Within Psalm 115:16 lies a common-sense innocuous verse that has all the impact of the apple landing on Newton’s head.

“As for the heavens, they belong to Jehovah, But the earth he has given to the sons of men.”

It is the perfect verse you weave into any reply to those who insist we all go to heaven when we die. Such as this person, who asks, “Why are most Jehovah’s Witnesses not born again? Doesn’t the reason stem from their reading of Revelation 7:9-10?”

Does he think the destiny for all good persons is to go to heaven when they die? I asked him that. He does.

Agreed that Christians who are destined to heaven need to be born again. But that not true for all Christians. A Christian whose hope is to live forever on a paradise earth made so by God’s kingdom rule, the vast majority of Jehovah’s Witnesses today, are not. They are people who “truly trust in, follow, and love Jesus Christ.” But their hope is to live on earth under his kingdom government.

It is not so that this hope rests entirely on how JWs read Revelation 7:9-10, or even mostly. Until the 1930s, Witnesses also thought that those verses referred to a heavenly-destined group. But in time, they came to reconcile the passage with other portions of the Bible.

As for myself, I can’t imagine living forever in heaven. Whatever would I do there? But I can easily imagine living forever on an earth restored. The earth is a beautiful place. 

Witnesses believe God put humans on earth and gave them the commission to fill the earth and subdue it, because he wanted them there. If he had wanted them in heaven, he would have put them there directly. To Jehovah’s Witnesses, the earth is not a temporary place, a launching pad into heaven or a trap door into hell. It is given to humankind as a home. Death was not a part of God’s original purpose. Had Adam and Eve not rebelled, they would have continued living where God put them, they along with all their offspring, spreading out to fill the earth, living there forever. But, according to Romans 5:12, “through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because they had all sinned.”

Jesus makes this point about earth in the beatitudes. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) The meek do not inherit the earth today. They get stomped all over. Per Jesus’ words in ‘the Lord’s Prayer,’ that will continue until the kingdom comes: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” he says. (Matthew 9:10)

With the resurrection of Christ, a new hope opens up. It is called a “sacred secret.” It takes getting one’s head around because it is so contrary to the earthly hope described above. Fortunately, one does not have to “get one’s head around it.” God directly implants the heavenly hope in ones so called. For example, to the Ephesians, Paul writes of “making known to us the sacred secret of his will. It is according to his good pleasure that he himself purposed for an administration at the full limit of the appointed times, to gather all things together in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.” (Eph 1:9-10) These ones are destined to rule with Christ in heaven. It is a brand-spanking-new calling. it is called being “born again.” Even John the Baptist, who prepared the crowds for Jesus but died prior to his resurrection, did not have that hope. “Among those born of women, there has not been raised up anyone greater than John the Baptist, but a lesser person in the Kingdom of the heavens is greater than he is,” Jesus says at Matthew 11:11

Plainly, not everyone can be ruling. There has to be people to rule over. The latter can be expected to greatly outnumber the former. This is true of those later recognized as the “great crowd” of Revelation 7:9-10.

“After this I saw, and look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands.  And they keep shouting with a loud voice, saying: “Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev 7:9-10)

Good things are in store for them: “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. That is why they are before the throne of God, and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them. They will hunger no more nor thirst anymore, neither will the sun beat down on them nor any scorching heat, because the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and will guide them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe out every tear from their eyes.” (7: 14-17)

No one can number them. What is the sense of a numberless amount in government? But as one’s ruled over on earth, numberless makes perfect sense.

***Someone else spelled it out this way, someone who thinks the earth will be destroyed:

“JW Paradise Earth

1. There is no more death, tears, sorrow, crying, or pain
2. It would be like the Garden of Eden before the Fall
3. God and the 144,000 anointed ones will rule over them in Heaven.
4. The current earth remains but the current man governments are gone

“Church New Earth

1. There is no more death, tears, sorrow, crying, or pain
2. It would be like the Garden of Eden before the Fall
3. God and the 144,000 will be with them on the New Earth. You can touch them. Hug them.
4. The first earth has passed away including it's seas, but this New Earth replaces it.

If I understand this church view of the new earth (which most church members don’t know anything about; most think it’s just straight up heaven-bound for the faithful), am I to conclude that God takes the faithful to heaven, destroys the earth, recreates it, and then puts the faithful back on it again? This seems like an extraordinarily convoluted way to go about it.

Did the earth do something wrong for which it should be destroyed? Does anyone think God should take out his wrath upon the planet? Or do you think he should take out wrath upon the wicked people on it?

The illustration that all Witnesses love (because it makes so much sense) is that if you rent your house out to tenants and they destroy it, you do not destroy the house. You evict the tenants. 

The earth is far better than a house. All you have to do is stop abusing the earth and it heals up pretty quickly. We see that in the aftermath of every oil spill and forest fire. Just stop abusing the earth, stop the destruction of it, put a kingdom in place and citizens that will treasure it and take care of it, and the existing planet becomes a “new earth.” No need for this rigamorole of a wholesale move of all the righteous to heaven and back again.

But, if we go the church view expressed, that the earth literally needs be destroyed, then what about the heavens? Cited was 2 Peter 3:6-7 KJV:

Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: [7] But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

So the literal heavens, too, are reserved for fire? What’s wrong with them that they also must be replaced?

To my mind, this view takes a perfectly reasonable teaching of the righteous surviving upon an earth made new under God’s kingdom, something that is consistent with the entire Bible, from Adam to Armegeddon, and replaces it with something that makes no sense at all and enjoys little scriptural support.

Heavens are often used in the Bible as a metaphor for rulerships. Both could scorch you one moment, freeze you the next, drench you the next minute, and there wasn’t a thing you could do about it. For the most part, that is still true of even modern governments. Their policies affect you greatly and there is very little you can do about it. A thousand pounds of pressure yields a once of result—and in many lands, the governed have no say whatsoever.

Accordingly, Jehovah’s Witnesses view the “new heavens” to be a metaphor for God’s kingdom ruling over the “new earth” after the wicked are removed from it.

I am all for literalism. But not to the point of converting obvious metaphor to it. When someone tells me to stop beating around the bush, I realize he is not speaking of a literal bush.

***

There is another keeper from Psalm 115, verses 4-8. Note the zinger at verse 8. It is as though the punchline of a joke. Only, in this case, it is no joke.

4 Their idols are silver and gold, The work of human hands.

5 A mouth they have, but they cannot speak; Eyes, but they cannot see;

6 Ears they have, but they cannot hear; A nose, but they cannot smell;

7 Hands they have, but they cannot feel; Feet, but they cannot walk; They make no sound with their throat.

8 The people who make them will become just like them, As will all those who trust in them.

That last line is a beaut. Contrast it with the psalmist’s God, who “does whatever he pleases.” (3) Their god does nothing at all. Worse yet, by devoting your life to them, you find yourself in that same predicament.

I am told that when our people speak with Muslims, they are quick to read this verse. It makes their eyes bug out. See, Muslims hate idols and they associate them with Christianity. To read how the God of the Bible also hates them makes a powerful impression.

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