2. The following are some passages in the Word where it speaks of the end of heaven and earth:

Lift up your eyes to heaven and look on the earth beneath. The heavens will vanish away like smoke and the earth will grow old like a garment. (Isaiah 51:6)

Behold, I am going to create new heavens and a new earth, and the former ones will not be remembered. (Isaiah 65:17)

I will make new heavens and a new earth. (Isaiah 66:22)

The stars of heaven fell to the earth, and heaven receded like a scroll that is rolled up. (Revelation 6:13, 14)

I saw a great throne and the one who sat on it, from whose face earth and heaven fled away. And no place was found for them. (Revelation 20:11)

I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. (Revelation 21:1)

In these passages the “new heaven” does not mean the sky that we see with our eyes but heaven itself, where humankind is gathered in. Ever since the beginning of the Christian church a heaven has been gathered from the whole of humankind. The people in it were not angels, though, but spirits, ¹ of various religions. This is the heaven meant by the first heaven that would pass away. There will be further detail about their situation in what follows [§§65-72]. I mention it here only so that the reader may know what is meant by the first heaven that would pass away.

Anyone who thinks with any rational enlightenment can perceive that this is not referring to the sky that has stars in it, the vast firmament of creation, but to heaven spiritually understood, where angels and spirits live.

Footnotes:

221. DIVINE WORSHIP IN HEAVEN

Divine worship in the heavens is not unlike, in externals, Divine worship on the earth, but in internals it is different. In the heavens, as on earth, there are doctrines, preachings and temples. The Doctrines agree as to essentials, but they are doctrines of more interior wisdom in the higher heavens than in the lower. The Preachings are in accordance with the doctrines, and as they have houses and palaces, (183-190), so they have Temples in which the preaching takes place. Such things exist in the heavens, because the angels are being continually perfected in wisdom and love. For they have, as men have, understanding and will, and both their understanding and their will are capable of being continually perfected, the understanding by means of the truths of intelligence, and the will by means of the goods of love. ¹

Footnotes: