What does World's Last Chance think about the suggestion that 2 Peter 3:8-9 indicates that the days of creation can not be taken as literal 24-hour periods, and therefore the Sabbath Commandment could not be taken literally?
To begin with, the context for the said verses has nothing to do with the days of creation. Let us read the verses as quoted:
"But, beloved, 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. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:8-9).
The context of these verses is an appeal to recipients of the epistle not to lose courage because it seems as if God was being very slow in fulfilling His promises. The Apostle Peter is asking his for patience, since God is really not bound with our way of viewing time. He is eternal; with Him there is not past, no future, as all things are eternally present before His eyes. Peter is here rebuking the skeptical scoffers ( see verse 3), who want to judge God's timing by their own shallow standards, thinking that after all He may not [after all] fulfill His promises with regard to the end of the world.
It should be remembered that Peter is not here establishing a time rule for measuring prophetic time periods. He is merely highlighting the patience virtue of our loving Father, and His "longsuffering to us-ward."
For this end, Peter draws his developed thought about His patience from the Psalms.
"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night" Psalms 90:4.
To the creator of time, a day is like 1000 years. Our Creator is not bound with our time table. But do not think that just because our Creator is not bound with time the way we are as His creatures, that He will not fulfill His promises. This is what Peter warning against.
There are those who have taken Peter's warning for the last days' scoffers to suggest that creation days were not literal 24-hour periods, and were in fact 1000-year long. But this can not be so. In the same verse which Peter borrowed his thought (Psalms 90:4), the thousand years is contrasted with a 'watch in the night'. Again, this is for further intensification of the nothingness of time to our Creator. A 1000 year to God is no more in duration than the passage of a single night. The Psalmist contrast the 'watch in the night' with the 'thousand years' for added emphasis of the nothingness of time to the Creator, who is outside its bounds. For man a millennium is an awesome period of time, but from God's perspective it is like a 'watch in the night', like a mere twinkling of an eye.
On the other hand, each creation day was numbered and had an 'evening' and 'morning.' In the Bible whenever a day was used within the context of an 'evening' and 'morning', it was intended to be an ordinary 24-hour period. That this was the case is explicitly illustrated in the Fourth Commandment, where man was commanded to work for 6 days of the week, and to rest on the seventh. (see Exodus 20:8-11). The command for work was not for 6 "aeons of time." Instead, it was for 24-hour literal days, followed by the seventh day of rest, again another 24-hour day.
To summarize, 2 Peter 3:8 shows us that time is of little essence to God. His intent was to show that what will take 1000 years to achieve, our loving Father can accomplish in a mere day. Furthermore, our loving Father does not ever tire even if it takes 1000 years to undertake a task, for again the passage of such a very long time is to Him like one day. It was not the intention of Peter at all to suggest that the days of creations were "aeons of time." The days of creation are not to be re-visited by a faulty interpretation of Peter's illustration of the eternal nature of our loving Father. Hence, the Sabbath day remains as the literal seventh day of each week, since it is the seventh day of creation.
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