In reading the article in your paper on "The Earth's Future Glory" [The article referred to was written by Wm. Covert, and was included in the Present Truth of August 14, 1902--I have included it in the Appendix] I noticed the statement that the lower animals will be affected by the restoration. This is not enough for me without a Scriptural sanction.
Can you give me any proof that animals will be living after the Judgment? Is there any promise that they shall have a future life and be raised from the dead, and their viciousness removed? Is it during the thousand years, or in the new earth, that the wolf, the lamb, the kid and the lion, shall dwell together, and a little child shall lead them?
Further, I find that houses are to be built. Shall we be men as we now are, and sow and plant and reap? Shall we need cattle to plow with, and shall we need the products of the earth to feed our spiritual bodies? We shall then be as the angels of God; what need will there be of houses to live in?
If you can make this subject more clear, you will greatly assist one of your readers.
I have no doubt but that more than one of my readers will be helped by a clear exposition of the truth concerning the world to come; for there is nothing about which people in general have more hazy ideas. Indeed, very many even of the most noted religious teachers seem to accept it as a settled fact that we can know next to nothing about the future state, in spite of the fact that the Bible has so much to say about it, going into many of the most minute details.
Now it is not to gratify idle curiosity, that Bible makes these revelations; the Lord never reveals anything for that purpose; but it is that we may know how to use this world as a preparation for the world to come. I would not have you think that the whole subject can be made clear,--that is, that all that the Bible teaches concerning it can be set forth,--in a single article like this; but I do think that with the Lord's help, I can enable you to get hold of the truth of the matter. The fullness of it affords material for study all the rest of one's lifetime, both in this world and in the world to come.
In order to get an understanding of this subject, as of everything else, we must go back to the beginning. You can at once see that this is so, since that which the Bible speaks of as taking place at the coming of Christ,--that which God has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets since the beginning,--is the "restoration of all things." (Acts 3:21,RV)
Things are not now in this world as they were at the beginning. The third chapter of 2 Peter sets this forth very clearly. It says that "in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." (2 Peter 3:3-4,RV)
That this declaration of the mockers is self-evidently false, the apostle next proceeds to show, saying: "For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; By which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished; But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored with fire [marginal reading], being reserved for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. ... [at which time] 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 dwells righteousness." (2 Peter 3:5-7,12-13)
Here several worlds are spoken of, but every reader knows that they are all this world, that is, this planet, under different conditions. There was the world in the beginning, so perfect in every respect that God himself could not see anything that it lacked.
Then came sin, and within a few hundred years the earth, which at the first was the home of peace, was corrupt and "filled with violence. ... for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." (Genesis 6:11-12)
Then the earth was destroyed by the water that was stored within it, together with that which the firmament had separated from it; and from the waters of the flood there came another earth, oh, so terribly marred and changed from what it was before, yet cleansed from its defilement. That is the world that is now, and which is fast becoming as corrupt as it was before the flood. "The earth is also defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant," (Isaiah 24:5) and therefore the curse will soon completely devour it. This time the work will be indeed complete, for a lake of fire, instead of water, will overwhelm it; but from the flood of fire another world will emerge, a renovated, purified earth, new as in the beginning, to be the eternal abode of righteousness, as it was designed to be.
Please go over this bit of history again, so that you can firmly grasp all the details of it. Now let us consider the relation of each one of these worlds to the others, so that we can at a glance take in the three views:
a) The earth in the beginning,
b) The present earth, and
c) The new earth to come.
No one has any difficulty in connecting "the world that then was," (2 Peter 3:6) as Peter designates the world before the flood, with the world that now is. It is far inferior in looks and productiveness now to what it was then, and the inhabitants are not now as strong or as long-lived as were the inhabitants of the earth before the flood; but nevertheless the same material is in this earth that was in that, and the inhabitants are the same order of beings.
Well now, let us take another step. Just as in the preceding case, nobody has any difficulty in connecting the world after the fall with the world before the fall. When Adam was driven out of the garden of Eden, he went out into this present world, as it now is, or as it was before the flood. It was the very same earth that God created and pronounced "very good," only it had suffered a blight because of man's sin; when Eve was tempted,
Her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the Fruit, she pluck'd, she eat!
Earth felt the Wound, and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her Works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.
--John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IX.
It was the same earth after the fall as before, only marred, and man was the same creature, only weakened and susceptible to all sorts of diseases.
One step more takes us into the world to come; for that will be identical with that which was from the beginning; the new earth for which, according to God's promise, we look is the result of "the restoration of all things," (Acts 3:21,RV) new as it originally came from the hand of the Creator; and the change from this earth to that will be no greater than the change from the new earth in the beginning to this present state.
It will be exactly the same change, only in reverse order. That was degeneration; this is regeneration.
Can you not now see clearly that the world to come must be as real as this? To get a crude sketch of it, picture to yourself this present earth infinitely more fruitful than it now is, and bringing forth only perfect products, and the people on it free from every phase of selfishness, and all forms of disease; then think of them as going about all sorts of work that benefit mankind and glorify God.
Let me try to bring the immortal state a little more vividly home to you in another way. You know what it is for people to be very ill, and to recover. Men on the verge of the tomb have often been restored to what is termed perfect health in this world. Well now, just carry this restoration a little further; let the life that raised them from sickness to health be present in abundant fullness, transforming and glorifying the whole being, and let it be a permanent possession, and you have the new earth state, so far as man is concerned. In short, the world to come will be this present earth freed from all encumbrances, and its inhabitants freed from all disabilities.
Were there beasts and birds and fishes when the earth was created? Read the first chapter of Genesis. Then of course there will be all these creatures after the restoration. What would the world be without them? And, as in the beginning, they will be subject to man--his servants.
Then what was man's work in the beginning? To dress and keep the garden which God planted, and to fill and to subdue the rest of the earth. Even so in the world to come.
When the fires of the day of God have burned up all the corruption, the promise to the righteous is, "You shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the Lord of hosts." (Malachi 4:3)
Then will be the time when "The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that sows seed," (Amos 9:13) for the captivity of God's people will be ended, and they shall be planted upon their own land, and "no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God; ... and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine there of; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them." (Amos 9:15-14) "They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and my elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them." (Isaiah 65:22-23)
This, as we see in verse 17, is when God creates new heavens and a new earth. And the fact that they do not build for another to inhabit, nor plant only for others to eat the fruit, shows that there is to be no death in that state. Will it not be glorious?
Just a word in closing this hasty outline. Do I need to tell you why it is that God has in His word set forth the conditions of life in the new earth so plainly before us? Do you not see for yourself that it is that we may know how we ought to live now? Is it not forcibly impressed on your mind that as we are to be the same people, going right on living as a real life as we do now, that, barring mortality, we are called on to live now the same as we shall live then. Our bodies only, not our characters, will be changed when Christ comes; and that change will only be the perfection of that which we now struggle and groan for.
Thank God the life to which the new earth invites us is not merely a pleasant dream in this mortal state; for Christ has power over all flesh, (John 17:2) and the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:11) "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17)
When this is true of all men on the earth (those who reject Christ having been destroyed), what more natural than that God should provide a place for them to live in, corresponding to their nature? So when all things are passed away, and all things are become new inside of men, the same thing will take place outside of them; and the righteous will go on living to all eternity, and after Christ's coming, just as they began to live before His coming, only under infinitely improved conditions.
In this assurance there is both infinite incentive and infinite help to "live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." (Titus 2:12)--Present Truth, October 23, 1902.