2 Peter 3:9

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

"Here the writer of this epistle enables us to view the summit of the Christian faith, and to rise to a magnificent conception of God."[32] Barclay even went so far as to see a hint of universalism in it: "Ever and again there shines in Scripture the glint of the larger hope ... that somehow and some time, God ... will bring the whole world to himself."[33] Green expressed amazement that Barclay could have held such a view, asking, "How can he in view of 2 Peter 3:7?"[34] Of course, God wants all people to be saved; and Jesus gave himself as a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. Nevertheless, some people will exercise their free will to exclude God from their lives; and this God cannot prevent without taking away from people the very freedom of choice that makes them people.

But is longsuffering ... Long ago, Augustine said, "God is patient because he is eternal." "He who is from everlasting to everlasting can afford to wait."[35] There would appear to be another reason for God's delay, evident in the next clause.

Not willing that any should perish ... A viewpoint in this verse (including 2 Peter 3:12) which is ancient, reaching all the way back to Ecumenius, was quoted by Macknight thus: "The time of the end is deferred, that the number of them that are to be saved may be filled up."[36] See more on this under 2 Peter 3:12.

Peter also included the principle of God's longsuffering towards people in 1 Peter 4:20, which recounts the longsuffering of God in the days of Noah.

[32] R. H. Strachan, op. cit., p. 144.

[33] William Barclay, The Letters of James and Peter (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976), p. 343.

[34] Michael Green, op. cit., p. 136.

[35] Alfred Plummer, op. cit., p. 459.

[36] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 568.