How God Will Make “New Heavens and a New Earth”

By St. Symeon the New Theologian

Fourth Word. How creation is to be renewed again and new heavens and a new earth will be created, as the divine apostle says

Let us consider how creation will be renewed and how it will once again acquire its ancient beauty. How all creation is to be reborn and new heavens and a new earth will be created, according to the word of the divine apostle.

For since the Lord has promised new heavens and a new earth, none of the believers will doubt, nor, of course, will they show disbelief in the Lord who says this.

For just as our bodies, when they decay, in no way pass into complete nonexistence, but are renewed again through the resurrection, so also heaven and earth and all that is in them, that is, all creation, will be renewed and freed from their slavery to corruption (Rom. 8:21). And these elements will share with us in the glory that comes from the resurrection. And as the fire will test us all, to see who is tried and worthy (1 Cor. 3:13), according to the divine Apostle, so the whole creation will be renewed by fire.

And this we can learn from the words of the Apostle Peter, who says: “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). Do you see how he says that everything will be melted by fire and changed? Therefore, adding, he says: “Since all these things will be dissolved, what kind of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness” (2 Pet. 3:11).

But how will they be dissolved? Just as a copper vessel, which has become old, impure, and unusable due to rust, is given by the craftsman to the fire, and so, being melted, a new vessel is made from it again, in the same way, creation, because it has become old and defiled by our sins, will be given to the fire by the Creator of all things. That is, it will be melted, rebuilt in its original form, and will become radiant and incomparably newer than what we see now.

Since the apostle Peter wrote thus about these things, he says a little further on: “Therefore, beloved, since you are looking for this, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless; and consider the longsuffering of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, as he speaks about this in all his epistles, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. (2 Pet. 3:14–16)

But this is not only then, but now most, but almost all of us, experience because of ignorance: by mixing everything up, by distorting all the meanings of the Divine Scripture, that is, by misinterpreting them — to our own destruction, striving to turn the Divine Scriptures into advocates for our passions and desires and, ultimately, to our loss.

But let us see what the divine The apostle Paul on creation and its renewal. Saying: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us,” he adds: “For the creation also waits with eager longing for the revelation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:18–19). By the word “waits eagerly” he denotes expectation, that is, strong desire, and by “revelation” he denotes the manifestation that will take place at the resurrection. For it is in the resurrection, in the presence of Christ God, that the sons of God must appear, their beauty must be revealed, and they themselves must show what they are in essence, as it is written: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun” (Matt. 13:43), that is, the sons of the righteous God will shine.

And lest you think that the divine apostle is speaking of some other creation, he adds and says: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:20–21). Do you see that it was not in vain that I said earlier that the creation no longer wanted to obey Adam, who had transgressed the commandment, when it saw him fallen from the divine glory, because he had sinned against God, its Creator?

Therefore, God, who even before the foundation of the world had determined its salvation by a new creation, subjected creation to the power of Adam, cursing him, so that when man, for whom creation was made, became corruptible, it would also become corruptible, in order to give him corruptible food every year.

And when He has renewed man and made him incorruptible, immortal, and spiritual, then, I say, He will transform creation itself, the whole together with him, and will make it eternal and incorporeal. For this is precisely what Paul revealed in his words: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from the slavery of corruption” (Rom. 8:20–21).

That is, he says, nature did not submit to man of its own accord, nor did it voluntarily pass into corruption, nor of its own will begin to bear corruptible fruit, and with them thorns and thistles to grow; but it submitted because it obeyed the command of God, who ordained this in the hope of its future renewal. And because the apostle wanted to make this even clearer, he adds: “For the creation itself also will be set free from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberation of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

Do you see how we did not say without reason that this creation was also created by God in the beginning entirely incorruptible and like another paradise, but that when God cursed it, it was brought to corruption and slavery, submitting to the vanity of men? But just see what its final glory will be.

Source in Greek: Αγίου Συμεών του Νεου Θεολογου, Έργα. Ed.: Περιβόλι της Παναγίας. 2017.