Part 4 The Millennium New Heaven & New Earth
What role does hyperbole play?
Let us review more of chapter 21:
5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” -Revelation 21:5-8
v. 5 speaks to the Re-creation process “am making” (present tense).
v. 6 ties this to the beginning of the Millennium. Giving the spring water of life is pending.
v. 7 speaks of these things as a heritage (future “will” not “has”). Not as completed as would be the case after the White Throne judgment.
v. 8 also speaks future tense, pre-Great White Throne judgment (or rather leading up to).
Notice also this passage from Paul in Romans
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. -Romans 8:19-22
Notice creation is not dreading being consumed in nuclear fusion, but eagerly awaiting a renewal! I would contend that the oft-referenced 2 Peter 3 is hyperbolic. Here is Peter engaging in hyperbole as well:
6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. -1 Peter 1:6, 7
But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.
-Job 23:10
11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. -1 Peter 4:11-13
2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. -Mal. 3:2, 3
24 Therefore the Lord declares, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel: “Ah, I will get relief from my enemies and avenge myself on my foes. 25 I will turn my hand against you and will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy. 26 And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.” -Isaiah 1:24-26
As can be clearly seen, hyperbole is a style common in Hebrew writing. Fire is emblematic of a purification process. Just as in the former passages, we are now made “new creatures.” And in the sanctification process, we undergo painful purification and refining... all without being actually consumed in fire and smelted. Before we take a look at that famous passage in 2 Peter, let us look at another:
8 In the whole land, declares the Lord, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. 9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”
-Zech. 13:8-9
2 Peter 3
This is a lone passage and the go-to passage, ostensibly to plug in between the end of Revelation 20 and the beginning of chapter 21 in the straightforward chronological model. Let us examine it on its own and take a look at the context. What is Peter talking about in this passage? In 2 Peter 2, Peter has been discussing false prophets “who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” He talks about how God did not spare the angels who sinned but threw them into destruction and gloomy darkness, nor spared those in Noah's day and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. God will judge the wicked and Peter is expounding at great length the level of their destruction.
Then in the chapter in question, chapter 3, Peter begins to tell us about when. He tells us about “the day of the Lord.” He says that scoffers will come and mock saying, “Hey, we're alive this long. Where is the promise of His coming? What; me worry?” Peter reminds those, “the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. -2 Peter 3:10-13
There is a tendency to gravitate to the more colorful portions of fervent heat, dissolving and burning. But as other passages have revealed, even in Peter, hyperbole must be considered as a possibility. What I wish to do here is establish some context before we more thoroughly examine the potential for hyperbole. Do we have good cause to question a literal view here as contrasted with hyperbole? Hyperbole such as we read in Isaiah where it says:
The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again. -Isaiah 24:20
For if we take a very literal view of 2 Peter 3, how do we reconcile such a passage with others that speak of Israel dwelling where their fathers dwelt, forever?
Two phrases will give us our context and then we can move forward from there. The two phrases that fix our time here are “the day of the Lord” in verse 10 and “the day of God” in verse 12.
In keeping with synthesis we know that this passage must agree with all others. Either it does or we simply are misunderstanding the passages. We are forced to admit within context that there is some figurative speech involved. Look at this passage in Isaiah:
5 They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. 6 Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come! 7 Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt. -Isaiah 13:5-7
Will every human heart literally melt? Yes? Even believers? What is clear is poetic language to indicate a time when the Lord's patience is at an end and “destruction from the Almighty” will come. Most theologians agree this is not necessarily a single literal day; rather a fixed point in time.
Hyperbolic writing is part and parcel of what we sometimes find in Scripture. In some places it is more obvious than in others. According to the dictionary: A hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration used to make a point. It is like the opposite of “understatement.” It is from a Greek word meaning “excess.” Hyperboles can be found in literature and oral communication. According to Gary Amirault (2016):
“There are many things that can cause a person to misinterpret what is written in various translations of the Bible. Many Christians do not realize that some of the most popular Bible translations do not accurately convey the true meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek scriptures. I believe one of the leading causes of stumbling is not being aware that the original language of the Bible (Hebrew) is a highly exaggerative language, sometimes even to the point of what would appear to be lying from a Western point of view. Most Bible translations and Bible teachers do not point this out clearly enough.
“Bible translations that try to maintain a literal word-for-word approach are usually the most guilty for not transmitting the true meaning behind the original languages. That is because one cannot get the true meaning behind the hundreds of figures of speech in the Bible which cannot be transferred into English using a word-for-word approach and still convey the true meaning.”
Amirault then goes on to give similar examples to “I've told you a million times.” Or, “I have a ton of work to do.” The above Isaiah verse would be an example as well as Jesus saying “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matt. 23:24) He goes on to say:
“Hyperbole, one of over 200 different types of figures of speech found in the Bible, is exaggeration for effect. If these figures of speech are taken literally, one will misinterpret what the scriptures say. Word-for-word literal translations are FULL of phrases and sentences which have NOT been faithfully translated. Even though they may have translated each WORD faithfully and correctly, they have not conveyed the true meaning behind the phrase or sentence.”
Later Amirault states:
“A few other examples of the many hundreds of hyperboles in the Bible are: “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out…” Matt. 5:29 (I met a Christian who actually tried to pluck out his right eye because he had a lust problem. This is an example the kind of problem a Bible translation can cause if one is not informed of the various figures of speech found in the Bible.) “If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother…” Luke 14:26 (The true meaning is one must put God first.)
“Behold, the world is gone after him.” John 12:19 (The whole world at that time did NOT follow after him, but very large crowds in Israel did.) “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought to hell (Hades/Sheol).” Matt. 11:23 (The city of Capernaum was never in heaven or hell/hades/sheol. But the city was exalted and made prominent because the very Son of God chose that city to do mighty miracles in, but then it went into the dust. The trade routes which made it prosperous changed bypassing the city. It became depopulated, brought to ruins and covered with dirt. It wasn’t until this century that archaeologists unearthed it.) “The rock poured me out rivers of oil.” Job 29:6 (He had an abundance of good things.) “The cities are great, and walled up to heaven.” Deut. 1:28 (They were very high.) “Everyone could sling stones at a hair and not miss.” Judges 20:16 (They were very accurate.)”
Further examples we might add to those Amirault offers are everywhere in scriptures such as those in Isaiah and others:
8 They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame. 9 Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. 10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.
-Isaiah 13:8-10
This ought to remind us of Jesus' words on Olivet and of what we read in Revelation, not to mention Joel and elsewhere. Speaking of Joel:
2 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. 3 Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. -Joel 2:1-3
This also is similar to the words of Jesus with respect to the time of great tribulation spoken of while on Olivet. Again in Joel 3:13 he writes:
Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. -Joel 3:13
Clearly this is what is echoed in Revelation 19:15 as a picture of the wrath of Jesus Christ at the close of this time of great tribulation. Zephaniah 1:14, 15 also fixes the Day of the Lord:
14 The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. 15 A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, -Zephaniah 1:14, 15
Compare with what Paul says is still future in 1 Thessalonians 5:
2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape... -1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3
This then is the same time of great wrath Isaiah spoke of as well, like a woman whose labor pains come on suddenly. It is no great assumption that the Day of the Lord's wrath is what Jeremiah referred to as “the time of Jacob's [Israel's] trouble” and Jesus in his Olivet Discourse called the time of Great Tribulation. From Revelation 6 forward, we read of God's wrath poured out upon mankind in first the Seal Judgments, followed by the Trumpet Judgments and finally the Bowl Judgments.
In our Western way of thinking we tend to overlook the large role hyperbole plays in Scripture. The question is whether this singular 2 Peter passage is hyperbole. If not, we would hope that as thorough as Revelation is with respect to The Day of the Lord, we would see Peter's description played out. This reminds me of The Adventure of the Silver Blaze by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1892). Sherlock Holmes was investigating when he had this dialog with an investigating police detective:
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident."
In the case of John writing the narrative of Revelation 21 I find it curious that as spectacular and cataclysmic these colorful events Peter describe are, that John failed to mention, let alone describe them if it literally happens. How can he not? Yet John offers not even a hint of such an actual event.
In point of fact, the 2 Peter passage poignantly foreshadows the 6th of the Seal Judgments relatively early on in the tribulation period:
12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. -Revelation 6:12-14
Again, hyperbole gives us the lens through which to view this colorful and dreadful period in the future. Does the sky literally vanish and roll up? Context gives us the answer as mankind continues to live, and die, for several more years! Both Peter and John poetically, colorfully describe the horrors that occur during the tribulation period to describe the same thing. It is a consideration we must entertain the possibility that Peter is engaging in hyperbole.
In my humble opinion, Westernized thinking attempts to rationalize a very literal understanding of 2 Peter and insert it into the only logical place that makes sense to the Greek (Western) mind. Therefore, we have placed it at the very end of where this world should fittingly end since we know the Millennial Kingdom continues in with mortals populating that age and bearing children, many of them unbelievers.
Indeed, as John begins Revelation 21, were this be the proper placement of 2 Peter 3, it is exceedingly remarkable that John would not have mentioned the spectacular explosion and melting and fireworks, just prior to saying, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” But he does not. And how can one not? What a sight that would be!
In the next segment, we will correlate these ending events with the example of the ancient wedding tradition Jesus draws from so often concerning the end.