Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 171:684 (Oct 2014)
Article: Extreme Makeover: Heaven And Earth Edition— Will God Annihilate The World And Re-Create It Ex Nihilo?
Author: Michael J. Svigel

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BSac 171:684 (October-December 2014) p. 401

Extreme Makeover: Heaven And Earth Edition—
Will God Annihilate The World And Re-Create It Ex Nihilo?

Michael J. Svigel

Michael J. Svigel is Associate Professor of Theological Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas, Texas.

In the year AD 180, the early premillennial church father Irenaeus of Lyons wrote:

Neither is the substance nor the essence of the creation annihilated (for faithful and true is He who has established it), but “the fashion of the world passes away;” [1 Cor. 7:31]. . . . But when this present fashion of things passes away, and man has been renewed, and flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to preclude the possibility of becoming old, then there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, in which the new man shall remain continually, always holding fresh converse with God.1

Irenaeus’s amillennial counterpart, Origen of Alexandria, held an identical view. Writing around AD 220, he explicitly rejected the idea of a complete annihilation of the universe. After quoting 1 Corinthians 7:31 and Psalm 102:26, he wrote:

For if the heavens are to be changed, assuredly that which is changed does not perish, and if the fashion of the world passes away, it is by no means an annihilation or destruction of their material substance that is shown to take place, but a kind of change of quality and transformation of appearance. Isaiah also, in declaring prophetically that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, undoubtedly suggests a

BSac 171:684 (October-December 2014) p. 402

similar view. For this renewal of heaven and earth, and this transmutation of the form of the present world, and this changing of the heavens will undoubtedly be prepared for those who are walking along that way which we have pointed out above.2

Likewise, Methodius of Olympus, around AD 300, wrote:

But it is not satisfactory to say that the universe will be utterly destroyed, and sea and air and sky will be no longer. For the whole world will be deluged with fire from heaven, and burnt for the purpose of purification and renewal; it will not, however, come to complete ruin and corruption. . . . God therefore ordered the creation with a view to its existence and continuance.3

Perhaps the best representative of patristic amillennial eschatology, Augusti...

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