THE NEW CREATION AND THE MILLENNIUM

THE NEW CREATION and THE MILLENNIUM

 

 

Rev. 21

 

The New Heavens and the New Earth are not a way of Describing the

Millennium. Here are at least five reasons why the new heavens and earth cannot be the millennium.

1. There is a Geological change. There will be no more sea. Rev. 21:1 with Zech. 9:10; 14:8

"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."

"And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth."

"And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be."

2. There will be a Biological change. There will be no more death. Rev. 21:4 with Isa. 65:20

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

"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 an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed."

3. There will be Ecclesiastical change. There will be no temple. Rev. 21:22 with Ezek. 41:1

"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."

"Afterward he brought me to the temple, and measured the posts, six cubits broad on the one side, and six cubits broad on the other side, which was the breadth of the tabernacle."

 

4. There will be a Spiritual change. There will be no more sin. Rev. 21:27 with Isa. 65:20

"And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."

"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 an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed."

5. There will be Christological change. There will be no need of sun. Rev. 21:23 with Isa. 30:26 and Isa. 60:19-20.

"Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound."

"The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."

   

There are Reasons to Believe that the New Heavens and Earth Mark a Change in Arrangement

The doctrine of creation and preservation demand that there is no new creation in the sense of Genesis 1.

Creation was finished once and for all in the beginning. Gen. 2:1-2

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made."

 

From this point on, God has been engaged in the work of preser­vation. Neh. 9:6

"Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee."

 

The doctrine of preservation includes the work of God in relation to sin and judgment. John 5:17

"But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

 

 

Two Great Catastrophes are Likened in the Scriptures and Referred to as a Change of Arrangement or Order

The flood of Genesis 6-8 affected both the heavens and the earth. Gen. 7:11; 8:2

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened."
"The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;"

The heavens and the earth so affected are referred to as the world or kosmos. 2 Pet. 3:6

"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:"

The present heavens and the earth by implication constitutes the present kosmos. 2 Pet. 3:7

"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

The present heavens and earth will be destroyed by fire and will pass away in the sense of the arrangement disappearing. 2 Pet. 3:7, 10, 12

"But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.""But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which 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."
"Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?"

The Explanation of Annihilation of the Present Heavens and the Earth

• This means that there is no place for the saved to exist, nor for the lost.
• Yet the scriptures clearly declare that both will exist for­ever, one in a condition of life and the other in a condition of death.
• Moreover, to posit a completely new creation in the sense of Genesis 1:1 is to suggest that God had to begin all over again and that His preserving power was not sufficient. Nor is there any continuity with original creation.