Conflagration and New Creation in 2 Peter 3
(avg. read time: 8–16 mins.)
As I mentioned last time, the description of cosmic conflagration in 2 Pet 3, esp. vv. 10–13, was going to get its own entry. There are a number of issues to address in regard to it that I thought would distract too much from the resurrection entry. This is perhaps the primary text cited for the notion of new creation being an entirely new creation, having no continuity with the original. I have often seen biblical-theological arguments against this idea through pointing out its incompatibility with other texts, such as those from Paul. It is not that I do not think that is a fair point to address, but what is most directly pertinent to the interpretation of this specific text is its more direct context. The canonical context certainly matters, but we must first read it in its more immediate context before we expand the scope of investigation. As such, we will examine this text in the context of the history of ideas, in its textual context, and in light of issues in interpretation raised by those who think Peter is declaring the hope of an entirely new creation.
Conflagrations
Some like to compare the fire imagery of 2 Pet 3 with the Stoic notion of the cosmic conflagration (cf. Cicero, Nat. d. 2.118; Seneca, Ep. 9.16; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.141). In Stoic eschatology, there comes a time when the cosmos is burned up with fire, the primal element, until only that which is “spirit” remains. This expectation is combined with a cyclical view of history, meaning that the conflagration signals not the climactic resolution of this mega-story, but rather the end of a chapter of a book or the end of a book in a planned series. Given its starkly different function from the fire in 2 Peter, I frankly do not see a reason to draw a line of descent from Stoic conflagration to the conflagration in 2 Peter. They have rather different reasons for expecting conflagration and different views of history in which the conflagration makes the sense it does.
Nor is the presentation in 2 Peter comparable in anything more than a superficial sense to what Gnostics (particularly the Valentinians) and other like-minded people thought in the time of the early Church. Apparently, they also expected the cosmos would be burned up with fire. But this is ultimately to correct the mistake that is the material creation, for the fire will reduce everything of the world to nothingness (Irenaeus, Haer. 1.7.1). In this eschatology, there is no room for new creation, for it would simply be renewing the primal evil and rebuilding the prison for the soul.
By contrast, the early Christians rejected both a conflagration with a cyclical function and a conflagration that means the total destruction of the cosmos. Naturally, we have seen this in Paul already multiple times over, as well as others, particularly by virtue of their linking resurrection and new creation. Like resurrection, new creation (or renewed creation) involves thorough transformation but with an underlying continuity of that which receives God’s faithful love in salvific action. But to determine what 2 Peter fits with better, we must ultimately look to the text itself in its context.
2 Peter 3:10–13 in Context
The whole of 2 Peter builds on the theme of living properly with eschatological awareness, knowing the promised resolution is coming. The positive reinforcement of this in ch. 1 is goal-oriented, as it builds on how we are to live in accord with God’s purpose for us. The negative reinforcement of the same in ch. 2 points to the surety of the prospect of the coming judgment. This is mainly directed against wicked humans, but there is also a view to fallen angels (2:4). Indeed, Peter closes this section with warning and condemnation for those who once lived and have been led astray by deceivers and their wielding of worldly lusts (2:20–22).
In response to the scoffers, Peter makes two points before his teaching on the conflagration and the new creation. One, the scoffers forget about the great flood whereby the world was destroyed. Note that although that world was said to be destroyed, the physical earth was not. The ungodly were destroyed while the earth remained, as did the godly. By analogy, he says that the present heavens and the earth are reserved for fire on the day of judgment, and (or “even”) the destruction of the ungodly. By that analogy, there is no reason to expect that the destruction of the world by fire means its utter destruction or annihilation. Two, the delay in judgment for the present time is to give people mercy in their opportunity for repentance. If people respond as they should, the implication is that, like Noah and his family, they will be preserved from the destruction and continue in the new creation.
And that is what Peter goes on to say in 3:13 in referring to the new heavens and the new earth as where righteousness/justice dwells. Indeed, this is in accordance with what Peter calls “his promise.” This is probably an allusion to Isa 65:17 and 66:22 (and, by implication, the text in between), although he could also have in mind reiterations of the same in texts like Matt 19:28 and Rom 8:21 (since he refers to Paul’s letters in 3:15–16). Notably, the Isaiah text is one of those that indicates animals have a place in the new creation. The Noah story also involved the preservation of animals alongside humans when judgment came on the wicked. And all of this is wrapped around a question he poses to his audience about how they ought to live in light of what is coming (3:11). Between the declaration of God’s faithfulness, the reference to the Noah story, and the promise of what/who will dwell in the new heavens and new earth, the force of all these indicators is to convey the undergirding continuity of the present with the eschatological resolution. Much will be changed, but the world will be preserved and thoroughly renewed by the faithfulness of God to keep his promises. The utter destruction of both the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, irrespective of participation in sin, would fly in the face of such emphases.
As such, the fire that is coming for the heavens and earth is for the purpose of judgment on the ungodly and its purpose is purgative. That which mars the present creation will be consumed by the fire of judgment, but the world itself will be left cleansed and transformed while those are bound to the corruptibility brought by sin (2:12, 19) will perish. This also fits with Paul and his reference to the coming judgment by fire, whereby the works of some will be burned up and others will be maintained into the new creation (1 Cor 3:8–15; cf. 15:58; 1 Pet 1:7). But Peter is focusing on the obverse of this imagery with its effects on the ungodly rather than on the righteous.
Issues in Interpretation Raised by the Total Destruction Interpretation of 2 Pet 3:10–13
With all that said, there remain certain matters to address of the actual wording of this text that appear to pose problems for what I am saying. First, the heavens are said to “pass away with a roar” (3:10). The roar may be a reference to the fire itself or an implicit reference to the voice of the Lord that has this quality (Pss 18:13–15; 77:18; 104:7; Amos 1:2; Joel 3:16). As for the reference to “passing away” (παρέρχομαι) it does indeed signify a sense of coming to an end as the extension of the sense of departing. That is, one can imagine the term having the sense of passing by (perhaps its more common sense) or passing away into the distance out of sight. This sense can be obscured by how our English idiom “pass away” is a euphemism for dying. A similar combination of the term with new creation imagery appears in 2 Cor 5:17, where it also signifies what belonged to the “old things” about the person has passed beyond view and the person that is left is a new creation. That person is still the same person but redeemed and made new. Thus it is with the new creation here. Because of the conflagration, so much will change, it is as if the heavens have passed beyond sight. This is, perhaps, evoking imagery like we see in Isa 34:4, where the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, but creation is maintained (as we see particularly in ch. 35).
Second, we are told that the “στοιχεῖα will be dissolved through being set ablaze” (3:10). Verse 12 likewise says that these things will melt. Many translations present the key term as meaning “elements,” which is indeed possible, but hardly fitting here since Peter is not exactly going through the elements that will be destroyed (water, earth, fire, air, and so on), and the scope of this happening is still with reference to the heavens. This is further accentuated by the fact that both times it appears here, it is in parallelism with what happens to the heavens as a whole. Thus, it is fairly common to interpret the term as referring to the “heavenly bodies” and/or the powers who are associated with them. This fits with how this text otherwise parallels Isa 34:4, including how the version of the LXX preserved in Codex Vaticanus refers to the powers of the heavens melting and other versions (namely, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion) say this of the hosts of heaven . The term also has this sense in some early Christian sources (Theophilus, Autol. 1.4–6; 2.15, 35; Justin, 2 Apol. 5.2; Dial. 23.3; Tatian, Or. 21 [cf. 9]). Perhaps the closest such parallel that does not include the key term is that of 2 Clem 16:3, which also refers to the heavens melting. In any case, this is a note not so much about the very elements of the physical world, as it is about the heavenly bodies being purified with this fire, as the powers associated with them are brought to judgment. The purging fire on earth is matched in the heavens in light of the judgment awaiting them, per 2:4. Indeed, this is fitting for a general picture of the old world order of sin’s dominion being destroyed to make way for the new order in which God’s kingdom comes and his will is done on earth as it is in heaven (hence why the righteous live in anticipation in the present of that way of life characteristic of the kingdom that will go on forever).
Third, the last clause of 3:10 tells us that the earth and the works in it will be either “burned up” (κατακαήσεται) or “found (out)/discovered” (εὑρεθήσεται). Translations are divided as to which of these readings are represented. The former appears in the KJV and its descendants, NASB 1995, RSV, WEB, YLT, and others. The latter appears in the CSB, ESV, NASB 2020, NET, NIV and its descendants, NLT, NRSV and its descendants, and many others. I once wholeheartedly defended the latter reading, but I no longer see that as wholly justified or even necessary for my argument. I know for sure that I will never defend the committee’s decision in NA28 to add an οὐχ in their main text that is attested in precisely 0 Greek manuscripts but is supplied from Sahidic and Syriac ones (and perhaps from another Coptic dialect). The only reason I can see for why this reading was adopted was because they did not want to get rid of εὑρεθήσεται, but its sense is difficult to render accurately, as the sense required in the context has no exact precedent in the LXX, and so a variety of renderings have been adopted in English to make it seem smoother. In this case, adding a “not” is a way of saying that the earth and the works in it will be found no more. But as I said, there is no evidence in Greek for this reading, and I cannot defend this reading over against those that are attested in Greek.
Scholars have tended to defend the reading of εὑρεθήσεται on the grounds that it is the more difficult reading, and it is easier to explain why scribes would change the wording to the other variant than the other way around. After all, a term for “burning up” would fit the context of all this fire imagery, but this term seems less of a comfortable fit and thus, as the reasoning goes, more likely to have been modified by someone else. This term is attested in the one papyrus manuscript (from the 3rd or 4th century) that contains this text from 2 Peter (P72), but that papyrus also adds λύομενα, which changes the sense, and no other manuscript features both terms. Otherwise, the verb appears in א (4th), B (4th), P (9th), 1175 (10th), 1448 (12th), 1739 (10th), 1852 (13th), and it is reflected in various Syriac manuscripts. (Additionally, there is a reading that seems like a perceived grammatical correction in that the plural form—εὑρεθήσονται—is used in four other late manuscripts.) If this is the sense, it pretty well rules out an interpretation of utter destruction or annihilation. The idea is similar to what we see in Matt 10:26 and Luke 12:2 that nothing will ultimately be hidden from God. And indeed, that is perhaps the best way to take this reading. Since it is an agentless passive construction, and this is obviously a judgment by God against wickedness the world over, it is a fair inference to say that the meaning of the passive is “will be found (by God).” This is still not an easy reading to explain without trying to fudge the sense because, while it makes sense to say that the works are found, it is not clear why “the earth” itself, alongside the works, “will be found.”
But as I said, as convenient as this reading is for my argument, I am not as inclined to defend it as I once was. The former reading of κατακαήσεται is better represented by Byzantine manuscripts in addition to others listed in NA28: A (5th), 048 (5th), 33 (9th), 81 (1044), 307 (10th), 436 (11th/12th), 442 (12th/13th), 1611 (10th), an alternative reading of 1739 (10th), 2344 (11th), and it is reflected in Latin Vulgate manuscripts, as well as those in Syriac, Sahidic, and Bohairic. It is hardly impossible to account for the other reading on the idea that this one was there first. Consider that the associations scholars like to make with this text would have also occurred to the ancients who lived and breathed in a world where these views were more influential. And also consider that some Christians would have been uncomfortable with this text sounding even vaguely like the Valentinian concept, and so could have made the change to distance the text from the notion. Indeed, the variant would not even need to be out of whole cloth. It could be an interpretive rendition. That is, it could be giving the sense that the reading of “burned up” meant to some commentator, and that commentator thought it would be better either to make a note in the margins that this is the clearer sense—which then got mistaken for a correction or simply became a correction—or some scribe thought the text itself needed to be changed to convey this sense more clearly. I do not know that this account is as likely as the one more popular among scholars, and I imagine it will need to be refined to be defended more robustly, but it demonstrates that the much better witnessed reading is not impossibly the best explanation for alternate readings. Even P72 may be a way of trying to add both senses, which could indicate that this divergence in readings goes back even further than our available manuscript evidence. This may also be indicated by 2 Clem 16:3, which refers both to the earth melting and the showcasing of both secret and open works of humans.
If “burned up” is the more likely reading and not only the smoother one, I do not think that requires the reading that the earth is utterly obliterated. After all, it is said that the earth “and the works in it” are the recipients of the action of the verb. The latter aspect highlights that it is not the earth itself that is under judgment, but the scope of the burning is worldwide so as to destroy all the works of the wicked in the flame’s consumption. That is, “the earth” here has as its sense the arena of human activity, as the heavens are also the arena of angelic/demonic activity. The fire imagery is still purgative in its result, as in the use of the same term in 1 Cor 3:15, so that works that belong to the current world order defined by corruptibility (2:12, 19) will be consigned to destruction, while those that are fit for the abode of justice will be maintained in the new creation.
Fourth and finally, the reader may notice that I translated the use of λύω in v. 10 as “dissolve.” I think the same sense applies to vv. 11 and 12 when the term is used. It is actually a weaker term for destruction than what Peter used in reference to the flood. Its more basic sense is about making loose or releasing. It has the extended sense of destruction in that it can signify dissolution of that which holds something together. Of course, fire works this way not only in terms of burning wood and breaking it down, but also in terms of dissolving metals, which helps in the purification process. This, in turn, resonates with the language Peter uses in 1 Pet 1:7 for the refinement of the people in being tested by fire (cf. Mal 3:2–3; 4:1). Today, at least some people might be more inclined to use some acid metaphor to signify this, but in the time of 2 Peter, fire tended to be the more typical source for this image. This dissolution serves as a basis for exhortation in v. 11 not because all of creation is going to be utterly destroyed, but because some things in this world, including deeds done in it, will withstand this purgation process and last into the new creation, as v. 13 indicates. Therefore, they ought to live as people fit for the new creation where righteousness dwells. Other works will be burned away, but their works, conformed as they are to Jesus Christ, will survive the fire and last forevermore.