“The Elements Shall Melt” – 2 Peter 3 – What does the “destruction of the heavens and earth” mean?

The Above title reads more like a passage from a manual on nuclear reactors than Scripture. It forms part of the description in 2 Peter 3 of the destruction of “the heavens and the earth” in the last days” (vv. 10,7,3). Over thirty years ago the suggestion was diffidently advanced in conversation with the present writer that 2 Peter 3:7-12 might foretell a judicial use of the energy stored in the universe by God to destroy our present civili­sation by means of nuclear fission, but only rarely since then has the interpretation come to his notice. Positive proof in the subsequent years that the view is sound would not have surprised him, since he has grown never to be incredulous, however minute may be the detail of any Bible prophecy.

The setting

The main message of this letter is directed against “false teachers” who would arise “in the last days” (2:1; 3:3) and reject some of the “great and precious promises” of their “precious faith” (1:1,4), even “denying the Lord that bought them” (2:1). To justify the lax way of life into which their denial of the faith was leading them, they would scoff at and taunt the true believers with the question, “Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (3:4). The word in the original text rendered”promise” carries the same sense as the English word, and not, as many perhaps may assume, of ‘sign’ or ‘prospect’. (Proof will be given later that the prophecy of God’s judgement by fire has not yet been fulfilled, and therefore “the last days” refers to, or at least includes, our present epoch.)

Heavens and earth literal

Taking the lead from Brother Thomas, many have interpreted “the heavens and the earth, which are now” (3:7) of the prophecy as signi­fying the Jewish economy which was destroyed by the Romans in the first century A.D. For the following reasons, however, the view can be discounted:

  1. The entire argument of 2 Peter would break down at its most crucial point if the judgement by fire was not to be as literally physical as the three examples cited in a group at 2:4-6, namely:
  2. judgement by the physical earth when it swallowed up Korah and his company;
  3. judgement by water at the Flood;
  4. judgement by fire in the destruction of the cities of the plain.
  5. Reason A is confirmed by the reference in amplified form in the final stage of the argu­ment to the judgement by water at the Flood (3:5,6). The comparison there made between the two judgements, past and future, by water and fire respectively, is pointless, and indeed ludicrous, if the former was to be understood according to the facts of history as literal and the latter merely figurative.
  6. The words that allude to Psalm 90:4, “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (3:8), emphasise the transience of man’s sense of time com­pared with eternity, in which God executes His judgements. The thought, however, would be irrelevant if the destruction of the heavens and the earth by fire was intended to be realised politically, in the Jewish economy only, less than five years after the epistle was first circulated, and forty years after the Lord Jesus gave “the promise of his coming” to which the taunt in 2 Peter 3:4 so obviously alludes. The words of the psalm are, however, strikingly pertinent if, as the argument of the letter in all its stages requires, the threatened judgement was to be physical, and designed by God not to take effect until the end of the times of the Gentiles, 2,000 years distant.

Not only does this argument, derived from the framework of the whole epistle, drive us to treat fire as the literal agent of judgement, but it also leads us to regard the heavens and the earth as the literal arena of that judgement Any difficulty that may seem to arise from such a concept is quickly dispelled once the two statements about “the heavens . . . and the elements” and “the earth . . . and the works that are therein” being” burned up” are correctly understood according to the true meaning and intent of the text.

Heavens and earth defined

Let Scripture define its own terms. On the second day of Creation “God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament . . . And God called the firmament Heaven” (Gen. 1:7,8). The Hebrew raqia, translated “firmament”, means ‘extended surface, expanse beaten out’ (see Job 37:18), from raga, ‘to beat or spread out’. The heaven or firmament is said to be the space between the upper and lower waters. Clearly, then, despite all that we know of galaxies of stars distributed in space millions of light years away, the term” heaven” in the Creation narrative means no more than the (Gen. 1:26).

The “dominion”, including that over the fowls of the air, was, however, forfeited by man because of sin (note Gen. 7:14), but it is being restored to Christ through redemption. This is the message of Psalm 8: “Thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas” (vv. 6-8). But before this glorious purpose can finally be achieved the entire ‘world’ of man’s dominion as defined in God’s creative act must come under His judgement when Christ returns.1

Before applying this definition to 2 Peter 3 it is essential to note that Scripture also uses ‘heaven’ with two other meanings, and together they present to us a three-tier cosmogony as the Divinely ordered constitution of the universe, as shown in the following diagram:

space beneath the clouds; and the sun, moon and stars are conceived of as moving across the vault of heaven (cf. Ps. 19:4,6).

Confirmation of this is found in Genesis 2:4: “These are the generations (or springings forth) of the heavens and of the earth”, which implies that “heaven”, in the context of the immediate matters there recorded, is the space above the earth in which there is life or springings forth’, to the limit of man’s dominion over “the fowl of the air” (1:28). Indeed, the Hebrew word shamayim is translated ‘heaven’ 398 times, and the only other rendering is ‘air’, which occurs 21 times and always refers to “the fowls (or birds) of the air”.

God intended that Adam should be lord of all created things in our world, “over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”

The failure of scientists in recent years to discover any signs of life, even micro-organisms, during their space landings adds striking cor­roboration to this circumscribed view of man’s ordained dominion: “the earth hath He given to the children of men” ( Ps. 115:16). The usual understanding of 2 Corinthians 12:1-4, where Paul refers to his “visions and revelations of the Lord”, is not correct, since he did not say they concerned a “third heaven” of rulers in the Kingdom of God; indeed, the thought has no place in the context.

He was “caught up” to the very throne and presence of God, and so in this regard was “in nothing. . . behind the very chiefest apostles” (v. 11). Like John and Stephen, he too saw his Lord” high and lifted up” ( Isa. 6:1)  in the glory of the Father’s throne, but unlike John he was not allowed to record the vision for circulation to the ecclesias.

The Noachic judgement

Following his prophecy of the scoffers’ taunt in the last days, Peter contests the historical veracity of their saying that “all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (3:4). Prior to Creation all land had been totally sub­merged in water, but by His second fiat God “divided” the surging mass into “waters . . . above the firmament”, in the form of clouds, from “waters. . . under the firmament”, on and below the earth’s surface (Gen. 1:7). As Noah preached from his improvised pulpit on the scantlings of the ark his wicked audience would complacently fall back on over one-and-a-half millennia of uni­formity in nature to justify their stubborn belief that the two masses of water would never fail to remain distantly apart.

As Peter claims, the uniformity had depended on “the word of God” (3:5), and by the same word that had first separated them, the waters were released to come violently together: “the fountains of the great deep (were) broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened” (Gen. 7:11). God’s cataclysm cut across the supposedly inviolable laws of nature, and all things” of “the world that then was” (3:4,6) were reduced again to their primeval chaos.

Here then is the prophetic answer to the sceptics of the last days. They assume a posture of intellectual superiority and are “willingly. . . ignorant” (3:5) of the facts of the case. In the past God has judged the world by the Flood; it is therefore crass folly to refuse to believe that the world would become unstable again and judge­ment be repeated on a still more devastating and terrifying scale when He sends His Son “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8).

Judgement of the last days

In the third stage of Peter’s argument (3:7-12) the message contains a series of thoughts that parallel those of the Creation and the Flood:

  1. By His word (“by the word of God”) through the agency of water God created the world.
  2. By His word (“by which means”, RV) through the agency of water God destroyed the world.
  3. By His word (“by the same word”) through the agency of fire God again will destroy the world.

Note that in the text “heavens and earth” are synonymous with “world”. The threefold parallels supply a reliable clue for the solving of the bewildering problem of verse 7, as is illustrated by the widely differing translations of this verse. Here are three examples:

” . . . are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day . . . ” (AV);

” . . . have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day . . . ” (RV):

” . . . have been stored with fire, being reserved against the day. . . ” (RV mg.).

The Old Testament Scripture regards the reserves of water in the earth’s vast abysses as “storehouses” ordered “by the word of the Lord” (Ps. 33:6,7). So also there are “storehouses” or “treasuries” (same Hebrew word) of wind (Ps. 135:7; Jer. 10:13, RV), and of snow and hail (Job 38:22, RV). The metaphor reappears in Peter’s prophecy, which says that, as the waters had been stored above and beneath the firmament ready for the Flood, “the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored (ready) with fire, being reserved (cf. 2:4,9) against the day of judgement . . . ” (v. 7, RV mg.). These precedents in the Old Testament therefore establish that of the three versions cited the RV margin is the true rendering.

The scope of the judgement is defined in parallel thoughts at verse 10 as:

“the heavens . . .

and the elements”

“the earth . . .

and the works that are therein”. Since it is the heavens and earth of man’s dominion in the limited sense previously defined that will come under judgement by fire, “the works” in “the earth” and ” the elements” in “the heavens” must refer to man’s furnishings there with which he will utterly have defaced his dominion by the time of the fulfilment of the prophecy.

What are “the elements” ?

Clearly, the meaning of the word translated “elements”, which describes man’s works in the heavens, is crucial; but the original Greek word stoicheia seems to be used with a meaning that is not obviously related to its root, nor to occur­rences elsewhere in the New Testament, where it is rendered “principle”, or “rudiments”, nor to the occurrences of the verb stoicheo, rendered “walk” and “walk orderly”. The RV margin in 2 Peter 3:10 renders the word as “heavenly bodies” in an evident attempt to resolve the difficulty, but considered superficially it may seem difficult to understand how the translators were led to derive such a meaning from the root of the original Greek word.

Seeking an inspired lead, we search for a solution in the Old Testament prophecies to which the passage in 2 Peter may allude. The key is to be found in Isaiah 34, which foretells “the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion” ( v. 8, cf. 61:2; 63:4). The texts of the two prophecies set alongside one another will make the corres­pondence self-evident: earth (see Deut. 4:19; 17:3), and the word `elements’ (Gk. stoicheia) came to be used as a term for those heavenly primaries. Since such usage is abundantly on record before and after the date of 2 Peter, the link of stoicheia in 2 Peter with “hosts of heaven” in Isaiah 34 is perfectly valid and sufficient at present for our case, especially in view of the other correspondences between the two prophecies.

Readers may resist the literalist view that is emerging in the study, but they are reminded that each stage in the argument has been very cautiously considered with due regard for sound reasoning. It now remains to take the final step and decide the precise identity of the “elements” and how in God’s judgements they will “melt with fervent heat”.

Verses 1 to 4 of the prophecy in Isaiah describe God’s judgements on all nations, and verses 5 to 17 on the land of Edom where those judgements will be concentrated. The verbal links between the two prophecies are unmistakable, and strikingly “the host of heaven” in Isaiah finds most close accord with “heavenly bodies” in the RV margin of 2 Peter rather than with “elements” in the AV.

The use of the Greek word stoicheia for ‘heavenly bodies’ was common among classical writers from Plato (427-347 B.C.) onwards, and also in the early fathers such as Justin Martyr,2 Theodoret3 and Theophilus of Antioch. Poly-crates writes of Philip and the Apostle John as “great elements” in the sense of spiritual lumin­aries.4 Athanasius refers to the sun as an “element”.5 The rootstoichos means ‘standing in a row’, or ‘an element of a series’, such as in ABC. The ancients worshipped the planets as “the host of heaven”, simulating them in idols on

The destruction of “the host of heaven”

How man’s “works” in the “earth” will be destroyed by “fire” with “fervent heat” is not in doubt, because Jude says that, in their destruc­tion, “Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them. . . are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal (Gk. aionion, ‘of the age’) fire” (v. 7; 2 Pet. 2:6), referring to the Kingdom Age. Volcanic belts with subterranean fires extend in all directions round the earth, “stored” ready with terrifying potential for the day of God’s judgements.

“The heavens shall pass away with a great noise”. Other prophecies foretell the terrible happenings in words no less vivid: “The Lord shall roar from on high . . . against all the in­habitants of the earth. A noise ( rumblings from subterranean earth movements) shall come even to the ends of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, He will plead with all flesh . . . Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind (RV tempest, possibly tidal waves) shall be raised up from the coasts (RV uttermost parts) of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth . . . ” (Jer. 25:30-33).

With the discovery of nuclear fission and its power for horrendous destruction by means of “fervent heat”, as witnessed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent rapid expansion of knowledge in nuclear physics, it is not improper to apply the acquired experience imaginatively within the framework of Scripture to see how God will judge the world through Jesus Christ. If before that day the great powers actually resort to war on a nuclear scale the very existence of the planet will come under threat. It will be in such a situation, as Scripture teaches, that the Almighty will intervene (Ezek. 38:17-23; Zech. 14:3-15).

From the study of these two texts it is difficult to resist the conclusion that they foresee the destruction by Christ of all man’s forces of war in the heavens when they are engaged in the last bitter conflict When the great powers do confront one another in the Middle East then their missiles with nuclear warheads, together with the com­puterised guiding systems all packed with highly sophisticated instruments, will instantaneously be destroyed at “the word of the Lord”, and all the related communications satellites with them. In the words of Isaiah: “the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll” (34:4).

Characteristic of Isaiah, at each stage of the prophecy similes change in dramatic succession. As God at Creation “stretch( ed) out the heavens as a curtain” (Isa. 40:22), here, in their destruc­tion by fire, He rolls them together like a scroll; and, as the scroll closes up, the small fragmented remains of “the host of heaven”, already identi­fied as the weapons of war, will “fall (out, harmlessly) down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree” (34:4).

With the next change of imagery, the sword of the Lord, bathed in blood, is seen striking through the heavens destroying also the flight staff that have manned the various forms of aircraft. Then the sword will fall down mightily on Edom where the opposing forces are locked in bitter conflict (Isa. 63:1-6; Hab. 3:3-15; Mal. 4:1). The precise stage in the sequence of events at the Lord’s return to which the prophecy refers is left an open question in the present study.6

The link that has been claimed between the planets once worshipped in ancient times as “the host of heaven” (Deut 4:19; 17:3) and man­made satellites may seem to be fragile. In his insatiable lust and pride man in ancient times endowed planets such as Mars, Jupiter and Venus with his own bestial characteristics of deceit, violence and immorality, and made them objects of worship (Rom. 1:25). The parallel is obvious. Nebuchadnezzaer’s image was an object of worship, and the image had the form of a man. So he worshipped himself as projected in the image. Space satellites and missiles are ostensibly designed solely for national defence; but in the heat of battle, however great the personal sacrifices may actually be, every device of cruelty, cunning and national pride and ambition is brought to bear on the crisis to achieve victory.

New heavens and a new earth

The earth and “the first heaven” (see earlier diagram) of the dominion of man, lost through sin, will be renovated and beautified, to become the inheritance of Christ and the saints (Dan. 7:13,14,18), the “new heavens” and the “new earth, wherein( will dwell) righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:13). Earth, sea and atmosphere will be cleansed of all pollution such as radioactive and other chemical waste, and fallout both of gases and solids, with which man has fouled his environ­ment.

The new heaven in the limited sense already defined will then be consecrated for use by saints and angels in their essential missions of reorganising life and behaviour in the Kingdom. The mortals will be confined to earth (Ps. 115: 16), where they may use an altogether new means of transport provided by God, designed to be most conducive to good fellowship and harmony, as when pilgrims go leisurely from year to year to worship the Lord in Jerusalem.

References

  1. For fuller details and an extended application of this concept see “The Genesis Record of Creation”, The Testimony, April 1969.
  2. 11:5,2.
  3. With specific reference to Deut. 4:19; 17:3.
  4. See Eusebius 3, ch. 25. See also Cyprion, in Exhortation to the Martyrs, ch. 1.
  5. Questions to Antiochus, Question 37 (and/or 16).
  6. The link that has been traced between 2 Peter 3 and Isaiah 34 has prompted a detailed study of the latter prophecy that will appear shortly, God willing.