Bob Cauley:  Welcome to the Sound List!  May your time with the list be profitable and edifying.

<< We are continually amazed at the depth of understanding we have when looking at Scripture through the light of NCT. We have recently been studying 2 Pet 3 from a partial preterist perspective.  Anybody have any insights or comments about this section of Scripture? For example could "last days" in v. 3 be referring to the last days of the old covenant? Could vss. 10-13 be referring to 70 A.D.?   Could "new heavens" and "new earth" be referring to the "New Covenant."  Just wondering? >>

I believe that you must greatly minimize the import of this passage in order to press it into a partial preterist mold.  If the perspective can be somehow set aside for the sake of objectivity, so that things which conflict with it may be fairly considered, this passage points in quite a different direction.  Taken at face value, along with the many previous passages which 2 Pet. 3 draws from and builds on, both in the OT and in the teachings of Christ, the focus seems evidently to be that of a future destruction of the heavens and earth we now know.  To come out of this passage with any other understanding may be traced to coming into it with a theological predisposition which does not fit the demands of the text.  

This did not take place at any time in the past.  The only other event even close to this magnitude was the flood in Noah's day. The only  microcosmic predecessor of a similar nature was the destruction of the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah in Abraham's day.  To reduce the language of this passage to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. is to render the significance of this passage beneath either of these two previous events.  Yet this entire passage demands that we conduct our lives now based on what we look for God to do in the future.  And the events focused on in the future are all directly connected to the Second Advent of the Messiah in the context.

I believe the "New Heavens" and the "New Earth" refer to the final culmination of stage of the fulfillment of the New Covenant promises.  The New Covenant was instituted at the Cross, but is being implemented in stages or phases, of which we are only in the first.  The last and final stage, that of complete fulfillment awaits the New Heavens and New Earth which this passage speaks of.  The New Covenant may rightly be said to be the covenant of the New Heavens and New Earth in which all things will be made new.  We remain strangers and pilgrims here until that day.

Final comments:

I personally am at a loss to see any connections in the text of 2 Pet. 3 to the events of 70 A.D.  Without clear contextual warrant no such connection should be made.  I would conclude that the partial preterist understanding is exegetically untenable.

It behooves us to not only be aware of the theological baggage we bring to a passage, but also to be conscious of and careful of the impact such baggage may have on our submission to the text.  We are always in danger of "reading in" what is not there.

It is also very, very important that we not be found guilty of the sin of Hymenaeus and Philetus, that of teaching that a prophecy has been fulfilled when it has not yet come to pass (2 Tim. 2:14-19).  This error is dealt with by the Apostle as one equal to that of false prophecy itself.

Soli Deo Gloria,

John T. "Jack" Jeffery