Why a New World Is Assured
IF THE new world depended upon men, it could never be assured. “The heroic dead will have died in vain unless out of victory shall come a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness,” declared the executive committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America, after World War I. The committee asked Christians to work and pray “that out of the ashes of the old civilization may rise the fair outlines of a new world.” But now our entry into this age of multimegaton hydrogen bombs has brought mankind closer to the ashes of annihilation, not to the ‘fair outlines of the new world’ that they hoped to create. Man’s efforts cannot assure a new world.
But the new world does not come in by the hands of man; it comes at the hands of God Almighty, who has promised “new heavens and a new earth,” and “in these righteousness is to dwell.” Never will God let his purpose fail. He will vindicate his word, which he has given over his own name. Having such a divine promise, we are assured of a new world, for “it is impossible for God to lie.”—2 Pet. 3:13; Heb. 6:18.
Is there any doubt as to his power to make a new world possible? Not if we reflect upon God’s past exploits that testify to his infinite power to bring in a glorious new world. God’s delivery of Noah and his family into a cleansed earth after a flood of titanic proportions is just one of God’s exploits. God, says the apostle Peter, “did not hold back from punishing an ancient world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, safe with seven others when he brought a deluge upon a world of ungodly people.” (2 Pet. 2:5) So “a world of ungodly people” is no hindrance to God’s creating a new world; he once removed such a world from existence and he can do it again. No wonder the Most High God told Abraham, some 400 years after the great Flood: “Is anything too extraordinary for Jehovah?”—Gen. 18:14.
Why, even the creation of the heavenly bodies and our planet earth was nothing too extraordinary for God: “By the word of Jehovah the heavens themselves were made, and by the spirit of his mouth all their army. For he himself said, and it came to be; he himself commanded, and it proceeded to stand so.” “He is the Maker of the earth by his power, the One firmly establishing the productive land by his wisdom, and the One who by his understanding stretched out the heavens.” (Ps. 33:6, 9; Jer. 10:12) Why, then, should anyone think a new world impossible, or even hesitate to put faith in the divine New World promise? “With God,” an angel from heaven affirmed, “no declaration will be an impossibility.” Jesus Christ also authoritatively stated: “The things impossible with men are possible with God.”—Luke 1:37; 18:27.
In the beginning God created a righteous world; can he not also re-create one? The first righteous world ended with the rebellion of a spirit son of God and of Adam and Eve, but a righteous world is not to be lost forever. Jesus Christ once told his apostles: “Truly I say to you, In the re-creation, when the Son of man sits down upon his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also yourselves sit upon twelve thrones.”—Matt. 19:28.
What is this “re-creation”? Interestingly, The Holy Bible from ancient Eastern manuscripts, translated by George M. Lamsa, renders Jesus’ words: “In the new world when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory . . .” What Jesus is referring to is the re-creation of a righteous world, and that will be the new world of righteousness that God has promised. The re-creation of it, Jesus showed, would be at the time he would be acting as King upon his throne of heavenly glory. The “new heavens,” the kingdom of God in the hands of Jesus Christ, is the heavenly government to rule the new world.
What specially gives us assurance today of a new world is God’s establishing in heaven his kingdom by Jesus Christ, an event prophetically pointed to by the prophet Daniel: “I kept on beholding in the visions of the night, and, see there! with the clouds of the heavens someone like a son of man happened to be coming; and to the Ancient of Days he gained access, and they brought him up close even before that One. And to him there were given rulership and dignity and kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve even him. His rulership is an indefinitely lasting rulership that will not pass away, and his kingdom one that will not be brought to ruin.” (Dan. 7:13, 14) This event assures for lovers of God’s promises the creation of a new world in righteousness.
With a “rulership that will not pass away” and a kingdom that “will not be brought to ruin,” God’s King, Jesus Christ, makes the New World promise assured of fulfillment. “For no matter how many the promises of God are,” wrote the apostle Paul, “they have become Yes by means of him [Jesus Christ].” (2 Cor. 1:20) What an assuring thought—no matter how many the promises of God or how difficult they appear to be in the eyes of men, they become Yes by means of God’s King, Jesus Christ.
We have, therefore, the greatest assurance of a new world. God’s promise of “new heavens and a new earth” is certain because he cannot lie; his promise is certain because of his unlimited power and past demonstrations of that power, as at the time of the Noachian flood; his promise is reliable because the Most High himself and his Son Jesus Christ testify to the fact that nothing is too extraordinary for God and that the things impossible with men are possible with God. And crowning the divine New World hope with unwavering assurance is the fact that God’s kingdom rules; and its reigning King will soon make that promise to be Yes, to the eternal praise of the new world’s Promiser.
All flesh is like grass . . . the grass becomes withered, and the flower falls off, but the saying of Jehovah endures forever.—1 Pet. 1:24, 25.