This message was delivered at the Presbytery Conference of the Presbyterian Reformed Church on June 16, 2022. The audio is available here. Special thanks to Susan Abel for her selfless efforts in transcription!
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Isaiah 35:7-10, “And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Revelation 21:1-3, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. Amen, this is the Word of the living God.”
Last month I had the personal privilege of going back to my old stomping grounds—at least, one of them— as a boy. I had not been to Homestead, Florida, just south of Miami, since I was about fourteen years old, not long after my father went to glory. It was a place, notwithstanding the bitterness of the memories of the loss of my father, [that] was overall a time of great delight: many good memories, especially on this particular street. And I am sure my children can tell you, that I would mention the many late nights when we would play a pick-up game of baseball, and take some charcoal and make some bases, and have an awful lot of fun. Well, as we drove up and came into the neighborhood, memories started flooding back—a lot of good memories. And finally I came with my wife to this home, and there it was, largely as I remembered it, although it had a new coat of paint. And much was the same, and much was so very sweet and so very special. I even got to meet the next-door neighbor whom I did remember as a boy (and I got to have a selfie with them!). So it was quite special.
There is something about “coming home” that resonates with us. And I would perhaps enter into this talk this evening, which I was asked to do—I cannot deny that it was a topic of interest to me—and so when I was asked to speak on it, I readily complied. And so, as a kind of theme, as we enter the question of the last things—which incidentally, young people, eschatology is just simply a word that means “the study of the last things.” And “earthy eschatology,” I am going to suggest, involves this claim: It is my claim, and I would submit it to your prayerful consideration—and do be Bereans and decide for yourself whether this agrees with Scripture or not— but this is my claim about what we might thematically call, a “coming home,” the future of glorified believers upon the return of Christ. Now, we are not speaking about immediately after death. We are talking now about the second coming of Christ after the Resurrection, the Final Judgment. The future of glorified believers upon the return of Christ will involve an embodied resurrected existence on this very earth purged and reborn by fire. Now, before we get into the weeds, and I am going to try to make this lecture as much of a sermon as possible; but there are going to be some quotes, so please bear with me, as I look down upon my screen before me.
Some qualifications: first, I am not claiming to have performed an exhaustive study. This talk is to me is a kind of a working paper, something I have thought an awful lot about over the years; but really this is a dissertation topic in itself, and so that I do not want to suggest that this is a fully matured academic paper complete with footnotes. Second, the particular ministers and theologians I quote tonight might not be in total agreement with me, or even among themselves on every single point. Third, this is a position, not necessarily the historic Reformed position, and it is not necessarily the position of the presbytery of the PRC; but from my studies, it certainly seems clear that many of the forebears that we honor held to a kind of earthy eschatology, and I just happen to agree with them rather strongly. So, let’s set forth the case.
First, some support for the position: The first line of support is that various texts of Scripture seem to demonstrate this on the very surface of the words themselves. We sang from Psalm 37, [which] here in the King James [is rendered], “For evil doers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” And, no doubt, many of you know that our Lord took some of those words and incorporated them into a beatitude.
Revelation 5, verses 9 and 10, the triumphant church sang a new song, saying, “Thou art worthy to take the book, [they speak to the Lamb of God], and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.” And then, of course, among other texts, 2 Peter 3:13, quoting, referencing, the prophecy of Isaiah, chapter 65 and verse 17, Peter writes, that though the earth shall be consumed and the very “elements shall melt with fervent heat, Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
Next, in terms of support for this position of earthy eschatology, that is, that we shall with resurrected bodies live in a reborn earth: Matter is good. The Bible teaches us in the very beginning [that] God made everything, including the material world, and he made it very good. Repeatedly the Lord says, “Behold, it is very good,” and it is satisfying to him. And so, even after the Fall, the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. All of it declares his glory and his goodness. Simply because sin has entered and the creation has been marred, does not mean that it is no longer inherently good. Various theologians have also said in this connection that ‘grace perfects nature,’ it does not obliterate it. And so Thomas Chalmers . . . spoke about the future state in glory after the Resurrection in the following terms: He says,
The common imagination that we have of paradise on the other side of death, is, that of a lofty aërial region, where the [inhabitants] float in ether, or are mysteriously suspended upon nothing . . . where every vestige of the material is done away and nothing left but certain unearthly scenes that have no power of allurement and certain unearthly ecstasies with which it is felt impossible to sympathize. No, my brethren, [he counters], the object of the administration, that is the gospel, is to extirpate sin, but it is not to sweep away the material.
Another way I like to put this, is that “Matter matters! and it matters to God.”
Next, the redemptive plan of God as we know, and as we confess, involves the human body. We confess the resurrection of the dead. It is only a partial anwser to say with respect to the future hope of believers, that when we die, we will go to heaven and be with Jesus. That is part of the answer; but the Shorter Catechism Question 37 is followed by Shorter Catechism Question 38. And the human body was designed by God for an earthly, terrestrial existence, everything about our bodies, not to mention the fact that we are of the earth.
In terms of support, we might also consider the biblical truth, with respect to future things. (Again, young people, ‘eschatology’ is the study of future things.) We believe that the end of all things agrees in some deep and meaningful way with the beginning. The end of all things in some [way]—[though] we are not claiming to know all the ins and outs and all of the details—but it agrees with the beginning. We come to the end of Revelation, and we are encountering chapters saturated with themes from Genesis. Patrick Fairbairn, Free Church theologian, writes: “…the original work continues to occupy the position of the proper ideal: all things return, in a manner, [from where] they came; and a new heavens and a new earth, with paradise restored and perennial springs of life and blessing, appear in [view] of the glorious completion to which the whole scheme is gradually tending.” In this connection, heaven will be a kind of Eden again! A paradise again! A heaven again! Where God walks with man in the cool of the day again! “To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.”
Further, we claim, and we would suggest that not only does the end of all things agree with the beginning, but it returns only to a greater and more exalted state. I think that fits with our Covenant Theology, our understanding of the Covenant of Works: that had Adam passed the probationary period, he would have been exalted to a higher stage of life with God. And so we notice some of the same themes from Genesis in Revelation openly elevated and exalted. Revelation 22:1-2: “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
And then, I would suggest that there are some arguments that are drawn from the support of analogies: that the future state in glory, after the second return of Christ, will be a fully embodied resurrected existence in a very literal (in some sense) new earth. That this may be supported by the analogy of the flood in Genesis, when the earth was purged, not annihilated. It was purged by water then, and it shall be not annhilated, but purged by fire. And as it was then, so it shall be at the end, that a new humanity will repopulate a new purifed earth. I think this is a natural way to understand the language of the apostle Peter, “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens [on the one hand] 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” or as he also says, “dissolved… Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth,” Thomas Boston believed in this when he said, “…the heavens and the earth shall be changed, which is quite another thing than to be annihilated.” Or Thomas Manton, who wrote: “That which shall be restored [in glory] is the fabric of heaven and earth; not the highest heavens; they need no purifying fire, no unclean thing entering there; but the lower heavens and this earth…” he proceeds to say, “…heaven, sun, moon, and stars, which had a being in creation, and undergo the purging fire at the dissolution, shall be restored as gold that hath been melted and refined in the fire.”
And then, there is the argument that is drawn principally from Romans, and that argument is that creation is said, by the apostle Paul, to share both in the sufferings and the glory of the children of God. Romans 8: 19ff: “For the earnest expectation of the creature [or creation] waiteth [there is a personification here] for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, [Now listen closely!] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Thomas Boston has three sermons in which he treats this, [which was entitled] “Creation’s Groans Considered and Improved,” and the final sermon, “The Travail and the Glory of Creation,” and he spends some time in bringing us to consider the suffering of creation, because of us! That there is a groaning and an agony that they experience, and there is a resonance, isn’t there? We are home, and yet home is a place of pain, home is a place of sin; we are at home and yet we are restless. This is not home . . . and yet it is!
Boston writes, speaking of the creation, singing a kind of a dirge:
How long they have sung to the melancholy tune: ‘Until now.’ They began at Adam’s fall, and have groaned ever since, and have travailed on to the apostles’ days, but they had not done with it then. Nay, they have groaned and travailed till now in our days, long five thousand seven hundred years, and yet their burden is not off their backs, nor have they yet got their sorrows cast out. And how long it may be to their delivery, we know not. But one thing we know, it will never be till the world end by the general conflagration, when the new heavens and the new earth may rise, like the phoenix, out of their own ashes.
I am no longer a Pentecostal, [but] I want to jump up and say, “Hallelujah!”
Witsius, commenting on this passage, says, referring to a new heavens and a new earth: “…What more illustrious, than to see this vast universe, delivered from the bondage of corruption, and brought into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, which this created world, with earnest expectation, waited for?” So, there is this analogy of the flood; there is this teaching of the apostle Paul concerning the fellow suffering of creation, and the fellow glory that we shall have; indeed, they shall share in our glory in Christ, when the sons of God are manifested.
There is also the argument from the analogy of our father Abraham, in the land of Canaan. He sojourned in the land that was promised to him, but he had not as yet inherited it. So, we sojourn in a land that is ours, and yet, we do not yet enter into its full possession. Perhaps this is the way that we could most helpfully and properly understand the words of the apostle in Hebrews 11: “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Fairbairn, once again: “Believers have not only to wait long for the redemption of the purchased possession, but while they wait, must walk up and down as pilgrims, in the very region that they are hereafter to use as their own, when it shall have been delivered from the bondage of evil, and purged from their abominations.”
Last, in terms of arguments that I believe support for this claim—which, again is not necessarily the unequivocal consensus, but clearly is represented by many godly forebears. The Lord Jesus is the Heir, of all things, and that means in some sense, in some real sense, all things. “[God] hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.” Again, Thomas Manton: “Does not God complete the first grant of dominion to man over the creatures in Christ? This grant must sometime or other take place. Psalm 8, verse 9: ‘Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thine hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.’ It is not done here, therefore, in the world to come, as the apostle speaketh, for unto the angels, he hath put in subjection the world to come.”
Thus far, some arguments for the support of this claim of what I am calling, “Earthy Eschatology.”
Now, second, consider with me some clarifications; perhaps we might also anticipate some objections: This position should not confused with debatable or doubtful speculation on specifics. You know, I find oftentimes, maybe you do as well, that when someone finds out that you believe in a church establishment, immediately their mind goes to Christian kings subjugating the heathen and forcing conversions. Well, let us not go too far here! We want to be careful to indicate that the general claim does not wed us to any particular specifics, answers to specific questions such as: “Will there be particular animals, perhaps my cat?” I mean, these are questions that our children ask, and I am not even sure that I want to give a very definitive answer on the question. Or, for example: Will there be eating and drinking?” or even more to the point, “What will it even look like?” “Will there even be a digestive system, as we know it?” Perhaps 1 Corinthians 6:13 gives us something of an answer to that particular question: “Meat for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them…” We do know that the resurrected state will not involve marital union, and its intimacy, but there will be a change, and yet, it will be the same. We do not know specifics, and I think we should be careful in going out on a limb in terms of particulars.
Related to this, I think we should clarify, and indicate very clearly, that this position does not depend on a wooden literalism. There are some who would perhaps even take this position and sympathize with it outside of the Reformed world, and they do so because they approach prophecy in a very wooden, literalistic way. “Well, it says there is going to be a temple, so there has got to be a temple!” But we need to seek to understand the sense of Scripture, and be careful not to fall into any kind of trap like that.
Nor does this position necessarily commit us to any particular view of the millennium within confessional boundaries. I think we can all agree we would dismiss premillennialism as a confessionally Reformed option, and I would quickly admit that some versions of postmillennialism that may well be represented here, see the new heavens and the new earth as largely or finally fulfilled in the latter day glory of the Christian age. But even then, I do not necessarily think that that excludes the contention that we are setting forth this evening, because, indeed, the Lord can pour out his Spirit in a powerful way, and transform societies, and even have a profound impact on the earth, before the great climax happens.
Nor does this position necessarily contradict our hope in heaven above as our hidden life now and as our future hope. “Set your mind [affections] on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” We must affirm that! I think at the same time we need to understand, or remember, that spatial language for the abode of God and the angels is not to be taken in a very strict, literal way. Yes, we can say, and must say, that God is in heaven; but that is not to say that God is only up there! Does it not also say that the better country that we are to hope for is a heavenly country? Does not this position in some way erode something of the heavenly desires, and the aspirations, and the hopes of God’s people? I would say, Not at all. The very language of heavenly country, which we find in Hebrews 11:16: “But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly”; the word in the Greek there is πατριδα, [v. 14] or we would translate that, “Fatherland.” It is a “heavenly” Fatherland. And perhaps we can draw an analogy from the resurrected body in order to demonstrate that, on the one hand, our hope is in heaven, and at the same time, it is a new earth, as well, when we consider in 1 Corinthians 15:44, that the Christian body is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. So which is it? Is it the same body? When Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, did he rise with the self-same body? Yes, he did; and yet, he was entering into his glory! And so the Christian, when we lay [him] to rest in the grave, that self-same body will rise, but something will happen to transfrom and change it, so that it is the same but far better. And perhaps that is the explanation for the earth itself. It is Eden again, Paradise again, only infinitely better; it is the heavenly country.
Nor does this mean that the glorified state will somehow now be carnal, that it is all outward, that it is all physical and material. I mean, we all desire to be spiritually minded, don’t we? And doesn’t the future hope involve the spiritual disclosure of God in Christ to the soul? Does it not involve what is often called the beatific vision? “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” Well, yes to all of those questions! We do not want to deny that for a moment. And if God in Christ were taken away from this glorious promise of the new heavens and the new earth, it would be a very hell to us, would it not? Christ is the Centerpiece of heaven. If you have never read of John Owen’s The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, you must. And when you get to that final chapter, it feels as though you are almost entering into heaven itself! [For there] he is setting before the Christian, that Christ is the Center of heaven. And so whatever Rutherford’s particular views on this question, I think we can all agree with him when he wrote, poetically:
The King there in His beauty,
Without a veil is seen:
It were a well-spent journey
Though seven deaths lay between:
The Lamb with His fair army,
Doth on Mount Zion stand;
And glory—glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.
And last, in terms of clarification, I do not think that this position necessitates some shift in the church’s spiritual calling to preach the gospel. I do not think this position necessitates that we revert from spiritual things into carnal policies. We are not called to a kind of transformational culture building. Our hope is not in this world, as it is. This present evil world it is fading away. Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world… else would my servants fight.” Abraham Kuyper was a giant, and he did endorse this view, but [some] of what is called “Neo-Calvinism” veers dangerously close to a this-worldly Judaism, if it does not go completely over the edge. It is true, we must be careful not to place our hope in this world and lay up for ourselves treasures in this world, in this life, where moth and rust corrupt, where thieves break through and steal. But that does not mean that the very, as Manton put it, that the very fabric of this world is destined for oblivion.
The third point that I would like us to consider tonight, is what I am calling ‘further advantages’ to this position: Maybe [they are] not on the first tier of arguments, but on the second, I think this position sits better with our natural sense, that our bodies were made for this world, and this world for our bodies. This is home, and we feel it in our bones. In fact, our bones are from the dust! “From dust thou art…”
I think it also fits well, this position of earthy eschatology, I think it fits well with the biblical notion of salvation as restoration. That is a theme that we have recurring through the Old Testament into the New, when Peter says, Acts 3:21 that: “…the heavens must receive [Christ] until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” It is the Great Return. Right now, we are mocked, and they say unto to us, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion,” but we are not home – we are far away from home! And we hang our hearts on the willows, “How can we sing the Lord’s song [in a foreign land]?” But we are going to return one day! Jonathan Edwards said, “God’s design was perfectly to restore all the ruins of the fall…[At the Fall] all heaven and earth were overthrown. But the design of God was, to restore all, and as it were to create a new heaven and a new earth.” It is restoration!
Related, I think, to this position, is the advantage of [how it fits] with the biblical theme of . . . salvation as regeneration or rebirth. Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 19:28: “And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Now, when we speak of regeneration, usually we are speaking in terms of the soul of the sinner being reborn. “You must be born again.” Here, however, he is speaking of the final, the last and the great, regeneration, the great rebirth, when everything is made new and restored. Once again Patrick Fairbairn:
…The internal renovation [of the Christian] is but the beginning of a process, which is to extend far and wide – to spread with a regenerating power through all the relations and departments of social life – to [cleanse] and transfigure the corporeal [or physical] frame itself into the fit habitation of an immortal spirit – yea, and embrace the whole domain of external nature, which it will invest with the imperishable glory of a new creation…
Fairbairn is one of those writers, when I come across something I already believe, but I have never seen it in print: “He said what I think! Only he said it much, much better!”
Last, I think that this position fits well with theodicy. That is another theological term that I am going have to define: Theodicy is the vindication, or justification of God. When man questions God, God must be vindicated. Well, when our great adversary, and indeed the great enemy of God and man, entered the garden, he did not ultimately throw a monkey wrench into the plans of God. At the end of the day, there will be nothing, nothing, of any victory that Satan can boast of, because although God in his infinite sovereignty does not choose each and every soul of Adam’s family to redeem, nevertheless, he redeems a remnant, and that remnant counts – that remnant counts! That this is the world, this is the world, of every tribe, and tongue and kindred and nation! Satan does not get the last laugh, and he does not get the last laugh in the ultimate loss of the earth because “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof…”
Now, I close with just a few practical benefits to the average Christian. Is this just academic? Well, I do not think so. First of all, it helps your hope. It helps your hope. If I am right, and if these godly men, not all of them, but the ones that I have mentioned, if we happen to be right, and we have not failed ‘to carry the three’ and do the proper homework, it answers the pain and fear of loss and fills for us a picture of home. That sense of being lost, I think, is even more gloriously answered. That we will not ultimately be evicted from our home, [but] the wicked will be evicted. “We will look for their place and we shall not find them.” They are squatters on the inheritance of Christ and his people. But “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
I think it also sweetens the soul; at least it does for me. When I think about this glorious creation, that just bathes all my senses with the power and the wisdom and the goodness of God, and to realize although it shall pass through the very fiery furnace of the great cataclysm, and as my body will pass through death, and will be dissolved and eaten with worms, yet, yet it shall be reborn, and I shall see it once again! And I shall walk through it once again, and I will come home, because this is home! It was always meant to be. That sweetens my soul as I think of the goodness of God, that he wil not deprive me, although he will take certain things, and I do not have all the answers. I certainly do not understand how the absence of the marital state will be a good thing, but I trust God that it is. I trust him that it is. And that in the void of that there will be a hundred thousand other things that will make it not in any sense a loss, but in some real and meaningful way, God is not going to take from me that which he meant for me.
I think this also is of practical benefit, that it arms you with answers. I think it helps your hope, sweetens the soul, and arms you with answers. I think it can give us another tool in our evangelism toolbelt, because we can say, Although the first need that you have, my sinful friend, is the need of your soul’s salvation, your body is not far behind. And Christ died for sinners, both soul and body, and that Christ also answers your sense of alienation, your sense of displacement, your sense that you are home, and yet you are not at all at home, and that your home is actually a very hostile place. You know, sometimes the body with all of its natural properties for healing, can actually turn on itself in some cases, and actually begin to fight against itself, and I think that is what we experience when in nature we have these insects that carry diseases and we have others that are outright hostile to us. But here, although it may not be the first promise, it is a promise of the gospel. You will not cast into hell, and displaced forever from this world that God had made you for, but you will live in a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness, and you will see the face of God.
Last, I would suggest in terms of practical benefit that it can make your praise more precious. The songs of Zion are songs of sojourn. “I am a pilgrim and a sojourner as all my fathers were.” And yet, we have a hope, a hope that very interestingly is textured with that which is of the earth. Again, I am not pushing for some kind of wooden literalism in each and every sense, but comparing scripture with scripture, I think we can turn to a certain psalm, perhaps we do see there the promise of the latter day glory, of the ultimate success of the gospel, the gathering in of the nations, and the resultant blessing, even the social and political blessings of the world. But perhaps, can not these very words be sung with an understanding of our homecoming?
Now blessed be the Lord our God,
the God of Israel,
For he alone doth wondrous works,
in glory that excel.
And blessed be his glorious name
to all eternity:
the whole earth let his glory fill.
Amen, so let it be. (Psa. 72:18-19, SMV)
Let us pray: “O God, we know that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of the sons of man the things that thou hast prepared for those who love thee. We now see through a glass darkly, but then face-to-face. Lord, help us to understand what is revealed in Scripture to the best of our ability and to leave the rest in thy infinitely wise hands. And fill us with hope, and give us that hope, for we know that Christ has purchased it for us. We ask now these things through his most precious name, the Heir of all things, Jesus Christ, Amen!”
West Port Experiment 
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