What was the first heaven and earth passed away in Rev. 21?

[Donald]

Everyone,

 

Please share your view what does this mean ("heaven" and "earth")? Also what about "no more sea"?

 

From Gen. 1-3?

 

The Mosaic covenant?

 

Something else?

 

This is only for the full preterist view and it should be interesting.

 

 

[Taffy]

Hi Ken, yes, only one "Seed" was needed to "save" ALL those "IN" Adam; only "one Man" was needed to "crush" the "serpents" "head" (Rom 5:15).  Therefore it was the history of that adamic lineage that brought Him "into the world" that needed to be recorded.

 

Also, please think carefully about what it meant for God to command Adam to "multiply and fill the earth" (Gen 1:26, 28, 3:20, 9:1, 6, 9, 19, 10:5, 11:8, Ac 17:26-28, etc). 

[Donald]

Hi Taffy,

 

Ha, it's not Ken. I understand what you were saying but not all Adamic "nations". Only those who were covenanted with God, i.e. Adam, Seth, Enosh, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the 12 tribes of Israel, not other nations.

 

At that time God commanded Adam and Noah's sons to "multiply and fill the land" but later on God promised to Abraham and his decendants will received the land and also a "better country" which is heavenly.

[Taffy]

Hi Don (not Ken..lol).  Yes that "better country" was the antitype of what Adam and ALL those "in" him (i.e. ALL those "covenanted to God") had originally walked in.  It was lost by him but God continued to command his descendants to "multiply" (Gen 9:1) because it would be regained by Christ.

 

Tell me, was Melchizedek of Adam's "holy" line?  What about those he ministered to in Salem as "priest of God most High" (Gen 14:18)?  What about Sarah and Rebecca?  What about Job? or those men Christ "preached the gospel" to who perished at the Flood (1 Pet 3:18-20, 4:6)?  NONE of them were of Adam's "holy" line, they didn't need to be.  They would all be "cleansed" by the promised "Seed" (Ac 10:28) and brought into the "land" under the "rule" of God's "servant".

[Donald]

Taffy,

 

The first part you said is something I would chew on.

 

About Mechizedek, he's a mystery and we don't know where he's from. Sarah and Rebecca seem came from Adam's line through Aram (Gen. 10:23; 20:12; 25:20) so they were related. No idea about Job. Those who were perished by the Flood were from Adam's line when they were intermarried with other non-covenanted people.

[Taffy]

Hi Don, your observations about Sarah and Rebecca are correct.  They were descendants of Adam (and therefore part of the 'covenant world').  They were NOT descendants of Abraham.  They didn't need to be. All they needed was the same "faith" as him.

 

Same "faith" as those who'd gone before Abraham, and same "faith" as those who came after him.

[Donald]

Taffy,

 

Sarah and Rebecca were part of "chosen race" within the covenant world, i.e. Adam to Seth to Enosh to Kenan to Mahalalel to Jared to Enoch to Methuselah to Lamech to Noah to Shem (Gen. 5:1-32) to the descendants of Shem where Sarah and Rebecca came from as well as the descendants of Jacob/Israel. Cain, Ham, Japheth, Ishmael, Esau, etc. were part of covenant world but eventually no longer in it. Same thing when many Jews who were in the covenant world but they rejected Jesus and cast out into the darkness with weeping and gnashing their teeth. Those ("chosen race") who were in faith entered the new covenant/new heaven and earth.

 

The house of Israel were scattered among the nations but they were promised to be reunited with the house of Judah through the blood and the resurrection of Messiah, their kinsman. They became one with the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34, Ezek. 34, 36 & 37, etc.).

[Taffy]

Hi Don.  ALL of Adam's descendants were part of the 'covenant world', agreed?  NONE of them existed outside of Adam when God covenanted Himself to him and "fashioned" him in His "own image", thereby impressing His own "righteous requirements" in his "nature" (on the "last day" there was "no excuse" for ANY of his posterity; Rom 2:16). They were ALL still "IN" him in the "Garden", right? "holy", and who'd become "unholy", because they hadn't been born yet!  This isn't hard to grasp. (???)

 

It was IMPOSSIBLE for things like disobedience and reprobation to put Adam's descendants 'outside' of him/the 'covenant world' (Rom 9:22,1 Thess 5:9, 2 Tim 2:20).  Just as the behaviours and individual destinies of our own children CAN't annul their bond to us.

 

But you seem to keep mixing up things like election, obedience and Adam's "holy" lineage, with things relating to their "kindred" from his wider, "unclean" posterity.  Whilst Adam's "blood" coursed in his children's veins (Gen 1:26, 28, 3:20, 9:1, 6, 9, 12, 19, 10:5, 11:8, Ac 17:26-28), they were STILL all "kindred" regardless of their individual behaviours/destinies, therefore it was IMPOSSIBLE for the latter to be outside of the 'covenant world'.  There could be no such thing as "being no longer in it".  Nonetheless, they WERE outside of the "holy" line.

 

Those of the same "faith" as Abraham from BOTH camps were eventually "cleansed" and re-united "IN" Christ (Ac 10:12, 14-15, 28, 11:9) under the "rule" of God's "servant" to whom the "land" had been given and who also had been re-united by the "gospel" (Lev 25:55, Ps 72:10-11, Esther 8:17, Isa 2:2,14:1-2, 19:24-25, 52:15, 55:5, 56:6-8, 60:6-7, 10-14, 61:5-6, 66:18, Jer 4:2, Dan 7:14, 18, 22, 27, Zech 2:11, 8:22-23, Mal 1:11, Rom 15:10-12, 16, Rev 2:26, 5:10; also Lk 2:32, compare with Ac 15:14-19, 17:18).

 

Through the "gospel" the "image"/"nature" (Rom 2:14-15) they had ALL received from their 'common ancestor' (Ac 17:26-27), was "restored" (Rom 8:29, 1 Cor 15:49, 2 Cor 3:18, Col 3:10), and so THEY became God's "new creation" (2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15); a PEOPLE meet once more for His "glory".  What was lost in the "earthly "Paradise" (NOT at Sinai!), was "restored" in the "heavenly" one (Heb 11:9-10, 13, 16, Gen 2:9-10, Rev 2:7, 14).

 

IMO your error here keeps causing you to stumble and leading you into some kind of confused, 'hybrid' version of the 'Israel Only Error'.

 

When you can point me to a SINGLE adamic descendant who was NOT "in" Adam in the "Garden", then I will concede that "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction" like Cain and Esau (Rom 9:22)—as well as other men like Ham and Japheth and their own "descendants"/"generations" (Gen 9:9, 12)—did NOT bear his "image"/"nature" and therefore were NOT part of the 'covenant world'.