In the Bible it says heaven and earth will pass away but his word will live forever…. What does it mean by heaven will pass away?
Question:,In the Bible it says heaven and earth will pass away but his word will live forever…. What does it mean by heaven will pass away? I thought heaven would last forever…,Answer:,I am not sure exactly what this fairly enigmatic passage means. To some extent, all I can do is quote the scripture and say that in some sense it must be true, because the Bible says so.,Here is my take. In Revelation 21:1-4 we learn that at Judgement Day God will create “a new heaven and a new earth.” In this sense, the earth and heaven will pass away. What does this mean? Does it mean that the physical earth we live on will literally cease to exist and a new physical earth will be created out of nothing? Maybe, but I doubt it very much. Revelation is obviously written as highly symbolic language. Similarly, one can ask whether this means literally that the current heaven will cease to exist and a completely new heaven will be created in its place. Again, I doubt that this is the meaning, but I cannot say for sure. God leaves a lot of the details about heaven and the afterlife in doubt. We know very little about the new heaven and the new earth. The language used is highly symbolic. Presumably, these things are behond our human understanding, making it necessary for God to use symbolic language.,Bottom line, it is my opinion that when Jesus says that “heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away,” I believe he is saying that heaven and earth as they exist now will be radically transformed, but the Word of God will never change. In this sense, pass away means pass away in its present form, becoming something brand new. Exactly what this means, I do not know. In fact, there is no reason I need to know. What I do know is that I want to be in heaven with God. To me, it does not really matter exactly how the change from the present heavens to the future heavens will happen, which is why God does not tell us. All I know is that I want to be in this new heaven with God, and I want to bring as many people as possible with me.,John Oakes, PhD
