A Real Establishment

'For since there are real men [sic], so must there also be a real establishment (plantationem), that they vanish not away among non-existent things, but progress among those which have an actual existence. For neither is the substance nor the essence of the creation annihilated (for faithful and true is He who has established it), but “the fashion of the world passeth away;” that is, those things among which transgression has occurred, since man has grown old in them. And therefore this [present] fashion has been formed temporary, God foreknowing all things; as I have pointed out in the preceding book, and have also shown, as far as was possible, the cause of the creation of this world of temporal things. But when this [present] fashion [of things] passes away, and man has been renewed, and flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to preclude the possibility of becoming old, [then] there shall be the new heaven and the new earth, in which the new man shall remain [continually], always holding fresh converse with God. And since (or, that) these things shall ever continue without end, Isaiah declares, “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I do make, continue in my sight, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.”' - Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 5.36.1

Irenaeus was a significant leader of the church in the second century. He learnt the faith from bishop Polycarp, who - it is said - learnt the faith from St. John. His influence was recognized widely by his contemporaries, and this was in large part built upon his writing responding to the threat of Gnosticism. In many senses, Irenaeus was the church's first biblical and systematic theologian. This forms part of the significance of the quote above. The issue of the continuity of creation is often dismissed as being the product of modern ecological concerns. Yet from the quote above it is evident that the Christian hope for new creation was not a 21st century invention or innovation, but in accord with the faith that was deposited with to the saints. Our hope is in the resurrection, the raising of our bodies, just as Jesus was raised, And an embodied existence requires - necessitates - a world to inhabit.