The Music And The Dance

Studying James 1 for this week’s sermon I came across verse 18 which says of God, He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.  I posted on Facebook about the idea that the work of grace in the lives of believers constitutes the first fruits of what will ultimately be the renewal of all of creation. So, thinking about this I remembered a relevant section from Anthony’s Hoekema’s book The Bible and the Future, which was one of my seminary textbooks back in the 80’s!  Here’s an abridged version of an interesting section on the new earth.

Both in Isaiah 65:17 and in Revelation 21:1 we hear about “a new heaven and a new earth.” The expression “heaven and earth” should be understood as a biblical way of designating the entire universe: “Heaven and earth together constitute the cosmos.” But the question is, Will the present universe be totally annihilated, so that the new universe will be completely other than the present cosmos, or will the new universe be essentially the same cosmos as the present, only renewed and purified?

Here are some reasons to believe that the universe will not be completely different but renewed and redeemed.

First, both in II Peter 3:13 and in Revelation 21:1 the Greek word used to designate the newness of the new cosmos is not neos but kainos. The word neos means new in time or origin, whereas the word kainos means new in nature or in quality. The expression ouranon kainon kai gen kainen (“a new heaven and a new earth, “ Rev. 21:1) means, therefore, not the emergence of a cosmos totally other than the present one, but the creation of a universe which, though it has been gloriously renewed, stands in continuity with the present one.

A second reason for favoring the concept of renewal over that of annihilation is Paul’s argumentation in Romans 8. When he tells us that creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God so that it may be set free from its bondage to decay (vv.20-21), he is saying that it is the present creation that will be liberated from corruption in the eschaton, not some totally different creation.

A third reason is the analogy between the new earth and the resurrection bodies of believers. Previously we pointed out that there will be both continuity and discontinuity between the present body and the resurrection body. The differences between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies, wonderful thought they are, do not take away the continuity: it is we who shall be raised, and it is we who shall always be with the Lord. Those raised with Christ will not be totally new set of human beings but the people of God who have lived on this earth. By way of analogy, we would expect that the new earth will not be totally different from the present earth but will present earth wondrously renewed.

A fourth reason for preferring the concept of renewal over that of annihilation is this: If God would have to annihilate the present cosmos; Satan would have won a great victory. For then Satan would have succeeded in so devastatingly corrupting the present cosmos and the present earth that God could do nothing with it but to blot it totally out of existence. But Satan did not win such a victory. On the contrary, Satan has been decisively defeated. God will reveal the full dimensions of that defeat when he shall renew this earth on which Satan deceived mankind and finally banish from it all the results of Satan’s evil machinations.

In this connection it is interesting to note the words with which Edward Thurneysen described his understanding of what the new earth would be like:

“The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both, however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brought home.”

When we properly understand biblical teachings about the new earth, many other Scripture passages begin to fall into a significant pattern. For example, in Psalm 37:11 we read, “But the meek shall possess the land.” It is significant to observe how Jesus’ paraphrase of this passage in his Sermon on the Mount reflects the New Testament expansion of the concept of the land: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt.5:5)

 Anthony Hoekema, “The Bible and The Future”, 1979.