All of the world unless some particular part of the earth is named.
ELEMENTS – 2 Peter 3:12 shall melt: Elements (stoikion) is used seven times.
· “And the elements (stoikion) shall be dissolved with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10).
· “And the elements (stoikion) shall melt with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:12).
· “Were held in bondage under the elements (stoikion) of the world (kesmos)” (Galatians 4:3).
· “Howbeit at that time, not knowing God, you were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods: but now that your have come to know God, or rather to be know by God, how turn you back again to the weak and beggarly elements (stoikion) whereunto your desire to be in bondage over again?” (Galatians 4:8-9). It was Gentiles that did not know God (“not knowing God”) that were in bondage to the gods that are not gods, then turned from the weak and beggarly elements of the world (kesmos) to God, but desired to be in bondage to the world again; not Jews that turned from Christ back again to the Law.
· “Take heed lest there shall be any one that makes spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments (stoikion) of the world (kesmos), and not after Christ…If you died with Christ from the rudiments (stoikion) of the world (kesmos) why as though living in the world (kesmos) …” (Colossians 2:8-20). It was the rudiments (elements) of the world (kesmos) that they died to, elements of the world (kesmos) that they were living in, not Old Testament Israel that they had died to (past tense) before A. D. 70, before Realized Eschatology say the Law died in A. D. 70.
In 2 Peter 3, it is the heavens that shall pass away and the earth (gee) that shall be burned up in the day of the Lord, nothing is said about it being only a particular part of the earth, nothing is said about Israel.
Fate of the ungodly in 2 Peter
In the same passage Sodom was literally destroyed by fire and the earth and heavens will be literally destroyed by fire. One is not a literal destruction by fire, and the other a figuratively destruction. The “water” cannot be literal and the “fire” made figuratively in the same sentence (2 Peter 3:6), just as the wicked were literally destroyed by water the wicked will literally be destroyed by fire.
2 Peter 3:7 in eight translations
If this passage does not say the heavens (the sky) and the earth shall pass away, all be dissolved, be burned up, will disappear, disintegrate, there is no way God could have said the heavens (the sky) and the earth will not be after the day of the Lord? There is no way to read the earth will be restored to be the way it was before Adam sinned in this passage; "disappear," "melt away," "vanish," "be destroyed," "be dissolved," "pass away," "burned up," does not mean "be restored;" not one nation, Israel, being restored or not the earth and sky being restored. For the elements to be destroyed means the atomic particles of which the elements are made will be destroyed; the chemical elements, oxygen, hydrogen, etc. “will be dissolved with fervent heat” (2 Peter 3:10). All this creation that God made from nothing will return to nothing.
Hebrews 1:10-12 says in the beginning Christ made the heavens and the earth, they are the works of His hands, they shall perish, but Christ shall remain. It is the same heavens and earth that Christ made that shall perish, this is not speaking of just one nation that has already came to an end.
· 2 Peter 3:10-12 says on the day of the Lord, “The heaven shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” It comes down to, “Did God know how to say what He meant to say, or did He mean to say ‘be restored’ when He said “shall pass away”?
· Revelation 20:11-15 speaking in apocalyptic language of the final judgment that will be on the day of the Lord says, “The heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.” After the heavens have fled away (not after just one nation that has already been destroyed long before the Judgment Day) then, on the same day the resurrected dead are judged. On that day, after the heaven have fled away into the nothingness from which they came, the resurrected persons, both saved and unsaved will stand before the throne and be judged “out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works” (Revelation 20:12).
If the second coming of Christ is passed, and all end time prophecy has been fulfilled as Realized Eschatology teaches, then life will go on forever on the earth as it is now for, according to them, nothing is said in the Bible about the earth ending, or the victory over death when death will have been abolished, or the end of evil.
The fire is just as literal as the water; if one is figurative language the other must also be. "By which means (water) the world that them was...perished; but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire." If the "fire" is spiritualized to be something other than real fire then the "water" must also be spiritualized to be something other than real water; therefore, the story of the ark must also be figurative language; therefore, there were no real ark and no real flood.
Figurative language of the sun, moon and stars being darken, and the stars falling from heaven are used of the fall of Judea (a national judgment) in Jeremiah 4:1-28, and "The sun shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Matthew 24:29). Compare Matthew 24:29-30 to the fall of Egypt. "And when I extinguish you, I will cover the heavens, and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. All the shining lights in the heavens I will darken over you and will set darkness on your land, declares the Lord God. I will also trouble the hearts of many peoples, when I bring your destruction among the nations" (Ezekiel 32:7-9). However, Peter speaks of the utter destruction, passing away, disappearing, disintegrating, being dissolved of "the elements" on the day of the Lord; not just being darken, or not giving their light. He is not using figurative language of the passing of a nation, but giving a literal description of the earth and the heavens, the same earth and heavens that God created out of nothing, passing away in one day.
Whichever way you make this (1) a figurative description of the end of a nation, (2) or a literal description, as a literal description of the end of the heavens and earth in the day of the Lord, it is a description of the end of something, not the restoring, or making something better. The earth being restored is not in this passage; in it the earth is destroyed, not restored. There is not a word about the earth or Israel being restored and made better in 2 Peter 3.
"You, Lord, in the beginning did lay the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands: they shall perish; but you continues: and they all shall wax old as does a garment; and as a mantle shall you roll them up, as a garment, and they shall be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not come to an end" (Hebrews 1:10-12). There is no way the writer of Hebrews could have said any stronger that:
(1) The Earth, not Israel, was made by the Lord in the beginning, a lone time before that was an Israel.
(2) And the same earth made the in the beginning by Lord will end, that the earth and the heavens the Lord made will perish.
(3) But Jesus will have no end.
Realized Eschatology says all prophecy has been fulfilled; therefore, according to them, this has already been fulfilled, and the earth and the heavens have already perished.
The earth and the heaven “shall perish.”
BUT
Jesus “will have no end.”
“They shall perish; but you continues.”
The A. D. 70 doctrine takes the contrast between the earth and heavens ending and Jesus never ending out and says, “No, one will be changed and continue and the other will continue without changing.”
All ungodly man will be destroyed on the day of the Lord, not just the ungodly Jews in A. D. 70 when Israel was destroyed. Is there anyone that can look at the world today and cannot see that the ungodly have not yet been destroyed, that death has not been destroyed?
Summary:
· It was the world (kesmos) that was brought into being (“and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water”) by the word of God (2 Peter 3:5).
· It was the same world (kesmos) that was destroyed by water, all the world, not just one nation that had not come into exists at the time the world was destroyed (2 Peter 3:6).
· It is the world (kesmos) that now is that is stored up for fire at the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men (2 Peter 3:7).
· The same world (kesmos) (this earth) that was created in 2 Peter 3:5 is the same world (kesmos) that will be destroyed by fire in 2 Peter 3:6.
The fire is just as literal as the water. Nothing is said about Israel, or about the end of an age (arion) in 2 Peter 3. It was real water that floated a real boat that destroyed the whole world (kesmos), not just one nation that did not exist at that time, ISRAEL WAS NOT DESTROYED BY THE FLOOD. It will be real fire that will destroy the world (kesmos), not just the end of an age (arion) for one nation.
ACTS 17: PAUL AT ATHENS
His sermon on Mars Hill to Gentiles, not Israel
J. Russell in “The Paroussia,” page 153 does his best to makes “world” in Acts 17:31 be only Israel, not the world, and the judgment in that passage be only the judgment on Israel in A. D. 70, not the judgment on the world at the second coming of Christ. In Acts 17 oikoumenee is translated world two times, kosmos is translated world one time, gee is translated earth two times. From the context and that Paul was preaching to Gentiles, not Jews, it is unmistakable that he is speaking of the world, not a part of the world, not of Isreal. Paul was not in Israel and was not preaching to Jews.
“And when they did not find them, the began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, ‘These man who have upset the WORLD (oikoumenee) have came here also” (Acts 17:6).
“Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, ‘What would this idle babbler wish to say?’ Others, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,’—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming? For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.’ (Now all the Athenians and the strangers visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.
So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, ‘Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the WORLD (kosmos) and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and EARTH (gee), does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the EARTH (gee), having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the WORLD (oikoumenee) in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.’ Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall hear you again concerning this.’” 17:16-32:
Oikoumenee is used in the Greek 15 times and has reference to the world all 15 times, not to one nation, not to just a part of the world. In these 15 passages “would” is not from “aion” (age) as it is many times in the King James Version.
1. “Have turned the world (oikoumenee) upside down” (Acts 17:6).
2. “In the which he will judge the world (oikoumenee)” (Acts 17:31).
3. “Whom all Asia and the world (oikoumenee) worships” (A