“You blew it up!” So concludes the Planet of the Apes (1968).1 After years of space travel at near the speed of light, Astronaut George Taylor has crash-landed on an unknown planet in the distant future. He discovers a shocking truth: the earlier inhabitants had blown their civilization to oblivion. Now, apes rule. This situation is not good for humankind.
Cosmic destruction of another sort took place in the last days of the Mosaic Age. This one was so significant, only the most dramatic figurative imagery could adequately portray it. Paul declares:
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire. (Heb 12:25–29; emphasis added)
God would “agitate” and “disturb”2 heaven and earth to set up the Messianic Kingdom.
Scriptures use this figurative language in many contexts. It shows God’s judgment against a city or nation. Isaiah used it to represent Babylon’s demise: “For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine” (Isa. 13:10).
God spoke of his coming punishment of Egypt in these terms: “And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek. 32:7–8).
This cosmic-collapse imagery also implies recreation. The physical cosmos did not cease when God judged Babylon and Egypt. History continued, but these two world orders passed away. Their worlds ended, so to speak, and new world orders took their places. New empires replaced those God had judged. Old “worlds” vanished and new “worlds” emerged.
This imagery is essential to our interpretation of Paul’s remarks to the Hebrews. He says God “shook the earth” when he established Israel as a nation at Mount Sinai (Heb. 12:26). He quotes Haggai’s prophecy to show God would do this regarding Israel only once more (Heb. 12:27; cp. Hag. 2:6-7, 22). This time the shaking would focus on Mount Sion (Heb. 12:22). The events signified by this figurative language would bring the judgment and recreation of Israel.
God was about to judge Israel when Paul wrote Hebrews (Heb. 9:25; 10:37). The “last days” of Israel’s old world—as it existed in the Mosaic Age—had arrived (Heb. 1:2). The end of the Mosaic Age would come when the Temple fell (Matt. 24:1–3, 29–34). Paul realized this was in the Hebrews’ immediate future: God would judge apostate Israel for rejecting Christ and his kingdom (cp. Acts 6:14; 1 Thess. 2:16).
When Israel’s old world order vanished, the new nation of Israel—redefined as those in Christ—would live in a new world during the Messianic Age. For Paul, the thing that mattered most was the “new creation” (Gal. 6:15, NKJV) that would continue when the old order collapsed. History would go on and Christ’s reign would bring blessings to the earth and God’s people (e.g., Isa. 2:1–5; Psa. 110:1).
Only at the end of the movie does Astronaut Taylor learn he is on his home planet, Earth. The catastrophic reshaping of his world resembles the one of which Paul spoke in some limited respects. Taylor exclaimed “you blew it up,” but the landscape he saw showed something had shaken the planet without destroying it.3 In an analogous manner, Paul did not envision God destroying the planet. His shaking of heaven and earth was figurative. In both cases, history continued, but in an extremely altered manner.
The movie’s cosmic makeover shocked and alarmed the astronaut. In Paul’s case, the approaching change caused a different reaction. When God finished removing Israel’s Mosaic-Age heaven and earth, “a kingdom which cannot be moved” (Heb. 12:28) would continue. This would produce great blessings for mankind. (See, e.g. Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14).
Had Paul lived beyond the AD 70 end of the Mosaic Age, he might well have said to God, “You blew it up!” This would not have been a cry of anguish, but one of rejoicing and praise to God. Rejoicing, not for the terrible human suffering involved—Paul agonized for his fellow countrymen’s condition (Rom. 9:1–5)—but because the new creation had replaced the old. That new creation-kingdom would, at length, include the bodily resurrection, the final judgment, and the permanent eradication of sin (1 Cor. 15:20–28).
Let us join the Apostle Paul in rejoicing that God has shaken heaven and earth.
Our prophetic system, inmillennialism, attempts to show the framework within which the Apostle wrote Hebrews. It highlights the cosmic collapse and lofty nature of the Messianic kingdom he mentions in this passage.
Footnotes
- I refer to this movie for illustrative purposes only. This is not an endorsement or recommendation.
- Meanings of “shake” (Gk. seiō). Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1589.
- Image information: by Tony Hoffarth , under license.
