Biblical Eschatology and Modern Science Part IV -- By: Henry M. Morris
Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 125:500 (Oct 1968)
Article: Biblical Eschatology and Modern Science Part IV
Author: Henry M. Morris
BSac 125:500 (Oct 68) p. 291
Biblical Eschatology and Modern Science
Part IV
The Promise of His Coming
The fourth and concluding category of Biblical cosmology is necessarily that of Biblical eschatology, the study of the future cosmos. As the first cosmos was destroyed by water (2 Pet 3:6), so the present cosmos will be destroyed by fire (2 Pet 3:10). The cosmos, of course, includes both the earth and the (atmosphere) heavens—the geosphere, the atmosphere and the biosphere—all considered as an ordered system. The materials were not annihilated at the Flood, and neither will they be in the future fiery destruction, but the cosmos—that is, the ordered system of the earth and its inhabitants—will be destroyed.
“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet 3:13). God has not forgotten this “promise of his coming” as suggested by the latter-day scoffers (2 Pet 3:3); His seeming delay in its fulfillment is only because of His “long-suffering to usward” (2 Pet 3:9).
This promise of a new heavens and a new earth is first mentioned explicitly by Isaiah. In Isaiah 65:17, God says He will “create new heavens and a new earth,” and in Isaiah 66:22, He speaks of the “new heavens and new earth which I will make.” Just as God “created and made” the heavens and the earth of the first cosmos (Gen 2:3), so He will “create and make” the final cosmos, “which shall remain.” Aspects of both His creative power and His organizing and ordering wisdom are thus again to be employed in that day.
The actual emplacement of the new cosmos is, of course,
BSac 125:500 (Oct 68) p. 292
gloriously described in Revelation 21:1, where John sees it as having displaced “the first heaven and the first earth.” This seems at first a slight contradiction of Peter, who had said the first cosmos perished in the Flood. Perhaps, as we shall see, this “first atmosphere and land system” will have been substantially restored prior to its final purgation at this time.
In any case, the “passing away” of that cosmos (Matt 24:35; Rev 20:11) is to be, according to
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