(Isa. 51:4–6)
We hear a divine voice acclaim: “Hearken unto me, my people,” and the Latter-day Saints are the Lord’s people, “and give ear unto me. O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgement to rest for a light of the people.” Thanks be to God, that law now has come; it is the fulness of his everlasting gospel; by it he will judge the world… . “My righteousness is near.” The millennial day is almost upon us. “My salvation is gone forth.” The gospel is being preached to prepare a people for the coming day… Hence, “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, … and look upon the earth beneath.” Read the signs of the times, the signs now being shown forth in the heavens above and in the earth beneath. “For the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner.” This old world shall die; there shall be a new heaven and a new earth; it will be a millennial earth… . (Isa. 51:4–6).
(Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1985], 514–15.)
In LDS theology, “the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory” (A of F 10). That renewal will include restoration of its former components—for example, the return of the city of Enoch—and also its former purity and Edenic state… .
Book of Mormon prophets likewise speak of a new heaven and a new earth (Ether 13:9) and of “all things” becoming new (3 Ne. 15:2). The Doctrine and Covenants contains prophecies that every corruptible “element shall melt with fervent heat; and all things shall become new, that [God’s] knowledge and glory may dwell upon all the earth” (D&C 101:23; cf. 29:23–24; 42:35, 62, 67, 45:66; 84:2–4; 133:56).
The Hebrew root for “new” (chadash) points to a time of refreshing rather than replacement. Consistent with this understanding, Mormons expect that the earth will not be destroyed but glorified, not transcended but transformed, and that ultimately the polarization of earth and heaven will be overcome. Faithful Saints are promised the “fulness of the earth” (D&C 59:16) and “an inheritance upon the earth when the day of transfiguration shall come, when the earth shall be transfigured” (D&C 63:20–21).
“This earth will be Christ’s” (D&C 130:9). It will have a one-thousand-year sabbatical and then become a veritable Urim AND Thumim in fulfillment of John’s vision of its appearance as a “sea of glass” (D&C 130:7–9; Rev. 2:17), a habitation worthy of God. “It will be rolled back into the presence of God,” and “crowned with celestial glory” (TPJS, 181; cf. WJS, 60).”
(Thomas J. Riskas, Jr., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols., [New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992], 3:1009.)