The following question was submitted by a couple of my readers. My response will follow.

Hello Bob,

Diana and I were listening to a radio program tonight. It was a religious talk show. He (Harold Camping) was taking calls from listeners, and in one call, was having a conversation regarding the end of the world.

Camping claimed that the Bible says explicitly that the end of the world will be on 5-21-2011. He further said that a day is 1000 years long and that 1000 years is a day. He used  4989 B.C. as a starting point, then adds 2011 and of course it equals 7000 years. We didn’t understand a lot of the conversation but I guess the man was trying to convey something about 7 days when they were the same as 7000 years. Where May 21st comes from, he didn’t make clear either.

Have you ever heard of this man, or of what he is saying?

Mark & Diana

RESPONSE:
I have heard him before. Yes, there will be a definite second coming of Christ. Unfortunately. nonsense about the end of the world is as old as the world itself. Jesus told us that no man knows the day or the hour of His return. So, (with all due respect) Camping is completely contradicting Jesus.

As for the length of a day, Camping is evidently quoting  2 Peter 3:8 out of context, where Peter does indeed say, “With God one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.”  But let’s analyze this statement for a moment: If we take that entire summation literally, at face value, it becomes a statement of nonsense: “One 24 hour day is a thousand years long.” That would be our first conclusion. But what about the remainder of the message? “And a thousand of our years is really only the length of a 24 hour day.”

Of course Peter is speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so, although the statement might appear to be a contradiction, it is not. Peter was answering skeptics who thought God was too slow in bringing about the return of Jesus. This is Peter’s way of saying that to God, there is no such thing as time and therefore, designations such as fast or slow are irrelevant where God is concerned. Time is a human limitation. This is why Revelation tells us that Jesus was “slain before the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8) Was Jesus slain before God created the world, or was Jesus slain at a specific time in history, namely, 33AD?  Both are true. God is removed from time. Two thousand years ago, long before scientists had a clue, the Bible said things about time and space that Quantum Physics is now saying about time and space.
Below, I have linked an article I have written about the subject  of Jesus’ second coming, which hopefully will help to eliminate some of the confusion. This will be followed by an additional two links to blogs about God and time.

Warmest Regards

Bob Siegel

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