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What is meant by new earth and new heaven under the Coptic Orthodox understanding? Once people are resurrected in the flesh, are they resurrected to an actual physical earth, or do they go to heaven?

The Holy Book of Revelation reveals that the earth will end by physical destruction (Revelation 21:1). The earth has actually been deteriorating since the fall of mankind. The Lord's death and resurrection is the only gate to salvation and eternal life. Our Lord Jesus Christ promised to prepare a new place for us who believe in Him, follow after Him, endure through Him, and overcome by Him unto the end of days (John 14:2-4). All things will be new. In the holy Book of Revelation, Chapter 21, St. John tries to provide a physical description, but it is incomprehensible. This will be the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ—the Church, in which we will dwell with God who will forever be in our midst in all His glory (Revelation 21:2-3). This will be a real place. There will be no need for the sun, moon, or stars in His eternal presence (Revelation 21:22-23). This will be life everlasting without tears, or suffering, or pain, or sorrow, or death (Revelation 21:4).
  
In addition, the expression “heaven and earth” stands for a place of existence—our familiar environment, i.e., land and sky. But what St. John saw was not the first heaven and earth. It was gone. So, he describes, in symbolic fashion, the place of the realm of the saved, where they shall reign “for ever and ever”—not a mere 1,000 years.

This environment of the saved is simply heaven. St. Paul wrote that our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). The apostle also said that we have one hope, and that our hope is in heaven (Ephesians 4:4; Colossians 1:5).

In every respect, heaven will be characterized by newness. It is a place never before inhabited by Christians. It is the first time the saved, in a glorified state, will be in the very presence of God—face to face (cf. 1 John 3:2; Revelation 22:4). This new state, where sin and death are no more, will be the eternal abode of the saved when the Lord returns, and the living are caught up with the redeemed of all ages to be with the Lord forever (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
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