(b) Is this earth to be the heaven of the saints?
We answer:
First,—that the earth is to be purified by fire, and perhaps prepared to be the abode of the saints,—although this last is not rendered certain by the Scriptures.
Rom. 8:19-23—“For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body”; 2 Pet. 3:12, 13—“looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”; Rev. 21:1—“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.”Dorner: “Without loss of substantiality, matter will have exchanged its darkness, hardness, heaviness, inertia, and impenetrableness, for clearness, radiance, elasticity, and transparency. A new stadium will begin—God's advance to new creations, with the coöperation of perfected mankind.”
Is the earth a molten mass, with a thin solid crust? Lord Kelvin says no,—it is more rigid and solid than steel. The interior may be intensely hot, yet pressure may render it solid to the very centre. The wrinkling of the surface may be due to contraction, or “solid flow,” like the wrinkling in the skin of a baked apple that has cooled. See article on The Interior of the Earth, by G. F. Becker, in N. American Rev., April, 1893. Edward S. Holden, Director of the Lick Observatory, in The Forum, Oct. 1893:211-220, tells us that “the star Nova Aurigæ, which doubtless resembled our sun, within two days increased in brilliancy sixteen fold. Three months after its discovery it had become invisible. After four months again it reappeared and was comparatively bright. But it was no longer a star but a nebula. In other words it had developed changes of light and heat which, if repeated in the case of our own sun, would mean a quick end of the human race, and the utter annihilation of every vestige of animal and other life upon this earth.... This catastrophe occured in December, 1891, or was announced to us by light which reached us then. But this light must have left the star twenty, perhaps fifty, years earlier.”
Secondly,—that this fitting-up of the earth for man's abode, even if it were declared in Scripture, would not render it certain that the saints are to be confined to these narrow limits (John 14:2). It seems rather to be intimated that the effect of Christ's work will be to bring the redeemed into union and intercourse with other orders of intelligence, from communion with whom they are now shut out by sin (Eph. 1:20; Col. 1:20).
John 14:2—“In my Father's house are many mansions”; Eph. 1:10—“unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth”; Col. 1:20—“through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him, I say, whether things upon the earth, or things in the heavens.”
See Dr. A. C. Kendrick, in Bap. Quarterly, Jan. 1870. Dr. Kendrick thinks we need local associations. Earth may be our home, yet from this home we may set out on excursions through the universe, after a time returning again to our earthly abodes. So Chalmers, interpreting literally 2 Pet. 3. We certainly are in a prison here, and look out through the bars, as the Prisoner of Chillon looked over the lake to the green isle and the singing birds. Why are we shut out from intercourse with other worlds and other orders of intelligence? Apparently it is the effect of sin. We are in an abnormal state of durance and probation. Earth is out of harmony with God. The great harp of the universe has one of its strings out of tune, and that one discordant string makes a jar through the whole. All things in heaven and earth shall be reconciled when this one jarring string is keyed right and set in tune by the hand of love and mercy. See Leitch, God's Glory in the Heavens, 327-330.