Will the Creation “Pass Away” When Christ Returns?

Revelation 21 opens with an amazing vision of “a new heaven and a new earth.”

Since the Bible begins with the affirmation that God created the cosmos, consisting precisely of heaven and earth (Genesis 1:1), Revelation 21 proclaims nothing less than a new creation.

But in what sense will this creation be new?

The question is forced upon us because of the end of the verse that proclaims a new creation: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Revelation 21:1).

What does “passed away” mean? Does this imply the obliteration of the original creation and its replacement with something brand new?

Jesus actually said something similar about the passing away of the cosmos in the Olivet discourse.

After instructing his disciples about a series of signs that will precede the coming of the Son of Man, Jesus states: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35; also Mark 13:31 and Luke 21:33).

Is this simply a hypothetical statement, to the effect that even if heaven and earth were to pass away, Jesus’s words (his predictions of the coming signs) are sure and trustworthy? Let’s not take the easy way out; let’s assume that he meant what he said.

A surface reading of both Jesus’s words and Revelation 21 suggests that the world as we know it will be gone, to be superseded by a new cosmos. The question is in what sense will the old world “pass away”?

Will God will first destroy creation (heaven and earth) and then create a replacement?

Or is this a reference to some form of transformation that will occur?

The Greek words for “pass away” are slightly different in Revelation 21 and the Olivet discourse. In Revelation 21 it is aperchomai, while in the Olivet discourse it is parerchomai. That’s basically the same verb, but with different prefixes—the prefixes par- and ap-. They don’t indicate any significant difference in meaning.

If we want to really understand what these texts mean by creation passing away, we might turn to Paul’s description of conversion as “new creation” in 2 Corinthians 5:17.

What follows is a literal translation: “If anyone is in Christ—new creation! The old things have passed away; behold, new ones have come!”

Here Paul uses the verb parerchomai (the same verb found in the Olivet discourse) for the ending of the old life, which is then replaced by a new life in Christ.

Are we to think that Paul thinks the passing away of the old life is equivalent to the obliteration of the person, who is then replaced by a doppelganger? Paul’s own writings, not to mention common sense, suggests that no matter how radical the shift required for conversion to Christ, this describes the transformation, not obliteration, of the person.

So, by analogy then, the passing away of the present heaven and earth to make way for the new creation is also transformative. It’s not a matter of destruction followed by replacement.

That’s why God says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5)—not “I am making all new things.”

Whether it is the “new creation” of persons who are in Christ or the “new heavens and new earth” promised in Revelation 21, the point is that salvation consists in the rescue and transformation of this amazing world that God so loves (John 3:16).

That’s the consistent emphasis of biblical eschatology.

For more on this topic, see my book A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology (Baker Academic, 2014), or you can watch my video course on “Biblical Eschatology” at Seminary Now.

Our Postmodern Moment: “Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be” 28 Years Later

Over the past decade, a number of people have commented that the book Brian Walsh and I wrote addressing the postmodern situation, Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (IVP, 1995), seemed to be written for our twenty-first century context since it spoke directly to issues current in Western (and especially, North American) culture. (As a person from the Majority World, I would say that these issues are actually global.)

One of the comments about the book’s relevance came from Chris Stratton, the editor of an online journal for United Methodist pastors and theological students called Catalyst. Chris had recently reread the book and wondered if I would write an online article reflecting on the analysis from nearly thirty years ago, exploring its significance for our contemporary situation of tribalism and toxic polarization. He suggested the title “Our Postmodern Moment.”

Chris originally asked me in 2021, but I was too busy with other writing projects and deferred the article until Spring 2023. I say “article,” but it turned out that I needed to write three articles! Or, more accurately, a three-part article.

I retained Chris’s suggestion of “Our Postmodern Moment” as the overall title and gave the three parts descriptive subtitles. PDFs of each part may be downloaded below (the original links to Catalyst are no longer active).

1. Our Postmodern Moment, Part 1: Diagnosing the Problem

Part 1 revisits the analysis of the postmodern condition that Brian Walsh and I proposed, while fleshing it out in line with how I have been teaching these matters over the years (as part of graduate and undergraduate courses on a Christian worldview).

2. Our Postmodern Moment, Part 2: The Biblical Metanarrative

Part 2 explores some of the resources of Scripture for our current context in terms of how God relates to human subjectivity, agency, and disorientation (drawing on cues I have noticed in the biblical narrative through from my research and teaching over the years).

3. Our Postmodern Moment, Part 3: Christian Discipleship in a Polarized World

Part 3 was the most difficult to write, since I wanted to give practical guidance on how to live out the Christian faith in a toxic culture, which has often infiltrated the church. It is especially addressed to pastors and other church leaders.

Three Umpires

In Part 1 of the article I retell the story (quoted in Truth Is Stranger than It Used to Be) about three umpires explaining how they judge baseball games.

Three umpires were having a beer after a baseball game. One said: “There’s balls and there’s strikes and I call ’em the way they are.” The next umpire replied: “There’s balls and there’s strikes and I call ’em the way I see ’em.” The third umpire said: “There’s balls and there’s strikes and they ain’t nothin’ until I call ’em.”

This story, originally meant to be a joke, quite seriously illustrates different approaches to “truth” in our world today; it is particularly relevant to our so-called “post-truth” culture.

Parts 2 and 3 of the article return to this story to clarify the paradox of how Christians can legitimately claim a normative position (the truth is out there), while recognizing our ineradicably subjectivity (we only approach the truth through our perspectives). This paradox has implications both for how we read the Bible and for we relate to our neighbors with whom we may disagree radically.

I would be very interested in hearing responses from readers.

Speaking on a Christian Worldview in South Korea

I’m excited by my first trip to South Korea.

Last year I was invited to give two plenary lectures on a Christian worldview at a conference at Handong Global University, in Pohang, South Korea. The time has now come for the conference and I am finally in Korea.

The conference is called, “Christian Scholars: Forming Identity, Building Community.” It is sponsored by the International Network for Christian Higher Education (INCHE) and is for Christian academics throughout Asia and Oceania. I’ve been told that scholars and teachers from twelve different countries will be attending.

Why was I invited to give these talks? That’s something I asked when I received the invitation.

It seems that lots of Koreans have read my work, and not just my first book on a Christian worldview, which I wrote with Brian Walsh (The Transforming Vision). The Korean translation of that book sold as least as many copies as (if not more than) the original English edition!

It turns out that all of my books have been translated into Korean (The Transforming Vision is also in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Indonesian). Given my career as a biblical scholar since The Transforming Vision, it seems that the conference organizers wanted to hear how I would articulate a Christian worldview today in our contemporary global context.

My two lectures will introduce participants to serious biblical theology, focusing on humanity as the image of God and the movement of the biblical story towards the eschaton. I will attempt to draw implications from this deep dive into Scripture for Christians in academia (connecting to the twin conference themes of identity and community).

My lectures are entitled “The Vocation of the Christian Scholar: Called to Image God” and “Teaching towards a Vision: A New Heaven and a New Earth” (you can read a summary of the lectures here).

The conference runs for three days; my lectures are on days 1 and 2 (you can see the conference schedule here).

There are also thirteen breakout sessions planned, with three presentations in each (thirty-nine presentations in all). You can see the range of topics here.

I am both honored to be at this conference and somewhat intimidated by my assignment. But I am trusting in the grace of God and in my wonderful Korean hosts.

A selfie with Shin Gyun Kim, my Korean host who picked me up from the airport in Seoul.

I’m very much looking forward to fruitful engagement with fellow Christians in academia from different cultures and diverse fields of study.