Isaiah argued that if pagan prophets are genuine they should be able to demonstrate through fulfilled prophecy and interpretation of history that God is at work in them. He believed that his messages of the future were true and verifiable. Today we commonly quote Isaiah relative to his predictions of the coming Messiah fulfilled in Jesus. Much of Handel’s eminent oratorio entitled The Messiah is largely taken from Isaiah. Centuries before Jesus was born, Isaiah wrote his book. Out of this book the Jewish people gained the greatest amount of information upon which they formed their concept of the Messiah. When Jesus came it was at the time when Israel might expect the Messiah. The problem – they fashioned the Messiah in their image, and did not permit him to present himself as the Son of God, more than an angelic being. They looked for an intellectual, political figure, able to rally the people to him and his cause to win. One of the reasons for this was their belief that the earth would continue with their rescue and validation. They seem to have forgotten prophets’ messages that the earth is a temporary fixture in the sky, to be replaced by an earth free from evil, as at the beginning in the case of Adam and Eve and their issue. According to the Scriptures the entrance of sin cursed the project, man and his surrounding creation – but did not destroy it. According to Scripture there is redemption, ultimately in everything being made new, brand new. God will not be frustrated from his original plan. Messiah was/is key to the plan. Persons who choose are to be rescued, with the creation. It all seems a bit bizarre in the light of human sophistication, but weighed out is fitting to faith.
If we read the scientists rightly, the earth will ultimately be ended by a falling meteor, or through the dissipation of heat as the Sun loses energy, or some such. How it ends is not first argument for the Christian. The point is that it ends, and that is what the Scripture noted long before any scientific information was articulated by researchers. Persons of faith often become distracted by troublesome details, and lose direction for their apologetics. This commonly happens in the debate on evolution. Whether God formed us in a moment or through some physical process is not the point to accent. The point is that mankind is here, stricken with lostness, and needs something for Hope. Christ provided that something, and presents it as a matter of seed faith born in the individual person. The end is agreed upon, the process is debated. The prophet adds something in that the old will pass away, but replacement will be made. That replacement will not be through repair or renewal of the old, but will be a new creation, related in a way to the old.
There is no scientific evidence for the replacement of the physical earth. It is an affirmation based on Scripture. It fits easily in the larger story with a beginning, middle, and end – to a new beginning. Faith in that pattern from Scripture is not necessary for mankind’s salvation. If it strains one’s credulity, let it go. It takes away some of the explanation for things, but man’s safety to immortality requires only one factor, a sincere belief in one’s own redemption through the act of Jesus Christ in incarnation, life, death on the cross, risen from the grave and ascended into heaven. Anything more than that, and there is much, is not necessary for immortality. Driven to this simple and essential faith one will be pressed to find excuse for evading it. In the minimum, one needs honest repentance, effective faith in Christ, and life change. We are encouraged by what we know from following the creation’s course, with excellent results after times of stress, both for life and nature. An evidence of mankind’s lostness is the discovery of ending with no recovery. God argues for affirmative endings to beginnings – from loss to life. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020