of it wasn’t metaphorical at all… it LITERALLY means that God’s days absolutely equate to very long periods of human time!
So then since God called all six of them “days”, they were obviously all the same amount of “long periods of human time”, right?
No Mike, you idiot! Each of the “days” could be anywhere from a few million to many billion human years. He calls them all “days”, and Peter says His days are like “a thousand years” – but none of them actually were a thousand years, and all of them were DIFFERENT unspecified periods of millions or billions of human years! Why can’t you get this? It’s so simple!
Does God know how we humans would understand it if He said he did something in six days?
Of course, but God doesn’t communicate with us in ways that WE’D understand! So even though there isn’t a single human being in history who would understand that God meant a first day of 10 billion years, a second day of 100 million years, a third day of 2.7 billion years, a fourth day of 687 million years, etc, God still talks in terms of what He alone understands, and He doesn’t care that the stupid humans He created think He created the heaven and earth in six literal human days.
Hmm… Isn’t it a little odd to you that, while we stupid humans have days that are always the same amount of time so we can communicate clearly, the much more intelligent God would have a system where the amount of time spanned during any particular “day” would be arbitrary and only known to Him – making it impossible for Him to actually communicate a time period to anyone else?
Mike! A day to God is like a thousand years! That is scripture! Stop ignoring it!
😅😂🤣
Berean: Proclaimer
Let me tell you that you are OUT OF CONTEXT with this verse of Peter, which you make a hobbyhorse to try to prove to us in fact that God created by evolution. And that’s where it’s wrong Proclaimer, you make God lie in this story. But God is not a man to lie.
Hit the nail right on the head! 👍👍👍
Has Proclaimer’s Account Been Hacked By A 12 Year Old Remedial Student?
This is so far from reality that I had to copy the entire thing! 😳😳😳
Proclaimer: Okay Mike. So you want to delete things as evidence to help your case.
I don’t need to delete anything because I am confident that any scripture will agree with the truth.
I let the truth speak. I’m not interested in manipulating the truth to skew the argument toward my own ignorance.
But let’s play your little game for a bit and delete evidence that you think should not be admissible.
Let’s remove Genesis 1:1 from the record as you argue against God creating the heavens and the earth even before the first day concludes. Now read.
1: Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
2 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 3 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 4 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.Do you see the problem Mike?
How did the earth get there?
You see, the heavens and earth had to be created first as I have stated. If God started his creative process over the surface of a planet, then how did the planet get there? Who created the planet? In your view, you open the door to God being a mere life-form that terraforms earth with the earth having some other origin.
But you need to understand that God created both the heavens and the earth before his Spirit hovered over the deep.
You cannot argue against this. So you must conclude then that God created the heavens and the earth. And then made this formless planet a habitation for life. This is the way to read Genesis.
Um… Proclaimer (or unintelligent remedial student who hacked his account)… Nobody on this thread has ever said that Gen 1:1 needs to be removed, or that the heaven and earth weren’t created before the first day concluded. The heaven, the earth, light, and a separation of light into day and night WERE the very things created ON that first day (and therefore “before the first day concluded”). Where do you get this stuff? I’m really starting to worry about your sanity.
Exodus 31:16-17… The Israelites must keep the Sabbath… for in six days the LORD made the heaven and the earth, but on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.
Proclaimer, what are the two specific things that Yahweh Himself said He made within a six day period? I’ve underlined them for you. Please list them for us so we understand that you haven’t gone completely insane but are still capable of reading and comprehending simple things. Thanks.
Mike: You said there’s no justification that these are 24 hour days. But tell us, Proclaimer… what exactly is YOUR justification for INSISTING that they CAN’T POSSIBLY be literal 24 hour days.
Proclaimer: I’m not putting any specific time period on how God experiences a day.
It doesn’t matter to our discussion how God EXPERIENCES a day – only what God means when He talks about days to us. But since you’re not putting any time period on it, you thereby acknowledge that creation could have occurred in the exact order and manner laid out in Genesis 1… and in 6 literal 24-hour days, right?
Please state for the record that events described in Genesis 1 could very well have occurred during six literal 24-hours days. Thanks.
Proclaimer: Addressing something doesn’t equal debunking something.
You haven’t actually come up with a single VALID argument for how it could even be possible that the six days in which God Himself said He created the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them AREN’T six literal days. Of course they are six literal days – UNLESS there is a very good scriptural reason that Moses and his contemporaries would have understood them as something other than six literal days, right?
So your list of seven things has not only been addressed, but completely debunked, because not one of them is a scriptural reason that the people to whom God described His six day creation event ever considered the days as anything other than literal 24 hour days. Nor is there any evidence in the rest of the Bible that anyone – including Peter – ever considered the six days of creation to be anything other than six literal days.
Proclaimer: Mike.
Ask yourself why we are told that a day to God is like a millennia when the only time in scripture that God and days are referenced together without man is in Genesis, (that I know of).
There is no scripture where God and days are referenced without the presence of mankind. The scriptures were written by man, so there is no scripture without the existence of man… OR without the existence of literal 24 hour days.
Proclaimer: If what you say is true, (of course it is not) then why does Peter even address this? What is he referencing exactly when he says that a day to God is like a thousand years?
Peter was encouraging believers who were struggling with the fact that God’s salvation seemed to never come – no matter how many generations come and go. Peter was making a metaphorical statement that from God’s point of view, things are happening rapidly and right on time. It just SEEMS like it’s taking forever to us. That’s why Peter continues…
2 Peter 3:9… The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But like I KEEP telling you, how God EXPERIENCES time has no bearing on what God means when He talks about days to us. And besides, Peter didn’t write those words until 1400 years after God described the creation event to Moses and his contemporaries.
Is it your contention that everyone from Moses to Peter just automatically knew about this “thousand year” thing and accepted that EVERY time God mentioned a day, He was talking about a really long period of time?
Or do you contend that everyone from Moses until Peter mistakenly believed God meant “days” when He spoke to men about days, and it took 1400 years of erroneous thinking before Peter set us all straight?
Which of those do you think is the truth?
Either way you go, answer this one question:
Does God ALWAYS mean “long period of time” when He uses the word “day”? Yes or No?
Berean: Peter reminds believers not to be discouraged because God is working on a different schedule. For a human being, if something doesn’t happen in a few years, then we may miss it. God, however, is not limited by the same time constraints…
This is OBVIOUSLY what Peter was trying to convey… not that when God uses the word “day” He’s talking about a very long time period instead of a day. 🙄
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