A Question Came up…
And I was actually able to answer it! Here it is:
Hi Deacon Chip,
Hope that you and your household are having a great week.
Hope that you and your household are having a great week.
I know that you might think that this is a really silly question (which is why I did not post it on your blog}, but it has been nagging at me since we discussed it.
Why will there be a new earth and a new heaven? I understand the need for a perfect earth, but I don’t understand why we don’t just go to heaven instead of staying here? Also, isn’t heaven already perfect? So, why the “new heaven”? Also, if some will be on the new earth and some will be in the new heaven, will we be able to just go back and forth to either place: will there truely be a “stairway to heaven?”
If the answer is “I don’t know”, I will understand. It’s just that these questions keep bothering me, so I had to ask.
Thank you for your time, and for all that you do for us in this class.
And my answer:
I have your answer! And it isn’t nearly as complex as I’d feared; I just forgot for a minute.
Take a look at the verse that references that re-creation you’re referencing (2 Peter 3:12-13): “12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved in flames and the elements melted by fire13 But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth 1 in which righteousness dwells.” The footnote for vs. 13 refers one to Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22:
“Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind.” and “As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make Shall endure before me, says the LORD, so shall your race and your name endure.”
“Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; The things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind.” and “As the new heavens and the new earth which I will make Shall endure before me, says the LORD, so shall your race and your name endure.”
It’s not a “new heaven” that will be created, but “new heavens”, plural. Remember the cosmological model of the ancients; they conceived of the earth as flat, and the “heavens” being all that stuff they saw when they looked up (see the picture here; it’s weak, but it works for the explanation. All these verses refer to all of Creation (heavens and earth) being burned up as in a fire and recreated without corruption or imperfection (cf. Romans 8:19-22). It’s all of one piece; all of the created world will be destroyed and recreated without the imperfections introduced after the Fall of Adam and Eve.
Does that make sense?
Tall, Bald, and Called 
I am so glad somebody asked that question because I wondered the same thing.
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jolie post , merci pour l’info
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