First Edition
Many Christians say: “We Already Know Jesus
Believed He Would Return in the First Century,
But to Advocate that He Returned Already
Raises More Questions Than it Answers!”
A New Heavens and Earth?
Preface
It was six months after my stunning realization that the Lord returned that I was on my way south to Puerto Rico out on the high seas of the Atlantic Ocean calmly peering out over what was waters as far as the eye could see. By this time I knew Jerusalem was Babylon the Great, I also had a more or less fuzzy idea about “this generation” that was more relevant to the Apostles’ lifetime than I would have ever admitted when I was a Pentecostal Christian. But one big item still did not make sense to me and I was voicing it when no one was around that I could impress, nor was there anybody present to make me feel ashamed, and I was staring at the ocean and saying these words, “Ok, Jesus came back; the world ended, but we are on the same planet, yet the Bible says that the Lord’s coming will involve the passing of the heavens and the earth—yet we are on the same planet Adam and Eve were on and the same place Noah was on. Maybe—just maybe the expression “heaven and earth” is not talking about the planet itself but means something else . . .”
This was a terrifying thought! and it was as if I had gone over a red line (out of necessity)!
Later on on my trip I had a friendly discussion with a believer who was a Seventh Day Adventist and we were going around and around about the Sabbath and he stated, point blank, the only way the Sabbath is not mandatory is if the heaven and earth already passed away. Do you believe the heaven and earth passed away? I looked at him and saw that it was a “I dare you to say, Yes!” And just to amuse myself and see what would happen I said, “Yes! Heaven and earth passed away—but I don’t know what I mean by that!”
And we both laughed as if it was a joke.
This essay is not written to force an issue, but to encourage Christians to experiment with ideas and try to think outside of the box handed to us and explore the Bible and entertain all the options it offers. Of course prayer and supplication is a big part of forging ahead because we want to please God and we want him to always guide our steps and help us pull the pieces together so that the disjointed framework we took for granted can become more holistic and less of a caricature and more of a reflection of what would have been easily recognized as true by the Apostles and first and second century Christians.
by Mark Mountjoy
Introductory Remarks
We often read and quote John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth” and we STILL can’t agree on whether or not the eschaton should have been fulfilled in the first and second century, and why not!? Jeremiah the prophet wrote,
“For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. 23 I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. 24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. 26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. 27 For thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end” (Jeremiah 4:22-27).1
We know what the Bible says, but do we really know what it means? This passage from Jeremiah was written to describe the devastation of Jerusalem and Judah after the invasion of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon; it speaks of the moral indirection of the people of the Southern Kingdom; it speaks of their having knowledge to do evil but not to do what is good. It speaks of the wartime chaos of the destruction of the First Temple but you would think it was describing the beginning of the creation when the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep.2 The candlelights had gone out in the Temple and the capital and the mountains of Jerusalem trembled lightly. The city was completely vacant and the birds, out of fear of the commotion, fires, and destruction, had flown far away. The once fruitful place was like a desert and the cities of the Southern Kingdom lay in smoldering ruins at the presence of the Lord and his fierce anger—but, finally, after describing what sounds like total and utter chaos, even the complete deconstruction of the physical universe, the passage ends with God saying,
“yet will I not make a full end”
So what’s going on here? The passage describes universal destruction and then, basically ends by saying, “No, this is NOT a universal destruction.”3 Something like this is also happening in the New Testament,
“The Bible consistently warns us that this world will not last forever. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Jesus said in Matthew 24:35. His statement was in the context of end times’ prophecies and the eternal nature of Jesus’ words: “My words will never pass away.” This means that trusting Jesus is wiser than trusting anything in this world.4
Jesus also refers to the passing away of heaven and earth in Matthew 5:18. In Revelation 21:1, John writes of a new heaven and a new earth in the eternal state, having seen that “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (cf. Isaiah 65:17 and 2 Peter 3:13).5 To “pass away” is to disappear or be no more. This refers to the physical heaven and earth—the material world and all it contains—but not to the spirits/souls of the inhabitants of those places. Scripture is clear that people will outlast the current material universe, some in a state of eternal bliss and some in a state of eternal misery, and that the current universe will be replaced by another that will never know the contamination of sin.6
The method of this world’s destruction is revealed in 2 Peter 3:10–12: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire. . . . That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.” In Noah’s day, the world was destroyed with water, but God promised to send no more global floods (Genesis 9:11). In the Day of the Lord, the universe will be destroyed by fire.”7
A very big piece of the puzzle about the differences between Christians on the timing of the eschaton has to do with what Jesus declared in Matthew chapter 5:18, and in the Olivet Discourse [in Matthew 24:35] and what was promised in Revelation 21:1. And this notion is so very basic to any discussion between Christians: But pointing to Jesus’ time-sensitive prophecies about the Destruction of the Second Temple by flames of fire on one hand, but ignoring the prophecies that speak of the end of the heavens and the earth by fire (at the very same time) on the other hand, creates a mega-cognitive dissonance in the minds and hearts of honest Christians.
But, right or wrong, things have to make sense!
But not only does saying Jesus returned already NOT make sense the possible intimations (if it is true) are unnerving:
First, are you saying our church is wrong about something basic?
Second, the only right church (or even conventional expectations) can’t all be wrong about something as basic as the Second Coming of our Lord.
Third, the Second Coming is not ‘the Gospel’ and is not a salvation issue; we should not divide over it or even make a big deal about it.
Fourth, believing Jesus came back already is a basic damnable heresy—the Apostle Paul said so in 2 Timothy 2:16-18 when he wrote about the errors of Hymenaeus and Philetus—and so did the Apostle Peter when he castigated and condemned the scoffers in 2 Peter 3:3-17!
In fact, these four claims are a classic case-in-point for cognitive dissonance! Jesus promised to return in the clouds of heaven in the lifetime of his contemporaries (Matthew 16:27-28 cf. Matthew 24:29-34, and Matthew 26:64-65). Jesus definitely did not do that (it is commonly said). Jesus also promised the heavens and the earth would pass away—but he definitely did not do that yet either so his promise to return within a given time frame failed (many now believe). But, at the same time it does not matter what the claims are, but insisting that he returned is especially erroneous because we wouldn’t even be here if it happened (so some feel ambivalent and torn).
However, it does matter if the position is that the Lord already returned because, in any case, the bottom line has to do with something that any Christian can walk out of his or her front door in look up to the shining sun by day or the starry sky by night and see: the Heavens have NOT passed away already. And, obviously, the fact that our houses and effects and all the material realities of this life still exist is an unspoken testimony that the earth and the entire material universe has NOT already passed away, either.
To make a long story short: When the Bible talks about the passing of the heaven and earth it is talking about the dissolution of the material atomic universe (or at least this is how 99.99% of all Christians interpret the Bible and what they believe will surely happen someday).
In other words, to say that one believes Jesus’ promised Second Coming came to pass in antiquity is foolish and crazy and heresy and if people accept and believe this they cannot be taken seriously when the heavens and the earth have very obviously never passed away. But here is a major promise in the Old Testament that makes many Christians think salvation has to do with the existence of the planet. The passage below is from the Book of Isaiah, and it reads,
“For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth: and they shall not at all remember the former, neither shall they at all come into their mind. 18But they shall find in her joy and exultation; for, behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my people a joy.
19And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and will be glad in my people: and there shall no more be heard in her the voice of weeping, or the voice of crying.
20Neither shall there be there any more a child that dies untimely, or an old man who shall not complete his time: for the youth shall be a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies at a hundred years shall also be accursed: 21and they shall build houses, and themselves shall dwell in them; and they shall plant vineyards, and themselves shall eat the fruit thereof.
22They shall by no means build, and others inhabit; and they shall by no means plant, and others eat: for as the days of the tree of life shall be the days of my people, they shall long enjoy the fruits of their labours.
23My chosen shall not toil in vain, neither shall they beget children to be cursed; for they are a seed blessed of God, and their offspring with them.
24And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will hearken to them; while they are yet speaking, I will say, What is it? 25Then wolves and lambs shall feed together, and the lion shall eat chaff like the ox, and the serpent earth as bread. They shall not injure nor destroy in my holy mountain, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 65:17-25) LXX Translation.
In the text we just read God promises a new creation free of sin and a place where strife between different animals has even ceased. What we read seems plain enough. Below is yet another Isaiah passage that reads similarly,
“For, behold, the Lord will come as fire, and his chariots as a storm, to render his vengeance with wrath, and his rebuke with a flame of fire.
16For with the fire of the Lord all the earth shall be judged, and all flesh with his sword: many shall be slain by the Lord.
17They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens, and eat swine’s flesh in the porches, and the abominations, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord.
18And I know their works and their imagination. I am going to gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and see my glory. 19And I will leave a sign upon them, and I will send forth them that have escaped of them to the nations, to Tharsis, and Phud, and Lud, and Mosoch, and to Thobel, and to Greece, and to the isles afar off, to those who have not heard my name, nor seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles. 20And they shall bring your brethren out of all nations for a gift to the Lord with horses, and chariots, in litters drawn by mules with awnings, to the holy city Jerusalem, said the Lord, as though the children of Israel should bring their sacrifices to me with psalms into the house of the Lord. 21And I will take of them priests and Levites, saith the Lord.
22For as the new heaven and the new earth, which I make, remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name continue.
23And it shall come to pass from month to month, and from sabbath to sabbath, that all flesh shall come to worship before me in Jerusalem, saith the Lord.
24And they shall go forth, and see the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched; and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.” (See Malachi 4:1-3)
The passage is unusual and full of seeming contradictions: It speaks of judgment and destruction and the inception of a new heavens and earth. But at the same time it talks about the after-effects being carnage that could be seen from month to month and from one Sabbath to the next, to wit, the carcasses of the men who transgressed against God, and their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh. There are similar texts in Malachi that retain the notion that the results of God’s judgment do not erase or eliminate the material universe at all. However, our next set of passages suggest that God wished to discontinue State Temple rites and the customery sacrifices and oblations he commanded to be offered on Mount Sinai,
“Thus saith the Lord, Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: what kind of a house will ye build me? and of what kind is to be the place of my rest?
For all these things are mine, saith the Lord: and to whom will I have respect, but to the humble and meek, and the man that trembles at my words?” (Isaiah 66:1-2).
In this third passage God seems to question the necessity of the Temple existing at all, since the heaven itself is his throne and the earth is a place for his feet. Saint Stephen (in Acts 7:49-50) quotes this passage to suggest to first century Jews that the Second Temple’s days were numbered and this became a first and second century Christian mantra against the Jews who pined and longed for the restoration of their State Temple.
Nevertheless, there are graver passages in Isaiah that intimate that God would no longer accept animal sacrifices or the traditional offerings he had commanded in the Pentateuch. The Scriptures in the Isaianic passages which support this notion are, first and foremost, the famous Isaiah chapter 53, where the Suffering Servant becomes the righteous sacrifice for the sins of humanity. But lesser known are the concluding words of Isaiah where, by the Holy Spirit, he wrote,
“But the transgressor that sacrifices a calf to me, is as he that kills a dog; and he that offers fine flour, as one that offers swine’s blood; he that gives frankincense for a memorial, is as a blasphemer. Yet they have chosen their own ways, and their soul has delighted in their abominations.” (Isaiah 66:3).
According to the fourth text, above, at some point along the way, God no longer wants any animal sacrifices ever again. But would this not be after he himself came down, put on a robe of flesh and became the eternal once and for all time sacrifice for mankind, world without end (John 1:14 cf. Hebrews 10:10)? |
Now, as the canon of the Hebrew Tanakh closes God issued dire warnings through the pen of Malachi about his determination and intention to come and judge his people by fire,
“For, behold, a day comes burning as an oven, and it shall consume them; and all the aliens, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that is coming shall set them on fire, saith the Lord Almighty, and there shall not be left of them root or branch. 2 But to you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise, and healing shall be in his wings: and ye shall go forth, and bound as young calves let loose from bonds. 3 And ye shall trample the wicked; for they shall be ashes underneath your feet in the day which I appoint, saith the Lord Almighty.
4Remember the law of my servant Moses, accordingly as I charged him with it in Choreb for all Israel, even the commandments and ordinances.
5And, behold, I will send to you Elias the Thesbite, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes; 6who shall turn again the heart of the father to the son, and the heart of a man to his neighbour, lest I come and smite the earth grievously.”
The passage above is taken up in the New Testament and applied to the ministry of John the Baptist in Matthew and Luke in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar.
But how on earth was A.D.29 anywhere near the end of time?8
The threats from Malachi about the day as an oven were there utilized by John the Baptist to suggest to the Scribes, Sadducees, and Pharisees that the day of fire was on their very heels. But was it? Was it near like John the Baptist’s vehement urgency suggested?
Observations About the Olivet
Discourse and the Second Temple
Matthew 24:1-3 establishes the context and parameters of the chapter and its specifics and, from the first verse to the very last, our Lord stays the course and never waivers from his discussion and warnings about what the Apostles could expect to happen the desecration of the Second Temple, a deadly Jewish civil war rife with sorcery, his return, appalling carnage, the judgment and resurrection of the dead, the Destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish age; it is a good idea to read the entirety of Mark chapter 13 and Luke chapter 21:5-36 to gain a nuanced understanding of that historic event seen through the lens of our Lord’s limited foreknowledge.
“And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.9
2 And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world.”
Nothing about the earth, atoms, or the universe came up in the first three verses of this important chapter. What’s next?
“And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.
6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.
10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
From verses 4 through 13 Jesus paints an incredible picture of national mayhem and confusing spiritual activities that are designed to deceive and entrap. He furthermore describes a level of emnity in Judæa where the Apostles lives would be at risk and even taken. He foretells of false prophets and deception and the spread of iniquity to the detriment of the love of the majority. And, finally, he notes that the end was something that could be in view and was actually reachable from a first century standpoint—which points to a very finite period—between the reception of this prophecy and its historical actualization.
The next section of the chapter is highly controversial for reasons we have already noted,
"And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)
16 Then let them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains:
17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:
18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:
21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.
23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
25 Behold, I have told you before.
26 Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.
27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
28 For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:
33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.
34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away" (Matthew 24:14-35).
This third section of the Olivet Discourse is often met with uninformed denials and groundless assertions that defy claims made here and elsehwhere in the New Testament. For example, in Matthew 24:14 Jesus places the stipulation that the Gospel must be preached in all the world before the end comes but the claim is maintained that that never happen even though the Apostle Paul, on a number of occasions, asserted the very opposite: e.g., Romans 10:18, Romans 16:25; Colosians 1:23, and Titus 2:11.
Verse 15 is likewise met with staunch denials even though Jewish history records that on or around 8 Marcheshvan of the Jewish year 3827 (A.D.66) till forty-two months later on or around 14 Nisan 3831 (A.D.70) the Zealots occupied the Second Temple and turned it into a Temple of doom and a complete shop of horrors.10
What happened after the Romans were able to breach the wall of the city and gain entrance into it over the next five months saw the fulfillment of what Jesus promised would happen to the ediface down to the letter: the wood of trees all around Jerusalem was stockpiled around the circumference of the Second Temple and set on fire and the building, full of gold, copper, brass, silver, acacia wood, large quantities of coins, precious fabrics and spices, along with its major framework of multi-ton limestone bricks heated up and exploded like a chain-reaction of bombs due to the moisture in the limestone heating to astronomically searing temperatures.
And we must not forget that the Second Temple was no ordinary building but one that was designed according to realities in heaven itself. And so, its demise signaled the end of the copy and pattern of heavenly things and marked the termination of the first heaven and earth which was established by the Lord on Mount Sinai because Deuteronomy 32:1-4 was NOT about any commandment to the ground and the sky but to the people of Israel. The destruction therefore, of this one edifice and the end of the priesthood can thereby be understood as the passing of the heavens and the earth and the earliest Christians understood it that way.
Moreover, verses 29-31 are hotly contested as failed prophecies but they are not!
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
Many see the flow of the text but find the claims in extraordinary, fantastic and hard to understand (which is a reason for systemic denials of what the passage plainly says).
However the historian Josephus is very clear that the period leading up to the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem was full of unusual aerial phenonena of a prodigious nature unlike anything ever witnessed anywhere else in the history of mankind.11
The results of the catastrophe and its aftermath are as complex as the event itself, with over 97,000 Judæans carried away into captivity across the Roman world.12 And as for the Christians who took refuge at Pella for the duration of the civil war and revolt, they returned to Jerusalem to make it their center of operations once again. We discover their attitudes about the destruction of the Second Temple under Converts and Christians written by Jewish historian, Solomon Grayzel,
“Under the circumstances, conversions to Judaism, very frequent until then, became more and mor rare, at least for some time to come. There was, however, one sect of the Jews that could claim converts to a greater extent now than when the Temple was in existence. The Jews who were known as believers in the Messiah of Nazareth, or Christians, had never considered the Temple of as great importance as did the other Jews. Some of them had gotten into trouble because of this view as long as twenty years before the outbreak of the rebellion. During the rebellion the Christians, who had till then used Jerusalem as their center of activity, moved out of the city to a small town on the other side of the Jordan.
The group was so small and insignificant that the Jews disregarded this unpatriotic action. But when the Temple lay in ruins and the Jewish nation was expected to disappear, the Christians intensified their propaganda.
They told prospective converts that the destruction of the Temple was proof that God had abandoned the Jews, that He no longer wanted a Temple, and that they, who believed in Jesus as the Messiah, were the only true Jews.
In other words, the Christians were able to point to the Temple ruins and say:
“We expected this, and it is as it should be.”
No wonder that after this period conversions to Christianity were proportionately more numerous than conversions to Judaism. Before long, the Gentiles among the Christians far outnumbered the Jews among them. But it must be remembered that everyone–Jews, Christians and Romans–still looked upon Christianity as a sect of Judaism.”13
The testimony of Jewish history says the Christians were confirmed and NOT disappointed by all that happened and, not only that, but they returned from Pella and came back to the ruins of Jerusalem and warned that the Jewish nation was still in danger of disappearing!
Cognitive Dissonance Over
Seemingly Contrary Texts
That the Bible promised the judgment of the heavens and the earth by fire no sane person doubts, but how to square this expectation with Biblical assertions that the earth is established forever brings in a problematic collision of claims: “One generation cometh and another generation goeth, but the earth shall abide forever,” said the wise man, Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:4.14 How do we reconcile these contrary claims? Solomon’s claim is 
problematic if taken at face value or if Jesus’ claims about the certainty of the passing of the heavens and the earth are taken literally. Or is it possible that one passage means one thing and the other passages have something completely different in mind?
You know that the pressure is on when, suddenly, there are a plethora of comings of Christ: He comes when you are converted; he comes when you die; he threatened to come back to judge Jerusalem; or whenever a local church is judged; and he will come back finally and personally at the very end of time to usher in the Eternal State.15 16 17 18 19
That very last one can prove to be problematic, too, if we link the return of Satan in Matthew 12:43-45 with the release of Satan from the bottomless pit and the subsequent battle of Gog and Magog.20 In that case the end of the Jewish polity in the third decade of the second century would indicate that a very real possibility exists that we are already in the Eternal State and at death will finally be able to actually see it!
And so, these discussions, as charged as they may be, can go somewhere if and when Christians finally realize that the question of the existence of the planet, the universe and atomic reality itself is NOT ever the question entertained in the Bible AT ALL. What is entertained in Isaiah 65:17-25 and Isaiah 66:22-23 and Matthew 5:18, 24:35 and 2 Peter 3:10 and Revelation 21:1 is the destruction and removal of a covenant architectural arrangement pattern and civilization that had fulfilled its purposes and reached its due date and has now passed away forever. The earliest Christians expected, hastened, and looked for this, but they never thought or looked forward to the detonation of the earth, the sky, or the material universe and no New Testament passages, not even in 2 Peter 3, can be used to claim that they did.21
However, hypothetically speaking, if 2 Peter could be used to speak of the end of the material universe in the first century, it would also prove that the Lord intended but failed to detonate the planet a mere thirty-three years after accomplishing the greatest act of love ever in order to be a High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (John 3:16 cf. Hebrews 7:17, 25). How is a period of less than two-score years “forever”?
This is extremely critical and more so because two ideas crash together that the New Testament can be inspired and infallible about everything BUT the early Christian expectation of a speedy end of the world and Second Coming WAS COMPLETELY WRONG AND AHEAD OF ITS TIME all at the same time! These irregular notions are the sources of latent conflicts and confusion and are some of the reasons why, in some minds, avoidance of the issue altogether is considered the high road and the better part of valor.
However, on the other hand, ridding of the churches of those who insist on speaking out about such claims [that the Lord really did fulfill his Second Coming in antiquity] is seen as a a perceived menace and should be quit the congregation through censure, or in worst case scenarios, disfellowship.
But the Bible is saying all things and every one of us is faced with the same claims: The first heavens and earth would pass away in the lifetime of Jesus’ contempories; Jesus’ Second Coming was due in the lifetime of his contemporaries; the new heavens and earth would arrive in the lifetime of the first Christians and they were instructed, in no uncertain terms to look for it; expect it, and hasten it. How do these things make sense unless “first heavens and earth” has to do with the Old Testament and its architectural arrangements including the Second Temple and the animal sacrificial offerings and cycles of priestly actions appointed to sustain that agreement?
If things were understood in this light then the flames that deprived the Jews of their State Temple (and specifically the Second Temple and any structure that Simon Bar Kokhba was able to resurrect in the little time he had) were erased, just as expected and in their place the promised kingdom of God which was inaugerated in the first century and came without observation (Luke 17:20), triumphed over all efforts of the Builders to turn the verdict of history completely to contrary results.
These are heavy issues to think about and one of the easiest things for leaders and Christian officials to do is either stick
their heads in the sand and try to ignore it or push facing it off or else reach for the proverbial panic button to get outspoken Christians out of their flock ASAP!22 The reasons why the panic button could look so attractive is because of how wildly different the interpretive paths turn out to be!
On one hand the Bible is being conventionally and traditionally interpreted to say that salvation someday is contingent upon the detonation dissolution of the entire physical universe (the earth, all the planets, the stars and all the galaxies however near or far they may be) an this all because of the spoiling effects of sin. This is how Romans 8:22ff; 1 Corinthians 15:44ff; 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 and Revelation 21:1 are being interpolated.
And almost 100% of the Christian world is on board with this questionable interpretation and any expectations that go along with it. And this truth is obvious to everyone: the first heaven and the first earth have not yet passed away UNLESS (as we explained) that expression really means the cosmic arrangement associated with the First Covenant which, indeed passed away in the lifetime of Jesus’ generation and in the days of both first and second century Christians with the destruction of the Second Temple and Jerusalem and the complete overthrow of the Herculean efforts of Simon Bar Kokhba to turn God’s “A.D. 70 NO!” into a “A.D. 136 YES!” seven decades after the fact.
Admittedly, this is a unfamiliar interpretation of the texts, but it does harmonize all of them into the timeframe demanded by the promises, context, and circumstances of the end of the Second Jewish Commonwealth. However, the conventional expectations are remarkable also in their own idiosyncratic way in that they are actually foreign to Jewish thinking and support a highly strained and tendentious paradigm of ‘ongoing delay and continual disappointment’ which the twin notions of inspiration and infallibility do not want to allow precisely because it disqualifies and makes a mockery of the claims of the Bible prophecy timeline, the declarations of John the Baptist, Christ, and the Apostles and the beliefs of first and second century Christians.
Conclusion
We have shown from the Jeremiah chapter 4 text that the end of the First Temple and the First Hebrew Commonwealth was described like the unformed earth at the beginning of the creation, yet it was only describing events around the destruction of the southern province of the Kingdom of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar. Next we demonstrated that, right off the bat, interpretors assume that same language about the passing of heaven and earth in the New Testament has reference to the duration of the material earth and the atomic universe when the context of such passages actually demonstrates no such thing.
We showed how prophecies in Isaiah and Malachi make it very clear that the inception of the new heavens and earth by no means meant that material universe with carcasses and ashes would be removed—on the contrary, the texts show this gruesome arrangement became a parallel reality and by this we are able to understand how such events can fit into the national history of ancient Judæa and not involve a contradiction that demands that a fulfillment requires a literal gift of a new planet and sky. Moreover, we investigated the Olivet Discourse and saw that, similar to Jeremiah four, the Destruction of the Second Temple and the return of our Lord in the generation of his contemporaries was the salient subject of the chapter from its beginning all the way to the declaration that heaven and earth would pass away.
It was also noted by Jewish historian, Solomon Grayzel, that the early Christians were confident that the destruction of the Second Temple and not the planet earth was exactly what they had expected and felt that what they were looking at in the empty space where the Second Temple used to be was “as it should be.” Finally, we discussed the divergent paths where denial and panic can lead to the ouster of Christians, to the splitting of texts to make multiple superflous instances of the Second Coming ranging from something like the habitation of God the Father and the Son in the Christian by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to St. Stephen’s near death vision all the way to the actual Great White Throne Judgment at the end of Israelite State history in the second century C.E. But we noted that the acclamation of the entire New Testament from the Gospel According to Matthew to the Book of Revelation (and everything in between) was that our Lord would accomplish those necessary actions to change the spiritual landscape of time and eternity all within that one generation.
And so, in light of this study here is a very revealing question: Does the Bible itself present the possibility that the new heavens and earth could come and yet the ruins of an extinct civilization and carcasses of their dead be present, too? If so, does that point to the end of the material universe in the distant future and the gift of a brand new flawlessly clean planet or to the termination of the Old Testament age in the distant pass?
Christians have to grapple with these highly charged options and come to their own individual spiritual nexus about what to believe and do next.
Endnotes
1 God speaks as if the destruction of the First Temple and First Commonwealth Southern Kingdom of Yehud was total and complete, but the last statement makes it crystal clear that the language of destruction was hyperbole.
2 The Genesis 1:2 language, then, served as a model for the notion that sin led to chaos but from that chaos would emerge a new creation, but in Jeremiah’s day that reinassance would be the upcoming Exilic Period and the subsequent Second Jewish Commonwealth. Rainer Albertz writes, “The period of the Babylonian Exile (597/587–520 B.C.E.) is one of the most enthralling eras of biblical history. During this time, Israel went through what was probably its deepest crisis; at the same time, however, the cornerstone was laid for its most profound renewal.” https://brill.com/view/title/8241, see also, Babylonian captivity - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org
3 It is important to note, first of all, that this text is spoken directly in connection with the Babylonian invasion of the southern Kingdom of Judah in 587 B.C., for a discussion on the larger context of this passage see, e.g., Working Preacher.
4 We do not automatically assume Matthew 24:25 is talking about the planet earth and the skies above it and so we are already off to a shaky start if it cannot be demonstrated from the Olivet Discourse that Jesus is describing the end of the literal heavens and earth when the chapter is manifestly about the then upcoming abomination of desolation of the Second Temple and its complete destruction at the predicted fall of Jerusalem.
5 Note that 2 Peter 3:10 finds its next reference point in Revelation 16:15 where Jesus, on the very eve of the bombardment of Jerusalem by 100 pound stones, asserts that he is about to come as a thief. This comports with 1 Peter 4:7 where the “end of all things” has reference to incidents that would soon change the landscape of Jerusalem rather than universal events that would erase atomic realities once and for all.
6 If the context of our Lord’s statement is the Destruction of Second Temple Jerusalem sets the stage and governs the parameters of the discussion and the interpretation then the following comments are a glaring misunderstanding of what he said and what he intended,
“This refers to the physical heaven and earth—the material world and all it contains—but not to the spirits/souls of the inhabitants of those places. Scripture is clear that people will outlast the current material universe, some in a state of eternal bliss and some in a state of eternal misery, and that the current universe will be replaced by another that will never know the contamination of sin.”
7 It is no longer clear or apparent that the material world and all it contains is the subject at all. While it is true that the Scriptures attest that people survive physical death it is not clear the Bible teaches that the entire universe will be replaced by another one even as the passing of the Second Temple era did nothing to change the Roman political or territorial realm, nothing to minutely change the seasons and cycles of the earth, or the revolution and realities of the atomic universe. The issues and concerns we can say changed for sure was the spiritual universe of the destruction of the pattern of the heavenly things in Jerusalem, the 1,400-year-old Levitical Theocracy, the end of the animal sacrifices and the oblations, and holy days, the ejection of Satan from realms of the air, a change in the powers of heaven, the arrival of the promised kingdom of God, the establishment of the Church, and the completion and descent of the new Jerusalem, along with the change of occupancy of hades, the lake of fire, the bottomless pit, and outer darkness.
A reading of the Genesis 9 passage does not give one the idea that God’s promise of the rainbow was anything other than a pledge of mercy. It reads,
“And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth” (Genesis 9:8-17 KJV).
The direct context of this promise to Noah and all living creatures reads like a pledge of leniency to all throughout perpectual generations. Yet the conventional interpretation that a judgment at the end of time “Won’t be water but fire next time” involves the utter and complete obliteration of all atomic creation and comes across as a perfidious step in the opposite direction of mercy and leniency.
8 This promise is not unlike what we see in Daniel 11:32-36 and 12:1-13 where the resurrection of the dead is placed near the creation and end of the Hasmonean State.
9 At no time does our Lord entertain the building of a Third Temple anywhere in the Olivet Discourse. It is surreptitiously and fictiously placed there to make the chapter and its prophecies attainable in the future while neglecting and disowning what has already happened in the past.
10 The Zealots took control of the Second Temple and, for forty-two months, turned it into a bloody shop of tyranny and horrors, see Wars of the Jews 4.4.3:238-253, 4.5.3:326-333, 4.5.4:334-344,.
11 Among the more extraordinary events are the aerial ones, noted in Wars of the Jews 6.5.3.288-309 and especially Josephus’ Dissertation 3.5. chapter 13 on p. 1006 which seems to correspond exactly with the events in Revelation 12:7-9. Now, regarding Matthew 24:35 The conventional interpretation of Jesus’ declaration and explained in https://www.gotquestions.org/heaven-and-earth-will-pass-away.html derives from what is demonstrably an erroneous assumption about Matthew chapter 24 which is, like Jeremiah 4, again, only about the Destruction of Jerusalem, but this time about the infamous A.D.70 event which was then a mere thirty-seven years away. A careful exegetical walk through the entirety of Matthew 24 from verse one to verse thirty-five will prove this to be exactly true. So it is not true, as GotQuestions claims, that the declaration “consistently warns us that this world will not last forever” when the topic, properly interpreted, warns that the Second Temple would not last forever. Nowhere in Matthew 24 do Peter, James, John, or Andrew question Jesus about the end, longevity, or durability of earth or the material universe. There question was specifically about our Lord’s surprising claim that one stone would not be left upon another in direct relationship to the existence of the Second Temple and nothing else.
12 On this total see Wars of the Jews 6.9.3:20 where Josephus also tallies the casualties of the revolt at eleven hundred thousand people.
13 Solomon Grayzel, A History of the Jews, pp. 171-172.
14 The meek are also said to inherit the earth and similar promises to the righteous have to be balanced against Scriptures that speak of the downfall and destruction of the wicked in the same context and the same historical period (e.g., Matthew 5:5; 19:27-30 cf. 1 Peter 3:10-11*, and Revelation 5:10). *Note that 2 Peter 3:10 finds its next reference point in Revelation 16:15 where Jesus, on the very eve of the bombardment of Jerusalem by 100 pound stones, asserts that he is about to come as a thief. This comports with 1 Peter 4:7 where the “end of all things” has reference to judgment beginning at the house of God and incidents that would soon change the landscape of Jerusalem rather than universal events that would erase atomic realities once and for all.
15 A case can be made that the Father and the Son come to the believer at conversion (John 14:23).
16 Another case can be made that the Son of God comes whenever a person dies, as in the case of the martyrdom of St. Stephen (Acts 7:45-60).
17 Some argue vociferously that Christ comes whenever a local congregation is to be judged and removed (Revelation 2:25 cf. 3:3).
18 It could be argued from James 5:1-9 that a coming (by not THE coming) of the Lord was near in the first century. The text, however, says, “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.”
19 The final personal Second Coming of Christ, according to the majority of Christians, is cited in Revelation 20;11-15 but we argue that the Parable of the Wicked Spirit in Matthew 12:43-45 demands that the events in the entirety of Revelation 20 be within the parameters of the lifetime of Jesus’s contemporaries which could not be any later than A.D.140 if any refugees from the Destruction and the ensuring calamities lived to be very old.
20 A study of the conduct of Israelites during the final rebellion against the Romans reveals quite a lot about their spiritual condition, e.g., their insisting to God to “neither help them nor hurt them.” “for you, O Lord, have forsaken us.” Bar Kokhba’s maiming of 200,000 soldiers by having their small finger snatched off, and their resumption of the execution of Christians in the second year of the war when they refused renounce Jesus of Nazareth and acknowledge Bar Kokhba to be Israel’s promised Messiah nor participate in any way in the war. Additionally, Bar Kokhba’s murder of the High Priest, Eleazar by kicking him with his foot showed his real caliber. Furthermore, their resumption of the Levitical sacrificial system which was directly against God’s edict that it should end once and for all on 17 Tammuz 3831 (A.D.70), this meant, according to the prophecies of Isaiah, that those sacrificial acts were blasphemies and abominations in the eyes of God, whose Son’s sacrifice on the Cross is valid and sacrosanct from henceforth and forevermore. The second century definitive conclusion of the controversy confirms the Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ as the blessed Son of God and the Lord of lords and the King of kings (1 Timothy 6:15-16).
21 Anecdotal evidence all through the Christian age and even in modern times suggests that the new Jerusalem exists, is inhabited, and awaits our passing into it. In other words, we lose nothing and forfeit nothing by admitting that the Lord fulfilled his endtime prophecies within the scope of Jewish salvation history.
22 Amos 3:3 but also see Psalms 133:1, 1 Corinthians 1:10 and, again, John 17:17. Amos 3:3, at the very least, has to be entertained for relief, right or wrong. But I am convinced that Christians are equal to the task of harmonizing these seeming contradictory notions and coming to a personal resolution that brings peace personally and commensally. I do not believe any of these issues have to end in a fellowship tragedy if Christians give each other the generosity of time and space, and patience and liberty to respond to what the Bible is saying.
Related
Is Amillennialism True to the Book of Revelation?
The Semitic Background of the Book of Revelation
Redating the Book of Revelation
Comments on Revelation Chapter 11
Christians Talking Past Each Other:
An Eisegesis Versus Exegesis of 2 Timothy 2:16-18
What Do We Have if the World Already Passed Away?
Caption: Eploding earth. Source: pond5.com