the passing away of heaven & earth: literally?

the passing away of heaven & earth: literally?

The Scriptures teach that heaven and earth will pass away and God will establish a new heaven and earth.

Jesus said in Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will never pass away.

2 Pet 3:10-13 ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
 ¹¹ Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. ¹³ But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

Rev 21:1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

For most of my Christian life I interpreted these texts through strictly literal lenses. In other words, I understood the idea of the passing of heaven and earth as the destruction of the physical planet.  I understood the establishment of a new heaven and earth as the creation of a new physical planet with new sub atomic particles and the new heavens to be new literal stars and sun and moon.

However, when interpreting the passages on the new heavens and earth through a strictly literal method of interpretation, I began to run into problems and contradictions.

This morning, we are going to examine the texts that teach the new heavens and new earth and we are going to expose these problems that emerge when using a strictly literal method of interpretation.

1.       The world has already been destroyed once

2.       There is no more death, but there is still death

3.      God’s people are still under the Law of Moses

4.      I was anticipating something like heaven on earth but if what the Scriptures teach is to be interpreted literally, the new heavens and earth is more like hell on earth

5.      Reformed Church in Georgetown Texas.  Preterist church in Georgetown Texas.  New Covenant Fellowship Church in Georgetown Texas.  Pastor David Boone.preterism covenant eschatology.

Let’s deal with these one by one.

Let’s open our Bibles to 2 Pet 3.

 PROBLEM #1 THE WORLD HAS BEEN DESTROYED…ALREADY…was Peter, then, on a different planet than Noah was?  Are we on a different planet?

The first problem we have when we try to interpret these things with a strict literal method of interpretation is the fact that Peter declared that the world had already been destroyed.  If that was material destruction of physical planet, Peter was on a different planet than the one originally created.

2Pet 3:1-7

 ¹ Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. ² I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

 ³ Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” ⁵ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.⁶ By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. ⁷ By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

So Peter says that the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  This is clearly referring to the flood of Noah’s day in the ancient world.  In the early 60’s AD, Peter declares that God had already destroyed the earth. 

There is certainly the temptation to quibble over semantics and say Peter said the world was destroyed not earth, but that claim won’t stand up under scrutiny because God said he destroyed the earth.  The Genesis account calls the flood “the destruction of the earth.”  After God brings Noah safely out of the ark, he says to him in Gen 9:11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

So when Peter wrote his letters the earth had already been destroyed.  So if we were to interpret these things with a strictly literal interpretation that means that the planet of Noah’s day was destroyed, and Peter was standing on a different planet because Noah’s planet was destroyed.  While that would be the conclusion of someone who maintains a consistent literal interpretation, I don’t know of anybody who says that.  Virtually everybody agrees that the planet Noah stood upon before the flood was the same planet he stood on after the flood; it was the same planet Peter stood upon; it is the same planet we are on now.  Yet, if we approach the text with a woodenly literal method of interpretation, we would be forced to admit that the planet was destroyed in Noah’s day, that Noah was safely transported in the ark to a new planet, which endured till Peter wrote and Peter is speaking of the future destruction of the second planet and that God will replace that second planet and its corresponding heavens with a third planet and corresponding heavens.

So the first problem with a strictly literal interpretation is the fact that Peter declares in his day that God had already destroyed the earth and yet Peter was still standing on that same earth that was supposedly destroyed.

PROBLEM #2 DEATH, BUT NO DEATH

The second problem we face in approaching the doctrine of the new heavens and earth with strict literalism is that the Bible tells us that in the New Heavens and earth there will be no more death and yet the same Bible also tells us that in the New Heavens and Earth there will still be death.

Turn with me to Revelation 21.  This is another passage in which we find the doctrine of the new heavens and new earth.

John writes in Rev 21:1-4 ¹ Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Right there, plain as day: NO MORE DEATH.

When I approached this passage with a strict wooden literalism my understanding of the text was something along the lines of God will establish a new planet with new subatomic particles – the old one was burned up in the fire.  There is no sea on this new planet- there is a river of life, but no sea.  There is a new city of Jerusalem.  God walks in physical bodily form amongst us.  He will wipe away our tears so that there is no more crying, no more death. 

There will be no cancer.  People won’t die anymore.  There will be no more freak accidents.  We can be as reckless as we want to be:

·         football with no pads

·         bungee jumping with no cords

·         there will be no more congenital adrenal hyperplasia and I won’t have to give my daughter 3 pills a day to balance out her 17 hydroxy progesterone levels because everything is going to be perfect.  I’m a perfectionist, so this will be a dream come true.

I want to zero in on the idea of no more death.  With a strictly literal interpretation, we understand this to be a new planet upon which nobody ever dies a physical death again.

This is where we run into problems.  The doctrine of the new heavens and earth did not originate in John’s Revelation.  It didn’t originate in Peter’s 2nd epistle.  It didn’t even originate in the words of Jesus.  The doctrine of the new heavens and earth originates not in the NT, but in the OT, more specifically in the book of Isaiah.

Turn with me to Isaiah 65.

¹⁷ “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. (Jer 3:16 in light of Good Shepherd – NC)
¹⁸ But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. ¹⁹ I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; 
the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. (do you see the parallels between this and Rev 21 so far?  New heavens and earth.  Recreated Jerusalem without weeping and crying.  That is exactly what we just read in Rev 21.  However if we keep reading, we run into a problem if we maintain a strictly literal interpretation.)

 (Jer 3:19-25 in light of Deut 28)

 ²⁰ “Never again will there be in it (Jerusalem in our new planet) an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. 

Do you see the problem with a strictly literal interpretation here?  If the new heavens and earth is a new literal planet upon which there is no longer physical death, then why does Isaiah speak of men dying at a hundred – or dying period?  We call this contradiction. 

If these things are to be interpreted literally, then John should have told the angel giving him the revelation, bro, I can’t write this.  Haven’t you read the scroll of Isaiah?  We can’t say there will be no more death.  Isaiah already said there’s going to be death.  You must be lying spirit that I wrote about in my epistle.  I’m testing the spirits and you are false.  Can’t do it.  Putting the pen down, walking away.

Death cannot mean the same thing in both Rev 21 and Is 65; that would mean the bible is false or uninspired.  Here at NCF, we believe the Bible is not only true, but inspired by God.

So we must determine from the context what death means in both passages.

Let’s first consider Isaiah.  Of primary importance is understanding to whom, for whom and about whom the Scriptures were written.  The answer is Israel.  Isaiah prophesied to Israel, God’s covenant community.  Isaiah, writing to Israel tells Israel that God is going to establish a new heavens and earth and a new Jerusalem.  It is important to understand the position and condition of this audience.  They were under the Old Covenant.

So when Isaiah speaks of a new heaven and earth where there is no more mourning or weeping or dying before living out one’s years, we should consider the following: why would Israel weep or mourn or fail to reach 100 years old?  The ultimate question: why would people die early in the OC?

This (and all of the prophets) are best understood in light of the covenantal context.  The prophets were God’s messengers sent to reinforce the terms of the covenant and call Israel out for failing to obey the covenant and pronounce covenantal judgment upon them as a consequence. 

Here, in Isaiah 65, death indeed refers to physical death as the result of unfaithfulness due to the curses as part of the OC as summarized in Deut 28.

If OC Israel was disobedient to the Law of Moses, God would shut up the sky, causing drought and famine.  People would waste away.  They would die of hunger, failing to live out their years.  Further, he would bring nations against them to besiege them, slay them by the sword; they would fail to live out their years.  If they did live, they would be taken into captivity where they would serve foreign kings and worship foreign gods, hence the mourning and weeping and pain spoken of in both texts (Isaiah and Rev).

It seems that this concept of failing to live out one’s years, this death, in Isaiah 65 is physical death as a result of covenantal unfaithfulness – an early physical death as a result of Israel’s lack of faithfulness to God.

Back to Rev 21.  If the death in Isaiah 65 is physical death, then the death in Rev 21 cannot be.  You cannot have physical death and no physical death at the same time in the new heavens and earth, so what does death in Rev 21 refer to?

I propose that it refers to spiritual death – aka separation from God, being exiled out of his presence.

We see this exile, this spiritual death in the garden.  Adam was told in Genesis 2 “do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for ON THE DAY you eat of it you will surely die.”  Then the crafty serpent came and told Eve to eat it, that she will not surely die. 

·         God said you WILL DIE on the day you eat

·         The Serpent said you will NOT DIE, but you will be like God

Who was telling the truth, God or the serpent?  I propose that God was telling the truth.  However, they ate and on that day, they did not die a physical death.  So if God meant that the wages of sin was physical death, then God was a liar and the serpent told the truth because on that day their eyes were opened and they were like God knowing good and evil (point for the serpent) and yet neither Eve nor Adam died a physical death that day, but lived physically for another 900 years.  Thus, the death promised by God as the wages of sin must have meant something else or that’s 2 points for the serpent. 

I propose that the death promised by God was spiritual death, separation from God, exile from His presence.  Did that happen on that day that they ate?  Yes it did.  On that day they were exiled out of the Garden, out of His presence and were prevented from entering by cherubim with flaming sword.

This is, after all, the problem that man seeks to remedy.  Since the fall, man has had a broken relationship with God.  In OC Israel, God foreshadowed a restored relationship between God and man.  Jesus’ ministry, death, burial and resurrection began the process of this restoration and Revelation speaks of its completion.  Would it not, then, make sense for the death that came about on the day Adam ate to be the death that is no more in the restoration of all things?

So the second problem with a strict literal interpretation of the doctrine of the new heavens and earth finds inconsistency in the concept of death.  In Isaiah 65, the New Heavens and the New Earth still have death, but the new heavens and earth in Revelation 21 has no more death. 

Thus, we are forced to depart from a strictly literal interpretation, lest the Bible contradict the Bible.  The strict literal interpretation of a new planet with no more physical death is inconsistent to say the least.

PROBLEM 3 IF THE PASSING AWAY OF HEAVEN AND EARTH IS INTERPRETED WITH A STRICT LITERALISM, THEN GOD’S PEOPLE ARE STILL UNDER THE LAW.

Matt 5:17-19 ¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. ¹⁹ Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

At face value, this text teaches that until heaven and earth pass away the Law, down to the minutia is still in effect for God’s covenant community until everything is accomplished.  Certainly everything hasn’t been accomplished if the physical planet hasn’t been literally burned up and replaced by a new one.  That means that the temple sacrifices and a fully functional Levitical priesthood are still required until the physical planet is burned up and replaced by a new one.

There is a problem with that:

In 70 AD, the temple was destroyed and with it the scrolls of genealogies listing who traced ancestry back to Aaron.

1.       No genealogies, no priesthood.

2.       No temple, no sacrifices.

God made it awfully difficult for His people to do what He has demanded of them.

Imagine if you worked at an establishment and your job was to review documents and put a special stamp on them once reviewed.  You had a very specific stamp that you were to use designed by your supervisor specific to your task.  You can’t use a different stamp.  In fact there is a 200 page instruction manual that details exactly how you are to review these documents, exactly what to look for, exactly where to put the stamp, exactly how to put the stamp.  Putting that stamp on those documents was the most important step in the entire process because it signifies that the documents were fully processed.  Imagine if your boss came in and said, one day we will get a new system to do this  - a new digital system that is supposed to be way better.  Until we get the new system, you must continue to do everything written in the instruction manual.  There is a stack of 1400 documents to process on your desk.  Oh, by the way, let me see your stamp.  Thanks.  Then he just lights it on fire, burns the thing up so that it’s just a big pile of ashes now.  How are you supposed to do everything written in the instruction manual, if the most crucial instrument in your work is now a pile of ashes?

If Jesus’ words refer to the passing away of the physical planet, then wouldn’t Jesus be just like your ridiculous boss who said to do everything according to the manual but robbed you of the most crucial elements of your work?  Do everything written in the Law until the planet passes away.  Oh, by the way, here’s a new twist.  I’m burning down the Temple so you can’t actually do it.

Furthermore, if we interpret this text with a strict literalism we are forced to adopt the views of not only the Judaizers, but also the scoffers of 2 Pet 2.  We would be forced to say, “where is this coming he promised?  It’s been far longer than a generation.  It’s been almost 2000 years and we can’t keep up this façade of ‘soon, it will happen soon.’”  If we’re honest, we will say, okay, it’s been a whole minute.  We might as well do what Jesus said and follow every jot and title because until heaven and earth pass away, we need to be practicing and teaching these commands, so that when the kingdom does come, we will be called blessed like Jesus said in Matt 5:19. 

If you want to be part of the covenant community, circumcise the flesh and do everything else we can do to follow the Law of Moses.  God rendered the priesthood and Temple sacrifice impossible, but there are other elements of the Law we can follow, so let’s yoke ourselves under that pedagogue, that child conductor, as Paul calls it, and enslave ourselves to those elementary principles even though Paul told the Galatians not to. 

When Jesus and Paul contradict one another, we go with the one who rose from the dead and called himself God.  Jesus trumps Paul, so we need to do what we can to obey the Law of Moses. 

A strictly literal interpretation of Jesus words in the SOM indeed makes for inconsistency in the Bible and demands some serious Scriptural gymnastics.

So problem #3 with a strict literal interpretation is: until the literal planet literally burns up and is replaced by another physical planet, God’s covenant community must follow the Law of Moses down to the smallest detail, every jot and title, the smallest letter and least stroke of a pen as it will be in full effect until heaven and earth pass away.

PROBLEM #4: NOT HEAVEN ON EARTH BUT HELL ON EARTH

This goes back to our literal interpretation of the book of Revelation.  With a literal interpretation of Revelation, we see literal streets of gold, pearly gates, a city made out of precious stones; its heaven on earth.

At the end of chapter 20 we read Rev 20:15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

That sounds like all of the evil people are thrown into hell at that point.  We keep reading and after everybody is thrown into hell, a new physical planet appears and then a new Jerusalem comes out of the sky.  We continue reading in Rev 21:25-27  ²⁵ On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. ²⁶ The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. ²⁷ Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.  That makes sense that only the righteous will be there; only the righteous can be there since all the wicked people have been tossed into the lake of fire.  They are out of sight, out of mind.  We, on the other hand are living it up on the new planet where only righteous people dwell.

Rev 22

¹ Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 

You can see that chapter 22 we’re still in the context of the new physical planet in the new city of Jerusalem.  Skip down to verse 14.

¹⁴ “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. ¹⁵ Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

Wait just a second!  Why are there evil people on my new planet?  I thought they were burning in the lake of fire.  How did they skip out?  Did God mix up some of the sheep and the goats?

Not only do we have wicked people somehow on our new planet that’s supposed to only have righteous people, it gets worse.  Look with me at Isaiah 66:22-24 ²² “As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the LORD, “so will your name and descendants endure. ²³ From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the LORD. ²⁴ “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

So now on my new physical planet that was only supposed to have righteous people on it, I have all these sexually immoral murderers and idolaters who want to get into my new Jerusalem but can’t even though the gates are never closed – maybe God will put cherubim with flaming sword there like the garden to keep them out.  Somehow they missed the cue to jump into the lake of fire with the rest of the people whose names aren’t in the book of life back in the end of Rev 20. 

Not only are all these guys still around and hanging out outside of my new city of Jerusalem, but on my new planet that is supposed to be heaven on earth, I’m going to be able to go and look on all these dead bodies that are on fire forever.  That is going to be one disgusting display with one foul stench. 

So much for heaven on earth; this sounds more like hell on earth.

While there may be several problems with a strictly literal interpretation of the prophecies about the new heavens and new earth, this morning we have examined four of them in detail.

1.       Peter claims that the earth was already destroyed in Noah’s day.  If the earth is to be understood in strictly literal terms as referring to the planet, then we are forced to admit that Noah was transported to a new planet, since the first one was destroyed and that we are actually on the second planet now awaiting its destruction so that God can create a third planet.  But that doesn’t square with John’s revelation since he said in his prophecy that the heaven and earth that would pass away were the first heaven and earth, not the second.

2.       Isaiah says that people will still die in the new heavens and earth, yet Rev 21 says that there will be no more death.  Death cannot be interpreted in a strictly literal sense in both passages or the Bible contradicts itself in the worst way.

3.      Jesus said that until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter or the least stroke of a pen would disappear and that anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  If this is to be interpreted literally, then God’s covenant people are still under the Law of Moses, not just part of it, but down to the minutia, every jot and tittle, but God would then be a very cruel God because He destroyed the most crucial elements of their religion in 70 AD, rendering it impossible to follow every jot and tittle.

4.      Rather than a new physical planet that has only righteous people on it we will have a new physical planet where there are still wicked people even though they were supposed to go to hell.  And rather than a new physical planet that resembles heaven on earth, we are actually looking forward to a new physical planet – something that resembles hell on earth because we will go out and look on these dead bodies that are burning forever and ever.

IN CONCLUSION, we must admit that a strict literal interpretation of these texts is problematic, which really shouldn’t surprise us.

We don’t maintain such a strict literalism when it comes to other new covenant realities, why would we do it here?

·         Jesus isn’t literally a loaf of bread

·         Do we literally drink Jesus’ blood and literally eat his flesh?  Cannibalism

·         Jesus isn’t literally a gate.

·         Jesus isn’t literally a sheep herder.

·         Jesus isn’t a literal light fixture

·         Jesus isn’t a literal temple

·         We don’t literally crawl up into our mother’s womb to be born again

·         The disciples were not literal wineskins

·         Jesus is not a literal vine

·         We are not the literal body of Christ as in his literal ears, noses, and toes

Need I continue?  You get the picture.  There are a lot of things in the Scriptures, namely in the New Covenant that are problematic when we interpret them with a strict literalism.  Thus, it should be no surprise to us that the new heavens and new earth are also problematic when viewed through strictly literal lenses.

So this morning we have demonstrated that interpreting the new heavens and earth with strict literalism fails on several fronts.  We must conclude that it does not refer to a new literal planet and solar system. 

Next time we will seek to determine from the Scriptures the most Biblically consistent interpretation of the new heavens and earth.