Second Peter 3:13 says that there will be a new universe in which righteousness dwells. This indicates that everything in the new heaven and new earth will be altogether under God’s government. Nothing will be wrong; nothing will be unjust or unrighteous.
Righteousness is the main factor based upon which God’s governmental judgment is meted out to all creatures in His old creation. Hence, in Peter’s Epistles, which are concerned with God’s government, righteousness is stressed repeatedly (1 Pet. 2:23-24; 3:12, 14, 18; 4:18; 2 Pet. 1:1; 2:5, 7-8, 21; 3:13). The main matter seen in John’s writings is God’s love expressed in His life; in Paul’s writings, God’s grace distributed in His economy; and in Peter’s writings, God’s righteousness maintained in His government. God’s life, economy, and government are the basic structures of the ministry of these three apostles. Life is of love, economy is through grace, and government is based on righteousness. This righteousness will dwell in the new heaven and new earth, saturating God’s new universe prevailingly and thus maintaining it absolutely under God’s righteous order.
Hebrews 1:8, Psalm 145:13, and Daniel 4:3 indicate that the new heaven and the new earth will exist for eternity. The new heaven and the new earth as the new realm for God’s eternal administration will exist for eternity, just as God is eternal. This new heaven and new earth will last unto all the generations of the age of the ages without ending for God to carry out His eternal administration for His eternal manifestation and expression in the fullest.
The new heaven and new earth will have years, months, days, and nights ruled by the sun and the moon (Rev. 22:2; cf. Gen. 1:16-18). The word month in Revelation 22:2 indicates that in the new heaven and the new earth the moon will still be there to divide the twelve months. The sun will also be there to separate day and night into periods of twelve hours each. In the new heaven and new earth there will still be the distinction between day and night, but in the New Jerusalem there will be no such distinction (21:25; 22:5), for the light in the holy city will be the Triune God (21:23).
In eternity there will not only be the saved ones in the New Jerusalem and the perished ones in the lake of fire. There will also be a third category of people—those who are neither in the New Jerusalem nor in the lake of fire but outside the city. These will be the people on the new earth in eternity.
After the millennium a part of the nations on the earth who are deceived by the devil will rebel against the Lord and will be consumed by fire from heaven (20:7-9). The rest of the nations will be transferred to the new earth as the nations to live around the New Jerusalem and walk by its light (21:24). They will be the peoples spoken of in verses 3 and 4. As created but unregenerated human beings, they will be maintained to live forever in their created state by the healing of the leaves of the tree of life (22:2). Even to them there will be no more death (21:4). Under the shining of the New Jerusalem with the divine glory, neither will they be in darkness.
The restored nations on the new earth will be the people of God, but they will not have God’s life and nature. To God, His sons are one category and His people are another. In the new heaven and the new earth we will not be the people, the nations; we will be the sons. The sons of God in verse 7 are those who have been born of God through regeneration (John 1:12-13; 1 Pet. 1:3-4, 23; James 1:18); they are built together through transformation (1 Cor. 3:9-12; Eph. 2:20-22; 1 Pet. 2:4-6; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23-24); and they will be glorified in full to be the corporate expression of the processed Triune God (Rom. 8:29-30; Heb. 2:10; Rev. 21:11). The nations outside the New Jerusalem will not be regenerated, transformed, or glorified.
Those who are regenerated, transformed, and glorified will be the components of the New Jerusalem. In eternity they will eat of the tree of life and drink the water of life (22:14, 17). The people, the restored nations, however, will not have this enjoyment. But they will have no more death, sorrow, crying, pain, or curse (21:4; 22:3). They will be sustained eternally by the leaves of the tree of life (v. 2). The people, therefore, will live on the new earth, outside the New Jerusalem, and enjoy the common blessings in the new heaven and the new earth. The sons of God, on the contrary, will dwell in the New Jerusalem, participate in all its enjoyment, serve God and the Lamb (v. 3), and reign for eternity (v. 5).