The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

of Christ and His saints over the world. This is seen in the fact that the very first events
that are described as occurring in connection with the placing of the great white throne, is
the passing away of the present symbolic heaven and earth. Bearing in mind that the
heaven and earth mentioned in the vision as passing away are not the literal but the
symbolic heaven and earth, enables us to locate the vision as beginning its fulfillment at
the commencement of the thousand years.
The present heavens and earth to pass away
Practically all of the Pre-millennial expositors are agreed in regard to the heaven and earth
being symbolical. One of these has thus expressed himself on this matter:
"Aeons [ages] end, times change, the fashion of the world passeth away, but there is no
instance in all the Book of God which assigns an absolute termination of the existence of
the earth as one of the planets or any other of the great sisterhood of material orbs.
"So in those passages which speak of the passing away of the earth and heavens (see Matt.
5:18; 24:34,35; Mark 13:30,31; Luke 16:17; 21:33; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 21:1), the original word is
never one which signifies termination of existence, but a word which is a verb of very
wide and general meaning, such as to go or come to a person, place, or point; to pass as a
man through a bath, or a ship through the sea; to pass from one place or condition to
another, to arrive at, to go through. . . . That it implies great changes when applied to the
earth and heavens is very evident; but that it ever means annihilation or the passing of
things out of being, there is no clear instance in the Scriptures or in classic Greek to prove.
The main idea is transition not extinction.
"Some texts, particularly as they appear in our English Bible, express this change very
strongly, as where the earth and heavens are spoken of as perishing, being dissolved, flying
away (Isa. 34:4; 54:10; Rev. 6:14; 20:11); but the connections show that the meaning is not
cessation of being, but simply the termination or dissolution of the present condition of
them, to give place to a new and better condition. At least one such perishing of the earth
has already occurred. Peter, speaking of the earth and heavens in Noah's time, says: 'The
world that then was being overflowed with water perished.' (2 Pet. 3:5,6.) But what was it
that perished? Not the earth as a planet, certainly, but simply the mass of the people, and
the condition of things which then existed, whilst the earth and race continued, and have
continued till now. . . . The dissolving of which Peter is made to speak, is really a
deliverance rather than a destruction. The word he uses is the same which the Savior
employs where He says of the colt, 'Loose him'; and of Lazarus when he came forth with
his death-wrappings, 'Loose him, and let him go'; and of the four angels bound at
Euphrates, 'loose them'; and of the Devil, 'He must be loosed a little season.' It is the same
word which John the Baptist used when he spoke of his unworthiness to unloose the
Savior's shoestrings, and which Paul used when he spoke of being 'loosed from a wife.' It
is simply absurd to attempt to build a doctrine of annihilation on a word which admits of
such applications. The teaching of the Scriptures is that the creation is at present in a state
of captivity, tied down, bound, 'not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected the