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[Antique Roadshow]

in genesis 8:22 God says as long as the earth endures seed time and harvest cold and heat day and night shall not cease. but revelation talks about how the earth is completely new and basically how there is no day or night no more. even Isaiah chapter 66 says in the new earth there is day and night. so how do these chapters go together and not contradict?

[jimwalton]

Context gives us the answer. You have to read and understand more than just the verses you’ve mentioned. The point in Genesis 8 is that God will never again send a flood to judge the people of Earth. That’s what it’s talking about. He uses the language of the first three days of creation (time, weather, and food) to show how the regularity of nature and the supply of food will always be there. That what this sentence (Gn. 8.22) is about.

Revelation 21.1 is a different type of thought, but still has some overlap. What is in view here is not annihilation of the Earth and a new Earth in its place, but instead a radical transformation, similar to what we read in Isa. 66. At the end of time, the old order of things will pass away (Rev. 21.4). The figurative language of Rev. 22.5 indicates the lack of chaos and sin—evil—, not so much that there won’t be a period of darkness. The idea is that in the reign of God and in His presence, there will be nothing but holiness and righteousness. Revelation is not really talking about our alternating sequences of physical light and darkness.

Isaiah 66 is talking about the new and idyllic reality at the end of time—the new heavens and Earth. The point is that they will be enduring, not temporary. His references to the New Moon and the Sabbath are used as literary tools to speak of humankind’s submission before God.

There will certainly be time in Heaven. You can’t have communication and not have time, for one word or thought must precede another, and a response to a stimulus must certainly come after the stimulus. The Bible is not saying there is no time in Heaven, nor that there is no day and night, but rather that it will be a transformed environment, a place of God’s presence and sovereignty, and an idyllic lifestyle for its inhabitants. Those are the points of the imagery. There is no contradiction.