The New Heaven and the New Earth, Pt. 3
Revelation 21:4-8
Well, let's look at Revelation chapter 21 in the time we have left to us tonight, the new heavens and the new earth. In our ongoing study of Revelation we're looking at the final state, what is called the eternal state. And it is described for us in the last two chapters of the book of Revelation. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God has set eternity in the hearts of men. That is to say there is a longing in the heart of man for eternal life. Without the hope of life after death, without the hope of eternity, without the hope of heaven, life is reduced to what Macbeth said after the death of the queen, "A tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
And so the anticipation of a future life is very important. The anticipation of heaven is the only reality that can make life here and now have any lasting meaning. As you come to the conclusion of the Bible because Revelation is the end, you come to the conclusion of the Bible you come to the description of heaven. God's final word to us is here is what heaven will be like. And the Bible then closes with a dramatic presentation of the wondrous reality of heaven, the hope in the future that makes life in the present worth living. Here is the place, here is the sphere, here is the habitation, here is the experience of the saints forever.
Starting in chapter 21 and verse 9 you have a very detailed description of the new Jerusalem, the capital city of heaven, the holy city coming down out of God's presence into the final state. But before we look at that description which starts in verse 9, there's an introductory in verses 1 to 8 which we have been looking at. It is really introductory. It just introduces us to the idea and some of the features of this final state, and then more detail follows in verse 9. Let me read you the first eight verses.
I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first
heaven and the first earth passed away and there is
no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new
Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made
ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard
a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the
tabernacle of God is among men and He shall dwell
among them and they shall be His people. And God
Himself shall be among them. And He shall wipe away
every tear from their eyes and there shall no longer
be any death. There shall no longer be any mourning
or crying or pain; the first things have passed away."
And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am
making all things new." And He said, "Write, for
these words are faithful and true." And He said to
me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end. I will give to the one who
thirsts from the spring of the water of life without
cost. He who overcomes shall inherit these things
and I will be his God and he will be My son. But for
the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and
murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and
idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the
lake that burns with fire and brimstone which is the
second death."
Now again having read that we are initially reminded of the reality that we live in a world and in a universe that will be totally destroyed. To use a word we may well have coined, it will be uncreated. It will go out of existence. That's what it says in verse 1, the first heaven and the first earth passed away, they disappeared, they went out of existence.
Now remember, this will occur after the thousand year millennial Kingdom that is described in chapter 20. It will occur at the time when God judges all the ungodly at the Great White Throne. After the millennial Kingdom is over, Christ destroys the last satanic rebellion, the universe is destroyed and then all of the ungodly are brought before God at the Great White Throne judgment. After the Great White Throne judgment, the first heaven and the first earth having passed away, chapter 21 verse 1 says a new heaven and a new earth come into existence.
To give you another view of this same great holocaust in which the world is destroyed and the universe with it, I want to have you turn to 2 Peter because you can't really have the full picture unless you compare 2 Peter chapter 3 with the book of Revelation. And I haven't really done that and I want to do it tonight.
In 2 Peter chapter 3 and verse 7, very similar to what John saw in the apocalypse of Revelation, Peter received by way of revelation from God. Second Peter writes, "But the present heavens and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." Now Peter could anticipate the dissolution of the present heavens and earth. It would come in the time when God's final judgment fell, the time we call the day of the Lord, in the day when ungodly people are destroyed, ultimately cast into the lake of fire. In verse 8, "Do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day."
Now Peter is saying the present world system since the Flood will be destroyed. It will be destroyed by fire, a coming fire storm awaits this system. Matter will go out of existence. All motion will stop and only divine energy will remain. It will include the destruction of ungodly men. Obviously the godly are not destroyed, they're taken to glory.
And then in verse 8 he says that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. And that, by the way, is borrowed by Peter from Psalm 90 and verse 4. And we can't confine God to a set schedule. God is beyond time. And yet here is a very clear reference to a thousand years being equal to a day. Now remember that in Revelation chapter 20 we also discussed a thousand years because there it talks about the kingdom and about how Satan will be bound for a thousand years.
So as John is looking at the end time, he sees a thousand-year period. As Peter looks at the end time he comments on a thousand years. In fact, in verses 4 to 7, follow this carefully, of 2 Peter 3, in verses 4 to 7 Peter is describing the return of Christ in judgment, that is before the kingdom. It's the judgment at the return of Christ when He comes and destroys the ungodly. Then in verses 10 to 13 Peter describes a period at the end of the Millennial Kingdom and he describes the creation of the new heaven and the new earth. And he talks in verse 10 about the heavens passing away with a roar, the elements being destroyed with intense heat, the earth and its works burned up. And then down in verse 13 he says, "We look for a new heaven and a new earth."
Now it's very important to note this. Verses 4 to 7 talk about something at the end of the Tribulation before the thousand-year Kingdom. Verses 10 to 13 talk about events at the end of the Kingdom. So you have the day of the Lord, then, really starting at the end of the Tribulation and finishing at the end of the Kingdom. And people ask that question: how can you have the day of the Lord separated by a thousand years? In fact, some amillennialists will kind of pooh-pooh that viewpoint and Peter couldn't answer it any more explicitly than he answers it by saying in verse 8 that one day is as a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years as one day. He is saying it shouldn't be a problem to you that the first part of this description occurs prior to the thousand years and the latter part at the end of the thousand years when you realize that with God a thousand years is as one day and in this case, namely the day of the Lord.
And so, Peter looks and sees the coming day of the Lord and he knows by way of revelation that there is a thousand-year feature within this, although he certainly wouldn't see it as clearly as John began to see it because of further revelation. And then go to verse 10, "The day of the Lord will come like a thief," that's a surprise break in. When the day of the Lord comes it will come like a thief, unexpectedly. And this is describing what has to happen at the end of the Kingdom. The heavens will pass away with a...literally with a whizzing whistling, it's an onomatopoetic word. For those of you who aren't in English class, onomatopoeia is an English word that describes a word that is defined by its sound. In other words, its meaning is its sound. And so there is a whizzing whistling crackling as the uncreation takes place and the elements which are the basic components, the ABCs, the stoicheia, the irreducible minimum structure, building blocks or structure of civiliza...of creation, I should say. Those elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, the earth and its works will be burned up.
Then down in verse 12, again it talks about the heavens being destroyed by burning and the elements melting with intense heat...some kind of atomic holocaust as God recreates or destroys really the creation, uncreates the creation and breaks apart and destroys the atomic structure as we now know it. The uncreation reducing everything to energy which is the power of God, used then, according to verse 13, to create a new heaven and a new earth.
So Peter saw the same thing. Now you can return to the book of Revelation. The new heaven and the new earth which Peter saw is precisely that which John sees in his own vision here in the last two chapters of Revelation. Here we find then the best description of the eternal dwelling place of the saints. Remember now that the ungodly are already cast into the lake of fire, they're out of the picture and this is the dwelling place for the godly...for God, for Christ, for the Holy Spirit, for the holy angels and for the redeemed. This is the dwelling place of all believers forever. And John sees the vision of it.
First of all, we noted that he saw the appearance of the new heaven and the new earth in verse 1. He says, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there is no longer any sea." Now remember, as the chapter opens all the sinners of all the ages are gone. They're gone. Whether they be demons or men, including Satan, they're all in the lake of fire, confined forever in anguishing punishment. The whole universe has gone out of existence. And in its place John sees a new kainos, a new kind, a new quality of creation. And it is identified as one in which there is no sea. We pointed out the fact that that means it doesn't function as a water-based existence such as ours does today.
Then we saw secondly not only the appearance of the new heaven and the new earth but the capital of it. In verse 2, "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband." And I believe this is the capital city of heaven, the new Jerusalem. This is where the Father lives, this is where God dwells among His people. This is what Jesus referred to when He said, "I'm going away to prepare a place for you, and I'll come again and receive you to Myself that where I am there you may be also," this is the dwelling place of all believers who have died. They're with the Lord right now in this place and the place where they are with Him now will survive the destruction, of course, of the universe and descend into the new heavens and the new earth from the heaven of God which transcends any creation.
And so, this capital city then is seen coming down because it already holds the saints of all the ages who have died. They're already living there and dwelling there. And we'll find more about that and its description starting in verse 9. So we saw then the appearance and the capital of the new earth.
And thirdly, the supreme reality. And this is kind of where we left off the last two weeks. Verse 3 tells us the supreme reality, "I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, `Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and He shall dwell among them and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be among them.'" Three times it says God is going to be among them. That's the supreme reality, fellowship with God, seeing Him as glorious light, worshiping Him, serving Him, and even being served by Him as Luke 12:35 to 40 pointed out.
Now that brings us to the text for tonight. Let's come to a fourth point as we look at this description which is introductory. And we have considered the appearance, the capital and the supreme reality of the new heavens and the new earth. Here's a fourth point, the changes...the changes.
Now we're going to find out what life there will be like. And the only way it can be described to us really is with negatives. We cannot understand what we cannot understand. We cannot understand what we cannot perceive or what we cannot conceive or what we cannot experience. And so the only way we can understand what we can't see, what we can't understand and what we can't experience is to understand it by its difference from what we do experience. And so you have a series of no mores or no longers which will demonstrate for us the difference.
Summing it up, an old human experience is gone forever. It's gone forever. In verse 4 look at what John says. "And He shall wipe away," and here come the negatives, "He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes and there shall no longer be any death, there shall no longer be any mourning or crying or pain, the first things have passed away." And what John is saying is it's not going to be like life here. It's going to be different. All those things which make up life here which are so much a part of life and the negative features of life will be utterly absent.
John then rehearses the changes that describe such a dramatically different life by rehearsing for us a series of negatives. And again I say we can't really comprehend something we can't comprehend so he has to tell us what it won't be like and use what we know as a starting point and back off from there.
Now the first thing he says is God is going to wipe away every tear from their eyes. Some people have said, "Well what that means is you're going to get to heaven and you're going to start crying all over the place, the Lord is going to come along and wipe your tears away." No, that is not what it means. It doesn't mean we'll arrive weeping. On what basis would we arrive weeping? Well you say, "We're going to have to face the record of our sins." Not so, the record of our sins was put on Jesus Christ, He already paid the penalty for it. "There is therefore now no condemnation."
"Well," you say, "well wait a minute, we're going to see our wood, hay and stubble burned up." Well after wood, hay and stubble are burned up all that's left is gold, silver and precious stones and Paul says, "Not only that, every man will have praise from God," 1 Corinthians chapter 4. So we're not all going to be moaning and groaning and weeping and wailing all over heaven while the Lord comes around with a supernatural handkerchief and mops up all our tears. That is not what we are to comprehend by this.
He shall wipe away, pon dakron(??) every single tear. What it means is there never will be a tear in heaven, not one single tear. There will be nothing sad. There will be nothing disappointing. There will be nothing unfulfilling. There will be nothing lacking. There will be nothing wrong. There will be nothing limitating...limiting. There will be nothing to cry about.
Tears of misfortune, tears of poverty, tears of loneliness, tears over lost love, tears of sympathy, mercy, pity, tears of persecuted innocence, tears of remorse, tears of regret, tears of penitence, tears of neglect, tears of yearning for what cannot be are all gone forever. Bliss, joy and nothing but for eternity. Tears, you see, are part of, what he says at the end of verse 4, the first things that have passed away. They don't exist.
To put it in a clinical form, you won't have any tear ducts. Furthermore, you might not even have any water in you. How about that? I told you there's no more sea. It's not a water-based existence. No more tears, gone, nothing to cry about.
And he adds, some more of the no mores, there shall no longer be any death. The greatest of mortal curses is gone. Death, as Paul promised in 1 Corinthians 15, is swallowed up in victory. Death is gone. It is eliminated. Nobody ever dies. In fact, go back to chapter 20 verse 14, "Death itself is thrown into the lake of fire." What that tells you is death dies. Death is gone...gone forever...along with him who had the power of death, Hebrews 2:14, namely Satan, who used that power of death to put fear in the hearts of all men. No more dying there, the song says, no more crying there.
And there shall no longer be any mourning. Somewhere below tears comes grief, sorrow, distress, repression that leads to tears. There won't be any of that, not at all. There won't be anything to get depressed about. There won't be anything to get distressed about. Now some of you are going to have to figure out a new way to live because that does take up an awful lot of your time, but the Lord will be glad to give you some new things to occupy yourself.
This is a fulfillment really of Isaiah 53 where it talks about this, now you remember Isaiah 53 speaks about the death of Christ and it says He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised and we didn't esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, our sorrows He carried. You see, on the cross He took away our sin and He also ultimately took away our sorrow, didn't He? Because when we get to glory and sin is in the past and all the debilitating features of sin are gone, there will be no reason for mourning. There will be no depression. Nobody will ever be sad, down in the mouth. Those of you who are moody will never be moody again.
And he says, another no more just along the same line, really almost a synonym, "or crying." Not only no longer any mourning but he adds crying, just to make sure he covers all the ground. No tears, no mourning, no crying...all gone. And then he adds, "No more pain." No more pain? No, because the healing promise in the atonement is fulfilled. Back to that same passage, Isaiah 53 verse 5, "He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities," we know that, Jesus died for our sins, but how about this? More than that, "By His scourging we are healed."
You say, "Well isn't He talking about spiritual healing?" Yes, but not just spiritual healing because if you go over to chapter 8 of Matthew it says that Jesus took the hand of Peter's mother-in-law, touched her and fever left her. And He healed all who were ill. And then in verse 17, "In order that He might fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah, He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases." And that's exactly what He did at the cross. We just don't realize that until we get to heaven. But Jesus died for our diseases and some day they'll all be gone. He died for our tears and some day they'll all be gone, and our mourning and our crying and our pain and death will be gone and all sin.
That's the catalog of the "no mores." And at the end of verse 4 he says the first things have passed away. He just sums them all up as the first things. They belong to the first heaven and the first earth. They belong to this life which we now live. But they are the blessed exemptions from heaven. They won't be there. It will be absolute eternal bliss. Everyone will be as happy as it is conceivably possible to be in the presence of God in a perfect condition all the time...all the time...unmitigated, unrestrained, unlimited, unhindered, unrestricted, undiminished joy. We can understand it by what it won't be.
And then John adds a positive statement of some sort in verse 5. It doesn't give you any detail but here is a positive statement nonetheless. "And He who sits on the throne said, `Behold, I am making all things new.'" And that's all that John can really say about the positive side. Everything will be different. Everything will be new. Who said so? "He who sits on the throne." Oh. Who's that? Same one back in chapter 20 verse 11, "I saw a great white throne and He who sat upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them." He who sat upon the throne, obviously the eternal God, the eternal Christ, both of them are on the throne. The Son is sitting on the Father's throne with the Father. God and God in Christ, the One who created the first time will do so again, the Lord Himself. And He says I am making all things new, a whole new existence.
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