Second Peter 3:10 contains promises that “the heavens will pass away” and that “the earth and its works will be burned up.” Does this mean that the earth we walk upon today, the world which God created in six days, will experience annihilation? Will the new earth be a new planet altogether?

Before we answer this question, let us look at 2 Peter 3:10-12:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

If these three verses are taken in their present form without considering the context that Peter writes them in, then yes, one could quickly conclude that the heavens and the earth will experience annihilation on the day of the Lord. However, one should consider verses 10-12 within the context given from the original author to the original audience, which includes verses 3-9. Receiving these verses together provides more insight into the question at hand than isolating any one or two verses from the whole.

Here, in verses 3-9, Peter provides encouragement for his audience by correcting the false teachings regarding Christ’s second coming. The false teachers insinuate that God would not fulfill his promise of a second coming based on their perception of the Lord’s delay. Many of these false teachers thought that Jesus would return before the end of the first generation of the church. When this did not occur, instead of admitting they were wrong, they taught that the Lord was wrong, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). However, Peter corrects the false teachers by reminding them of the flood in Noah’s day, saying:

For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water (2 Peter 3:5-6).

Here, in 2 Peter 3:6, we find an answer to our question, “Will the heavens and earth experience annihilation on the day of the Lord?” Notice that Peter says that “the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water” (v. 6, emphasis added). The term “destroyed” repeats again in 2 Peter 3:11 when Peter says, “Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way” (emphasis added). Therefore, my appeal is that whatever way we understand Peter’s use of the term “destroy” in verse 6 regarding what happened to the earth during the flood is also how we should understand the term “destroy” in verse 11 regarding what will happen to the earth on the day of the Lord. The earth was not annihilated during the flood, although it was destroyed (v. 6). The earth will not be annihilated on the day of the Lord, although “these things are to be destroyed” (v. 11).

The new earth will be the planet we presently inhabit but “will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). On the day of the Lord, we will resurrect “with the same bodies, and none other,”[1] but in a glorified state (Philippians 3:21; Romans 8:11). Likewise, the earth will be the same earth but restored and renewed, being free from sin’s consequences of destruction, death, and disease . . . All for God’s people, all for God’s glory.

[1] 2LBC, 31.2, Of the State of Man After Death , and of the Resurrection of the Dead.