If the Tabernacle/Temple is the background, then Frost has a major problem. The architecture of the Tabernacle/Temple included the sea! Yet there is no sea in Genesis 2. Where is the background of the sea in Genesis creation? That background is found only in Genesis 1 which tells us about God’s creation of the sea and creatures of the sea.

What Frost has missed with his model is that the contrast between Genesis 1 and 2 is not between two separate heavens and earths, the physical universe and the covenantal heavens and earth in some sort of partial Covenant Creation scheme. Both creation texts relate to the one “heavens and earth” of God’s creation from two perspectives. Genesis 1 corresponds to the outer courts of the Tabernacle/Temple, including symbolism related to the Gentiles (hence the use of Elohim), whereas Genesis 2 is focused on the inner court and holy of holies, correlating to the Garden (hence the use of Yahweh). The Tabernacle/Temple motif lies not merely behind Genesis 2; it also lies behind Genesis 1...

By suggesting that the Tabernacle/Temple is the background of creation in Genesis 2, Frost has unwittingly affirmed the full Covenant Creation view. His partial Covenant Creation view (applied only to Gen. 2:4b-ff) is impossible because it presents only one segment of the Tabernacle/Temple scene, the inner courts and holy of holies. Genesis 1 completes the full picture. Here we find the sea (corresponding to the outer courts of the Gentiles); this is the “big picture” of the worship system (involving animal sacrifices, etc.) that God ordained for the entire old covenant age, the old covenant creation.

Note how [2 Peter 3:5] speaks of the existence of the heavens and the forming of the earth [ge] out of water which alludes to Gen. 1:9-10. Peter references the first heavens and the first earth of Scripture. Consider what Peter says next. By these waters the kosmos, the “governing order” or “arrangement,” was destroyed. Nothing is said about the heavens being destroyed. The Greek words for earth [ge] and world [kosmos] are different words entirely! Peter refers back to the corrupt “ancient world” he mentioned back in 2 Peter 2:5 “… bringing in the flood on the world [kosmos] of the ungodly.” Nowhere does Peter say that the flood destroyed “a” heaven and earth as Frost and some other preterist critics claim, but rather the waters destroyed the “world” or governing order of that time. The flood destroyed a wicked system of men who apostatized from the covenant faith, not a physical garden where no one lived. We presented this context of the flood in BCS as the line of Seth (Gen. 5) who “began to call on the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:25). The covenant people had become corrupt (like the Jews in the first century) with the exception of righteous Noah. The wicked, not the old heavens and old earth, were destroyed by the flood.

The heavens and earth of 2 Peter 3:5 (reaching back into Genesis 1) is a reference to the entire old covenant creation. The old heavens and earth existed before the flood as well as after the flood. Animal sacrifices were accepted as the ordained way to worship God back in Genesis 4. Abel offered sacrifices from “the firstborn of his flock” (Gen. 4:4) just as Israel was required by the Law (Deut. 12:6). Clean and unclean distinctions were made before the flood (Gen. 7:2) as well as after. The seventh-day Sabbath is rooted in Genesis creation (Ex. 20:11). Yet all of this was reserved for destruction by fire at the end of the old covenant age, the termination of the entire old creation. We sometimes forget that Peter lived in the same old covenant creation as Abel. The New Testament demonstrates over and over how Jesus and the apostles viewed the coming end as the terminus of what began in the earliest chapters of Genesis (e.g., Matt. 23:35; Heb. 12:24). Peter says the world [kosmos] of the ungodly was destroyed by water in Noah’s day, but the heavens and earth [ge] were, at that time, reserved for fire.

A Pictorial Chart of the Debate

We have prepared this chart below to help the audience fully understand the contrast between the two positions in this debate:

The Fallout

Our response raised many other theological issues spawned by Frost's framework. At that time in 2008, we looked forward to further interaction with Frost concerning these issues. Perhaps there were answers to the problems we raised. Perhaps our cross-examination of Frost's model had refuted his partial-covenant creation model. We looked forward to further investigation.

Before our response was released in public, we received a commitment from Frost to continue the discussion for a total of three rounds of written interaction (see here and here). However, as of more than one year later no written response has been offered. To date, Frost has not followed up on his promised 2nd and 3rd installments of the discussion. Many issues have been relegated to various preterist discussion forum and debate sites or were simply dropped. 

More recently, as Jerel mentions in his work below, Frost has engaged in a number of podcasts directed against the Covenant Creation view. Frost makes repeated claims in these recordings (and recent forum posts) about how he has "refuted" Covenant Creation based on the text of 2 Peter 3.

Jerel's article is a further refined, formal response to those bold claims. It extends many details and points we presented in our initial response to Frost's critique. In light of the scholarly detail in this paper (as well as our formal response of 2008), we now publicly appeal to Frost to deal, in print, with the biblical issues raised. We have responded to your concerns. We have dealt with your objections. Now it is high time that you respond to ours.

The time for running from internet website to internet website in order to make random potshots at Covenant Creation is over.

The "then world" versus the "now heavens and earth" in 2 Peter 3:6-7

Introduction

This paper refutes Sam Frost’s position that Peter uses “heavens and earth” and “world” synonymously in 2 Peter 3:6-7. Such a position is critical to Frost’s rebuttal of the basic premise proposed by Tim Martin and Jeff Vaughn, authors of “Beyond Creation Science” (BCS), that the Heavens and Earth to be destroyed in AD 70 was the original creation of Genesis 1:1. Frost’s position is that the “heavens and earth” which were destroyed in AD 70 began at Sinai, and that there existed a previous covenantal “heavens and earth” beginning in Genesis 2:4 and ending with the flood of Noah. According to Frost, neither one of these previous “heavens and earth” had anything to do with the first “heavens and earth” mentioned in Genesis 1:1. That one, he claims, is the physical universe. I have respect for Mr. Frost, and my critique of his position does not mean he is not my brother in Christ and shall not receive my brotherly love. However, the ramifications of my paper are significant, for I believe it will prove that he is wrong on this issue.  

My proposition is that the heavens and earth destroyed in 2 Peter 3 are not ones “created” at Sinai (Exodus 19), but rather they are the very same ones we find “in the beginning” (Genesis 1). I plan to show this by: (1) looking at the Greek text of 2 Peter 3, specifically analyzing the adverb “now” in verse 7 and the imperfect verb “were” in verse 5; (2) presenting the context of 2 Peter 3 as it relates to Peter’s argument and line of reasoning; and (3) by presenting a theological analysis of Scripture and the “true preterist” view as it relates to the full significance of the Parousia event in AD 70, reaching beyond the Sinai covenant and extending all the way to “the beginning” in Genesis...

• Various forms of futurism divorce New Testament eschatology from the story of and promises given to Israel. Don Preston and many other preterist writers have shown this to be a great error that will inevitably confound the true meaning of biblical eschatology. But if it is invalid to divorce Israel from New Testament eschatology and the "end," then why would it be acceptable for preterists to divorce Israel (post Sinai) from creation and "the beginning" including all covenant history that takes place before Sinai? Frost's model delineates Sinai as a "new" heaven and earth that is disconnected from the pre-Exodus story. This divorces Israel from Genesis and the stories that go back to the opening pages of the Bible, including Abraham, Noah, and Adam! Is it logically coherent to divorce Israel from "the beginning," and yet stand against the very same practice engaged by the futurist who divorces Israel from "the end"?  
  
• Paul says the Law (speaking of Sinai) was "added" (Gal. 3:19); added to what, if not added to the already-existing old covenant which already contained covenant promises including the inheritance (Gal 3:18). In that same text, Paul explicitly states that the Law, added 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established (Gal. 3:17). How can Paul's teaching be squared with Frost's notion that Sinai is an entirely new "heavens and earth," an entirely new "creation," set apart from previous Old Covenant history? Doesn't Frost's model explicitly tear asunder (Exodus from Genesis) what Paul insists must remain joined together (promise and Law) in covenant unity?
• One of the many terrible implications of Frost's model is that the promises God gave to Adam in Gen. 3:15, to Abraham and the other ancients later in Genesis were not fulfilled when their respective "heavens and earth" ended. According to Frost, for example, Adam and Eve's "heaven and earth" passed away at the time of Noah's flood. Yet the promise given to Adam and Eve in Gen. 3:15 was not fulfilled until the coming of Christ! Frost is forced to propose that pre-Sinai covenant promises (including Gen. 3:15) were transferred from one "heavens and earth" to the succeeding "heavens and earth."  But if that is the case, then what theological basis can the true preterist argue against those futurists who transfer the promise of resurrection from Old Covenant Israel to the New Covenant Church? These futurists have simply utilized Frost's methodology! For all practical purposes, Frost's model nullifies a key argument for the true preterist view of resurrection. If covenant promises can (and indeed were!!) transferred from one "heavens and earth" to the next, then why should we not expect the promise of resurrection (rooted in Gen. 3:15 and later re-iterated to Israel)  be fulfilled in a "new heavens and new earth." Doesn't Frost's approach set the precedent for transferring God's covenant promises from one "heavens and earth" to the next "heavens and earth" as the pattern of Scripture from the very beginning of the Bible?
• The popular understanding of what God created "in the beginning" determines the nature of eschatological expectations and, consequently, futurist conclusions. That is why a proper understanding of Genesis as Covenant Creation is absolutely critical to the future of true preterism. We see this, for example, with "the death" that began in the Garden and is the focus of redemption "in Christ." If the nature of "the death" must be maintained consistently, from beginning to end, then shouldn't the nature of "creation" and "new creation" be maintained consistently from beginning to end? 
• All forms of futurism in Christian theology are ultimately rooted in a physical-universe view of Genesis 1 creation. Doesn't Frost's approach to creation reinforce and retrench the ultimate root of futurism -- an ostensible physical universe creation as the "first thing" of concern in our Bible?