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• Paul's argument in Romans 8. Paul tells us that the creation waits in eager expectation for the revealing of the sons of God so that it may be liberated from its bondage to decay (vv. 20-21). He is saying that it is not some totally different universe but the present creation that will be set free from corruption.
  
  
• The analogy between the new earth and the resurrection bodies of believers. The differences between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies, breathtaking though they will be, will not take away the continuity: it is we who shall be raised, and it is we who shall always be with the Lord. By way of analogy, we would expect that the new earth will not be totally other than the present earth, but will be the present earth wondrously renewed.
  
  
• The defeat of Satan. If God would have to annihilate the present cosmos, Satan would have won a great victory, for then Satan would have succeeded in so devastatingly corrupting the present universe and the present earth that God could do nothing with it but blot it out of existence. But Satan was decisively defeated. God will reveal the full dimensions of that defeat when he renews this very earth on which Satan deceived mankind, and finally banishes from it all the results of Satan's evil work. God will maintain his creation. There will be continuity as well as discontinuity between the present earth and the new earth.
  
  

Edward Thurneysen writes of this new earth, "The world into which we shall enter in the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both, however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these cities, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not-yet-accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brought home" (Zwischen den Zeiten, 1931, p. 209).

As if anticipating the question, "Will life on the new earth be boring?" the Bible points to much activity there. The author of Hebrews says Abraham looked forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God (11:10). And the apostle John says, "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem." (Rev. 21:2). These passages describe the new earth in terms of a city and a city usually bustles with activity.

We read, for example, in Revelation 22:3, "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him." We learn from the same book that new songs will be written on that new earth (5:9), and that new songs will be sung (14:3). According to the parable of the talents, the master's reward to the faithful servants is this: "You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things" (Matt. 25:21, 23, NIV).

"Being in charge" or "ruling over" (KJV) many things suggests a busy program of administrative activity. And in what is commonly called the parable of the pounds, the king rewards the servant who made ten pounds by placing him in authority over ten cities, and the servant who made five pounds is given authority over five cities (Luke 19:17, 19). In these two parables, the reward promised consists not of idle rest but of service. In the latter parable the type of service implies a kind of life as busy and active as that of a mayor on this earth. Can you imagine being mayor of ten cities?

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June (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47