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Course 10 · Lesson 7.4

The new heavens and the new earth

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 7.4

What you will learn

  • Read the main biblical texts on the renewal of creation in Isaiah, Romans, 2 Peter and Revelation.
  • Explain the difference between the view that creation will be renewed and the view that it will be replaced.
  • Describe how Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed and Wesleyan writers understand the new creation.
  • Say how the new creation relates to the vision of God and to ordinary human life.

The big idea

The Bible’s last pages do not end with souls escaping the world but with God dwelling with human beings in a renewed creation. Isaiah promises new heavens and a new earth, Paul says creation itself waits to be set free, and John sees a new heaven and a new earth with the holy city coming down from God. Christians agree that the final hope includes the world, not only individuals. They differ on whether the present creation will be transformed or replaced, and on how much can be said about its life.

Key terms

New creation
God’s final renewal of all things. Paul also uses the phrase for the new life of those in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Renewal (transformation)
The view that the present creation will be purified and transformed, so that there is continuity between this world and the next.
Annihilation and replacement
The view that the present creation will be destroyed and a wholly new one made. It was held by some older Lutheran and other theologians.
Recapitulation
Irenaeus’s term for Christ’s summing up of all things in himself (Ephesians 1:10).
New Jerusalem
The city that John sees coming down from heaven in Revelation 21, as the dwelling of God with his people.
Cosmic redemption
The teaching that Christ’s work reaches beyond human beings to the whole creation (Romans 8:21, Colossians 1:20).
Transfiguration of the cosmos
An Orthodox way of speaking of the whole creation made radiant with God’s presence, as Christ was on the mountain.

Background

The Hebrew Bible does not look for escape from the world. It looks for the renewal of the world under God’s rule: the wolf dwelling with the lamb, swords beaten into plowshares, the earth full of the knowledge of the LORD. In Isaiah 65:17 God says, “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” These are images of a world in which justice and peace are at home.

The New Testament takes up this hope and joins it to Christ. The resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of the new creation, and the Spirit is the pledge of its completion. Over time, however, some Christian thinking drifted toward a picture of heaven as a spiritual realm and the earth as a temporary stage. Many modern theologians and biblical scholars have asked whether this shift obscured the Bible’s own emphasis. This lesson sets out the texts and then the debates.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The biblical promises

Isaiah 65 and 66 promise new heavens and a new earth, with Jerusalem a joy and long life for the people. Romans 8:19-23 says that “the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God,” and that creation groans in labor, waiting for the redemption of our bodies. Colossians 1:20 says God was pleased through Christ to reconcile all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven. Matthew 19:28 speaks of the regeneration, or renewal, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory.

In Revelation 21:1-5, John sees a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and the sea was no more. The new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven from God. A voice declares: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.” God wipes away every tear, and death and mourning and pain are no more. “Behold, I make all things new.”

Step 2: The difficult text in 2 Peter

Second Peter 3:10-13 says that the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up, and then speaks of new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. Some readers see here a destruction and replacement. Others point out that the earliest Greek manuscripts of verse 10 probably read that the earth and its works shall be ‘found’ or ‘disclosed,’ not ‘burned up,’ and that the fire is a fire of judgment and refining, like the flood that did not destroy the world but cleansed it (2 Peter 3:6). The text is textually and interpretively difficult, and responsible readers say so.

Step 3: Renewal or replacement

Some older Lutheran theologians held that the present world would be annihilated and a new one created. Many Reformed theologians, including Herman Bavinck, and most Catholic and Orthodox theologians have held that the world will be renewed. Aquinas taught that the world will be purified and renewed to fit the glorified state of human beings. Irenaeus held that creation itself will be restored and will serve the righteous. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that the visible universe is destined to be transformed, so that the world itself, restored to its original state, will be at the service of the just.

Supporters of renewal argue that Romans 8 speaks of the creature itself being set free, not abolished, that God’s judgments in the Bible refine the world, and that the resurrection of Jesus shows that the same body is raised and changed. Supporters of replacement cite 2 Peter 3 and Hebrews 12:26-27, about the shaking of heaven and earth, and note that the first heaven and earth pass away. Both groups agree that continuity and discontinuity are involved, and the difference is a matter of emphasis.

Step 4: The traditions

Orthodox theology, with Maximus the Confessor and later writers, speaks of the transfiguration of the cosmos. Because the Son took flesh, matter is able to be filled with God. The Eucharist is a foretaste, in which bread and wine are offered by human beings as the first fruits of creation. Alexander Schmemann, a twentieth-century Orthodox theologian, wrote that the world is a sacrament of God’s presence. Wesley, in his sermon on the new creation, taught that the earth will be renewed and made paradise, and that even the animal creation will share in the restoration. The Reformed teaching in the Westminster Confession is brief and speaks of the new heavens and earth without defining their nature.

All traditions describe the new creation as the place where righteousness dwells, where God is with his people and where death is no more. Questions about what ordinary life there will be, such as work, culture and animals, are held more tentatively.

Step 5: Why it matters now

The belief that God will renew the world gives meaning to bodily life, to care for creation and to work for justice. It does not mean that people build the kingdom by their own effort. The tradition insists that the kingdom is God’s gift. But it has led many Christians to treat work, art and love as things that matter for the world to come. Paul’s conclusion to the resurrection chapter says, “your labour is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). How that is so is a matter on which the traditions speak with humility.

  1. Why might the Bible end with a city coming down to earth and not with souls going up?
  2. What is lost if the present world is simply discarded?
  3. How does the resurrection of Jesus support the idea of renewal?
  4. How should a student read a text like 2 Peter 3:10, where the manuscripts and the meaning are uncertain?
  5. What difference does belief in a renewed earth make to care for creation?
  6. What do you think it means that the sea is no more?

Examples

The garden and the city

The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city that also has a river and a tree of life (Revelation 22:1-2). A student notices that human culture, represented by the city, is taken up into the new creation, though purified. The glory and honor of the nations are brought into it (Revelation 21:26). She wonders what this suggests about the value of human work.

Wesley’s sermon

In his sermon on the new creation, Wesley imagined the earth after its renewal, no longer subject to storm, disease or death, with animals free of fear. A listener may find the picture charming or speculative. The sermon is an example of how a Protestant preacher drew on Romans 8 and Isaiah to describe the hope for creation.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The visible universe is destined to be transformed, so that the world itself, restored to its original state, will be at the service of the just and share in their glorification in the risen Christ. The Church does not know the time or manner of the transformation. It knows that God will make all things new.

Orthodox

The cosmos will be transfigured, shining with the uncreated light of Christ. The liturgy, icons and sacraments anticipate it, and the saints show it in advance. Orthodox writers emphasize that matter is not evil and that creation is to be filled with God.

Lutheran

Lutheran confessions affirm the new heavens and new earth. Older Lutheran dogmatics often taught that the present world would be annihilated, but many Lutheran theologians today favor renewal. Lutherans stress that the hope is the gift of God and not the result of human progress.

Reformed

Reformed theologians, from Calvin to Bavinck, generally hold that creation will be renewed, so that grace restores nature. They link this to the cultural mandate and to the call to serve God in all of life. The Westminster Confession speaks briefly of the day of judgment and everlasting life.

Arminian and Wesleyan

Wesley taught that creation will be renewed and that the animal creation will be freed from its bondage. Wesleyan churches have often joined the hope of new creation with social holiness and care for the poor, as the sign of the kingdom to come.

Why it matters

The picture of the final hope shapes how people regard the world around them. If the end is a renewed earth, then creation and bodily life are valued and not discarded. This lesson also shows how to read a difficult passage responsibly and how to separate firm teaching, which the churches share, from questions on which they speak with caution.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Bible teaches that the saved go to heaven forever and the earth is destroyed.

Correction: Many texts speak of a renewed earth and of God coming to dwell with human beings. Some texts are read as speaking of destruction. The churches have often combined the two with an emphasis on renewal.

Misunderstanding: Believing in a new earth means that Christians can ignore the present world.

Correction: Most traditions teach the reverse. Because God will renew creation, they care for it and for neighbors in the present.

Misunderstanding: Christians build the new creation through progress.

Correction: The new creation is God’s gift. Human work is valued, but the churches deny that history gradually produces the kingdom without God’s final act.

Misunderstanding: 2 Peter 3:10 clearly teaches the burning up of the earth.

Correction: The manuscript reading is uncertain, and the verse can be read as describing a purifying judgment. It does not settle the question by itself.

Knowledge check

What do Isaiah and Revelation promise?

Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22 promise new heavens and a new earth in which justice and joy dwell. Revelation 21 shows a new heaven and earth with the holy city coming down from God, where God dwells with human beings, wipes away every tear and makes all things new. Together they present the final hope as the renewal of creation.

What does Romans 8:19-23 say about creation?

It says that creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the children of God, was subjected to futility and will be set free from bondage to corruption into the liberty of the children of God. Creation groans in labor, as believers groan, awaiting the redemption of the body. The passage ties the fate of the world to the resurrection.

What are the two positions on the present creation’s fate?

One holds that the present creation will be renewed and transformed, so there is continuity between this world and the next. The other holds that it will be destroyed and replaced by a wholly new one. Most Catholic, Orthodox and Reformed theologians favor renewal, while some older Lutheran teachers held replacement.

What difficulty surrounds 2 Peter 3:10?

The best early manuscripts probably read that the earth and its works will be found or disclosed, not burned up, and the later reading burned up came in other manuscripts. The passage speaks of fire, which may be a fire of judgment and refining like the flood. Interpreters disagree whether it teaches replacement or purification.

Think it through

  1. How does your picture of the end affect the way you think about the natural world?
  2. What part of the present world would you most hope to see in the new creation?
  3. How can a church speak of the hope of new creation without neglecting the needs of the present?

Independent assignment

Reading Revelation 21 and 22

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Read Revelation 21:1 to 22:5. List every image of the new creation (for example city, river, tree, light) and note which Old Testament passage it echoes. Then write a paragraph explaining how these images support renewal and not replacement, and one explaining what a reader who favors replacement might say.

Further study