NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH

Reflection on the Word for the Sunday of November 13, 2022
NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH (Luke 20:34-37)
65:17  “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind.  65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent--its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
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There is the question why God wants to create a brand new Earth and even New Heavens? Most people from different cultures in different continents think, that nothing wrong with the Earth and in a broader sense, nothing wrong with nature or with the whole universe, because the problem rather lies with the attitude of humankind, thus the problem is not material, but moral and spiritual.
 
Nonetheless, at the very beginning God told Adam that "Because you (...) have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.”  And it was not a slip of the divine tongue, because the cursed condition of the Earth was known from generation to generation as it is written that when Noah's father named his son Noah, he said that "This child will comfort us in our work and in the toil of our hands, because of the ground which the Lord has cursed."

Although the Earth is cursed in general for the sin of Adam, the prophet Isaiah declared as an envoy of the Lord, if that something is really profoundly wrong on Earth, then that are killing, the bloodshed and any arbitrarily imposed sufferings, like coercion, slavery, indentured labor, usury, oppression, exploitation, taking advantage on anybody in anything, as they come close to the sin of bloodshed, according to the prophet Ezekiel.

That something is very wrong in the present structures of the world we can sense it in the very core message of the Bible, when the Ten Commandments commands that you shall not kill. In a perfect world there is no need for this commandment, because it is not only unimaginable to happen, but it is impossible to happen that somebody kills or somebody is killed. Thus, the very existence of this commandment shows that the present world is so bad around us, that even the impossibly unimaginable can happen, and not even rarely, but on a mass scale, as well. That is why the commandment, you shall not kill, is given, against the existing blood-stained routine on Earth.

However, we can see that the case is even worse than that, if we take a second look at the commandment. Almost all Bible scholars agree that the Hebrew speaking original version of the commandment, which says lo tirtsa, based on its Hebrew main verb ratsah, means rather that you shall not murder, than you shall not kill, and it is a huge difference, indeed, between murder and killing.

The original 'you shall not murder' commandment is still a great moral base in human societies being prone to unimaginable cruelty and indiscriminate targeting of civilians, however it itself also assumes, that sometimes killing is not only not avoidable, as it happens just like a natural disaster, but occasionally it is even necessary, and at least by logical reasoning, occasionally it must be even done, as having no other choice, so this assumption is not a war mongering bloodlust of the wicked, but the bitter reality we live. The sad and harsh reality we have to face even today, includes warfare, legal punishment, police emergency actions to stop criminals to cause major harm, personal self-defense of civilians, and many more occasions, like the euthanasia in the hospitals, etc.

If that is the reality, it is as it is, as we can hardly help it, still it does not mean that it is good, it means only that the world we live in is deadly imperfect, that even the Ten Commandments were not able to say that you shall not kill, only that you shall not murder, where the Commandment might be considered practical and dealing with a multi-generational reality, but definitely less ideal than the you shall not kill commandment. Maybe that is why, although knowing the Hebrew original, still most English translations go with the you shall not kill version, as the translators instinctively felt that this should stay there, because that is the higher ideal, when life is not taken at all, and all live in harmony.

Some people think that only the man's heart is rotten, otherwise nature is nature, and all the participants in nature are innocent. However, it is obviously not the case, if we take a look around, we can see the bloody violence is all around in nature, on the ground, under the ground, in the waters, in the air, even in the microbiological world of viruses and bacteria. And sometimes it is called the food chain or the food pyramid.
Some dictionary says that on the top of the food chain in nature the grizzly bear rules, meanwhile in the savannas of Africa the lions might be the kings or in Siberia the tiger was once celebrated as the most a frightening enemy, meanwhile the Bible is very clear that the humans are on the top of the food chain as it is written in the Book of Genesis in the very first chapter that " God said, "Let … humans have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
However, it is very interesting that at the very beginning humans and animals were not allowed to kill in order to eat, as it is also written, that God said, to them that “ Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree, which bears fruit yielding seed. It will be your food. To every animal of the earth, and to every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.”
Thus, at the time of the Creation, it is clear that killing was not part of the plan, about which the Bible says that “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold,it was very good.”

Practically, the Creation order has to be restored, which manifested in the Garden of Eden, commonly known as Paradise, about which Isaiah prophesied that it will be restored, and then “The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf together; and a little child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze.

Their young ones will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play near a cobra’s hole, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
And not only that, but “God will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,neither shall they learn war any more.”

Only then and then we will merit the new Creation, if we understand, that the reality we face is a damaged one, and only God has the power to restore the original order, as it is written by Isaiah that“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind.

May the Lord make us prepared for the new Creation, where there are no sickness, no killing, no death, but life immortal, by the Holy Spirit,  Amen.