2 Peter 3:7

By the same word. — Or, as some first-rate authorities read, by His word. The sense in either case is that the universe is preserved for judgment by the same power that created it. “His word” here does not mean any single utterance of God or passage of Scripture, such as Isaiah 66:15; Daniel 7:9; Malachi 4:1. Just as “the world that then was” was destroyed by water, so the present world is being treasured up to be destroyed by fire. Comp. Romans 2:5. Christ Himself, in a discourse which St. Peter heard (Mark 13:3), had made the Flood a type of the Judgment (Matthew 24:37). (See below on 2 Peter 3:10.) “Unto fire,” or “for fire,” should perhaps be taken with “kept in store” rather than with “reserved.”