What Does ‘New Heaven and New Earth’ Mean in 2 Peter 3:13?
Explore what “new heaven and new earth” means and Peter’s final effort to instruct us in how we ought to live in light of the coming end.
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- The author didn't acknowledge a view that this sort of portentous language often refers to the new era brought about by a process culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem. There are many examples of this usage throughout scripture. It's not too difficult to show the New Jerusalem's decent isn't future, and it follows that the "new heavens..." is also current. The Expositor's Commentary says this: "From all this the representation of the new Jerusalem in the Apocalypse differs in no essential respect It enters more into particulars. It illustrates the general thought by a greater variety of detail. But it contains nothing which is not found in principle in the other sacred writers, and which is not connected by them with the heavenly aspect of the Christian’s pilgrimage to his eternal home. "There are distinct indications in the apocalyptic vision which leave no interpretation possible except one, that the new Jerusalem has come, that it has been in the midst of us for more than eighteen hundred years, that it is now in the midst of us, and that it shall continue to be so wherever its King has those who love and serve Him, walk in His light, and share His peace and joy. " In other words, the new heavens and new earth isn't in the future.