Revelation 21:1-8
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The Newness to come.
The Newness to come.
Introduction:
Many of us may be ready to move on from this book. The doom and gloom of the book of Revelation has caused a downcast soul. If we are honest, we did not need the study of this book to cause such a feeling in our hearts and minds. Every day, the world presents to us a place of chaos and trouble. We see famine in many parts of the world. We see families destroyed by crime, abuse, drugs, selfishness, gangs… We hear of wars and rummers of wars. We see governments trying to make power plays and others seeking to destroy other nations and people groups. We see modern-day slavery in the form of children and adults in sex trafficking in Asia and America, diamond mines in Africa, and brink-yields in the Middle East. This is just to name a few. We can look out into this world and, in our hearts, know something is incorrect. For Christians, we say that this is not how God intended His world to be, but here we are. Sin entered into the world and continued to manifest itself in so many ways. We often sit by in wonder how someone could do such a thing, how could they be so cruel, how could they be so vile, but we are just as capable, and our sins have just as damaging an effect on us and those around us. But God is gracious; he has given us newness of life in Jesus. He has made a new creation through His Son. 1 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [literally, a new creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” This is what the world needs. It needs newness; it requires divine restoration. The world says there is no hope; The Christian says, “One day.” With bated breath, we wait, our eyes cast to the heavenly places, eager for our Lord to return. Waiting to see what John declares in our text today: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth.”
This “new heaven and new earth”, is something to look forward to! The old has passed away, and the sea is no more. John's words to the reader should give great hope. The things that we see before us now will be restored. We will see what Eden was really meant to be. John draws his audience to the prophet Isaiah. He helps them to recall God's promises of God to His people.
Isaiah 43:18-19
18 “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I am doing something new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 65:15-19
But his servants he will call by another name, 16 so that he who blesses himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth, and he who takes an oath in the land shall swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles are forgotten and are hidden from my eyes. New Heavens and a New Earth 17 “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
And the Apostle Peter writes 2 Peter 3:10-13
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Let us rejoice brothers and sisters that a day is coming when all things will be new. Now the language here means restored not a new “other” Just as we shall have reserected bodies ones that will be recognizable like the Lord to his discples. That language is caried over to the new heavens and new earth. It is purified by refining fire. Our old friend the sea is no more. That place of distruction.
Joel R. Beeke
John adds something very personal and human: “And there was no more sea” (Rev. 21:1b). As a prisoner on an island, John constantly heard the sound of crashing waves, the cry of wild birds in the sky, and the roar of thunder. The sea formed the walls of his prison. It separated him from everyone he loved in Christ. In the distance, he could see mountains on the mainland. He knew that the people he loved in the seven churches of Asia were there. But the sea prevented him from leaving the island. Now God says to him: “John, in the new age, there will be no more sea for you. There will be no more goodbyes, no more separations, and no more broken fellowship. You will no longer suffer isolation, persecution, pain, or suffering for the sake of Christ. It will be a world where there will be none of this, where you will dwell with Me.” Or, as John saw it, “there [will be] no more sea.”
Joel R. Beeke, Revelation, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Jon D. Payne, The Lectio Continua Expository Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016), 547.
This sea that the beast came from where the dragon stood on the sands of the sea. A place were idolotris trade took place. A place of natural disasters and death. This is all gone. All evil and distruction is driven out, it is all made to be how God had created it before sin enterned into the world.
This new age, this new earth, new heavens is for those who love God!
Beeke asked this in his commentary
Do you love Him? I am not asking if you pay Him the respect of coming to church on Sunday. I am asking something much more profound and important. Do you love Him? God has prepared this new age for those who love Him. It is illogical for someone to expect to have everything to do with God in the next world after having nothing to do with Him in this world. Do you love Him?
Joel R. Beeke, Revelation, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Jon D. Payne, The Lectio Continua Expository Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016), 548–549.
v2 “I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem… prepared like a bride adorned for her husband”
This is what Abraham looked forward to! Part of Abraham living by faith was the looking forwad to the new creation/promised land to come, not just in his day but the eternal kingdom to come.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 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.
This holy city is a people and a dewlling place. It is the perfect place where God will be with his people on a restored earth. It is a people, as the bible discribes the church as the bride of Christ. We should recall the Apostle Paul and his letter to the Ephesians chapter 5. Paul declars “this mistry is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church.”
The blessings of this reality are for today as well as for the future. We know that the dewlling place of God is not in a city now but in the believer. Our bodies are called the temple. The Spirit of God is able to be in us becasue he has made a new creation 1 Cor 5:17. We have been made new, are being transformed and will be glorified, no sin will remain. This is the consumation of all things, this is the glorious hope we have in us. This is what the wrold does not get but I wish they did.
Then this fullfiment of God’s words.
v3 “Then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.”
“dewlling or live with them” is better put he will tabernacle with thim. The hearer would be drawn to dester wandering and were God was with his people in the tabernacle this was the dewlling place of God. Our God is personal. He says his place is with his people. he does not live apart from his creation and his chosen people but with his people.
In Johns gospel Jesus makes a very personal and profound statement
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
This is the promise God made to Israel in Leviticus 26:11-12
I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
The prophet Isaiah delcalrs Isaiah 35:10
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
and again in Isaiah 65:19
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.
Every tranlasion I opened states he will wipe away every tear… What a comfort to think that the creator of all things speaks of the personal relationship with His people in a way that he wipes the tears from our face the pains of our life are gone by the prush of a hand. All this things crying, death, mounring, pain, none they are gone...the former things have passed away.
But we should not despair as though we have no hope for today.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
If you have called upon Jesus as Lord and Saviour you have this helper/comforter in you and Jesus says He is with you forever. Is He not the one in our geaf and pain who helps us to be thankful to God? Is it not he causes us to smile in sorrow becasue we know His mercy. Is it not He who gives us hope for today and tomorrow. He is the one who shows us better day that are yet to come. The old will pass away and the new is coming. Rejoice, be glad, happy, positive, estatice, for tomorrow our Lord may come and all will be made new. I pray the Lord takes me with a smile on my face as I am rejoicing in the better things yet to come. To see my Lord to see my God and to know that I will be with Him and He with me.
v5 “he who was seated on the throne said “I am makeing all things new”… this is trustworthy and true. Do you beleive it or do you give these promisses lip sevice?
William Hendriksen rightly says this
“People may vainly imagine that by means of better education, a better environment, better legislation, and a more equitable distribution of wealth they are going to usher in a ne era, a golden era, the utopia of man’s arent desire. Their dream remains a dream!...God is the only one who can create and make all things new”
God is able to make all things new becasue He is God, he is the Alpha and Omega
Joel R. Beeke
A few weeks before my God-fearing mother died at age 92, I read Revelation 21 to her. When I came to verse 6, I asked her if she knew what “Alpha and Omega” meant. As soon as I asked the question, I berated myself, thinking: “That was foolish to ask considering that Mother has dementia. Of course she won’t know.” But she looked at me and said, “Honey”—that was everyone’s name, because she couldn’t remember anyone’s name—“are those the names of Jesus that mean that Jesus is our A and our Z and everything in between?” “Yes, Mother,” I replied, “that’s exactly right!” Is Jesus your A and Z and everything in between, in terms of your salvation? Is He your all in all?
Joel R. Beeke, Revelation, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Jon D. Payne, The Lectio Continua Expository Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2016), 551.
Creator, sustainer and consummating king says I will give to those who are thritsty, that he will give from the spring of the water of life.
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
This gift is given without payment becasue the payment has been made by the one who give the gift.
God declares again to the one who conquers they will have this heritage. Jesus being the first born and first fruites, we who are in him are partakers of his inheratnce.
But then we are told v8 …
So, I the question again Do You love Him? Do you trust him?
