Part 31

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.