I was in a Bible with other ministers as we studied 2 Peter chapter 3 which dealt with the new heaven and new earth. It spoke about the end of the old world and the coming of a new one. It spoke of courage and standing for God in an ungodly world. Normally, we read scriptures like this one and others as if the Bible speaks about destroying our enemies and burning up the world by fire. Justice is redistributive which means the wicked gets there just desserts in the end and the faithful are finally rewarded in the after life of heaven.
Can it be that these kind of surface readings of the biblical text are more created by our late cultural ancestors of the past few centuries and not really the main point of what the Jewish Scriptures are really teaching? The whole fire and godliness images are wrapped in the context of cleansing and purification. Rather than thinking God's end time plan is to destroy the world, would it not be better to think of God's fire as purification which is a spiritually purging fire that leads to a new creation?
Can justice be taught as restorative and life affirming rather than condemning and life destroying? Hasn't the whole history lesson of the church and the world is violence simply lead to more violence and is ultimately destroying this world? Can Christians leave behind the myth of progress, the myth of redemptive violence, and the myth of America being a Christian nation to the full orbed biblical realism of what God desires of heaven coming to earth where Christians are simply fulfilling their God-given calling of being a new creation?
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