2 Peter’s claim that the delay of the Parousia is a direct result of God’s desire that “everyone might reach repentance” raises more questions than it purportedly answers (2 Peter 3:9). What exactly is God waiting for? With whom is he being patient? Whom does he want to repent? How does the work of the church “hasten” the return (3:12)?
The most popular conclusion seems to be that the group with whom God is patient (“you,” ὑνᾶς) is the same group that he wishes to repent (“everyone,” πάντας), which is to say the recipients of the letter. However, the author previously referred to his audience as “those who have equal standing as us with respect to faith” (1:1). The recipients don’t appear in need of repentance, but rather perseverance, and so in this case a delay only increases the possibility that they might fail to “confirm their calling” by “turning away from” the Lord’s commandment (1:10, 2:21). Perhaps, then, our author has future converts in view? God wants to give all humans everywhere the opportunity to repent. But in this case it is not clear how a delay would help, since new humans are born daily. What would trigger the “end” in such a scenario? Perhaps, then, the παντα who repent is some predetermined set of individuals, such as “the elect?” Two problems arise here. First, the letter does not seem to delimit πάντα in this way; second, in the end it merely pushes the question back into the depths of theology: on what principle does God determine the boundaries of the body of his chosen? How is the size and number selected, and on what grounds does God then say “enough”?
In this paper I will argue that the narratival substructure of 2 Peter provides a resolution to all of these dilemmas. This book, like other NT writings, and especially Paul (3:15), assumes a periodization of history that concludes with an apocalyptic revelation of a redeemed humanity in a New Heaven and New Earth. The exhortational and theological logic of 2 Peter as a whole, and 2 Peter 3:9 in particular, requires this narratival substructure. God’s waiting in 3:9, and the attendant call of the community to “holiness and godliness,” are a function of God’s redemptive (and creative!) purpose to establish cosmic rule through a glorified humanity over the heavens and the earth. When 2 Peter is read and appropriated through a modern individualistic and soteriological frame, the logic of 2 Peter 3:9 will remain obscure. If, however, the reader adopts the apocalyptic and redemptive-historical substructure of the writer, in which the “end” of our striving is not simply “salvation,” but rather a corporate reigning and ruling with Christ over a glorified Heaven and Earth, then the purpose of the divine delay begins to clarify.
What is he waiting for? He is waiting for the church to gather in the fullness of redeemed humanity, a fullness sufficient for the care taking of the New Heavens and the New Earth, which was always to be humanity’s true purpose. Within the time of God’s waiting, the church is an agent of righteousness and redemption, and thus “hastens” the day of God by fulfilling its divinely instituted purpose. In short, God is waiting for the church to fulfill its task of gathering in an eschatological fullness of humanity, the chosen of the Lord, so that the new age can finally begin.