The Conflagration of This World.
By S. S. Griswold
Do the Scriptures teach the destruction of this earth by fire? As the passage in 2 Pet. 3:3, is the main passage on which the world-burners rely, to support their theory of the final conflagration of this earth (and, in fact, it is the only passage which even apparently refers to such a fiery catastrophe), I propose to give it a candid examination. In order to thus consider it, I will give the whole passage, that we may have it before us. Verse 3: “There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, (4), and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. (5). For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water; (6); Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; (7); but the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (8). But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (9). The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (10). But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night: in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (11). Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, (12) looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? (13). Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (14). Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.” The first to be noticed is the time when the above-mentioned events are to take place. It is called the “last days.” The phrase, “last days,” refers to the days of the gospel. Heb. 1:2: “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” This refers to Christ’s time, the gospel. The phrase is so used by Peter, in Acts 2:17. The phrase, the “last time,” has a similar meaning. John says, “It is [now] the last time.” 1 John 2:18. Peter says, “Christ was manifest in these last times.” 1 Pet. 1:21. Hence, when he says that scoffers shall come in the last days, he must mean the gospel day. And as he and those to whom he wrote were “looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Lord,” expecting that coming and its attendant events, one of which was the burning of this world, to be near at hand (see verses 11, 12, 13, 14), it follows, of a certainty, that the time was then, as they were looking for it. This being the case, the whole of the figures, or word-painting there used, simply was describing an event just about to be. And the effort my reviewer has heretofore made, in order to overthrow my positions respecting the time of Christ’s coming, viz., that, while the apostles affirmed his coming as an event just about to take place then, they, the apostles, meant some time down in the future, some thousands of years, places those inspired men in no very enviable position respecting their truthfulness or their inspiration. The fact is, unless a spiritual coming of Christ, and its attendant events, such as the resurrection, the Judgment, the burning of the world, is understood, the apostles were guilty of either gross ignorance, or marked duplicity and deception. Nor is there any more evidence, either from reason or revelation, that the burning up of the world is now to take place, as the direct act of God, or as a punishment for wickedness now, than there was in the hundred and one world-burnings of the past. That Peter meant a moral, social, and religious renovation, or regeneration, and not a physical one, is plain; for in the new heaven and new earth righteousness was to dwell, and righteousness does not inhere in mud, clay, and stones. But aside from any spiritual interpretation, the passage most positively affirms the perpetuity of the earth in its present condition, rather than its destruction by fire. For instead of fire being an element of destruction, it is the element of the earth’s continuance or preservation. For as the earth was once destroyed by water, it is now to be preserved by fire, for the purpose of giving the wicked a day of judgment, or a time for Christ to administer judgment, or administer a divine government over them. In the language of another, verse 8 reads: “It does not occur to those who think thus (about the promise of his coming), “that the heavens were of long standing, and that the earth, by divinely established laws, was constructed from the water by the action of water; (6), so that the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. (7). But the present heavens and earth, by the same laws, are preserved as a treasure, kept by fire with reference to a day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. (8). Do not forget, brethren, this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (9). The Lord is not slack in the sense in which some use the term, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” The argument of the apostle is, that there are objections against understanding literally, the figurative language of the heavens passing away with a crash. The heavens were no temporary structure of recent origin. They were of long-standing (expalai), and at the time of the flood, and it were absurd to suppose they were now, as a part of human history, to come to an end. But, as used in verse 7, is adversative, and shows a change in the passage, that, as the old world was destroyed, the present condition was to be preserved—continued. This view of the passage, or the figurative, spiritual view, is the only view that will not seriously reflect on the apostle, either as to his ignorance, or inspiration. For it is plain that the event, whatever was to be its character, was one near at hand, so that those to whom he wrote were to hold themselves in readiness for it. The language is similar to that of the Old Testament, where events, connected with the Lord’s coming, were spoken of, in which the most sublime imagery is used. “If the end of the world,” says a distinguished writer, “is not taught in 2 Pet. 3, it is not taught in the Bible.” And surely I do not believe it is. For it would contradict other teachings, of the world’s continuing forever. The Scriptures invariably connect the coming of Christ with the end of the world; and I have shown that the Scriptures do not teach the personal return of Christ to this earth, and hence the Scriptures do not teach the end of the world by fire. The true eschatology, or the science of the last things of the Bible, seems to be this: The establishment and development of the Redeemer’s kingdom on the earth as preparatory to its more perfect development in the spiritual world. The translation by death of all mankind to the world of spirits, immediately at death, which is their anastasis, or future life, or what is denominated in our English Bible, the resurrection, and the perhaps endless continuance of this earth, in its present form, unless some geological catastrophe transpire. The future life immediately supervening on this, the resurrection is a continuous event. As fast as mankind die here, they live there, no great length of time intervening between the sleep of death and the awakening of an undying life. To this point converge the light of intuition, of universal belief and hope, the teachings of reason and of revelation. No unconscious state of the dead, no annihilation of existence, hang their dark pall over the yearnings of the human heart. But life, ever unfolding life, arches the bow of promise—a promise not made to the heart, only to be broken to the ear; for it is the same revelation to the ear and to the heart. It is the fulfillment of desire, of hope, of prophecy, that, “if the earthly house of this tabernacle [our earth body] be dissolved, we have an house [a body] not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”—no more ever to groan in our earth body, but to rejoice evermore in our spirit body. As the butterfly emerges from its earth-worm juvestiture, and soars aloft on ethereal wing, never again to return to its chrysalis state, so man, having emerged from his earth body, soars aloft into the wide fields of the spirit world, never again to return to rehabilit his former earthly body; but having emerged from his earth life, borne the image of an earthly condition, in the spirit life he is to bear the image of a spirit condition. If, in 2 Peter 3, the burning up of the world is taught, so also is the time when the conflagration was to take place. Now the whole chapter goes to show that whatever the event was that it was not far distant. The effort of my reviewer to evade the fact that the coming of Christ and the end of the world were events near at hand in the apostolic age, and that the apostles did so teach, is unworthy of a true exegesis of Scripture teaching. It charges the sacred writers with either prevarication, deception, or ignorance. If the last—if the apostles were ignorant as to when the time was (as Dr. Burgess supposes), might they not be equally ignorant as to the events themselves, and hence such events may never be? And it is most significant; the fact that persons have been looking for those events to take place in the natural world, and have been as sure that the time was then at hand, as they were sure of the events ever happening. Such persons have been startling the ignorant every now and then, that Christ would then be seen coming in the clouds, literally vaulting from the sky, upon some cloud of condensed vapor, that the world would be all in a blaze, and yet they have all proved false prophets. They have seen the signs of his coming in the most common occurrences in nature. But a few days since, a writer of that class declared that the storms in Minnesota and elsewhere, this present winter, were signs of the end of the world. I sincerely believe with the editor of the Sabbath Recorder that “the Review and Herald is doing an immense amount of mischief, in the persistent advocacy of its peculiar theories.” Although learning wisdom from past experience, the Adventists now profess not to set the time when those events will take place, yet, by continually affirming the time is near, they virtually do set the time. One may as well mention the day and hour, as to say it is near at hand. Therefore, while I bow not to the “dicta of heathen mythology in this matter,” but to the teachings of Scripture, I unhesitatingly affirm it as my most honest conviction that the whole system and theory of second Adventism cannot be maintained by Scripture, that its doctrines concerning the bodily return of Christ to this world, the sleep of the dead, the annihilation of the wicked, the resurrection of the body, and the conflagration of this earth, are nowhere taught in the Bible, but are based upon an erroneous interpretation of the sacred texts.