plished ; satisfied that what we know not now we shall know
§ 3. The End of the World. The principal passages of Scriptures relating to the final con- summation or the end of the world, are the following: Psalm cii. 25, 26, " Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old as a gar- ment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed." Isaiah li. 6, " Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath ; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment." Isaiah lxv. 17, " Behold, I create new heavens, and a new earth : and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind." Luke xxi. 33, " Heaven and earth shall pass away : but my words shall not pass away." Romans viii. 19-21, "The earnest ex- pectation of the creature (Wo-is, creation) waiteth for the mani- festation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath sub- jected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." 2 Peter iii. 6-13, « The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished : but the heavens and earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of
ungodly men The day of the Lord will 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
Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Revelation xx. 11, " I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them." Revelation xxi. 1, " I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; and there was no more sea."
Remarks.
1. These passages are not to be understood as predicting great
political and moral revolutions. It is possible that some of them
might bear that interpretation ; but others are evidently intended
to be understood in a more literal sense. This is especially the
852 PART IV. Ch. IV. — THE SECOND ADVENT.
case with 2 Peter iii. 6-13, in which the Apostle contrasts the destruction of the world by the waters of the deluge with the destruction by fire which is still future. If the fact be estab- lished that the Scriptures anywhere clearly predict the destruc- tion of the world at the last day, that fact becomes a rule for the interpretation of the more doubtful passages. There is nothing in this predicted destruction of our earth out of analogy with the course of nature. Stars once clearly visible in the firmament, after a brief period of unusual splendour, have disappeared ; to all appearance they have been burnt up. Scientific men tell us that there is abundant evidence that the earth was once in a state of fusion ; and there are causes in operation which are adequate to reduce it to that state again, whenever God sees fit to put them into operation.
2. The destruction here foretold is not annihilation, (a.) The world is to be burnt up ; but combustion is not a destruction of substance. It is merely a change of state or condition. (6.) The destruction of the world by water and its destruction by fire are analogous events ; the former was not annihilation, therefore the second is not. (c.) The destruction spoken of is elsewhere called a Tra\i.yyeve<ria, regeneration (Matt. xix. 28) ; an airoKa- rao-rao-is, a restoration (Acts iii. 21) ; a deliverance from the bondage of corruption (Rom. viii. 21). The Apostle teaches that our vile bodies are to be fashioned like unto the glorious body of Christ, and that a similar change is to take place in the world we inhabit. There are to be new heavens and a new earth, just as we are to have new bodies. Our bodies are not to be annihilated, but changed, (d.) There is no evidence, either from Scripture or experience, that any substance has ever been annihilated. If force be motion, it may cease ; but cessation of motion is not annihilation, and the common idea in our day, among men of science, is that no force is ever lost ; it is, as they say, only transformed. However this may be, it is a purely gratuitous assumption that any substance has ever passed out of existence. In all the endless and complicated changes which have been going on, from the beginning, in our earth and throughout the universe, nothing, so far as known, has ever ceased to be. Of course He who creates can destroy; the question, however, concerns the purpose, and not the power of God ; and He has never, either in his word or in his works, revealed his purpose to destroy any- thing He has once created.
Many of the old theologians, especially among the Lutherans,