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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Back
To Eden? I have often heard
people say that when the final nail is pounded into the coffin of this
present age, life will return to the peace-filled pleasure of the Garden
of Eden, but will it? Read 2
Peter 3:10. "But the day of the
Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the
elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in
it will be laid bare." Much could be said about
2 Peter 3:10, but I will zero in on the word "elements," which
is translated from the Greek word "stoicheion." This
Greek word signifies any first thing from which other things originate.
I suggest, then, that the elements that will be destroyed by fire
might refer to the sub-atomic particles, those first things, that form the
foundation of creation. Whether you understand
the fire in 2 Peter 3:10 to be literal fire or metaphoric fire, is open to
debate. What
is important is that all of creation's sub-atomic matter will no longer
exist. There will be
absolutely nothing that can give birth to something else.
There will be no first things remaining. Every microscopic molecule will flee from the presence of God.
Revelation 20:11 states. "Then I saw a great
white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled
from his presence, and there was no place for them." At this point in the
history of the Genesis One creation, a new heaven and earth will
materialize into existence from the mind of God.
Creation as we presently know it will perish into a state of
nothingness. Revelation 21:1
reads: "Then I saw a new
heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had
passed away, and there was no longer any sea." The Greek word
"kainos" that is translated as "new" in Revelation
21:1, implies something that is distinctly different in its essence or
nature from that which is old. The
Genesis One creation will not be that first thing that produces a new
heaven and earth. That being
the case, Revelation 21:1 cannot refer to God renovating creation that the
fire of His wrath-filled judgments has torched.
The Garden of Eden will not be replanted.
God will create something altogether new and distinctly different
from the Genesis One creation. It
will be something that has never previously existed.
It will be far beyond any human capability to imagine.
No, we will not return
to Eden. Our present time space
environment will simply disappear. We,
as true Christians, on the other hand, will be transformed into the very
likeness and image of God's Son (Romans
8:29) and will exist in a state of being that has never existed.
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