2 Peter 3:7

πυρὶ τηρούμενοι. According to the Jewish conception of the rainbow promise, water would not again be the destructive agency. The heaven and the earth are reserved for destruction by fire. τεθησαυρισμένοι : “set apart for”. The writer means that both the rainbow promise and the delay are not to be regarded as implying that there will be no more great cosmical changes.

The idea of the association of a great cosmical change with the coming of Christ is an interesting one. It involves the question of our environment when the natural is exchanged for the spiritual body. This writer evidently expects not complete annihilation of the present environment, but a “new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). St. Paul speaks of “the deliverance of the creation itself from the bondage of corruption into the glory of the liberty of the children of God”. “We are not informed as to the nature of our future environment, yet it must be such as to satisfy all the longings, and give scope for all the activities of a perfected humanity” (Mayor, ed. p. 207. See also his most interesting and suggestive note: “ Answer to the objection that no change is possible in the material universe ”; and with whole passage, 2 Peter 3:5-7, cf. Ruskin, Sesame and Lilies, p. 24.)