earth will be renovated by the final conflagration, and become the abode
of the righteous. After describing the day of God, _wherein the heavens,
being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat_, Peter adds, _Nevertheless, we, according to his promise,
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness._
Now, the apostle does not here, in so many words, declare that the new
heavens and earth will be the present world and its atmosphere, purified
and renovated by fire. But it is certainly a natural inference that such
was his meaning. For if he intended some other remote and quite different
place, why should he call it _earth_, and, especially, why should he
surround it with an atmosphere? The natural and most obvious meaning of
the passage surely is, that the future residence of the righteous will be
this present terraqueous globe, after its entire organic and combustible
matter shall have been destroyed, and its whole mass reduced by heat to a
liquid state, and then a new economy reared up on its surface, not adapted
to sinful, but to sinless beings, and, therefore, quite different from
its present condition--probably more perfect, but still the same earth and
surrounding heavens.
There are, indeed, some difficulties in the way of such a meaning to this
passage, and objections to a material heaven; and these I shall notice in
the proper place. But I have given what seems to me the natural and
obvious meaning of the passage.
Such, as I conceive, are the fair inferences from the apostle's
description of the end of the world. Let us now inquire whether any other
passages of Scripture require us to modify this meaning.
The idea of a future destruction of the world by fire is recognized in
various places, both in the Old and New Testaments. Christ speaks more
than once of heaven and earth as passing away. Paul speaks of Christ as
descending, at the end of the world, in flaming fire. And the Psalmist
describes the destruction of the heavens and the earth as a renovation.
_They shall perish,_ says he, _but thou_ [God] _shalt endure; yea, all of
them shall wax old like a garment, and as a vesture shalt thou change
them, and they shall be changed._ In Revelation, after the apostle had
given a vivid description of the final judgment and its retributions, he
says, _And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and
the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea._ He then
proceeds to give a minute and glowing description of what he calls the New
Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven. It is scarcely possible to
understand the whole of this description as literally true. We must rather
regard it as a figurative representation of the heavenly state. And hence
the first verse, which speaks of the new heavens and the new earth, in
almost the same language which Peter uses, may be also figurative,
indicating merely a more exalted condition than the present world. Hence,
I would not use this passage to sustain the interpretation given of the
literal description by Peter. And yet it is by no means improbable that
the figurative language of John may have for its basis the same truths
which are taught by Peter. Nor ought we to infer, because a figure is
built upon that basis in the apocalyptic vision, that the simple
statements of Peter are metaphorical.
In the passage quoted from Peter, it is said, _Nevertheless, we, according
to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness._ Most writers have supposed the apostle to refer either to
the promise made to Abraham, that his seed should inherit the land, or to
a prophecy in Isaiah, which says, _Behold, I create new heavens, and a new
earth, and the former shall not be remembered, or come into mind. But be
you glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create
Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in
Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more
heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an
infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the
child shall die a hundred years old; but the sinner, being a hundred years
old, shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and
they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. They shall not
build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as
the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long
enjoy the works of their hands. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the
serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain,
saith the Lord._
Now, it seems highly probable that the new heavens and earth, here
described, represent a state of things on the present earth before the day
of judgment, and not a heavenly and immortal state; for sin and death are
spoken of as existing in it; both which, we are assured, will be excluded
from heaven. Hence able biblical writers refer this prophecy to the
millennial state, or the period when there will be a general prevalence of
Christianity. In this they are probably correct. But some of these
writers, as Low and Whitby, proceed a step farther, and infer that Peter's
description of the new heavens and new earth belong also to the millennial
period; first, because they presume that the apostle referred to this
promise in Isaiah; and secondly, because he uses the same terms, namely,
"new heavens and new earth." But are these grounds sufficient to justify
so important a conclusion? How common it is to find the same words and
phrases in the Bible applied by different writers to different subjects,
especially by the prophets! Even if we can suppose Peter to place the new
heavens and the new earth before the judgment, in despite of his plain
declaration to the contrary, yet there are few who will doubt that the new
heavens and earth described in revelation are subsequent to the judgment
day, so vividly described in the verses immediately preceding.
And as to the promise referred to by Peter, if he really describes the
heavenly state, surely it may be found in a multitude of places; wherever,
indeed, immortal life and blessedness are offered to faith and obedience.
Isaiah, therefore, may be giving a figurative description of a glorious
state of the church in this world, under the terms "new heavens and new
earth," emblematical of those real new heavens and new earth beyond the
grave, described by Peter. And hence, it seems to me, the language of the
prophet should not be allowed to set aside, or modify, the plain meaning
of the apostle.
I shall quote only one other passage of the Bible on this subject. I refer
to that difficult text in Romans, which represents the whole creation as
groaning and travailing together in pain until now; and that it will be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the
children of God.
I have stated in a former lecture, that Tholuck, the distinguished German
theologian, considers this a description of the present bound and fettered
condition of all nature, and that the deliverance refers to the future
renovation of the earth. Such an exposition chimes in perfectly with the
views on this subject which have long and extensively prevailed in
Germany. And it certainly does give a consistent meaning to a passage
which has been to commentators a perfect labyrinth of difficulties. If
this be not its meaning, then I may safely say that its meaning has not
yet been found out.
In view, then, of all the important passages of Scripture concerning the
future destruction and renovation of the earth, I think we may fairly
conclude that none of them require us to modify the natural and obvious
meaning of Peter which has been given. In general, they all coincide with
the views presented by that apostle; or if, in any case, there is a slight
apparent difference, the figurative character of all other statements
besides his require us to receive his views as the true standard, and to
modify the meaning of the others. We may, therefore, conclude that the
Bible does plainly and distinctly teach us that this earth will hereafter
be burned up; in other words, that all upon or within it, capable of
combustion, will be consumed, and the entire mass, the elements, without
the loss of one particle of the matter now existing, will be melted; and
then, that the world, thus purified from the contamination of sin, and
surrounded by a new atmosphere, or heavens, and adapted in all respects
to the nature and wants of spiritual and sinless beings, will become the
residence of the righteous. Of the precise nature of that new
dispensation, and of the mode of existence there, the Scriptures are
indeed silent. But that, like the present world, it will be
material,--that there will be a solid globe, and a transparent expanse
around it,--seems most clearly indicated in the sacred record.
The wide-spread opinion that heaven will be a sort of airy Elysium, where
the present laws of nature will be unknown, and where matter, if it exist,
can exist only in its most attenuated form, is a notion to which the Bible
is a stranger.
The resurrection of the body, as well as the language of Peter, most
clearly show us that the future world will be a solid, material world,
purified indeed, and beautified, but retaining its materialism.
Let us now see whether, in coming to these conclusions from Scripture
language, we are influenced by scientific considerations, or whether many
discerning minds have not, in all ages, attached a similar meaning to the
inspired record.
Among all nations, the history of whose opinions have come down to us, and
especially among the Greeks, the belief has prevailed that a catastrophe
by fire awaited the earth, corresponding to, or rather the counterpart of,
a previous destruction by water. These catastrophes they denominated the
_cataclysm_, or destruction by water, and the _ecpyrosis_, or destruction
by fire. The ruin was supposed to be followed, in each case, by the
regeneration of the earth in an improved form, which gradually
deteriorated; the first age after the catastrophe, constituting the golden
age; the next, the silver age; and so on to the iron age, which preceded
another cataclysm, or ecpyrosis. The intervals between these convulsions
were regarded as of various lengths, but all of them of great duration.
These opinions the Greeks derived from the Egyptians.
The belief in the future conflagration of the world also prevailed among
the ancient Jews. Philo says that "the earth, after this purification,
shall appear new again, even as it was after its first creation."--_De
Vita Mosis_, tom. ii.--Among the Jews, these ideas may have been, in part,
derived from the Old Testament; though its language, as we have seen, is
far less explicit on this subject than the New Testament. That
distinguished Christian writers, in all ages since the advent of Christ,
have understood the language of Peter as we have explained it, would be
easy to show. I have room, however, to quote only the opinions of a few
distinguished modern writers.
Dr. Knapp, one of the most scientific and judicious of theologians, thus
remarks upon the passage of Peter already examined: "It cannot be thought
that what is here said respecting the burning of the world is to be
understood figuratively, as Wettstein supposes; because the fire is here
too directly opposed to the literal water of the flood to be so
understood. It is the object of Peter to refute the boast of scoffers,
that all things had remained unchanged from the beginning, and that,
therefore, no day of judgment and no end of the world could be expected.
And so he says that originally, at the time of the creation, the whole
earth was covered and overflowed with water, (Gen. i.,) and that from
hence the dry land appeared; and the same was true at the time of Noah's
flood. But there is yet to come a great fire revolution. The heavens and
the earth (the earth with its atmosphere) are reserved, or kept in store,
for the fire, until the day of judgment, (v. 10.) At that time the heavens
will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved by
fervent heat, and every thing upon the earth will be burnt up. The same
thing is taught in verse 12. But in verse 13 Peter gives the design of
this revolution. It will not be annihilation, but we expect a new heavens
and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, _i. e._, an entirely new,
altered, and beautiful abode for man, to be built from the ruins of his
former dwelling-place, as the future habitation of the pious, (Rev. xxi.
1.) This will be very much in the same way as a more perfect and an
immortal body will be reared from the body which we now
possess."--_Theology_, vol. ii. p. 649.
From Dr. Chalmers my extracts will be longer than are necessary to show
his opinion upon this subject, because he felicitously refutes certain
erroneous ideas, widely prevalent, respecting matter, and spirit. "We know
historically," says he, "that earth, that a solid, material earth, may
form the dwelling of sinless creatures, in full converse and friendship
with the Being who made them." "Man, at the first, had for his place this
world, and, at the same time, for his privilege an unclouded fellowship
with God, and for his prospect an immortality, which death was neither to
intercept nor put an end to. He was terrestrial in respect to condition,
and yet celestial, both in respect of character and enjoyments.
"The common imagination that we have of paradise on the other side of
death, is that of a lofty aerial region, where the inmates float in ether,
or are mysteriously suspended upon nothing; where all the warm and
sensible accompaniments, which give such an expression of strength, and
life, and coloring to our present habitation, are attenuated into a sort
of spiritual element, that is meagre and imperceptible, and utterly
uninviting to the eye of mortals here below; where every vestige of
materialism is done away, and nothing left but certain unearthly scenes,
that have no power of allurement, and certain unearthly ecstasies with
which it is felt impossible to sympathize. The holders of this imagination
forget all the while that there is no necessary connection between
materialism and sin; that the world which we now inhabit had all the
solidity and amplitude of its present materialism before sin entered into
it; that God, so far, on that account, from looking slightly upon it,
after it had received the last touch of his creating hand, reviewed the
earth, and the waters, and the firmament, and all the green herbage, with
the living creatures, and the man whom he had raised in dominion over
them, and _he saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was all
very good_. They forget that, on the birth of materialism, when it stood
out in the freshness of those glories which the great Architect of nature
had impressed upon it, that _the morning stars sang together, and all the
sons of God shouted for joy_. They forget the appeals that are every where
made in the Bible to his material workmanship, and how, from the face of
these visible heavens, and the garniture of this earth which we tread
upon, the greatness and goodness of God are reflected on the view of his
worshippers. No, my brethren, the object of the administration we sit
under is to extirpate sin, but it is not to sweep away materialism. By the
convulsions of the last day it may be shaken and broken down from its
present arrangement, and thrown into such fitful agitations as that the
whole of its existing framework shall fall to pieces; and with a heat so
fervent as to melt the most solid elements, may it be utterly dissolved.
And thus may the earth again become without form and void, but without one
particle of its substance going into annihilation. Out of the ruins of
this second chaos may another heaven and another earth be made to arise,
and a new materialism, with other aspects of magnificence and beauty,
emerge from the wreck of this mighty transformation, and the world be
peopled, as before, with the varieties of material loveliness, and space
be again lighted up into a firmament of material splendor.
"It is, indeed, a homage to that materialism, which many are for expunging
from the future state of the universe altogether, that, ere the immaterial
soul of man has reached the ultimate glory and blessedness designed for
it, it must return and knock at the very grave where lie the mouldered
remains of the body which it wore, and there inquisition must be made for
the flesh, and the sinews, and the bones which the power of corruption
has, perhaps centuries before, assimilated to the earth around them, and
then the minute atoms must be reassembled into a structure that bears upon
it the form, and lineaments, and general aspect of a man, and the soul
passes into this material framework, which is hereafter to be its
lodging-place forever; and that not as its prison, but as its pleasant and
befitting habitation; not to be trammelled, as some would have it, in a
hold of materialism, but to be therein equipped for the services of
eternity; to walk embodied among the bowers of our second paradise; to
stand embodied in the presence of our God."
"The glorification of the visible creation," says Tholuck, the
distinguished German divine, "is more definitely declared in Rev. xxi. 1,
although it must be borne in mind that a prophetic vision is there
described. Still more definitely do we find the belief of a transformation
of the material world declared in 2 Peter, iii. 7-12. The idea that the
perfected kingdom of Christ is to be transferred to heaven, is properly a
modern notion. According to Paul and the Revelation of John, the kingdom
of God is placed upon the earth, in so far as this itself has part in the
universal transformation. This exposition has been adopted and defended
by most of the oldest commentators; _e. g._, Chrysostom, Theodoret,
Hieronymus, Augustine, Luther, Koppe, and others. Luther says, in his
lively way, 'God will make, not the earth only, but the heavens also, much
more beautiful than they are at present. At present, we see the world in
its working clothes; but hereafter it will be arrayed in its Easter and
Whitsuntide robes.'"
"I cannot but feel astonishment," says Dr. John Pye Smith, "that any
serious and intelligent man should have his mind fettered with the common,
I might call it the vulgar, notion of a proper destruction of the earth;
and some seem to extend the notion to the whole solar system, and even the
entire material universe; applying the idea of an extinction of being, a
reducing to nothingness. This notion has, indeed, been often used to aid
impassioned description in sermons and poetry; and thus it has gained so
strong a hold upon the feelings of many pious persons, that they have made
it an article of their faith. But I confess myself unable to find any
evidence for it in nature, reason, or Scripture. We can discover nothing
like destruction in the matter of the universe as subjected to our senses.
Masses are disintegrated, forms are changed, compounds are decomposed; but
not an atom is annihilated. Neither have we the shadow of reason to assert
that mind, the seat of intelligence, ever was, or ever will be, in a
single instance, destroyed. The declaration in Scripture that _the heavens
and the earth shall flee away, and no more place be found for them_, is
undoubtedly figurative, and denotes the most momentous changes in the
scenes of the divine moral government. If it be the purpose of God that
the earth shall be subjected to a total conflagration, we perfectly well
know that the instruments of such an event lie close at hand, and wait
only the divine volition to burst out in a moment. But that would not be a
destruction; it would be a mere change of form, and, no doubt, would be
subservient to the most glorious results. _We, according to his promise,
look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness._"--_Lectures on Geology and Revelation_, p. 161, (4th
London edition.)
Says Dr. Griffin, one of the ablest of the American divines, "A question
here arises, whether the new heavens and new earth will be created out of
the ruins of the old; that is, whether the old will be renovated and
restored in a more glorious form, or whether the old will be annihilated,
and the new made out of nothing. The idea of the annihilation of so many
immense and glorious bodies, organized with inimitable skill, and
declarative of infinite wisdom, is gloomy and forbidding. Indeed, it is
scarcely credible that God should annihilate any of his works, much less
so many and so glorious works. It ought not to be believed without the
most decisive proof. On the other hand, it is a most animating thought
that this visible creation, which sin has marred, which the polluted
breath of men and devils has defiled, and which by sin will be reduced to
utter ruin, will be restored by our Jesus, will arise from its ruins in
tenfold splendor, and shine with more illustrious glory than before it was
defaced by sin.
"After a laborious and anxious search on this interesting subject, I must
pronounce the latter to be my decided opinion. And the same, I find, has
been the more common opinion of the Christian fathers, of the divines of
the reformation, and of the critics and annotators who have since
flourished. I could produce on this side a catalogue of names which would
convince you that this has certainly been the common opinion of the
Christian church in every age, as it was also of the Jewish.
"The words which are employed to express the destruction of the world do
not necessarily imply annihilation. Is it said that the world shall
perish? The same word is used to express the ancient destruction of the
world by the flood, when certainly it was not annihilated. Is it said that
the world shall have an end, and be no more? This may be understood only
of the present form and organization of the visible system? Is it said
that the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved by fire? But the natural
power of fire is not to annihilate, but only to dissolve the composition
and change the form of substances."--_Sermons_, vol. ii. p. 450.
We have now examined the most important testimony respecting the future
destruction and renovation of the earth; for inspiration only can
certainly determine its future condition. But science may throw some light
upon the changes through which it is to pass. And I now proceed to inquire
whether geology affords us any glimpses of its future condition.
In the first place, geology shows us that the earth contains within itself
all the agencies necessary for its future destruction in the manner
pointed out in the Bible.
Some author has remarked that, from the earliest times, there has been a
loud cry of fire. We have seen that it began with the ancient Egyptians,
and was continued by the Greeks. But in recent times it has waxed louder
and far more distinct. The ancient notions about the existence of fire
within the earth were almost entirely conjectural, but within the present
century the matter has been put to the test of experiment. Wherever, in
Europe and America, the temperature of the air, the waters, and the rocks
in deep excavations has been ascertained, it has been found higher than
the mean temperature of the climate at the surface; and the experiment has
been made in hundreds of places. It is found, too, that the heat increases
rapidly as we descend below that point in the earth's crust to which the
sun's heat extends. The mean rate of increase has been stated by the
British Association to be one degree of Fahrenheit for every forty-five
feet. At this rate, all known rocks would be melted at the depth of about
sixty miles. Shall we hence conclude that all the matter of the globe
below this thickness (or, rather, for the sake of round numbers, below one
hundred miles) is actually in a melted state? Most geologists have not
seen how such a conclusion is to be avoided. And yet this would leave only
about one eight hundredth part of the earth's diameter, and about one
fourteenth of its contents, or bulk, in a solid state. How easy, then,
should God give permission, for this vast internal fiery ocean to break
through its envelope, and so to bury the solid crust that it should all be
burnt up and melted! It is conceivable that such a result might take place
even by natural operations. And certainly it would be easy for a special
divine agency to accomplish it.