Author : Keith Sharp
QUESTION: Hello! I have been listening to your audio sermons on the internet. They are very interesting. Well, I have a question about the one on “What happens when Jesus returns.” What do you think about the verse in 2 Peter verse 13, about the promise of a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is to dwell. Who and what is the new earth for? I am kind of confused especially if the righteous are all going to heaven.
ANSWER: Hi! We’re very glad you have been listening to the audio lessons from the web site.
The reference to the “heavens and earth” is found in four passages in 2 Peter chapter 3. In verse 5 it refers to the material creation, the universe. Verses 7 and 10 promise that this heavens and earth will pass away when the Lord returns. The language is plan and graphic. The present heavens and earth “are reserved for fire.” (verse 7)
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? (verses 10-12)
Obviously, the “new heavens and a new earth” (verse 13) are not the present universe or any part of it.
Isaiah uses the terms “heavens” and “earth” in reference to a new order of things (Isaiah 13:1,13). Peter himself teaches that our hope is a home in heaven (1 Peter 1:3-5). Here the word “heaven” is singular, whereas, in all the references in which Peter uses it to mean what we would call “the universe,” it is plural. “Heaven” (singular) is where God dwells (Matthew 6:9), where the Holy Sprit dwells (1 Peter 1:12), where Christ has gone (1 Peter 3:21-22), where the angels abide (Matthew 22:30), and where the redeemed will spend eternity (Matthew 5:12; 25:46). We have only one hope (Ephesians 4:4). Thus, the “new heavens and new earth” are a figurative reference to heaven as a new order of things after this present order has been destroyed.
