The coming to which the scoffers refer is the day of the Lord, the time when Christ will return in glory.1 No one knows the day or the hour when this will be (Matthew 24:36). Initially, Christian believers understood that Christ would return in the lifetime of the first generation of believers or soon thereafter (based on passages like Matthew 10:23; Matthew 16:28; Matthew 24:34; Mark 9:1; Mark 13:30; John 21:22–23). When that did not happen, the church was forced to explain why there was a delay in the coming of the Lord (Luke 12:45; Hebrews 10:36–37; James 5:7–8; 2 Peter 3:8–10).2
4 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.”