Isaiah 65:17 “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth—so wonderful that no one will even think about the old ones anymore.”
This is one of those amazing prophecies that many Christians forget about. We tend to get hung up on the passage from 2 Peter 3:10-12 that states; “But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and everything in them will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be exposed to judgment.*Since everything around us is going to melt away, what holy, godly lives you should be living! You should look forward to that day and hurry it along—the day when God will set the heavens on fire and the elements will melt away in the flames.”
For the longest time I would forget or just ignore the simplest part of this passage, verse 13. “But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world where everyone is right with God.”
How could we miss that? Peter tells us that the prophecy from Isaiah 65:17 is still in the future. He also reveals that he, along with his audience were intently looking forward to this New Heaven and New Earth.
I have a passion for gardening. I love the ponds and streams in my garden. The sounds are tranquil. The smells are a clean & soothing. The flowers are majestic in a subtle way.
I am not a particularly good gardener. I am really just a dabbler in the dirt. But, one day God will reveal a New Heaven and a New Earth for his righteous ones, and I pray that the practice I am getting now will come to good and perfect use.

On this same theme Paul, in Romans 8:19-23 said about our fallen earth and our paradise lost, For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God’s curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children,* including the new bodies he has promised us.
Its funny that we think that this whole realm of God’s creation would be just written off. I say “we”, because I was never taught about the redemption of Creation. I have an assumption that most have not been taught about the prophecy of a “New Heaven and New Earth”. But, God’s nature is of life, beauty, harmony, peace, and perfection, He’s not one to just destroy.
I think that maybe we misunderstand the language of Peter in that passage above. Maybe Peter was talking about a purification fire. This is not uncommon in the bible. The smelting of metal to remove the impurities or “slag.” Could it be that the melting that Peter reveals is like that.
I hope so. And deep down I think so too.
Just as I must take up my cross daily to follow the Lord, and just as I am buried with Jesus in baptism and am raised up a new creature symbolically, I know that the true resurrection is to come. Paul tells us that the creation is waiting for that day eagerly. I suspect that the creation is not eagerly anticipating being destroyed by fire, but rather maybe it is looking to a day when all the bullets & shrapnel that are laying in the fields of Europe, Asia, Africa, & America will be purged from memory and only flowers will remain.
I hope!

DSM

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