Q. I’m enjoying reading your site, especially your comments on what I consider tough passages. My question is about “the day of the Lord/day of God” mentioned in 2 Peter 3:10&12. I always associated the destruction by fire of the heavens and earth in these verses with the new heaven and earth in Revelation 21:1. But the reference to these events coming as a thief in the night would seem to be about the Second Coming. I know that there will be major geographical renovations when He comes, but if that is the time-frame for the fervent heat Peter mentions, that would mean that the heavens and earth will be recreated twice, both before and after the millennium. What are your thoughts on this?
A. From an Earthly perspective there’s some confusion in these verses that I’ve never seen anyone explain logically, although there are many opinions. Isaiah 65:17 mentions the creation of a new Heaven and New Earth in the context of the Millennial Kingdom. John used the same phrase in Rev. 21:1 when he described the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, saying that the first Earth had passed away and that God was making everything new (Rev. 21:5). This is also in connection with the Millennium and neither reference mentions the Earth and Heaven going up in flames.
Jesus called this time the renewal of all things in Matt.19:28 so I believe Isaiah and John were talking about the restoration of Heaven and Earth at the outset of the Millennium to the condition they were in before all the judgments they’ve sustained since Satan’s rebellion. I think the final judgments of the Great Tribulation are actually the beginning of this process.
Therefore I think Peter was making a very general overview statement of the End Times in 2 Peter 3:10-12. Since there’s no mention in Scripture of Heaven and Earth disappearing in a burst of flame in connection with the 2nd Coming, it appears that Peter’s statement encompasses both the 2nd Coming and the eventual destruction of the current Heaven and Earth, perhaps at the end of the Millennium when the Creation enters eternity.
Time And Eternity
Q. You have said that eternity is not just a whole bunch of time but the absence of time. Do you think that creation and mankind were initially created without time and that the introduction of time was a part of the curse? Because with the passage of time comes decay. During the recount of creation in Genesis, it speaks about morning and evening; day and night and we associate this with a passing of time, but is that necessarily so? Couldn’t there be days and nights within eternity? If so, do you think that God, who created and controls time, slowed down Abraham and Sarah’s biological clocks so that their bodies remained young enough to have Isaac in their old age?
A. According to Genesis 1:14 the Sun and Moon were given to separate day from night, and to mark the seasons and days and years, as well as to give light. That tells me that time was established with the Creation, even though Adam and Eve initially had eternal life. I think the concept of entropy, the natural law of decay, was introduced with the curse.
At the End of the Great Tribulation the Sun and Moon will go dark (Matt. 24:29). From then on Earth’s light will come from the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:23-24). This wouldn’t be possible unless the New Jerusalem was in orbit around the Earth. Rev. 21:25 says there will be no night in the New Jerusalem, which makes life there an endless day. But on Earth that won’t be the case. Isaiah 65:20 makes reference to the passage of time, which will be measured by periods of dark and light as the New Jerusalem proceeds through its orbit around Earth. Also the Tree of Life will bear a different fruit each month (Rev. 22:2), another indication of time on Earth.
My conclusion from all this is that for the Church eternity will begin when we enter the New Jerusalem, while on Earth it won’t happen until the end of the Millennium, 1000 years later.
As for Abraham and Sarah, I definitely believe they were exempted from the aging process in some way. Not only were they able to have a child when he was 100 and she was 90, but at age 65 Sarah was still desirable enough to be taken into Pharaoh’s harem (Genesis 12:14-15). Typically harem girls would be much younger.
