§ 66. (4.) Of the End of the World.

After the final judgment, the absolute end of this world will come; angels and men excepted, everything that belongs to this world will be burnt up by fire and reduced to nothing. 656[1] Not a transformation of the world, therefore, but an absolute annihilation of its substance is to be expected. [2]

[1] BR. (385): “When the judgment shall have been finished, the end of the world will immediately follow, whereby heaven and earth, and likewise the other elements and the bodies composed of elements will, with respect to their substance, perish by means of fire.” HOLL. (1273): “The consummation of the world is an action of the triune God, by which, to the glory of His truth, power, and justice, and the deliverance of elect men, He will destroy with fire and annihilate the entire fabric of heaven and earth, and all created things, intelligent creatures alone excepted.” Of the means by which God will destroy the world (HOLL., 1275): “God will destroy the world by means of true and proper fire (2 Pet. 3:12); but the power and nature of this no mortal is able to investigate.”

[2] QUEN. (IV, 638): “The form of this consummation consists not in the mere change, alteration, or renewing of qualities, but in the total abolition and reduction of the world’s substance itself to nothing (Ps. 102:26; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 20:11; Is. 34:4; Luke 21:33; Job 14:12).”