One of my all-time favorite songs, John Newton’s 1772 “Amazing Grace”, contains some of the sweetest words ever written. “I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see”. God’s love, grace, and mercy are truly amazing! The healed blind man said it first, “…one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” (John 9:25) A whole new world opened up to him. What a powerful metaphor for our spiritual condition prior to faith in Christ.
John Newton, 1779, Olney Hymns 
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believ’d!
Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.
Do you notice the difference between Newton’s original and the one in the hymnal below?
In the mid-1800s, the verse, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years…” replaced the apocalyptic predictions of Newton. With that revelation, two questions immediately sprang to mind.
1. Why was Newton’s “the earth will soon be dissolved like snow” replaced?
2. And why did Chris Tomlin bring it back?
In a sermon, this Sunday morn, the pastor, in his attempt to explain away the imminence of 1 Peter 4:7 (“The end of ALL THINGS is NEAR…”), did his best to ignore what Peter actually said. Because, in the pastor’s mind, Peter couldn’t possibly have really meant that the end of all things actually was NEAR (Greek eggizo). Surely Peter didn’t mean that the earth was ABOUT TO dissolve as snow, given the fact that he’d penned these words in the earthly AD 60s, almost 2,000 years ago… slightly less than a GENERATION after Jesus proclaimed, “This GENERATION will not pass away until ALL THESE THINGS take place” (Matt 24:34)?
Even after reading two verses earlier “…to Him who is READY TO JUDGE the living and the dead” (1 Peter 4:5), the pastor immediately dispelled the notion that Peter, an inspired Apostle, meant exactly what he wrote. After all, the pastor quipped, Peter never said that the end of all things would take place in his GENERATION.
Do you realize what this dear pastor was arguing? Even though Peter’s teacher, Messiah, friend, and Savior, made that exact statement some 3 decades earlier, simply because Peter didn’t use the word GENERATION, “near” basically meant nothing. I’m sorry, but this kind of logic is, well, not logical. This pastor apparently doesn’t understand the ground he’s giving the atheists and mockers of our day. We need to be prepared to give a defense, and this, in my view, is not it.
The reason Peter made that and other bold time-sensitive assertions was in direct response to the claims of Jesus Christ. Not only had Jesus said that “ALL THESE THINGS” would take place within a GENERATION of His audience, but He made it abundantly clear that He would return before His disciples finished going through the cities of Israel while a few were still alive. (Matt 10:23; 16:27-28). And, in the Revelation, Jesus at this point (approx AD 62) sitting at the right hand of the Father in full knowledge of the events about to transpire, told John “Things which are to SOON take place…for the TIME IS NEAR.” (Rev 1:1,3)
So, respectfully, we must not continue to make these kinds of excuses for the Word of God. If we will begin to interpret the Bible in context, we will find out how amazing it really is.
So why did Tomlin remove the one verse (below) that instills the inevitable i.e. our date with death? I can’t answer that but it is, in my opinion, what our focus should be. All of our lives will “soon dissolve as snow”. We are here but for an instant. Our life is but a vapor in the wind. And so it is that we must not waste even a moment.
For centuries, the millions if not billions who have awaited the return of Jesus, have one thing in common. They have all died. So doesn’t it seem that our focus should be on our life that will eventually fade? How precious is this verse?
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
Perhaps he was motivated by his eschatological presuppositions? In my view, Chris made the same mistake as Newton. No doubt Chris believes, that given the state of affairs today, the earth will in-fact SOON dissolve like snow. And he’s looking forward to it!
The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians that the “time is short…for the form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 7:29-31). And because they were nearing the end, what was Paul’s admonition? To remain as they were! “So that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none; 30 and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess; 31 and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it…” So why aren’t Christians heeding this message if they truly believe that we only have a short time left? Why aren’t Christians remaining as they are?
The reason is because, even if they won’t admit it, instinctively they know that Paul was warning the recipients of his letter (AD 57) with no regard whatever to us today. Scripture must be read in context lest we develop some very strange conclusions.
The crux of the matter is that the experts have led us to believe that, when Peter wrote, “The end of all things is near“ that he was referring to the end of the planet. Neither Jesus nor Peter were referring to the physical end of the universe, but instead, the end of the Old Covenant age that was growing old and ready to disappear. (Heb 8:13) Consider the following:
Revelation 6:12-17 (NASB) I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun
became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. 14 The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
If this passage is to be interpreted literally/naturally, do you notice the glaring problem? A dark sun, a blood-red moon, stars crashing onto planet earth, the sky splitting and rolling up while every mountain moves out of its place… and yet people are hiding under rocks? Are you kidding me? What rocks? Why in the world would anyone hide under a rock after the entire Milky Way had obliterated our planet? This de-creation language is poetic and symbolic but it was never intended to be taken naturally/physically. Yes, judgment was clearly coming upon the generation of Christ-killers and it was devasting just as Peter and the inspired Bible authors foretold, but not one star ever fell from the sky.
If you would like proof that these things happened within the predicted timing (this generation), I highly recommend the following short book with a really long title, “The Destruction of Jerusalem: An Absolute and IrresistibleProof of the Divine Origin of Christianity including a narrative of the calamities which befell the Jews, so far as they tend to verify our Lord’spredictions relative to that event. With a brief description of the city and the temple” written in 1805 by George Peter Holford. With titles so verbose who needs to read the book? 🙂
Perhaps “the earth shall soon dissolve like snow” should in-fact be permanently replaced with:
Excellent article! I was thinking about these verses of the song while driving this morning and the reason why I do not sing them when brought up in church. I used this to demonstrate to my 12 year old daughter how i think, study, and process these oft misquoted portions of scripture.
Thanks, Kiltman. I’m not quite sure how I missed your good comments. I’m about 5 years late to the party since your comment was written in 2014. LoL I wonder how long people will continue to sing “The earth shall SOON dissolve like snow” before they realize that the earth’s imminent destruction has been anything but soon? Too many people have unwittingly made a mockery of the eschatological time statements like “the end is near”; “in a VERY LITTLE WHILE He who is coming will come and WILL NOT DELAY.” And that may be in part why it doesn’t bother them that these words were written over 200 years ago. I hope you have a blessed week!
The "heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" (Peter 3:12) was either poetic license or describing something only God could accomplish when it was written. Today even mankind can make it happen literally, and we have a much deeper understanding of "heavens" and "elements" as they were used then and are used now. When it happens to the Biblical "heavens" and "elements," it happens to the atmosphere and chemical elements. It's not a large jump to get from "shall be dissolved," and "melt with fervent heat" to "dissolve like snow."
Unknown, unless I misunderstood you, the salient point of post regarded the imminence of the dissolving. The metaphoric, apocalyptic, decreation language (“the elements shall melt with fervent heat”) used in 2 Peter 3:10-12 is another matter altogether. I think there was a good reason the verse, “The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine” was removed. The time component of a prophecy is every bit as integral to the prophecy as the events prophesied. Don’t you think there is something very wrong with interminably singing “shall SOON dissolve”? If the dissolution of the physical universe was imminent in 1779 it has long passed its imminency. We have accepted the abuse of simple time-sensitive words like “near”, “at hand” and “in a very little while” (all used by the inspired biblical authors 2,000 years ago regarding the return of Christ), and therefore completely unearthed the integrity of that which was prophesied.
Regarding the gist of your comment. If the time-sensitive element of when the dissolving would occur, if it is kept within its context, tying “dissolve like snow” to a literal/physical thermonuclear event is not possible since we are still here. And if one considers the context of Peter’s prior letter, there is no doubt that Peter used metaphorical decreation language to describe the destruction of the Old Covenant system. For a more detailed discussion regarding the usage of apocalyptic language click here (http://lastdayspast.com/heaven-and-earth-david-chilton/)
Thanks for your interaction.