A New Creation

Introduction

Well, good morning!

If you have your Bible and I hope that you do, open ‘em up with me to Revelation chapter 21…We have this week and the next and then we’ll be moving back into Genesis, where we’d be until the end of the year.

But listen, it’s kind of funny…just last year, we walked through the first several chapters of Genesis, looking at the very beginning…looking at the start of creation and man. We saw the fall, the entrance of sin…but now, as we look at the last several chapters of the Bible, we’re getting a completely different scene.

Not only are we seeing a new creation here, but heaven and earth, they’re no longer separated like they were in the beginning. We saw satan’s reign begin in Genesis and we see it end in Revelation. We saw the entrance of sin in the Book of Genesis and now, in this chapter, we see it all destroyed and the curse removed. In Genesis, we saw the right to the tree of life forfeited…but listen, here in our text today, we see it restored. In Genesis 3, we saw man evicted from the garden but now we see them welcomed back. We saw death introduced and now we see it removed forever. We saw the marriage of Adam and Eve and now we see the marriage of the church and Christ…Sorrow, it entered the world through man’s desire to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…but now that tree, it ceases to exist.

It’s almost as if everything that’s happened since the fall of man…since Genesis chapter 3…it’s all happened, to bring us back to this moment where all things are made new.

Oftentimes, people ask, “What’s it gonna be like in eternity?”…Read Genesis chapter 2…all of history, it’s been heading to the pre-garden narrative. That’s where we’re going…that’s what we hope for and long for.

Listen, in our culture today…we read these stories…we watch these Disney movies or these romances…and we have this “they lived happily ever after” mentality, right? Like we think the story ends that way because there’s nothing interesting left to say. There’s no more drama, or tension, or threat…there’s no more excitement. It’s almost as if, once the two get married, that was the pinnacle of their life together. Like, after your wedding day, it all just kind of goes down hill, right? And listen, I’m not saying that marriage isn’t hard…it is…its a lot of work and sacrifice…its compromise…but guys, when I married Brittany, I thought that was the best day of my life…I didn’t know it could get any better…But listen guys, after 16 years, I can confidently say that since our wedding day, we’ve had even better days. And I love her more today than I ever could’ve 16 years ago. I’ve gotten to know her in a more intimate way…I’ve gotten to sit back and watch her raise our three kids…I know what makes her smile and what makes her tick…and over the years, she’s become my best friend. We’ve made amazing memories together. In fact, life, it’s better today than it was on our wedding day.

For a lot of us, we kind of look at the new heaven and the new earth in the same way. Almost like there’s really nothing else to look forward to. You understand that all the drama and all the tension and all the suspense, it’ll all be gone…and you feel like there’s gonna be nothing left interesting or exciting. You’re left feeling like somehow this picture of eternity, it’s gonna be boring…that its gonna be unpleasurable in some way.

Guys, as we walk through this text this morning…understand this…the days and the years and eternity that follows the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth, those days will grow your pleasure and delight as you walk with God and as you experience what He intended from the very start of creation. If there’s anything that Genesis 1 and 2 showed us last year, it was that God cares about your delight and your pleasure…but understand this, with the establishment of the new creation…and with the removal of all things sinful…your definition of those things, it’s gonna change drastically…just like our definitions with different things have in our own marriages and relationships as we grow together.

And so, if you’re there with me…for the sake of time, we’re not gonna stand and read it all this morning…hopefully you’ve read our passage before you came…but like we’ve been doing for the past several weeks…we’re gonna look at the exegesis of the text…what it all means…and then we’re gonna look at the application…what its showing us today.

And so, with that…let’s dive into the text.

I. Exegesis: What Do These Chapters Mean?

What does this passage mean?

I think it can be broken up into two sections…out with the old and in with the new…and then a worthy place for God and His people. That’s the picture being painted here.

And so, if you would…pay attention to the first eight verses. We see this “out with the old and in with the new” theme.

In verse 1, John writes, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Now before we begin digging into the text. I just wanna address some things I think are important here concerning how I interpret this book. I think since the beginning of Genesis, where God called out Abraham…where He promised to make him into a great nation…where He promised Abraham that he’d inherent the Promise Land…I think that promise and everything else since, its been pointing to this chapter where God’s people would enjoy His presence in the new heaven and the new earth. Now, I don’t have a ton of time to cover all that this morning…luckily for us, we get to walk through that in the coming weeks…but I believe, the patriarch’s faith, it wasn’t so much in the physical land of Israel, as much as it was in what we’re reading about today.

One example of this, it’s in Genesis 17:8 where God not only promised to give the land of Canaan to Abraham’s descendants, but He also promised to give it to Abraham himself. Stephen, in the Book of Acts, he actually speaks about this in Acts chapter 7, verse 5:

Acts 7:5 (ESV)

Yet he gave him no inheritance in it, not even a foot’s length, but promised to give it to him as a possession and to his offspring after him, though he had no child.

Now God did give Abraham a burial plot in the land of Canaan, but that wasn’t God’s promise. And guys, I want you to see this…Abraham’s attitude with respect to that promise, a promise that was never physically fulfilled during his lifetime, it was that of faithfulness in an eternal land.

Hebrews 11:9 and 10 says this:

Hebrews 11:9–10 (ESV)

By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

The author here, he’s saying that Abraham’s faith was in the city we’re talking about today. It wasn’t in the physical, worldly things around us. It wasn’t in the physical land of Israel…it was in the New Jerusalem…where God would walk among him and his family again, just like we see in Genesis 2.

Now there’s a lot more here…but again, we just don’t have the time to cover it all today. I would also say this, its this chapter the most that persuades me to believe we’re living in the kingdom now…in the millennial kingdom.

Someone asked me last week, after the service, “How can we be living in the kingdom if it promises peace and prosperity during the kingdom?” I would respond first by saying that our definition of what “peace and prosperity” means in Revelation 20, its distorted…but through the Spirit today, we have the ability to live in this fallen world peacefully and prosperously. Secondly, I would say that if it was truly a time of peace and prosperity during the millennial kingdom, in terms of how you’re thinking about it, then why is it that after He defeats satan and all those that follow Him, why does He have to make it all new…If that previous world was already peaceful and prosperous, why does He have to destroy it if He’s eliminated all that threatens that kingdom?

The reality is, you can’t have godly peace and prosperity until all things old have passed away and all things are made new…and guys, the reality, its that Christ can’t physically come and reign in this world until that happens because in His glorified state, He can’t be in the presence of sin. That’s why I interpret Revelation 20 the way I do. He reigns from heaven and until the establishment of this new city, I believe we reign with Him after our first death.

Also, as we jump into this chapter, we have to see the parallels between the beginning of this book and the end. In chapter 2, verse 2 we saw false prophets and now, in the new creation, we see true apostles. We saw false Jews in 2:9 and 3:9 and now we see the names of the tribes of true Israel. We saw Christians dwell where satan’s throne was but now we see them dwell where God’s throne is. Some in the church were dead according to 3:1, now all in new Jerusalem, they’re all written in the Lamb’s book of life. We saw through the seven letters some of the church faltering, these temporal lampstands, now we see God and the Lamb, they’re eternal lamps. The church at the beginning of the book, it was filled with idolatry and impurity and deceit, now in the new creation, there’s purity and truth. I believe there’s all kinds of important symbolism here.

There’s tons of parallels here…much of the language, its the same. I encourage you, this week, to just go back and read it…especially the seven letters and just look at things like the temple discussed and food and the great name and eternal security…Jesus’s kingly power. There’s just so much that’s paralleled. The difference between then and now, its what no longer exists in the new creation.

Which moves us into the first thing we see here…all the former things, the things we know today, it all passes away. That’s what we look forward to.

I believe at the coming of Christ…He comes as a conqueror…and not only does He cast down satan and all those that gave into his temptations…but He comes to conquer his home, his domain. And in His victory, Jesus destroys all things satan deceived and brings with Him, a new heaven and a new earth. I believe this happens at Jesus’s return. He judges and then destroys all the things of this world so that this new creation can be established.

I mean just look at the text here.

Verse 1, it says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” And then at the end of verse 4, “…the former things have passed away.” This passage, its framed by the removal of everything worldly.

If you remember, last week, in chapter 20, verse 11…John said that “earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.” Why’s that true? Why’s that happen? So that a new heaven and a new earth can take it’s place. Which also, I believe it proves further that these different passages we’ve been reading, they’re not listing out these chronological events…its speaking about the same things happening with different details each time. But guys, I want you to see this…the relationship between the former and the latter creation, its different in every way. Yes, there’s some things here that’ll continue, between the present and the future…for example, as believers, we continue on into this eternity…but the difference, its that we do so without corruptible bodies…we do so with glorified and transformed ones.

The Greek word here, “kainos,” it means “new.” It’s indicating a newness of quality…and listen, this is important to understand because even though you’re gonna be there as believers, everything about you today and everything about our world today, it’s gonna be made into something entirely new.

But in order to make new, the old has to be destroyed. First, we see it with the sea…the sea, throughout Scripture, it symbolizes evil and chaos…and now, we see it cease to exist. So there is no sin or evil or chaos. And because the old worlds of heaven and earth and the evil that corrupted them have been destroyed the new heavens and the new earth comes down…and notice they don’t come down separately…they come down together this time. It also describes this scene as a bride coming to her husband…it’s almost as if John’s comparing this New Jerusalem with the bride of Christ, hence why I believe the church makes up the true remnant of God’s people.

Christ is the fiancÈ, and the church is his fiancÈ waiting for the final consummation, their final union, the marriage supper of the Lamb. It’s a spectacular way of saying, in effect, the joy, the intimacy, the pleasure, the knitting together of soul and mind and heart and body. Its The marriage supper of the Lamb.

But notice, after this destruction, God comes down to His people and dwells with them. He comes to us.

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.’ ” That language, its used over and over again in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 26, the third book of the Bible, when the tabernacle was being built for the ancient Israelites in the desert…they weren’t in the Promised Land, there wasn’t a temple…they had a tabernacle, that’s where God makes himself present among his people.

You read that God says, “I will put my dwelling place among you. I will walk among you and be your God. You will be my people.” And then when the new covenant’s promised in Jeremiah 31, God says, “I will put my law on their minds. I will be their God. They will be my people.” We have the same language, but under the old covenant it was bound up with God’s self-disclosure, his manifestation in that tabernacle.

Under the terms of the new covenant, it’s God self-disclosure, his manifestation in Christ and in the church among his people. The same language but the whole thing gets ratcheted up! Now in the last stage, this same language: “I will be their God; they will be my people.” The same language but it’s ratcheted up to such a place now that the intimacy is so great (God is so much present with them) that it’s unthinkable that any residue of sin or decay or judgment or loss or death can prevail anymore. There’s a ratcheting up of expectations until this consummation of perfection.

And so, not only is there destruction of evil and chaos, but now we see there’s no more separation between us and God. His home and our home. And because of those things…we see sin and the consequences of sin, death and sorrow, those things are no longer present. The old has been tossed away.

But look at verses 5 through 8 with me.

It says this:

Revelation 21:5–8 (ESV)

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

And so, God, He makes three statements in these four verses. The first, its Him saying what He’s gonna do…the second, its a command to write…and the last, its a statement about who God is and what He promises to both the righteous and unrighteous.

In the first statement, God says, “All things are gonna be made new!” Nothing in God’s new creation will look like something old and dilapidated. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “…there’s nothing new under the sun,” right? But in the new heaven and the new earth, God makes all things entirely new and different. It’s like nothing you can imagine. Ecclesiastes 1:15 says, “What’s crooked can’t be made straight, and what’s lacking can’t be counted.” But guys, when God makes all things new, there will be nothing bent that needs straightening and nothing lacking. You understand?

And to show this to be true…God says, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He’s asserting His faithfulness to us. In fact, throughout the first 8 verses, every verse depicts the fulfillment of something promised in the Old Testament. It’s showing us that God keeps His Word. He’ll do exactly as He says because He’s faithful and true.

Lastly, He states, “It is done!” God announces, through John, that all things have been made new before it’s even happened…and He can do that because He’s God…and because just as He said, “these words are trustworthy and true.” It’s done because He will do it. And He can say it’s done in the present…even at the time John wrote this book, almost 2,000 years ago…because He’s the Alpha and the Omega…He’s the beginning and the end. He’s not bound by time or space…He stands at the beginning and the end…and guys, just as I’ve been saying, He’s victorious! That’s been His message to believers.

And listen, I love this…”To the thirsty,” He says, “I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” Which if you know your Bible, this statement, it fulfills Isaiah 55:1. Even the thirst, it’s given to us…we’ll thirst for these waters of life that flows from Christ. Pay attention to the verses, God’s removed sin and evil…and so, with that, He’s also given you the thirst for things righteous. Not only does God give you the drink without payment…but He causes you to thirst by His own effort. What a picture of grace? What a picture of what glorification will be like. We’ll no longer thirst for the things of the world…we’ll no longer be tempted by things that look appealing…we’ll only be captivated by things that please God…things that are actually good for us.

And then He shows the different outcomes between the two cities we’ve been talking about over the past several chapters…those that followed Babylon and those that looked forward to the New Jerusalem.

And then real quickly…we won’t read the whole section here…but John goes on to describe what this new city’ll be like. It’s a worthy place for God and His people.

Verse 15: “The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long.”

The significance of the 12,000 and the 144 … Apocalyptic literature, it loves symbolism, and it’s calling to mind the 12 apostles, the 12 tribes of Israel. It’s a way of saying all of the old covenant people and all of the new covenant people together constitute this unified people, like the book of Ephesians, one new humanity in Christ.

A city built like a cube…which I believe it’s just another piece of symbolism here. In the Old Testament, there’s actually only one mention of a cubed like dwelling. It’s the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle or the temple.

The tabernacle was built three times as long as it was wide and two-thirds of it took up the entrance part, the Holy Place, and the last third, the ark of the covenant. Perfectly cube-like. The blood of bull and goat was poured out in the presence of God on the Day of Atonement. Perfectly cube-like.

It was the place where God manifested himself in his glory when the blood was poured out, and now, we’re told, the whole city, its like a cube. That’s to say, all of us are forever in the very presence of God. We don’t need any mediating priest. We don’t need any blood sacrifices. It’s equivalent to what we discovered when Christ was crucified. The veil of the temple was torn, and we can be immediately ourselves directly in the presence of God. Now the whole New Jerusalem is built like a cube. Notice, that unlike the old Jerusalem, there’s no temple. There’s no temple because the entire city, it’s already the Most Holy Place.

We’re told there’s no sun or moon. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.” This isn’t trying to describe for us what space is gonna look like in the new heaven and the new earth. It’s all symbolism.

The point here, its that in the ancient world, when you have night in a culture where there’s no electric light, then night was the time when you shut down the city gates. That’s when you had some security. You made yourself safe because the nighttime was bound up with danger and wickedness. So the sun and the moon not only give us our time spans but give us the cycles of life when the gates are shut, when there’s more danger and you hope for the coming of the light. Its symbolism here…we no longer have to anticipate the light coming. The glory of God, it gives light…there’s no danger or curse or sin or rebellion. God is our security. Which is why verse 27 says that “nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

And then listen, as you walk through this chapter and the first five verses in chapter 22, John gives us the central theme of this new city…its the Lamb…the One who emerges from the throne and the One who brings all of God’s purposes to pass.

Verses 4 and 5, they’re probably the most hopeful verses we read, “They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They won’t need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they’ll reign forever.” We’ll see his face.

Do you guys remember back in Exodus where Moses asked to see more of God’s glory, to see God’s face? God said, “No one can see my face and live.” The closest we can get before the coming of this new city, the closest we can get to seeing God, its through the God-man, through Jesus…who humbled Himself by becoming like us…but now in this splendor we’ve been so transformed ourselves that our sinfulness, it’s been burned away. The last stages of the old nature and its sinful desires, they’re all gone, and now in God’s grace, we have the great privilege of looking at, of gazing at, transcendent holiness.

There’s a song, I think just captures it perfectly. It says:

Face to face with Christ, my Savior

Face to face—what will it be

When with rapture I behold Him

Jesus Christ who died for me?

Only faintly now I see Him

With the darkened veil between

But a blessed day is coming

When His glory shall be seen

The wonder of the new heaven and the new earth, the wonder isn’t that you’re gonna be linked up with someone you’ve might lost, who’s gone on before you. And listen, there will be a reunion of the people of God…but the Bible, it actually doesn’t speak much about that at all…actually, it speaks more about the sheer God-centered, spectacular, unimaginable glory that’ll be ours forever in an unceasing eternity as we contemplate God and his perfections. And guys, this new world…this city…we’ll work it, we’ll have perfect dominion over it…and our sole aim, it’ll be to bring glory to God…which He shares with us. We’ll be captivated by it…and we’ll live in His grace, constantly reminded of where we were and where we are now, because of His great love for us.

II. Application: What Do These Chapters Show Us?

And so, what’s all this mean for us?

First, in light of everything we just read…remember that as a believer, you’ve been purchased. I mean, as a believer, you’ve heard the gospel, you understand the gospel…and guys because of that, you should understand the great lengths at which God’s gone to redeem you.

You’ve been poor in spirit…you’ve mourned over your sins…you’ve been humbled, understanding that we all fall short of God’s glory…you understand that all of us, we’ve all rebelled and turned from God…all of us, we followed the ways of the world. Understanding the gospel, its understanding that by Jesus’s work on the cross, through His sacrifice and through His grace, that’s what gave you salvation.

And guys, understanding that gospel message, it’s living in the fact that you’ve been sealed by God Himself through the Holy Spirit.

Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1, 13 and 14:

Ephesians 1:13–14 (ESV)

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Listen to those words…when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation…and when you believed in Him…you were sealed with God Himself…which is a guarantee, its proof…of your inheritance of this new city.

Through faith, and through grace…because of the blood of Christ…you’ve been purchased and you’ve been made new in the spirit…yes, one day you’ll receive a new body, with a new mind…but guys, you have a new heart, that’s been sealed by the Holy Spirit…and He did that so that you’ll constantly be reminded over and over and over again, that this new city…it’s yours because of Christ Jesus…to His glory and to His praise.

Living in the hope of this new city, it’s living in the assurance of your salvation today.

Which brings me to the second applicational point…live your life today in light of God’s promises for tomorrow. What about anything you read or anything you’ve experienced in your own salvation shows that God’s untrustworthy?

Guys, if we’re honest…if we do an honest take on our life…we’re more rooted in the things of the world because this picture of the New Jerusalem, the picture God’s giving us here…we either don’t really desire what’s laid out here…or we don’t really believe what He’s laid out here.

Let me just give you an example…for those of you either married or you’ve been in a serious relationship…when you desire to be with the other person, what’s its do to your life? Your life becomes consumed by that person, right? Like, your life, it begins to revolve around that other person…they’re all you think about…all you wanna be around. It starts to change you in ways. And listen, when you’ve been with that person a while, maybe you got engaged…you start to make wedding plans and plans for where you’re both gonna live after the wedding. Your life, even before the wedding day, it starts to become one…you start to live in such a way that shows you desire this other person and you start to live in such a way that shows you truly believe that they’re gonna marry you, right?

Guys, there’s a reason John uses marriage as an example when explaining all of this.

The problem for us…its that when we really examine our lives, it doesn’t actually show that we desire the Groom…and it doesn’t actually show that we believe in things He lays out here in this chapter…Instead, for the most part, our lives, they show we desire this world (as we’ve been talking about for weeks now)…and guys, it shows we believe more in what the world has to offer.

I was sharing my convictions recently with a group of what I believed to be mature Christians…I shared how I’ve just been convicted over my own lifestyle here lately…how I felt like my life didn’t demonstrate the fruits of the gospel…how it didn’t always display the humility we’re called to…how, more so than not, I was just as worldly at times with my materialistic things…or with the things I consumed. Guys, Revelation, its convicted me. It’s shown me that I’ve been failing as a husband, as a dad, as a pastor, as a believer…Revelation, its been, for me, like one the seven letters to the churches…I’ve been failing to be engaged in the mission of Christ. I’m telling you, I have this burden in my heart…and as your pastor, I’m telling you I don’t just feel that for myself, I feel that for the church.

But listen, I was sharing those things…and one by one, some began to comfort me by beginning to justify my convictions…or maybe even their own. They said, “But Steven, that’s every one of us…don’t feel bad!”…Guys, just because every one of us is doing it…just because everyone else is struggling with it, it doesn’t justify it. Where your heart is, there your eternity goes…where your heart is, there your children and grandchild go…where your heart is, what your heart communicates about you, that’s what really defines who you are.

These last several chapters, they’ve shown us over and over and over again, what’s gonna happen to everything worldly. Guys, if you find in the end that your heart really desires the things of this world…if you find its in the world or of the world, it might just be tossed, with the world, into that Lake of Fire.

Guys, remember that you’ve been purchased…and listen, live your life today, in light of God’s promises for tomorrow. Remember your mission on earth…remember those around you…understand the battle that’s waging and that you’ve been called to fight.

Closing

Listen, as we close this morning, the praise team’s gonna come back up…they’re gonna lead in worship one more time. I’ve really enjoyed closing the service the last several weeks in worship…and so, let’s do that again. If you would, stand with me to your feet…And listen, as they play, maybe the Spirit convicts you…maybe you just need to turn around and pray where you’re at…maybe you need to come to the altar while everyone else worships around you. Maybe you need to talk to someone, I’ll be in the back, if that’s the case. Maybe you’re here and you don’t know Jesus as Lord and Savior. And maybe you just need to do that this morning. Understand that you’re a sinner…you’re fallen. Understand that the penalty of sin, its death…and that on your own, there’s nothing you can do about that. But listen, if that’s you, understand there’s so much hope in the gospel, the reason Jesus came, the reason He died on the cross, the reason He resurrected…it was so that you wouldn’t have to experience the punishment you deserve. He took all that on for you. And the Bible says all you have to do is turn from your sin, and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and that He raised from the dead…And so, maybe that’s what you need to do today…repent and believe.

But listen, whatever it is, would you worship with us this morning?

[Prayer]