Is heaven eternal?

The “new Heaven” in our text must not be confounded with the Heaven of Heavens, the dwelling of God. This latter subsists in moral and physical perfection, and undergoes no change.

That particular judgment, then, will have a twofold issue. It will be either life or punishment. Life in its full and proper sense will embrace all that aggregate of privileges, relationships, and blessings, the crown of all being the knowledge of the Lord, of which the earth will then be full. Punishment will embrace all those woes and penalties which are appropriate to the state of sin in which men generally are found, and to the individual sins of those in question, including the crowning one of the rejection of the Divine testimony through those whom the King acknowledges as His brethren. And both the life and the punishment are eternal. No one seems anxious to prove that eternal life is not eternal. Multitudes labour to explain that eternal punishment is not eternal. Why? It is simply a case of the prisoner in the dock revolting against his sentence! Apart from such prejudice — natural enough, but very fatal if indulged in — there is no reason for denying to eternal in the first half of the sentence what is freely admitted as to it in the second. Scripturally both parts stand or fall together.

When for instance the apostle says "the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18); and, again, "For we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Cor. 5:1); do these contrasts leave the true meaning of the contested word "eternal" still in any degree in question? Certainly not. Further, the idea that the term "everlasting" applied to the condemnation of the wicked is not the expression of an endless condition must lead each believer to the saddest conclusions. If everlasting damnation is not everlasting, what right have we to the conclusion and what security have we that the same word, when it refers to life, to salvation, to glory, and to the inheritance of the ransomed, has the meaning of a never-ending condition? The word of God says with all certainty, "It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43-44; Comp. Matthew 18:8); "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire … and these shall go away into everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:41-46); "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thess. 1:9); compare "to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever" (2 Peter 2:17), and "raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 13); and "the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night who worship the beast and his image, and whosover receiveth the mark of his name" (Rev. 14:10-11), and "her smoke rose up for ever and ever" (Rev. 19:3); and, "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of "eternal damnation" (Mark 3:29); and "even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire" (Jude 7). Nothing can be more decisive. But if, as these persons assert, by the expressions "everlasting fire," "everlasting torment," "everlasting destruction," "everlasting judgment," really immutably continuing conditions, are not indicated, then this can be as little affirmed when the word of God speaks of eternal life (Matt. 25:46; Luke 18:30; John 3:16-17; John 5:24; 1 John 5:20), of "everlasting habitations" (Luke 16:9), of everlasting consolations (2 Thess. 2:16), of an "eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17), of "everlasting glory" (2 Tim. 2:10; 1 Peter 5:10), of "everlasting salvation" (Heb. 5:9), of an eternal inheritance" (Heb. 9:15), and of "everlasting kingdom." (2 Peter 1:11.) If the reality of a never-ending condemnation of the wicked is in question, then is faith in an unbroken, continuous state of happiness also a mere fancy. Whoever denies the perpetuity of the one condition has no foundation for a belief in the perpetuity of the other. If it is not true that the wrath of God abides on the unbeliever, what security exists of everlasting life for the believer? Indeed everything loses its certainty as soon as man sets himself up as judge of the thoughts and ways of God. But what shall we say when the Lord says distinctly, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:46)? Have we not here before our eyes the sophisms of human speculation in all their poverty and folly? If everlasting punishment has an end, why not everlasting life also? One and the same word is used to denote the duration of the one as of the other condition. The punishment of the wicked is eternal, and the life of the righteous nothing more than eternal. Would God indeed have used the same word for two conditions opposed to each other, and for all that have intended a double meaning?

Besides, the same blessed truth is plainly taught in our text: "In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." What a wonderful place and portion we have here! The Lord's name be praised. What a field for meditation! Enter it, my soul, I pray thee; come and meditate with spiritual power on these wonderful words, "Thy right hand" — the place of dignity, power and special privilege. "Fulness of joy" — nothing lacking. "all spiritual blessings." "Pleasures for evermore." Not only is it the place of honour and joy, but it is our everlasting place — "for evermore." "Pleasures for evermore." No alloy, no fear of these pleasures ever coming to an end — they are "for evermore."

Added to these wondrous words are these, "and they shall reign for ever and ever" (verse 5). Here we see the heavenly saints reigning for the ages of ages, and we know that it is as sharing the kingdom of Christ, His "everlasting Kingdom" as both Nebuchadnezzar and Peter testify, and the "heavenly kingdom" for which Paul looked. So that after the mediatorial kingdom has been given up, all things having been secured for the divine will, the heavenly side of the kingdom of God, the heavenly kingdom of our Lord, will continue for all eternity. All evil will have been done away, so that the eternal kingdom will be unclouded bliss for all who will be privileged to have part in it under Christ.

— “They shall reign to the ages of ages.” The millennium and the eternal ages are here embraced. The saints on high shall never cease to reign. So long as Christ is on the throne, so long as He wears the crown, that determines the duration of the reign of the saints, for we “shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:17). This character of reign is necessarily eternal, and is quite independent of economic or other change. The kingdom given up to God (1 Cor. 15:24) is set up on the earth for a specified time, and to manifest the accomplishment of the counsels of God. The thousand years’ reign comes in between the history of the world as it now exists and the eternal state. It is the kingdom of that period which the Lord delivers up, but His reign over all creatures never ceases; so long as there are angels and men — creatures of God — so long is government necessarily required. The throne is eternal, and the thrones and crowns of the saints, too, are eternal. We understand therefore the expression, “they shall reign to the ages of ages,” to signify the eternal reign of the heavenly saints. Both our service and reigning are for ever and ever, or eternal.

Rev. 6:14. — “The Heaven was removed as a book rolled up.” The political, civil, and ecclesiastical systems, the constitution, bonds, and frame work of society, shall as completely disappear as a book or scroll is unreadable when rolled up. The physical removal of the heaven (Rev. 21:1) and of the heavens (2 Peter 3:10), not, of course, the dwelling place of God, of saints, and of angels, is one of the most stupendous events which the Word of God records. But the entire cessation of all governmental order, the moral Heaven, is one of those coming events most awful to contemplate. We have had the ruin of all greater and lesser authorities, but here the whole system in which they were placed itself collapses.

— “For the first Heaven and the first earth had passed away.” The undoubted reference is to the statement in the previous chapter. “From whose face the earth and the Heaven fled away” (v. 11). This dissolution, not annihilation, is effected by fire (2 Peter 3:10). Scripture is silent as to any future act of creating material in a literal sense, and is equally silent on what some foolishly contend for, namely, annihilation or total extinction of being. Scripture knows nothing of such a baseless theory. Not an atom of matter, not a blade of grass, and surely not a sentient being in the wide universe is doomed to extinction. Our planet will be put in the crucible, altered, changed, and made new, to abide for ever. There being no sin, there can be no corruption. The new earth is eternal. The terms “first Heaven” and “first earth” are in contrast to the “new Heaven” and “new earth.”

And now the eternal state comes into view. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away and the sea is no more." This is the revelation concerning the final and eternal state of the earth. "Thou hast established the earth and it abideth" (Ps. 119:90); "But the earth abideth forever" (Eccl. 1:4). These divine statements are now fulfilled. Many Christians have a very vague conception of the eternal state of the earth and the abode of the redeemed. They think of it as a spiritual state destitute of any locality. But it is not so. The earth and the heaven abide as definite places throughout all eternity. What a marvellous fact this is! In chapter 20:11 we read that the earth and the heaven fled away and there was found no place. We saw that at that time the great conflagration of which Peter speaks took place, when "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements, shall be dissolved with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10).

344 Now I say that the word regularly means in scripture "eternal," in the sense of contrast with any period of time. "If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. 5:1.) "To whom be honour and power everlasting." (1 Tim. 6:16.) "The God of all grace, who hath called us to his eternal glory." (1 Peter 5:10.) "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." (Heb. 5:9.) "Having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:12.) "They which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." (Heb. 9:15.) "Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God." (Heb. 9:14.) "For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Cor. 4:18; Rom. 16:26), which is conclusive. Now these suffice to shew that the regular meaning of αἰώνιος , in its own plain and absolute sense, is eternal. Where it is used of punishment, in Matthew 25, it is in purposed and expressed contrast used of life: the one have eternal life, the others eternal punishment. The duration of the punishment of the wicked, and of the life of the just, are expressed by the same identical term — I may add, that of the existence of God Himself; and this term, put in contrast elsewhere with all that has a temporary duration, so that I do not see how it could be stated more plainly.