The New Earth - A Real Place, Old But New

On the new earth, in which righteousness dwells, God will provide an eternal home for the redeemed and a perfect environment for everlasting life, love, joy, and learning in His presence. For here God Himself will dwell with His people, and suffering and death will have passed away. The great controversy will be ended, and sin will be no more. All things, animate and inanimate, will declare that God is love; and He shall reign forever. Amen.

After a close brush with death a boy said in relief, "My home's in heaven, but I'm not homesick." Like him, many feel that at death heaven is a preferable alternative to the "other place," but that it runs a poor second to the reality and stimulus of life here and now. If the views many have about the hereafter were true, this feeling would be justifiable. But from the descriptions and hints Scripture provides, what God is preparing for the redeemed to enjoy so outshines the life we live now that few would hesitate to give up this world for the new one.

The Nature of the New Earth
A Tangible Reality. The first two chapters of the Bible tell of God's creation of a perfect world as a home for the human beings He created. The Bible's last two chapters also speak of God's creating a perfect world for humanity—but this time it's a re-creation, a restoration of the earth from the ravages sin brought.

Over and over the Bible declares that this eternal home of the redeemed will be a real place, a locality that real people with bodies and brains can see, hear, touch, taste, smell, measure, picture, test, and fully experience. It is on the new earth that God will locate this real heaven.

Second Peter 3 tersely summarizes the scriptural background of this concept. Peter speaks of the antediluvian world as "the world that then existed" and was destroyed by water. The second world is "the earth which now exists," a world that will be cleansed by fire to make way for the third world, "a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (verses 6, 7, 13).1 The "third" world will be as real as the first two.

Continuity and Difference. The term "new earth" expresses both a continuity with and difference from the present earth.2 Peter and John envision the old earth cleansed by fire from all defilement and then renovated (2 Peter 3:10-13; Rev. 21:1).3 The new earth is, then, first of all, this earth, not some alien place. Though renewed, it will remain familiar, known—home. That's good! It is, however, new in the sense that God will remove from the earth every blemish sin has caused.

THE LORD IS COMING, SOON, AMEN, YES, COME LORD JESUS!

* Fundamental Beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist Church - Doctrine 28 "The New Earth"
* www.facebook.com/Secondcomingheaven