3:21 times of restitution. “Restitution” is from a Greek word used only this one time in the New Testament, though it is closely related to a word meaning “restore.” The promise thus means that, when Christ comes again, He will restore all things to their primeval perfection, before sin and the curse came into the world. Compare Revelation 21:5; 22:3.

3:21 since the world began. Note that God’s prophets have been prophesying the restoration of all things ever “since the world began,” not just beginning some four billion years after the world began, as evolutionists would allege. There is no Biblical basis whatever for the notion of vast ages since creation. Compare Mark 10:6: Luke 1:70. It should be recognized that there is no scientific proof that the world is older than the few thousand years of recorded history. All such age calculations that yield vast eons of time are based upon the premise of uniformitarianism, which is the belief that everything has been uniform from the beginning of time, and there has been no universal catastrophe such as the worldwide Flood. This is an invalid assumption in light of the records of special creation and the worldwide Flood in the days of Noah. See notes on II Peter 3:3-6.