They will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation."
2 Peter 3:4
It is the scoffers walking after their own lusts that say, 'Where is the promise of His coming?' We have already noted how Peter links false teaching and wrong living together, and nowhere is this seen more decisively than in relation to the Coming of Christ. It is a matter of history that in the early centuries of the Christian Church the extremely high moral tone was a product of its vital and vibrant belief in the return of the Lord, and that when that hope faded, the moral integrity and the spiritual vitality were significantly lowered. It is certainly true that everywhere in the New Testament the blessed hope of Christ's coming is held out as an incentive and encouragement to holy living, and references to it are generally either prefaced or followed by exhortations to stand fast in the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 15:51-58; Colossians 3:4, 5; Philippians 3:20-4:1; 1 John 3:3). When therefore scoffers call in question the return of Christ they are not merely assailing the doctrinal purity of the Church, they are cutting at its moral fibre. We should be grateful to Peter for exposing the vital connection between the two, thereby reminding us of the urgent duty laid upon us to preserve at all cost the integrity of the faith once delivered unto the saints.