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. 20 :11). 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 remodeled 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, seem 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. 9:1-4), Jewish, not Christian. The New Testament emphasizes that the blessings of the Christian are in " heavenly places " (Eph. 1:3); nor can this last possibly apply to the earth made heavenly. The Lord has left us with the assurance (John 14) 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 is to 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 Palestinian city; the "Church of first-born 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 is assuredly both of these. Discernment of such differences is a 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 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 a place of human habitation. In the Deluge, to which it is compared (vers. 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 " (i Cor. 7 :31); 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 than 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. At the beginning of Genesis we find the whole earth buried under it; emerging on the third day, and the waters given their bounds, which but once afterward they pass. Now they are gone forever, as are the wicked, to whom Isaiah compares it:"The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt." This last is the effect of chafing against its bounds, as "the mind of the flesh" is "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7).
These analogies cannot fail to illustrate another which the Lord Himself gives us, when He speaks of the millennial kingdom as the "regeneration"- " ye who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. 19:28). Here let us note that it is the Lord's kingdom that is the regeneration of the earth. That reign of righteousness which is the effectual curb upon human wickedness, not the removal of it, answers thus to what "regeneration " is for him who is in this sense in the Lord's kingdom now. Sin is not removed; the flesh abides even in the regenerate; but it has its bound-it does not reign, has not dominion. In the perfect state, whether for the individual or the earth, righteousness dwells, as Peter says of the latter:sin exists no more. How striking does the analogy here become when we remember that the change, perhaps dissolution, of the body comes between the regenerate and the perfect state, just as the similar "dissolution " of the earth does between the Millennium and the new earth! Surely this throws a bright light upon the point we are examining.
The new heavens are, of course, only the earth-heavens, the work of the second of the six days. They are of great importance to the earth which they surround and to which they minister. More and more is science coming to recognize how (in natural law at least) "the heavens rule." Yet, who but an inspired writer, of the time of Peter or John, would have made so much of the new heavens ? And these only, as Peter reminds us, develop a much earlier "promise." This we find in Isa. 65 and 66, a repeated announcement, the second time explicitly connected with the continuance of Israel's "seed" and "name":"For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall abide before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain." Thus, even in the new earth there will be no merging of Israel in the general mass of the nations. The first-born people written on earth will show still how "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance," as will the "Church of the first-born who are written in heaven." These different circles of blessing, like the principalities and powers in heavenly places, are quite accordant with what we see everywhere of God's manifold ways and ranks in creation. Why should eternity efface these differences, which of course do not touch the unity of the family of God as such, while they are abiding witnesses of divine mercy in relation to a past of which the lessons are never to be lost ?
Earth then itself remains, but a "new" earth; and, as the seal upon its eternal blessedness, " I saw," says the prophet-evangelist, "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God." Here is the promise in Immanuel's name made finally good to the redeemed race:and he who is privileged to show us the glory of the Only-begotten of the Father, tabernacling among men when the Word was made flesh, is the one who shows to us the full consummation. Of the new Jerusalem we have presently a detailed account; here, what is emphasized is, that it is the link between God and men; God Himself is with men, in all the fullness of blessing implied in that.
Num. Bible (Rev., ch. 20)