The removal of the curse removes also its consequences. Thus it is promised: "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree," Isa. 55:13. "The inhabitant shall not say I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity," Isa. 33:24. "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people will he take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it," Isa. 25:8. "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth," Isa. 65:17. "And there shall be no more curse," Rev. 22:3. "For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody," Isa. 51:3.

The removal of the curse is called "the regeneration" (Matt. 19:28), "the times of refreshing," and of "restitution;" which Peter places at the advent of Christ: "whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution(10) of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," Acts 3:21. He also places it at "the perdition of ungodly men," which must synchronize with the epoch when the beast "goeth into perdition" (17:11), and "the remnant" are "slain with the sword," (19:21); "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ," 2 Thess. 1:7, 8. Says Peter: "The heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word ['whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished' v.6] are kept in store, reserved unto fire, against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men.... But the day of the Lord will come, as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also; and the works that are therein shall be burned up.... Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness," _i.e._, "righteous persons"--_Horsely_, 2 Pet. 3:7-13. This harmonizes with the day that "cometh that shall burn as an oven," when "all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly" shall be burned up, and become "ashes under the soles" of those on whom "shall the Sun of righteousness arise," (Mal. 4:1-3); which must be the time intervening between the resurrection of the righteous and that of the wicked. This also harmonizes with the testimony of our Saviour, that when, "in the end of this world," He "shall send forth his angels and gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; ... _then_ shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," Matt. 13:40-43.

A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse — Part 181