What does it mean that heaven and earth will pass away?

But, let us see, what takes place at that moment. You may get fuller light by listening to what Peter has to say. "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up" (2 Peter 3:10). God has but one way of purifying this sin-stained earth, and it is by fire. It will be a terrible day, indeed, when "the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." How it will be caused, it is not for me to say, but you all know that we live on the crust of a ball, whose interior consists of molten material, and flame. Whether God will let these mighty forces of nature then come into play, is for Him to decide, but all that Scripture says is this, "the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." So that, on the mightiest monuments of man's skill, and ingenuity, faith sees written in indelible characters, the words, "Reserved to fire" (2 Peter 3:7). It will be an awful day for the man who is not saved. This thought, therefore, leads the apostle to add: "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." This last clause, you observe, is repeated, that there might be no mistake whatever, as to the way in which God will cleanse the earth, and the heavens too. "Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness" (2 Peter 3:12-13). What Peter says he looks for, John writes that he saw. "We look for new heavens and a new earth," says Peter; but says John, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth," and you will find all about them in Revelation 21. Peter reveals them disappearing, in flame, and smoke, and John shows them reappearing, in all the beauty of the new creation, for eternity.

Yet the judgment blow will be struck when the time arrives. The Lord will come when men do not expect Him, as a thief in the night, and thus usher in His day. That "day" will comprise a thousand years as other Scriptures show. It will commence with His coming and not close until the passing away of the earth and its surrounding heavens, dissolved by fire. This will not take place until the end of His thousand years' reign is reached, as stated in Revelation 20:7-11. That same destruction of the heavens and the earth will usher in the "day of God" of which Revelation 21:1-8 speaks, — the eternal state. The "day of the Lord" and the "day of God" are like two circles touching each other and just overlapping at the point where the heavens and earth are destroyed, so that their destruction may be said to be in both of them.

The day of the Lord is the period especially characterized by the exaltation of Christ, as Lord and Administrator of the will of God, when righteousness will reign. It lasts for 1000 years. The day of God is the succeeding eternal state in which God shall dwell with men in a new heaven and new earth and there righteousness shall dwell without a solitary foe to challenge its peace.

And if we look for a moment at 2 Peter 3 we shall find, I think, a link between Isaiah and Revelation. It is written in 2 Peter 3:10, "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. … The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Now it appears to me plain that this is what takes place at the epoch of the great white throne. For the moment the Lord is on that throne, the earth and heaven flee from before His face, and there is found no place for them. It is a part of "the day of the Lord." which day comprehends the whole time from the Lord's interference to judge the world, taking His great power and reigning, until He delivers up the kingdom, after the millennium and the subsequent judgments are over.* "Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

1908 105 The sanction which Christ has attached to this prophecy possesses unusual solemnity: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," applicable no doubt to all His words, but specifically spoken of this particular prophecy (ver. 35). Let us therefore approach its consideration with a full regard to the warning sentence with which the Lord has protected this special scripture. The globe on which we walk will pass away; the heavens, as a scroll when it is rolled up; but not a syllable of these utterances of the Lord Jesus shall fall to the ground unfulfilled.

Verse 33 goes far beyond the kingdom to the passing away of heaven and earth at the time of the Great White Throne, some 1000 years later (Rev.20:11). The words of the Lord Jesus will never pass away.

Let us look now, however, at the question of continuity between the earth that flees away and the earth that succeeds it. At first sight we should surely say, they cannot be identical. The well-known passage in the epistle of Peter would seem to confirm this (2 Peter 3:10, 12). There we learn that "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." And it is repeated, and thus emphasized by repetition, that "the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat."

Yet, as we look more closely, we shall find reason to doubt whether more is meant than the destruction of the earth as the place of human habitation. In the deluge, to which it is compared (vv. 5-7), "the world that then was perished;" yet its continuity with the present no one doubts. Fire, though the instrument of a more penetrating judgment, yet does not annihilate the material upon which it fastens. The melting even of elements implies rather the reverse, and dissolution is not (in this sense) destruction.

Yet the heavens and the earth pass away, — that is, in the form in which now we know them; or, as the apostle speaks to the Corinthians, "the fashion of this world passes away" (1 Cor. 7:21): and that this is the sense in which we are to understand it, other scriptures come to assure us.

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).

But we read in the same chapter "nevertheless we, according to His promise look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (verse 13). During the millennium righteousness reigns upon the earth, but now a state comes for the earth when righteousness shall dwell there. The great burning up meant not an annihilation of the earth and the heavens; God does not annihilate anything, nor does Scripture teach an annihilation of material things and much less the annihilation of human beings, as false teachers claim. The conflagration of the earth and the heaven means their complete purification. The heaven mentioned cannot be the entire heavens; for there is a heaven which cannot be touched by these fires of purification. The heaven is that which surrounds the earth and which was once the peculiar sphere of the great usurper, the prince of the power in the air. And when Peter writes that all this is according to His promise, he has a well-known prophetic statement in Isaiah in mind. "For as the new heaven and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." (Isaiah 66:22. See also 65:17).

— “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.”

Before the face of Him who sits upon the great white throne "the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them." (Chap. xx. ii.) We have now a complementary statement: "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth." It is clear, therefore, that an earthly condition abides for eternity. It is a point of interest as to which Scripture seems to give full satisfaction, whether this new earth is itself a "new creation," or the old earth remodelled and made new. At first sight, one would no doubt decide for the former; and this was the view that at one time almost held possession of the field, the new earth scarcely being regarded by the mass as "earth" at all. Practically, the earth was simply believed to exist no more, and in contrast with it all was to be heavenly: the double sphere of blessing, earth and heaven, was lost sight of, if not denied. Lately, for many, reaction has set in, and the pendulum has swung past the point of rest to the other extreme. The prophecies of the Old Testament rightly understood as to be literally taken, and delivered from the glosses of a falsely called "spiritual" interpretation, seemed to agree with the apostle Peter and the book of Revelation in making the earth to be the inheritance of the saints, - the earth in a heavenly condition, brought back out of its state of exile, and into true relation with the rest of the family of heaven, not alienated from their original place. Contrast between earth and heaven as an eternal existence was again, but from the other side of it, denied. The whole web and woof of Scripture is against either of these confusions: the point of rest can only be in accepting the distinction of earthly from heavenly as fundamental to all right understanding of the prophetic word. The Old Testament "promises," which have in view the earth as a sphere of blessing, are, as the apostle declares (Rom. ix. i - 5), Jewish, not Christian. The New Testament emphasizes that the blessings of the Christian are in "heavenly places." (Eph. i. 3.) Nor can this last possibly apply to earth made heavenly. The Lord has left us with the assurance (Jno. xiv.) that in His Father's house are many mansions, - permanent places of abode, - that He was going to prepare a place there for us, and that He will come again to receive us to Himself, that where He is, there we may be also. As well assure us that the Lord's permanent abode is to be on earth and not in heaven, as that our own is to be here, not there. Each line of truth must have its place if we are to be "rightly dividing the word of truth." The heavenly "bride of the Lamb" is not the earthly; "Jerusalem which is above" is not the Palestinean city; the "church of firstborn ones, who are written in heaven" are not that "Israel," declared God's "firstborn" as to the earth; the promise of the Morning Star is not the same as that of the "Sun of Righteousness," although Christ assuredly is both of these. Discernment of such differences is of necessity for all true filling of our place, and practical rendering of Christian life. Let us look now, however, at the question of continuity between the earth that flees away and the earth that succeeds it. At first sight we should surely say, they cannot be identicaL The well known passage in the epistle of Peter would seem to confirm this (2 Pet. iii. 10, 12). There we learn that "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up." And it is repeated and thus emphasized by repetition that "the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Yet, as we look more closely, we shall find reason to doubt whether more is meant than the destruction of the earth as the place of human habitation. In the deluge, to which it is compared., "the world that then was perished;" yet its continuity with the present no one doubts. Fire, though the instrument of a more penetrating judgment, yet does not annihilate the material upon which it fastens. The melting even of elements implies rather the reverse, and dissolution is not (in this sense) destruction. Yet the heavens and the earth pass away, - that is, in the form in which now we know them; or, as the apostle speaks to the Corinthians, "the fashion of this world passes away" (i Cor. vii. 21): and that this is the sense in which we are to understand it, other scriptures come to assure us. A "new" earth does not necessarily mean another earth, except as. a "new" man means another man -"new" in the sense of renewed. And even the words here, "there was no more sea," naturally suggest another state of the earth that now exists. This fact is a significant one: that which is the type of instability and barrenness, and condemns to it so large a Portion of the globe, is gone utterly and forever.

Fifthly, as the eternal Godhead of THE SON has been looked at "from everlasting," before the worlds were made, He is also brought before us as "to everlasting," when heaven and earth shall have passed away. Now He is upholding all things, and by Him all things consist; but when, according to the divine counsels, this old creation shall have fulfilled its course, and have for ever passed away, THE SON will still be known in all His unchanging freshness and glory. He by whom all things were made will lay aside, as a garment, what is perishable and has waxen old. We read, "Thou, LORD, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thine hands; they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail." (Heb. 1:10-12.) Can there be a clearer testimony to the eternal Godhead of the Son? Who else could have brought everything that is made into existence? or who but He who is Almighty could fold up and lay aside this vast universe, and yet Himself remain in all His infinite and unchanging attributes? Most truly did He say in the days of His flesh, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." What man, what angel, what creature, could truthfully utter such an authoritative sentence? Well might His hearers have been sometimes astonished, and have exclaimed that "He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes."