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Transcript 499A — The Fate of the Earth
HC: Good evening Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Brother Camping, I have a question with reference to what happens to the earth when the end of the world comes, at Christ's second coming.
HC: The question is, what will happen to this earth when the end of the world comes ?
Now we find two or three passages that speak to this. We find, for example, in Matthew 24:29 that: "The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from heaven." We read in Revelation 6, where it says that there was a great earthquake. "The sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell to the earth, even as a fig tree casts her untimely figs. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places."
The most dramatic picture, and the one that shows the ultimate destruction of the earth is found in II Peter 3, where we read in verse 10: "But the day of the Lord shall 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." And then it says in verse 12, talking about the day of God, "wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat."
This earth will be altogether destroyed, just parallel to the situation of our bodies. If we die before the last day, our bodies are put in the grave and return to the dust. They are altogether destroyed. And yet they're recreated a new spiritual body that is perfect in every way, that is, if we're born again. And the same thing will be true of the earth. Christ went to the cross to redeem this universe. And so it will experience this redemption in the sense that it will be recreated New Heavens and a New Earth, where righteousness dwells, as we read in II Peter 3.
CALLER: These scriptures I looked up, Ecclesiastes 1:4, Psalm 78:69 and Psalm 104:5, seem to refer to the earth as lasting forever. Could you explain those?
HC: Yes. You see, when God comes to you and me as human beings, and He says that He has given us eternal life, that we will live forever, we must remember that we do not live forever in our present bodies. Do we? We live forever, it's still me, I'm a unique personality, I'm not someone else after I've been resurrected, but nevertheless, it's me who lives forever in my resurrected body. There is this change that occurs that involves a resurrection. My old body goes back to the dust, and my new body is resurrected. Nevertheless God says that I will live forever.
The same is true of the earth. This earth is going to exist forever, no, not as this present sin-cursed earth. But this present sin-cursed earth will be burned by fire and recreated New Heavens and a New Earth. Jesus said, for example, in the Beatitudes, "The meek shall inherit the earth." Not the earth as it's presently constituted, under the curse of sin, but this earth as it will be constituted when it becomes the new universe, the New Heaven and the New Earth.
CALLER: So basically, it's like when the Flood came in Noah's time. The earth was cleansed, and there were new heavens and a new earth in the same respect. Isn't that so?
HC: Is the Flood of Noah's day analogous to this principle of a New Heaven and a New Earth? We could say it is a figure of it or a type of it. But of course it falls far short of reality. It is true that the earth that then existed was destroyed by water. The whole face of the earth was ravaged. And the whole population of the world was destroyed except for those in the ark. And God began all over again. And in that sense it is a figure.
But it of course falls far short of the actuality, because when God talks about the elements melting with fervent heat and the universe being destroyed, it means that it's going to be destroyed? just as when our bodies return to the dust. If you would examine the grave of someone who died thousands of years ago, ordinarily you would find nothing there at all. It just becomes part of the dust of the earth.
CALLER: Okay. Thank you very much.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.