2 Peter 3:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

There are two principal elements of the universe, water and fire. From them two further elements receive their being: air from evaporating waters, and earth from condensing waters. This evaporation and condensation are produced by fire.

Anyone who has understanding will believe this, for the nature of fire received such power from God the Creator Himself.

Therefore, if there are only two elements, and the first destruction of the ungodly was through water, then it is altogether necessary, he says, that the second destruction of the ungodly occur through fire.

It was from water as the material cause, and by water as the operative cause. For water holds the earth together, binding its dust and giving it firmness. If this did not happen, the earth would turn into dust and air.

Some idle talker may perhaps object to us: why did God, who created the visible world, not create it firm from the beginning? Why must He bring it to perfection through the flood in Noah's time, and through fire at the end of the world, as Peter now says?

To such a man we will say, first, that the world cannot be unchangeable. How will that which received being through change possess changelessness? It was brought into being from non-being, and no prudent man will call this anything but change.

Since the change toward the worse reached the very worst, the Creator of the world necessarily purified it in Noah's time by water, in order to raise it toward the better. At the end He will do so by fire.

We ourselves are accustomed to subject certain things to the action of fire, not in order to destroy them, but to give them purity and brightness. No one, probably, will doubt this.

God promises to do something similar at the end of the age through fire. He will destroy what is superfluous and useless for the future state of men, such as plants, cattle, and forest. Thus beings unnecessary for incorruptible life will be destroyed.

If this is so, then those who claim that this visible world was incorruptible from the beginning speak idly. If anyone should reason in the same way about intelligible beings, since they too were brought into being from non-being, let him understand this.

Their very simplicity, or non-composite nature, guarantees their indestructibility and their nearness, by their very being, to the blessed and divine nature.

The Apostle Paul says that by faith alone we know the ordering of the world from the beginning (Heb 11:3). By faith alone we also know its consummation, or more precisely, its reordering. When the present order of the world ends, a new heaven and a new earth will appear. That is, the whole order of the world will be new (v. 13; cf. Rev 21:1). Now this is as much a mystery as the creation of the world from nothing. Only after the end of this world, or after its renewal, will this no longer be a mystery of faith, but knowledge through sight (1 Cor 13:12).

The outward side of the Apostle's discourse, and the argument of his apostolic opposition to the objection of the mockers concerning the coming of Christ and the end of the world, is this. If the false teachers, or mockers, say that as the world has always stood from the beginning, so it will always stand as it stood from the beginning, then they speak in complete ignorance of the matter. It is true that the Lord God created and ordered the world in such a way, and in such an order, that it could remain constantly and eternally in this form. But this will not happen. There will be a change in the state and ordering of this world, as the Lord foretold through both prophets and apostles (Gen 8:22; Isa 51:6; Lk 21:33; 1 Cor 7:31, and many others).

Specifically, at the coming of Christ there will be a time when the present world in its full composition, that is, the heavens and the earth, or the whole universe, will be destroyed by fire. Something similar already happened with respect to the earth, at the flood. The whole earth was washed, or cleansed, by water in the flood. So also the whole world will be cleansed, or destroyed, by fire at the coming of Christ.

At the flood the earthly world was cleansed by water. Since it had been formed from water and by water, it was also destroyed by water. But the present world will be destroyed by fire.

"They who think this do not know": more precisely translated, we receive this sense. The revilers and mockers deliberately close their eyes, not wishing to understand or perceive the truth. Therefore it is hidden from them. This is the truth that the heavens and the earth came into being as the Apostle says. It is hidden from the mockers because they do not wish to know. They "willingly close their eyes before the truth."

"In the beginning the heavens and the earth were formed from water and by water": literally and more precisely, this whole saying should be translated thus. The heavens existed from the beginning, and the earth was formed out of water and by water. That is, it is not the heavens together with the earth, both of them, that were formed from water and by water. Rather, the heavens existed from the beginning, and then there was the earth, formed out of water and by water.

According to the biblical contemplation, the heavens were not formed out of water and by water. There is no such passage in the Bible. The heavens constitute the firmament, which is, as it were, the partition between the waters above the firmament and the waters below the firmament (Gen 1:7-8). Nowhere in the Bible is it said that the heavens too were formed out of water and by water.

"And the earth was formed out of water and by water": the earth was formed out of water in this sense. The water was at first turbid, and from this turbid matter there appeared a sediment that made the dry land, or land, or solid earth. It was formed by water, that is, through the action of water. Water partly appeared as the gathering of waters alongside the dry land, or earth. Partly it appeared in the form of clouds.

"Out of water, as the material cause, and by water, as the perfecting cause. For water holds the earth together, binding its dust and giving it solidity. If this were not so, the earth would necessarily turn into dust and air" (Theophylact).

The earth received manifold and diverse forms and formations out of water and by water. Water is one of the most powerful agents in the formation and transformation of the earth. Chiefly, it acts as an element that binds the earth together and also loosens it.

"By the word of God": the word, or utterance, is the mighty and all-powerful expression of the will and wisdom of God (Gen 1:3, 6, 9 and following).

By speaking of the creation of heaven and earth by the Word of God (v. 5), and of the production of the flood by the power of that same Word (v. 6), the apostle shows that even now the world waits only for the dread word of God to begin the great destruction.

It is as though the world carries within itself the possibility of destruction. If by God's word "Let it be" all that exists was brought into being, then by the word "Let it not be" all can be destroyed.

Only by forgetting the world's dependence on God can one speak of its eternity. But only insolent heretics can forget this, and for them the fire of Gehenna is the inevitable portion.

After this, when the heavens have been completely cut off, there will be new heavens and a future new earth. There, in their dwelling, the righteous will possess righteousness and the promises of God.

Therefore one must not be ignorant that the present epistle is false. Though it is circulated, it does not belong to the canon.