2 Pet. 3:10 "earth and the works in it will be discovered"?? or burned up?

by M.J. 29 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  The Dragon

  I have found in my research that every single word must be dissected....written words can be vague and allow self exalted leaders/teachers to define these words to fit their desires and adgendas and claim it is God's definition of the word..or truth.

  Without the Author present to answer the question and give His defintition...you have guesses and NOT truth...however if you are satisfied with accepting others guesses as facts.....have fun with that.

  It leaves me very hungry and upset they killed Him personally.
• 

  M.J.

  I found that the "Reasoning" book actually gives a rather detailed explanation. I can tell Listener & Gumby were paying attention.

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  rsp.113-p.114Earth***

  Will

  Godhimselfdestroytheearthbyfire?

  Does 2 Peter 3:7, 10 (KJ) support that view? "The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition ["destruction," RS] of ungodly men. . . . The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up ["burned (burnt) up," RS, JB; "will vanish," TEV; "will be made manifest," NAB; "will be laid bare," NE; "will be discovered," NW]." (Note: The Codex Sinaiticus and Vatican MS 1209, both of the 4th century C.E., read "be discovered." Later manuscripts, the 5th-century Codex Alexandrinus and the 16th-century Clementine recension of the Vulgate, read "be burned up.")

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  rsp.114par.4Earth***

  Note that, in the context, at 2 Peter 3:5, 6 (also 2:5, 9), a parallel is drawn with the Flood of Noah’s day, in which wicked human society was destroyed, but Noah and his household, as well as the globe itself, were preserved. Likewise, at 2 Peter 3:7 it says that the ones to be destroyed are "ungodly men." The view that "the earth" here refers to wicked human society fully agrees with the rest of the Bible, as is illustrated by the texts cited above. It is that symbolic "earth," or wicked human society, that is "discovered"; that is, Jehovah will sear away as by fire all disguise, exposing the wickedness of ungodly human society and showing it to be worthy of complete destruction. That wicked society of humans is also "the first earth," referred to at Revelation 21:1 (KJ).
• 

  TheListener

  MJ, Metzger's book is excellent. PM me if you would like any particular scripture looked up to see what the varaiants are (if any).
• 

  Leolaia

  M.J....Two observations about the Watchtower quotes. First of all, they assume that the question of "Will God destroy the earth by fire?" depends on the rendering of 2 Peter 3:10c; since the correct rendering is "discovered" rather than "burnt up", they let the reader conclude that the text does not refer to a destruction by fire. But this is not the case, regardless of how 3:10c is understood, the text already refers to the "elements" (stoikheia) melting -- i.e. transmuting -- in the burning heat (kausoumena), and the heavens being "set on fire" (puroumenoi), which corresponds rather closely to the OT source texts (Malachi 3:19 LXX,Isaiah 34:4 LXX) and to the Stoic concept of the transmutation of the elements in a conflagration of fire that follows an earlier conflagration of water. Second, the Society naturally pursues a figurative interpretation of 2 Peter 3:10-12 because it conflicts with its belief of the present earth being renovated into a "paradise earth". So it claims that the fire is symbolic of a searing judgment that exposes "the wickedness of ungodly human society". But again this is contrary to the text itself, which compares the coming conflagration with the one in Noah's day: "By water also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (v. 6-7). The water in Noah's day was not symbolic of a destructive judgment on wickedness, it refers literally to the water that was used to physically destroy the antediluvian world. It violates a basic principle of hermeneutics to treat one half of a parallelism as literal and the other half as figurative. When the passage is also read in its wider context, it is clear that the language is borrowed from OT eschatological texts that generally do posit total cosmic upheaval as accompanying Yahweh's epiphany as well as a finite future for the present earth and heaven (cf. also Psalm 97:3-5, 102:25-27, Isaiah 13:9-13, 34:4, 51:6, Micah 1:3-4, Nahum 1:4-6).

  The revealing of the "works" of men (to be laid exposed in the conflagration) instead refers to the same thing that the eschatologically parallel text in Revelation 20:11-13 points to: the "opening" of the heavenly books in which all sins are recorded, as resurrected mankind stands ready for judgment. Compare 4 Ezra 7:33-36: "And the Most High shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment, and compassion shall pass away, and patience shall be withdrawn; but only judgment shall remain, truth shall stand, and faithfulness shall grow strong. And recompense shall follow, and the reward shall be manifested; righteous deeds shall awake, and unrighteous deeds shall not sleep. Then the pit of torment shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of Gehenna shall be disclosed, and opposite it the paradise of delight.
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  M.J.

  Thanks, Leo for that excellent summary. In any case, I can't see why the WTS makes a big issue out of this. It's clear that there will be a "new heaven and new earth" (v 13). Whether the old one is literally destroyed by fire to make way for the new, or is transformed without the destruction by fire seems rather inconsequential to me. Oh, but I see now. How can the Great Crowd remain on the earth while it's being literally burned up? It would probably make more sense to posit a parallel ark scenario where the righteous are awarded divine protection from the destruction, as long as they are drawing parallels with Noah.

  The reasoning book in the same section also addresses the question of whether or not the righteous will be removed from the earth prior to its destruction to return afterward. The one verse they use to counter this thought is:

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  rsp.116par.1Earth***

  Prov. 2:21, 22, KJ: "The upright shall dwell in the land ["on earth," NE], and the perfect ["blameless men," NE] shall remain in it. But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it." (Notice that it does not say the blameless will return to the earth but that they "shall remain in it.")
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  Leolaia

  When the Society cites proof-texts, they rarely take such considerations as literary genre into account. The Reasoning Book cites a proverb as proof of a certain eschatology, even tho proverbs such Proverbs 2:21-22 have no eschatological scope and refer in a very generalized way an idealized present situation. This proverb, like Psalm 37 which the Society also cites as evidence of their particular eschatology, is more reminiscent of the past (i.e. the conquest of the Promised Land and driving out the wicked Canaanites) than the future.

  The conception in Revelation, when not read through Watchtower spectacles, is that all faithful followers of Jesus will be put to death by the Beast (thereby undergoing a "great tribuluation"), and will thus be gathered up in heaven in their postmortem state. Everyone the Beast cannot compel to accept its mark will be executed. God meanwhile waits until the number of the faithful are complete before he unleashes his vengeance on the earth. Then everyone who had accepted the Beast's mark is executed in the "Great Day of God's Vengeance" (leaving the earth presumably empty, as it is in 4 Ezra 7:29-30), and then the present earth and heaven are replaced by a new heaven and earth....with all the dead assembled together to be judged according to their former deeds. Then in the last act, the heavenly Temple descends on the new earth, thereby restoring primeval paradise on the earth and God's presence therein (cf. 4 Ezra 7:36).
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  M.J.

  Thanks. I knew the general response to that but you summed it all up much better than I could have.

  You gotta laugh at how the WTS tries to get around the notion of the last act, as you put it, New Jerusalem coming down to earth and God living with mankind:

  ***Reasoning From the Scriptures p.115 par.2 Earth***

  Does the fact that God will "reside" with mankind and "be with them" mean that he will become a fleshly Being? That cannot be, because Jehovah told Moses: "No man may see me and yet live." [Ex. 33:20] [what about Matt. 5:8??--M.J.] Consistently, then, the members of the New Jerusalem will not return to earth as physical beings. In what sense, then, could God "be with" mankind and how would the New Jerusalem ‘come down out of heaven’? No doubt an indication is found in Genesis 21:1, which says that God "visited" Sarah, blessing her with a son in her old age. Exodus 4:31 tells us that God "visited" Israel by sending Moses as a deliverer. Luke 7:16 says that by means of Jesus’ ministry God "visited" his people. [All from KJ and RS] Other translations use the expression God "turned his attention" to his people [NW] or ‘showed concern’ for them [NE]. So Revelation 21:2, 3 must mean that God will ‘visit,’ or be with, mankind by means of the heavenly New Jerusalem, through which blessings will come to obedient humans.
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  FuzzyPaul

  Respectfully, WOW. Their are some very well researched answers to this question that I myself asked. I think that it is good to understand the deep things of God that he has seen to expose to us but I think that -for instance - spending 2 hours hearing articles indoctrinating the congregation about wether or not Jesus was hung on a pole, t or T and how that pertains to our very everlasting life and don't wear a CROSS or you'll be worshipping the Devil and Nimrod is a waste of time when the actual issue is this: Jesus died for us somehow that is called being nailed to a Stauros but it is the dying part that is of over-riding importance. Not how the carpenter or lumber man provided the instrument.

  Anyway, perhaps it is a test of wether or not we trust what YHVH is bringing with the Kingdom in the hands of his Son Jesus (Yeshua). Do we believe that it will be a change for the better? Is it paramount that we know all the details to make our choice. As if we were deciding where to go on vacation.

  I don't trust what I learned from the Watchtower and know that the WT was started by a spoiler who researched the Holy Scriptures to find the flaws in the Churches teachings. Their is no trinity, hellfire, immortal soul for sure - to my mind - but their isn't a "New World" in the Bible either. The attachment of the "New World" (likely a result of their actual affiliation with the entities behind the New World Order which politicians and the UN support) to the Bible's phrase "New Heavens and a New Earth" is a horrible deceit. Their is no "New World" in scripture. That would be a non-sense term and in no way can "World" and "Heaven" or "Earth" IN THEIR ORIGINAL LANGUAGE MEANINGS be synonomous. That is one reason I discarded the New World Translation. Using the "Kingdom Interlinear" at the Hall for years let me see the numerous verses (and numerous ways) they altered in the scriptures and consequently altered the way they could be explained and that done to make a compact belief that unfortunately leaves one confused when reading other things such as the list of events at the end of Revelation for instance (For me).

  Anyway, I trust that I will be disappointed with parts of my belief system but I want a belief system that the Bible supports before or after the events happen in time since of course, how and where we live is totally affected. I think that we should be ready for anything. I thought of the movie K-Pax when I wrote that.

  Sorry for writing like more of a simpleton but the point isn't about content but of approach to a question. I enjoy intelligent persons who can actually write a coherent thought so write. Keep perspective. Belief in Jesus is the paramount thing and grace and love....

  Regards to you,

  Paul
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Marking this for considerating with next week's Bible Reading, Highlights, and talk #4 from the Books of Peter at your local Kingdumb Haul.
• 

  cameo-d

  Will God himself destroy the earth by fire?

  No. God has done enough destruction. It is god himself who will BE destroyed by the fire from the mouths of those who know the truth about 'him'. God's days of destroying families and lives are over.

  "The heavens and the earth, ..... reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition ["destruction," RS] of ungodly men. . . .

  The fire is AGAINST Judgement day. It is our day to judge this awful Jehovah god and his evil murderous ways.

  The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise,

  Day of the Lord or Day of Jehovah? I think some people assume Lord is Jesus. I think a lot of people mistakenly use the names of Jesus and Jehovah interchangeably. They are not the same. The heavens will pass away with a great noise because many people will be revealing the truth of how religion has duped mankind and has been put in place by an evil entity to control the masses. It will be very noisy because of voices like yours.

  and the elements shall melt with fervent heat,

  melt.....they will dissolve. The heat will be the flames from the mouths of those who speak the truth against the deception that has been perpetrated on all mankind through these deceptive religious practices.

  the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up ["burned (burnt) up," RS, JB; "will vanish," TEV; "will be made manifest," NAB; "will be laid bare," NE; "will be discovered," NW]

  The WORKS .....Will be made manifest....will be discovered...will be laid bare

  Posters at JWD have already done much of this work. It now needs to be carried out into the battlefield. All must hear and see that the lies and secrets of the watchtower have been exposed. There is still work to do in order to make this a reality.