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TextsTexts• Isa. 65:17a (NIV):–“Behold, I will create new heavens

and a new earth…”

• Isa. 66:2 (NIV):–“’As the new heavens and the new

earth that I make will endure before me,’ declares the LORD, ‘so will your name and descendants endure.’”

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• II Pet. 3:13 (NIV):–“But in keeping with His promise

we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”

• Rev. 21:1 (NIV):–“Then I saw a new heaven and a

new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.”

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IntroductionIntroduction

• God created the entire physical universe for His glory.–However, humanity rebelled, in

Adam, and the universe fell under the weight of our sin.

–Yet Satan’s seduction of Adam and Eve did not catch God by surprise – nothing ever does.

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• God already had in place a plan by which He would redeem mankind, and all of creation, from sin, corruption, and death.–Just as He promised to make

men and women new, God also promised to renew the Earth itself, as our texts demonstrate to us.

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• Many other passages of Scripture allude to the new heavens and New Earth without using those explicit terms.–God’s redemptive plan

climaxes not at the return of Christ at the Second Advent, nor in the millennial kingdom, but on the New Earth.

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• Only then will all wrongs be made right.–Only then will there be no more

death, crying or pain forever (Rev. 21:1-4).

• Think about this: If God’s plan was only to take saved mankind to the intermediate Heaven, there would be no need for a new heavens and a New Earth.

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• Why refashion the stars in the heavens and the continents of the Earth?–God could just destroy completely

His original creation and put it all behind Him.

–But He will not do that.• When He created the heavens

and Earth, He called them “very good.”

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• Not once has God ever renounced His claim on what He made.–He isn’t going to abandon His

creation, He is going to renovate and restore it.

• We won’t go to an eternal Heaven and leave earth behind.–Rather, God will bring Heaven

and Earth together.

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• The eternal Heaven and New Earth will be in the same dimension, with no wall of separation.–There will be no armed angels to

guard Heaven’s perfection from sinful mankind (cf. Gen. 3:24).

• God’s perfect redemptive plan is expressed in Eph. 1:10b (NIV):

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–“. . . to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

• God will not surrender one square inch of His possessions to the enemy.–Jesus died so that mankind,

Earth, and the universe itself would be renewed to forever proclaim His Glory.

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God’s Plan to Renew the Earth

God’s Plan to Renew the Earth

• God has never given up on His original creation.–He plans to renew it.

• Yet, somehow, we have managed to ignore an entire biblical vocabulary that establishes this point.

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• Think about it: Reconcile, Redeem, Restore, Recover, Return, Renew, Regeneration, Resurrection, Revival. . .–All of these biblical words begins

with the prefix “re” – suggesting a return to an original condition that was ruined or lost.

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• Many of these words are translations of Greek which have an “ana” prefix, which has the same meaning as the English “re”.–For example, re-demption means

to buy back what was formerly owned.

–Re-conciliation means the restoration or reestablishment of a prior friendship or relationship.

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–Re-newal means to make new again, restoring to an original or better state.

–Re-surrection means to become physically alive again after dying, and so forth.

• These words emphasize the fact that God always sees us in the light of what He intended us to be.

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• He always seeks to restore us to His original design or intention.–Likewise, He sees the Earth in

terms of what He intended it to be, and He seeks to restore it to its original perfect design.

–God refuses to abandon His original creation.

–He will salvage it.

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• He refuses to abandon the work of His hands.–In fact, He gave His only begotten

Son to save His original creation, mankind.

• Humanity, which completely botched its original mandate and the creation along with it, is given another chance in Christ.

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• The original creation is to be renewed, resulting in a new heavens and a New Earth, and redeemed mankind will be reinstated as ‘managers’ on the New Earth.–God’s original perfect creation is

to be restored.• If God had wanted to consign us

to Hell and start over, He could have.

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• He could have made a new Adam and Eve and sent the originals to Hell, but He didn’t. –He chose instead to redeem what

He started with – the heavens, Earth, and mankind.

–He chose to restore them to their original purpose.

• God loves to restore things to their original or a better condition.

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• Re-claim is another “re” word.–It recognizes that God had a prior

claim on humanity that was temporarily lost but is fully restored and taken to a new level in Christ.

• Psa. 24:1 declares:–“The earth is the LORD's, and the

fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”

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• God owns absolutely everything, and He is not about to give up His ownership rights.–He will not relinquish anything to

His enemies.

• We cannot properly understand the ministry of Jesus without a larger view of redemption’s sweeping salvage plan.

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• All of Jesus’ miracles (with the exception of the cursing of the fig tree) are miracles of restoration.–Restoration of health, life,

freedom from demonic possession, etc.

–Jesus’ miracles provide us with a sample of the meaning of redemption: a freeing of creation from sin and evil.

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• Redemption is also a reinstatement of life as it was originally intended of God.–God placed mankind on Earth to

populate it, rule it, and develop it to His glory.

• That plan was interrupted by Adam’s sin, but God’s plan was not ill-conceived nor abandoned.

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• God determined from before the foundation of the world that He would redeem mankind and restore the Earth, in order to fulfill His original plan.–God is not going to destroy the

Earth and be done with it.

–Instead, He is going to bring new life and vitality to what was there all along.

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The New Earth Is The Old Earth Restored

The New Earth Is The Old Earth Restored

• Peter preached that Jesus “…must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as He promised long ago through His holy prophets” (Acts 3:21, NIV)

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• We are told that a time is coming when

• God will restore everything.–This is all-inconclusive promise.–It encompasses far more than

God merely restoring some disembodied people to fellowship in a spirit realm.

–(Because living in a spirit realm is not what humans were made for).

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• It is God’s restoring of mankind to what we once were, what He designed us to be.–He designed mankind to be fully

embodied, righteous beings.• God will restore the entire

physical universe to what it once was, or better.

• Where will the restoration Peter preached about be realized?

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• The answer, he says, is found in the promises given “long ago through [God’s] holy prophets.”–When we read the prophets it

becomes clear that God will restore everything on the Earth.

–The prophets did not address some far off realm of disembodied spirits, but people on this Earth.

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• The prophets were concerned with the land, the inheritance, the City of Jerusalem, and the Earth they were familiar with.–Messiah will come from Heaven

to Earth – not to take us away to an eternal Heaven, but to restore Earth to what He intended so He can live with His people on a New Earth forever.

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• Will the Earth we know come to an end? YES.–Will it come to a final end? NO.

• Rev. 21:1 says that this present Earth will pass away.–But when people pass away, they

do not cease to exist.

–As we will be raised to be new people, so the Earth will be New.

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• Peter did not invent the idea of all things being restored.–He learned it from the prophets

and he heard it directly from Jesus.

• Peter, hoping for commendation or reward, pointed out to Jesus that the disciples had left everything to follow Him.

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• Jesus didn’t rebuke Peter; instead He said:–“At the renewal of all things, when

the Son of Man sits on His glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt.19:27-28).

• Note Jesus’ choice of words:

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• Jesus did not say, “after the destruction of all things,” or “after the abandonment of all things,” but “at the renewal of all things.”–This is not a small semantic point.

–It draws a line in the sand between two fundamentally different theologies.

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• Mankind was designed to live on the Earth to God’s glory.–That is exactly what Jesus’

incarnation, death, and resurrection secured – a renewed humanity on a renewed Earth.

• Jesus explicitly said in Matt. 19:28, “all things” would be renewed.

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• The word paligenesia, was translated “renewal” in Matt. 19:28, and comes from two words which together mean “new genesis” or “a coming back from death to life”.–When Jesus said that “all things”

would be renewed, the disciples understood Him to mean all things that were part of the only lives they knew, here on Earth.

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• Except for those parts of our earthly lives that are inherently sinful or are fulfilled by a greater reality, “all things” appears to be comprehensive.–Whatever things sin has touched

and polluted, God will redeem and cleanse.

• Earth was made for people to live on.

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• Likewise, people were made to live on Earth.–According to the prophets, the

apostle Peter, and Jesus Himself, our destiny is to live forever on a restored and renewed Earth.

• The eternal Heaven will literally be “Heaven on earth.”

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Redemption = ReturnRedemption = Return

• Redemption buys back God’s original design.–God’s original plan was that Adam

and Eve (and their descendants) would extend the blessings of Paradise to the entire world.

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• Salvation, therefore, restores man to His original calling and purpose. –It guarantees that man’s original

mandate – to exercise dominion, under God, over the entire Earth will be fulfilled in eternity.

–God did not give up on His original purpose due to the Fall.

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• His original plan was for man to populate and rule the earth (Gen. 1:28).

–If He had intended to abandon this plan, He would not have given the same command to Noah after the Flood in his day.

• Gen. 9:1 says:–“And God blessed Noah and his

sons, . . .

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–“. . . and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”

• Still, until sin and the Curse are permanently removed, people will be incapable of exercising proper stewardship over the Earth. –Our present purpose is

inseparable from God’s stated eternal purpose.

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• That purpose is, again, for the saved to rule the Earth forever, under Him, as His children and heirs.–We will glorify God and find joy in

doing what He has made us to do, serve Him as resurrected beings, and help to carry out His plan for a Christ-centered, resurrected culture in a resurrected universe.

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In ClosingIn Closing

• I Cor. 15:22-25 says,–“For as in Adam all die, even so in

Christ shall all be made alive. 23But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming. 24Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, . . .

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–“. . . even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet.”

• Jesus’ mission is both to redeem what was lost in the Fall, and to destroy all competitors to God’s dominion, authority, and power.

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• When everything is put under His feet, when God rules all, and mankind rules the Earth under God, at last all will be as God has always intended.–We will continue our studies in the

next PowerPoint lesson regarding God’s glory on His Earth, and a vision of the New Earth.

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