One day Is as a Thousand Years

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8 ESV)

Peter originally wrote this in reference to this prayer written by Moses:

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4 ESV)

In context, neither of these writers meant that a thousand of our years is actually just one day to God. Both writers were trying to describe God's ageless perspective. If "a thousand years is as one day" is to be taken literally, then what do we do with the first half of Peter's statement, "one day is as a thousand years?" They can't both be literally true. The only reasonable conclusion is that he meant it as a rhetorical device to illustrate how God is never impatient or in a hurry. Like Gandalf, He arrives precisely when He means to.

In Genesis 2:17, God told Adam that he would die in the day that he ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, yet Adam didn't drop dead on the day he ate. In fact, he lived for another 930 years. Some explain this discrepancy by pointing to Psalm 90 or 2 Peter 3. Yet using 2 Peter 3, one could also say that Adam lived for 339,450,000 years because one day is as a thousand years.

When God told Abraham that Sarah would have a son in one year, did He mean one of Abraham's years or one of God's years? If He meant God's years, did He mean the short one or the long one? As you can see, taking a metaphorical passage literally leads to absurd conclusions.

There are clearly prophetic implications to God's inhuman perspective of time, but I very much doubt that they are mathematically dependent on the 1:1000 ratio. It's a theological principle, not an algebraic one.