Articles
Of Days and Millennia
“But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8).
Some Bible students see Peter’s statement in this verse as a kind of mathematical formula for unlocking the “true meaning” of certain passages. Some have even built an entire system of belief around this assumption. They divide human history into seven periods of roughly 1,000 years each, corresponding to the seven days of creation. In their view, the seventh of these ages is the supposed future 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth.
Is 2 Peter 3:8 a mathematical statement? The very language of the verse tells us it is not. “[T]he time references are expressed in opposite directions — one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. Each literal calculation nullifies the other. Therefore, no calculations can be based on this verse” (David Vaughn Elliott, Nobody Left Behind, 247).
Peter may well have had in mind the “prayer of Moses” in Psalm 90: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by, or as a watch in the night” (v.4). The observation of the psalmist — and the apostle — is simply that God is not bound by time as we are. “God views time entirely differently from the way men view it.…In the accomplishment of his purposes, God is not on man’s time schedule” (Clinton Hamilton, Truth Commentaries: 1-2 Peter & Jude, 228).
Peter warned that mockers would ridicule God’s promise of judgment, observing that many long years had passed since the promise was made. We have certainly seen that happen. What these mockers fail to take into account is that “the passing of time does not affect the promises and threatening of God. Whether it be a day or a thousand years between the time of the promise and the reward, the threatening and the retribution, God will perform it” (Guy Woods, New Testament Commentary: Peter, John & Jude, 185). In light of that, Peter says, our duty is to live “in holy conduct and godliness” so that we will be ready for that promised day of judgment and can look for it with anticipation (verses 11-18).
