💡👑 Will the Earth Be Destroyed?

Posted on March 29, 2020 by

“…the earth…shall be burned up…all these things shall be dissolved…” (2 Pet. 3:10,11).

Paul uses that same word “dissolved” to describe the dissolution of our physical bodies when we die, saying, “if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God…eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). When our bodies die, they dissolve. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “then shall the dust return to the earth.”

Yet in speaking about the day of his resurrection (Job 19:25), Job wrote, “in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:26,27). That means that the physical bodies we have now are the same ones we’ll have for all eternity, even though the Bible says they are “dissolved” at death. Our bodies will be made new, but Job says they will be the same flesh.

We know that our experience as members of the Body of Christ will be the same as Job’s, for our apostle tells us that at the Rapture the Lord will “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). And in speaking of His glorious resurrection body, the Lord echoed Job’s words when He said, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I myself” (Luke 24:39). He told them to handle His hands and feet because His new body still bore the wounds His old flesh incurred (John 20:27).

Of course, the glory of our new resurrection bodies will greatly exceed the glory of the body we plant in the ground. It will exceed it in glory as much as a six foot stalk of corn exceeds the kernel of corn that farmers plant in the ground (1 Cor. 15:35-38). But it will still be the body that is dissolved in the ground, just as the corn stalk is still that same kernel of corn. That’s the point of Paul’s comparison.

So when Peter uses that same word to say that the world will be “dissolved,” I have to think that the same thing applies to the earth. It will be a new earth, a much more glorious earth, but it will still be the same earth.

Similarly, in Rev. 21:5, the Lord doesn’t say ‘I make all new things’…but ‘I make all things new.’ That’s a world of difference! source