Quote:
Originally Posted by chette777
Kevin,
The term "the old" does give the meaning of a former existence also as found in
Eph 4:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;
Col 3:9, 10 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
It would seem your boat has a leak in it and it is an old leak  |
This leak would only sink my boat if you replaced heavens were of old with were the old heavens. Heavens of old is saying the heavens at an earlier time, or long since. It does not mean the they were completely different heavens like the old heavens can, and like you are trying to insinuate.
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
The same became the old mighty men is not the same as the mighty men which were of old.
1Sa 27:8 And David and his men went up, and invaded the Geshurites, and the Gezrites, and the Amalekites: for those nations were of old the inhabitants of the land, as thou goest to Shur, even unto the land of Egypt.
This one has to be completely restructured to the old nations are the inhabitants of the land which completely changes the meaning.
So we see that
the old which is simply the same as the word
old without the in front of it is not the same as
of old which I already said earlier.
The heavens were of old implies that it is talking about a time period far in the past, in this case the time of Noah, not heavens that were old, or old that heavens were destroyed and replaced by heavens that had been recreated. The heavens and earth that are now is simply the heavens and earth during the present time.
2Pe 2:5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
2Pe 3:6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
Just a recap, in case you forgot. It says the world that then (when the heavens were of old) was, being overflowed with water, perished, which we find out in 2 Peter 2:5 that this isn't some former heavens and earth that were different and destroyed and had to be recreated, it is the earth in the time of Noah. Which makes sense since the passage in chapter 3 is a recap of Jesus' short statement on the second coming. In the time of Noah, the people were doing their business after their own lust instead of listening to Noah, and the earth was overflowed with water up past the highest mountains, and all the ungodly men died besides Noah because he was righteous. Now when the second advent comes, only those who are righteous and listen to the holy prophets and the apostles will escape the coming judgment when the ungodly men are going to die yet again and the heavens and the earth this time will be completely destroyed. I mean, why would Peter say something, and then say something using the same words but with a complete different meaning behind them. It doesn't make sense. Plus the similarities between the passage in 2 Peter 3 and Matthew 24 are outstanding. I don't get how you guys don't see them, but instead fumble around with words and inject your own meanings behind them.