p. 232 | THE AGE TO COME

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 8, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 15

THE AGE TO COME.

2 PETER 3.

It seems a strange question to discuss whether the third chapter of Second Peter is literal or figurative; but this discussion is forced upon us by the advocates of the “Age to Come.” They make no provision in their system for the radical change which is here described, and hence, to get over the testimony, must in some way, explain it away.

Consistency would seem to indicate that we should interpret the Old Testament prophecies by the New Testament scriptures. These were written at a later date, are designed for Christians, and constitute the unfolding of that progressive plan set forth partially in the Old Testament. And whoever tries to interpret the Old Testament scriptures without reference to the New, is almost sure to go astray. We therefore say that the New Testament should be the governing book in the expositions of the prophecies of the former dispensation.

The believers in the Age to Come seem inclined to reverse this order, and to take those prophecies which were written nearly a thousand years before Christ, and which they claim are to be fulfilled three thousand years after his time, and make an application of them, riding right over the modifying, literal, and explicit statements of the New Testament. They cannot admit that what Peter says concerning the destruction of the present heavens and earth is literal, but they go back to some obscure prophecy of the Old Testament, where some reference is made to an abundant yield of wheat, or the wonderful productions of the vine, and the fertility of the soil, and find no trouble in making that all literal, even though they

have to wait three thousand years for the fulfillment, and override some of the plainest declarations of Scripture which stand in their way.

They wish the third chapter of Second Peter to teach this, That when the Lord comes, his judgments, revealed by fire, will neither be very extensive nor very long in duration; but that while some of his enemies will be destroyed by the means here described, others will be spared to hear the gospel, and be converted, and when they have been turned to God, this will constitute the new heavens and the new earth which are promised.

Neither are they willing that the earth should be so entirely renovated that the precise locality of Palestine should not preserve its present geographical position, and all its essential features. Hence, they find it necessary to make these expressions concerning the passing away of the heavens with a great noise, the melting of the elements and the earth itself, and the burning up of the works therein, to be mystical or figurative expressions, setting forth only a work to be accomplished among men. But a more offensive system of mysticism it would be hard to find.

Another writer of that school, seeing that the language is too plain to be mystified or spiritualized, admits that it describes literal scenes, but claims that these are only local in their application.

Every declaration of the context, and every law of language, leads us to the conclusion that this chapter is to be literally fulfilled. Reference is made to the antediluvian world. The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. This certainly signifies, not simply the drowning of the inhabitants of the world, but the literal and absolute overflowing of the land with water. The heavens and the earth which are now are just as literal as the heavens and the earth before the flood; and these are “kept in store, reserved unto fire,” says Peter,—fire, just as literal as the ancient water,—“against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”

But, reasons one of the writers of the theory we are reviewing, the flood only caused the people to perish, and did not destroy the constitution of the earth, so the fire threatened by Peter will only affect the people, and not the earth. But even this is an admission fatal to their theory; for if it destroys the wicked from the earth as fully as the flood destroyed the ungodly antediluvians, it will take every one but the righteous; and where, then, are there any nations to be subjugated by the preaching of the gospel and the kingdom of Christ?

But that it means something more than simply the people is evident from the phraseology of verse 7: “The heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto” this fire. Who are kept in store? Are there any wicked nations, are there any wicked people now being preserved and kept to the fire of the great day? Certainly not; but this earth itself, this planet, is reserved to the fire of this day of Judgment. This will not annihilate the earth, nor destroy its substance, and is no contradiction of that ancient declaration of God, that the foundations of the earth are laid forever. But it is a process which will thoroughly renovate, melt, and renew the whole face of nature.

This sublime scene is again described when John says in Rev. 20:11, “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away; and there was no place found for them.”

And it is not necessary that the renewed earth should bear many, if any, of the geographical features of the earth in its present condition; for in the city which comes down from God out of heaven, to be located here, as the metropolis of this earth, will be Mount Zion, and the everlasting throne of the Son of David. But we caution the reader to beware of any theory which obliges us to spiritualize so plain and literal a prophecy as 2 Peter 3. If we may be allowed to treat this prophecy thus, we may spiritualize all others, and go back at once to the deepest fog of the dark ages,