New Heaven and Earth?

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. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
-Revelation 21:1-4

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.

11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
-2 Peter 3:10-13

There are other verses that seem to imply a physical ending to the earth we live on, but I would argue these 2 passages above are the most used by futurists to suggest that the world is going to end and then be made new at the end of human history. 

To be fair I understand why people hold this view. It's not unreasonable or stupid. But it is a result of poor hermeneutics. The way Christians read their bibles and the influence of pop Christianity and personal biases, make it inevitable that people will read these texts and immediately assume they mean the physical cosmos is going to end. 

Again to be fair, if the New Testament was not saturated with time statements that demand a first century fulfilment of all prophecy, I suspect almost all theologians would have taken the English translations above at face value and Preterism would never have been a thing. But the time statements do exist, and they are overwhelming. And Jerusalem and the Temple and ancient Israel were all dismantled in 70AD, in the same generation Jesus spoke to. These facts demand closer scrutiny of the texts above and others that are used to support a futurist end-of-the-world eschatology. 

What is Heaven and Earth?

Now I do not deny that there are many times that God uses the terms Heavens and Earth, and He is referring to the entire place we live called Earth, and the sky and the atmosphere and the stars and Moon, etc. No problem. But the context of the verse will give the keys to understanding whether to interpret literally or figuratively. It takes careful reading and applying strict objectivity, but it is not difficult.

Heaven and Earth and Cosmology in the Ancient World

Let’s look at how Heaven and Earth were viewed by the ancient world. If you were a first-century Jew, you would have viewed the Temple in Jerusalem as the centre of your entire existence. It was viewed as Heaven and Earth. It was where the Law of Moses was housed with the Ark of the Covenant (even though the Ark was lost around 586 BC when The Babylonians destroyed the first temple), and where the priests sprinkled the blood of atonement for the forgiveness of sins. It was everything.

The Temple was designed to represent a microcosm of Heaven and Earth. The ancient world viewed the earth as a flat plain, with the sea surrounding the land in the centre, with heaven above in the vault of the sky. The temple building represented the Earth, and the Holy Place was Heaven. The Ark of the Covenant was lost some time during the Babylonian captivity, but under the second temple, which God ordained, He accepted blood sprinkled in the Holy of Holies in the temple.

The Tabernacle, which was the sacred holy centre of Hebrew Old Covenant worship before the first temple was built, was also designed this way.

Josephus describes this:

“When Moses distinguished the tabernacle into three parts, and allowed two of them to the priests, as a place accessible and common, he denoted the land and the sea, these being of general access to all; but he set apart the third division for God, because heaven is inaccessible to men. And when he ordered twelve loaves to be set on the table, he denoted the year, as distinguished into so many months. By branching out the candlestick into seventy parts, he secretly intimated the Decani, or seventy divisions of the planets; and as to the seven lamps upon the candlesticks, they referred to the course of the planets, of which that is the number. The veils, too, which were composed of four things, they declared the four elements; for the fine linen was proper to signify the earth, because the flax grows out of the earth; the purple signified the sea, because that colour is dyed by the blood of a sea shell-fish; the blue is fit to signify the air; and the scarlet will naturally be an indication of fire...

However, this proportion of the measures of the tabernacle proved to be an imitation of the system of the world; for that third part thereof which was within the four pillars, to which the priests were not admitted, is, as it were, a heaven peculiar to God. But the space of the twenty cubits is, as it were, sea and land, on which men live, and so this part is peculiar to the priests only. But at the front, where the entrance was made, they placed pillars of gold, that stood on bases of brass, in number seven; but then they spread over the tabernacle veils of fine linen and purple, and blue, and scarlet colors, embroidered. The first veil was ten cubits every way, and this they spread over the pillars which parted the temple, and kept the Most Holy Place concealed within; and this veil was that which made this part not visible to any. Now the whole temple was called The Holy Place; but that part which was within the four pillars, and to which none were admitted, was called The Holy of Holies. This veil was very ornamental, and embroidered with all sorts of flowers which the earth produces…”

From a Wikipedia article on Biblical Cosmology:

“In Jerusalem, the earthly Temple was decorated with motifs of the cosmos and the Garden,[72] and, like other ancient Near Eastern temples, its three sections made up a symbolic microcosm, from the outer court (the visible world of land and sea), through the Holy Place (the visible heaven and the garden of God), to the Holy of Holies (the invisible heaven of God).”

The Temple was seen as Heaven and Earth. The old covenant, of which the Temple was the centre, was Heaven and Earth to the Jews. Jerusalem was the capital of the old covenant order.

What About There Being No More Sea in Revelation 21:1?
Fair question. But again, the sea was the outer court of the Temple complex. Known as the Sea of the Gentiles. Because Non-Jews were allowed in the outer court, but they could not enter the inner court of the Temple. But under the New Covenant, there is no longer any barrier between Jew and Gentile. We are all one in Christ by faith. So the Sea was destroyed literally with the destruction of the Temple, and spiritually and metaphorically with the destruction of the Old Covenant. 

Here is an even less ambiguous scripture that shows Israel being referred to as Heavens and Earth:

Deuteronomy 31:30 – 32:1:
And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:
"Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;
hear, you earth, the words of my mouth."

This address was not to the entire world. It was within the hearing of Israel. Remember this as the text in this chapter goes on:

Deuteronomy 32:22:
For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,
one that burns down to the realm of the dead below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.

This is metaphorical language that is speaking of God’s devastating, righteous judgment of Israel.

The Elements Being Destroyed by Fire?

Now what about 2 Peter 3? This is a classic futurist go-to. It says the elements will be destroyed by fire. Well, this is a translation issue. The word ‘elements’ used in 2 Peter 3:10 is the Greek word stoicheia/stoicheion. While it indeed translates as elements and can refer to the elements of the physical cosmos, its use in ancient Greek philosophy and within the New Testament was to refer to the elements of the old covenant law.

Strong’s Greek concordance says the following:

“In the New Testament, stoicheion is used to refer to basic principles or elements. It can denote the fundamental components of the physical world, such as the elements of nature, or the elementary teachings and principles of religious or philosophical systems. The term is often used metaphorically to describe the basic, rudimentary teachings that are foundational but not the ultimate goal of spiritual maturity.”

Think I’m grasping at straws? Well, let's use Scripture to interpret Scripture. We do that by examining other usages of the word stoicheion. There are seven usages of this word in the New Testament, and in the other five of them, outside of Peter, it clearly is referring to the principles of the law.

Look at one example in Galatians 4:

Galatians 4:1–5:
“What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces (or basic principles) of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.”

The law was the guardian until Christ came.

I encourage you to check out the other four. The context of these five uses makes it clear: the word is being used to refer to the old covenant law.

So when Peter uses this word twice in chapter 3 of his second letter, he is referring to the end of the age—which, remember, he heard directly about from Jesus. He is telling his audience that the old world order is coming to an end, and the old system is going to be burned up. This was the system that empowered the Jewish persecution of Christians in the 40 years between the first and second advent of Christ. This was the relief they were waiting for.

This is exactly what happened in 70 AD. The Temple was burned to the ground and it was taken apart, stone by stone. The old covenant was destroyed, and Jewish power was broken.

Josephus described the Temple and the veil as representing the physical elements of the world, as well as the cosmology of the creation. All bases are covered here. I’m not making this up. It’s recorded. The Temple represented not only the physical cosmos, but the elements or rudimentary principles of the old covenant system. If this view of the Temple was not a fact of Jewish culture in the first century, preterists would have little to say. We are going by the recorded cultural evidence.

With the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem, God was making a statement: the old covenant is over. It is obsolete and cannot save, because that to which the law pointed has now come.

Hebrews 8:13

By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:18:
“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”

If heaven and earth has not passed away yet, then the law is still in effect. But that makes no sense, because it was not possible to accurately follow the law once the temple was destroyed.

Everything was accomplished in 70 AD, when He destroyed the Temple and made old covenant practice impossible. The Holy Place was destroyed, and so were the genealogies. Without knowing who is from the tribe of Levi, and without a Holy of Holies, animal sacrifice could not be done according to the law given through Moses.

From this point on, people were saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jew and Gentile became one in the body of Christ. Christ is the Temple now, and Christians are the bricks of the Temple, with Christ as its chief cornerstone.

Ephesians 2:19–22

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

Revelation 21:22:
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

This was the expectation of the Jews in the first century who were trusting in Christ. That’s why, in the new Heaven and Earth, in the New Jerusalem, which is spiritual, there is no Temple. And in the 40 years between the first and second advent of Christ, the old system was disappearing and making way for the new.

The New Heaven and New Earth John saw in Revelation, was the New Covenant. A new order. A new day. A new way for men to approach God for forgiveness of sin. Grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The former covenant and religious system had passed away. No more law, no more sacrifice. Just faith.