Heaven Study Guide 2: What happens when Jesus comes back?

Community Group Study Guide — What Happens When Jesus Comes Back? (Heaven Week 2)

2 Peter 3:1-13

August 16 2026

Study Information:

From time to time some religious leader will make a prediction about the return of Jesus. This can take the form of looking at world events and seeing parallels with their interpretation of the end and at other times it can be a bold claim with a specific date and a time of the return of Christ. So far people have predicted the return of Jesus with a staggering 0% accuracy rate. These dates get thrown out there, picked up by the news and they come and go and we move on. Will Jesus return, how will we know when he will come back and what will that event be like? This concept is referred to as “the Day of the Lord” in the scripture. Let’s explore the events surrounding the Day of the Lord specifically the return of Jesus, our resurrection and final judgment.

Return

2 Peter 3:1-4, 8-10

One key area on which there should be no debate in the Bible is that Jesus will return bodily. This is called the “second coming” and is often referred to as the day of the Lord in the prophets. We can learn at least three things about Jesus return in our passage.

First Jesus’s return is promised and certain. When will Jesus return? The warning from Peter is that there will rise up some who think that Jesus has delayed his return too long and that we need to have patience. This seems to imply that Jesus does not return according to our timeline! But his return is promised and certain. The return of the king was predicted by the prophets and the Lord himself in places like Acts 1:6-11. Peter wrote that in the last days scoffers would arise questioning his return because of the “delay (2 Peter 3:4).” This scoffing had sinful motives and was designed to question God’s faithfulness. The goal of the scoffers was to erode trust in God’s promise. Even if Jesus does not arrive on our timeline we can be certain he will come back as he promised.

The second thing we learn about the return of Jesus is that it will be sudden and unpredictable. Peter said that his return would be like a thief in the night. This comes from Jesus’s own words that no one would know the day or the hour of his return. Knowing that we cannot predict his return should keep us ready and expectant.

Finally, Jesus’s “delay” is built out of patience and a desire for more and more people to repent and put their faith in Christ. God’s timing is different than ours. Peter said that God counts one day as a thousand. This was not a new math formula for us to consider, rather it was an expression to emphasize God’s eternality and faithful forbearance. Jesus is not “slow” to return as we count slowness, rather he is patient and desiring that more and more people repent and put their trust in Jesus.

Resurrection

1 Corinthians 15:42-49

When Jesus returns we will experience the resurrection of our bodies. Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:16 that when Christ returned the dead in Christ would rise. The idea of our resurrected bodies is most fully developed in 1 Corinthians 15 where our resurrected bodies are described as imperishable, powerful, spiritual, glorious and fashioned after the image of Jesus’s resurrected bodies (1 Cor 15:42-49). These bodies will be fit for the New Creation that God will make and will not be subject to weakness, sickness, decay or death. Isaiah described them as being able to run and not grow weary and walk and not grow faith (Isa 40:31).

This lines up with how Peter describes how we wait for a new heavens and new earth (2 Peter 3:13). God made the creation to be a physical reality where we interact with the world with our physical bodies and he saw that this was very good. Rival philosophies at this time saw material things as inherently bad. One such teaching during the time of the early church was a heresy called gnosticism. Gnosticism comes from the greek word for “knowledge” and it was a false teaching that denied Jesus’s human body and our eternal future with physical resurrected bodies. It also advocated for a “secret knowledge” that one could only learn later on from personal revelation from God. It likely sounds similar to some of the mystical spiritual beliefs of our culture today. Instead, the Bible teaches us that God has designed us to live in a physical world with new physical bodies but unstained by sin and death.

We can look forward to a physical world to explore and interact with that will be glorious and magnificent because God himself is there. We will explore this reality future when we explore the concept of New Creation in a future study guide.

Judgement

2 Peter 3:7, 10-13, Revelation 20:11-15

Just as God judged the world and the wicked during the time of Noah so too will God judge the world when Christ returns. Peter shifted the language from flood imagery to fire which has a refining and purifying aspect to it (2 Peter 3:6-7). On a cosmic level, God is getting the material world ready for its renewal, on a personal level, when Christ returns every human being will stand before him.

The writer of Hebrews wrote that is appointed for man to die once and then comes judgement (Hebrews 9:27). Peter described this judgement with words like “works will be exposed,” and “the destruction of the ungodly (2 Peter 3:7, 10).” This promise gives those who have suffered evil great comfort because wrongs against us will not go unnoticed and unpunished. Rather, God sees all and will execute his justice according to what each deserves. This is a major reasons why a robust theology of hell can actually help us forgive those who have wronged us since it is not up to us to get vengeance or revenge. Jesus is king and he sits on a throne for judgment on the Day of the Lord.

That leads to the question, should followers of Christ live in fear of this judgment? Certainly not, since there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)! We can know that we will stand before Jesus’s throne and yet not be afraid. Revelation 20:11-15 described a scene known as the Great White Throne where Christ will evaluate and render verdict on all human beings. Those who are not in Christ will be separated from God’s presence forever in what is described as weeping and gnashing of teeth in a place Jesus called hell. Those in Christ will receive enteral life and what commendation from God for their faithfulness. Jesus used the words “well done my good and faithful servant” to describe this commendation. So many of us remember the day when we first had someone we respected tell us that they were proud of us. That feeling will be infinitely magnified when the words come from Christ himself.

This promise of judgment can be a major motivation for our holiness and godliness (2 Peter 3:11). What if you lived today with eternity in view? What if that future day where we stand before God motivated our everyday faithfulness in our pursuit of knowing God, serving others, our generosity and our evangelism? We have no need to fear condemnation and God’s future words of “well done” should inspire our faithful obedience and service.

At your community group:

Take 15-20 minutes to share about how God has been at work in your life, prayer concerns and pray for one another.

How did God speak to you through the scripture and the sermon this week?

Discussion Questions:

2 Peter 3:1-13

How does Peter talk about the feeling that Christ has delayed his return and what reasons did Peter offer for Christ’s “slowness?”

What does the Bible teach about our future physical resurrected bodies?

How does a theology of future judgment motivate a believer’s holiness and their response to things like vengeance and revenge?

When it comes to the idea of Jesus’s return, is this something you currently look forward to and why? What kind of counsel could you give a follower of Jesus who struggles to long for the return of Jesus?