Q&A: Will Life on Earth End?

Question: There has been a lot in the news lately about a possible nuclear war in Ukraine that might spread to Europe and America. My question is, will God stop this or is this the end of the age or something else? Also, I read in the Bible that God will destroy the earth. Is this true and if so why?

First, there are dozens of passages in the Bible where God specifically states that the world will never end and that life on earth will never end. That said, Jesus prophesied that the world will experience dreadful events during the final 3.5 years of the age of the rule of man known as the Great Tribulation or Jacobs Trouble. The Book of Revelation also speaks of a war that kills one third of mankind (Revelation 9:15-16). It is not clear if these deaths are due to weapons of mass destruction or conventional warfare by way of a two million man army. But it is clear that, before the Antichrist can destroy God’s people and possibly life on earth, Christ returns with His saints and angels, destroys his armies and ushers in one thousand years of peace and harmony (Revelation 19:15, 20:6). So, you have God’s word that the earth and life on earth will never be destroyed. Also, the vast majority of Biblical scholars believe that those deemed righteous by God will be raptured off the earth and into heaven at some time before the tribulation begins.

Unfortunately, there are many bad scriptural translations on this subject. And there are literally millions of people who have written articles based on these bad translations. The issue is, are these verses talking about the annihilation of the earth or a transformation of the earth. For example, let’s say you take the current fallen corrupted earth and completely transform it back to its original pristine state. One could say you destroyed the old world, but another could say have you regenerated a new world from the old one? However, the planet was at no point destroyed as in annihilated. We can absolutely know this is the case because verses following those citing a destruction or regeneration of the earth, go on to speak of people places and thing still continuing to exist on the earth. In fact, after the thousand year reign of Christ, the earth is purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit in order to make it fit for the arrival of the New Jerusalem (II Peter 3:10). This gigantic structure descends down from the sky containing the Throne of God who then reigns over creation eternally from the earth (Revelation 21:1-5). So, it is clear the earth is never destroyed

Last, the prophets try to explain in writing what they saw concerning the process of the regeneration of the old earth. For example, they write that they saw the earth's sky rolled up like a scroll. So it would seem at first glance that the earth’s atmosphere is destroyed. But this is not the case. A first century scroll was many feet long. As you finished reading a page, you would then roll up that page which would in turn reveal the next page to be read. So the old page is not destroyed or ceased to exist but only put aside to make room for the new page. The scroll still exist. John saw the old atmosphere rolled away to make room for the new. John also saw the sun, moon and stars fall away but they were not destroyed. What he was actually seeing was a Polar Shift in which the earth’s rotation on its axis was doubled in speed. This was necessary in order for the prophesied time of the rule of the Antichrist to end (Matthew 24:22). This in turn allowed a small remnant of Jews to survive the Great Tribulation period, repopulate Israel and serve Christ in the Temple at Jerusalem during His Millennial Reign.