2 Peter, iii, 13 | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1867

2 Peter, iii, 13.

“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

THE testimony of the Bible on the new earth as the future and eternal abode of the saints, the New Jerusalem, as the Father’s house of many mansions, &c., is sufficiently plain and explicit; yet we rarely find a commentator who does not endeavor to give it an allegorical or mystical meaning. The following testimony from Dr. Kurtz (Sacred Hist. p. 434), being an honest acknowledgment of what the Scriptures plainly say upon the subject, is therefore all the more acceptable.

“The glory and blessedness of Eternal Life cannot be adequately described in human language, or be imagined by the human mind. The renovated earth will be endowed with unspeakable glory, and be made the abode of the blessed. ‘The New Jerusalem, the tabernacle of God with men, comes down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’ Rev. xxi, 2, 3. There the many mansions in the Father’s house, are found, which Christ went to prepare for us; John xiv, 2; there Christ, has established the throne of his presence, among his own people, whom he is not ashamed to call brethren, Heb. ii, 11, and who are the heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. Rom. viii, 17; John, chap. xvii. Faith is raised to vision; 1 Cor. xiii, 12; 2 Cor. v, 7; all that is ‘in part’ only in this life, in knowledge, in volition and in feeling, will be done away, but love, which will never be done away, 1 Cor. xiii, 8, &c., is exalted to a fullness which embraces all. ‘And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.’ Rev. xxi, 23. ‘No temple is therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.’ Verse 22. ‘A pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and in the midst of the street of it . . . is the tree of life.’ Rev. xxii, 1, 2; ii. 7; xxii, 19.”