The New Heaven and the New Earth
In fact, the pure in heart, according to the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes, are promised that they will some day see God. Through the centuries that desire to see God, to be in God’s presence, to enjoy God forever, that desire that there is nothing in the world that can satisfy has been on the hearts of believers. But it’s not so in this culture.
We are living in a society of instant gratification, material comfort and endless indulgences. And the church has become worldly. Nothing demonstrates that, I don’t think, anymore graphically than the lack of interest in heaven. Most Christians are, to some degree or another, more interested in laying up treasure on earth than in heaven. They’re more concerned with their investments and their retirement package and their own future on earth than they are with heaven. I suppose most Christians sacrifice the eternal blessing of glory on the altar of temporal gratification. We don’t talk about heaven much. We don’t sing about heaven much because we’re really not that interested.
We could address this issue of having lost the heavenly perspective from a number of passages. We could talk about Paul’s words to the Philippians in which he reminds them and us that our citizenship is in heaven, 3:20 and that we are waiting for the One who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, or we might even look at Colossians 3 where it says, “Set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth.” Or we might even study 1 John 2:15–17 where it says, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of God but is of the world and the world passes away.” We could even study the passage in James where James says, “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.”
You see, everything connected to our spiritual life and destiny is in heaven. Our Father is there. Our Savior is there. Our Comforter is there. Our fellow believers are there. Our name is there, our life is there, our inheritance is there, our home is there, our citizenship is there, our reward is there, our treasure is there. Everything that belongs to us is there.
Sadly, I suppose most Christians are more like the cynical Mark Twain who when told about heaven remarked flippantly, “You take heaven, I’d rather go to Bermuda.”
A true and vivid longing for heaven has many marvelous implications and many marvelous benefits. A true and vivid longing for heaven, for example, is an evidence of genuine salvation because when a person longs for heaven, you know they’re longing for God. They’re demonstrating love for the Lord. They’re showing you where their heart is.
And not only that, where you see a strong longing for heaven there is incentive to the highest excellence of Christian character. Why? Because anyone who loves heaven and anyone who longs for heaven and anyone who seeks that which is above and anyone whose heart is in heaven is one who loves to commune with the living God, one who travels there in meditation, who travels there in devotion, who travels there in prayer, who travels there in study, and that’s a purging fellowship.
The concept of a city includes relationships, activity, responsibility, unity, socialization, communion, and cooperation. Unlike the evil cities of the present earth, the perfectly holy people in the new Jerusalem will live and work together in perfect harmony.
But when God creates the new heaven and the new earth, the new Jerusalem will descend into the midst of that holy new universe (21:10), and serve as the dwelling place of the redeemed for all eternity. Since the throne of God will be in the new Jerusalem, which will come down to the new earth, that city will be the bond between the new earth and the new heaven.
The imagery is drawn from a Jewish wedding, which typically had three parts. First was the betrothal, which was like a modern engagement, but more legally binding. The betrothal of the Lord’s bride took place in eternity past when God pledged to His Son a redeemed people. The next stage was the presentation, a time of celebration and feasting leading up to the actual wedding ceremony. The presentation of the bride took place following the Rapture of the church, when believers are taken to heaven. The third stage was the ceremony, which for the Lord’s bride began at the marriage supper of the Lamb (19:7–9) and stretched through the millennial kingdom. The final stage was the consummation, which corresponds to the eternal state.
The bride has become appropriately ordered in all her beauty. By this point in Revelation, the bride concept expands to include not only the church (as it has since Acts 2), but also all the rest of the redeemed from all the ages who live forever in that eternal city