Expecting the Mercy of Jesus that leads to eternal life
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 I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
3 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. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. 8 But the cowards, faithless, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars—their share will p 1122 be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
21:1–6 The new heaven and earth, while like the present creation in some ways, will also be very different. For example, whereas water currently covers the majority of the globe, there will be no sea on the new earth. The bride of the Lamb, introduced in 19:7–9, is now pictured as the holy city coming down out of heaven. All things will be new then, not just the Christian’s new spiritual life (2Co 5:17). God’s presence will do away with tears, pain, and death. The water of life will always be available without cost, an image of the free grace that offers life to us even now.
21:6 It is done! The destruction of God’s enemies (16:17) and the salvation of his saints are both completed. the Alpha and the Omega. First and last letters of the Greek alphabet (cf. 1:8; 22:13). The Lord stands beyond the universe’s beginning and its end as Sovereign Creator and Consummator, the first and the last (Isa. 41:4; 44:6; 48:12). The spring of the water of life is the throne of God and the Lamb (Rev. 22:1), a throne of grace (Heb. 4:16) because here the thirsty drink without payment, by God’s free gift (Isa. 55:1).
21:8 The conqueror’s blessedness contrasts with the second death awaiting those who renounced faith because of cowardice or compromise with idolatry and sensuality. Sorcerers is also used of Egyptian and Babylonian magicians in the OT (e.g., Ex. 7:11; Dan. 2:2); on ancient magic, see note on Acts 13:6.
God himself will be with them Emphasizes that He will remain and reside with them.
21:4 wipe away every tear from their eyes God will extinguish all sorrow and grief (Rev 7:17).
death will not exist any longer Christ conquered death on the cross; death was eradicated in 20:14. The saints will live eternally with God.
21:5 “Look, I am making everything new.” What a wonder it is that a man should ever hate a new heart. If a lobster loses its claw in a fight, it can grow a new claw—and that is thought to be marvelous. It would be wonderful if people were able to grow new arms and new legs. But whoever heard of a creature that grew a new heart? If a branch is lopped off a tree, perhaps the tree will sprout again and grow a new limb. But whoever heard of old trees getting new sap and a new core? Yet my Lord and Master, the crucified and exalted Savior, gives new hearts and new cores. He has put the vital substance into human beings afresh and made new creatures of them.
21:6 “I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.” Many things we think we need, and yet we live without them. But thirst is an urgent need, involving the loss of all comfort and even of life, if it is not supplied. There is no forgetting this pain and no stopping it except by drinking. The pain of thirst is keen to the last degree, and the desire to drink is intense beyond imagination. Need of water is a terrible need, but the need of divine grace is even more dreadful. If his soul’s thirst is not relieved, a person will die as surely as though slain by the sword.
Some people begin to be conscious of their soul’s great need; these are the ones whom the Savior calls “thirsty.” They have a dreadful need, and they know it by God’s grace. If I were some learned anatomist, I could give a lecture on the theory of thirst. Yet, though I cannot do this, I know practically what thirst is—as well as a doctor could tell me. When I am thirsty and am invited to drink, I do not refuse because I cannot explain my thirst. Nor is there any absolute necessity, in order to be saved, that we should know all about how it is that Christ can supply our needs. I may not be able to explain scientifically why this glass of water quenches my thirst, but I know it does. The liquid gets at the various organs and supplies them with what they require. I know enough about water to drink it when I am in need, and, practically, that is all that is needed. If I know enough about Christ to understand that he can meet every need of my soul, and if I take Christ to be my all in all, the matter is done.
Let us notice that being thirsty is not enough. It is not my sense of need; it is Christ’s power to bless me and my yielding myself up to Christ that will bring me salvation. The text plainly hits at the remedy for the thirsty soul. What does a thirsty man do to get rid of his thirst? He drinks.
21:1 a new heaven and a new earth. Some have thought that the new universe will be an entirely new world with no connection with the old. But Is. 65:17–25 and Rom. 8:21–23 indicate that a transfiguration of the old world is in view, like the way in which our new bodies will be transfigurations of the old (1 Cor. 15:35–57). Everything is new (v. 5), which indicates the thoroughness of transfiguration, but the result is redemption and not simply abolition of the old. See theological note “Heaven.”
21:7 He who overcomes. Cf. 1Jn 5:4, 5. Anyone who exercises saving faith in Jesus Christ (see note on 2:7). inherit. The spiritual inheritance all believers will receive (1Pe 1:4; cf. Mt 25:23) is the fullness of the new creation. Cf. Ro 8:16, 17.
21:8 A solemn, serious warning about the kinds of people who will be outcasts from the new heaven and the new earth in the lake of fire. The NT often goes beyond just citing unbelief in listing character and lifestyle traits of the outcast, so that believers can identify such people (1Co 6:9, 10; Gal 5:19; cf. Jn 8:31). sorcerers. See note on 9:21. lake that burns with fire. See note on 19:20. brimstone. See note on 9:17. second death. See note on 20:6.
bride—made up of the blessed citizens of “the holy city.” There is no longer merely a Paradise as in Eden (though there is that also, Rev 2:7), no longer a mere garden, but now the city of God on earth, costlier, statelier, and more glorious, but at the same time the result of labor and pains such as had not to be expended by man in dressing the primitive garden of Eden. “The lively stones” were severally in time laboriously chiselled into shape, after the pattern of “the Chief corner-stone,” to prepare them for the place which they shall everlastingly fill in the heavenly Jerusalem.
dwell with them—literally, “tabernacle with them”; the same Greek word as is used of the divine Son “tabernacling among us.” Then He was in the weakness of the flesh: but at the new creation of heaven and earth He shall tabernacle among us in the glory of His manifested Godhead (Rev 22:4).
Ver. 8. But the cowardly.—Δειλοῖς. “In contrast to ὁ νικῶν, those Christians are meant who elude the painful combat with the world by denying the faithfulness of the faith (Bengel, De Wette, Hengst.).” DUESTERDIECK. This is certainly a much too special and superficial explanation. The category of these cowards, who were cowardly in the highest relation, embraces all the lost: that is, in other words—in view of the high epic goal of humanity, all lagging behind and being lost is traced back to a lack of specific æonic manly courage, to a shameful straggling from the ranks and a desertion of one’s colors. If we apprehend the δειλοῖς as composing a genus, a significant senary of species is formed: 1. Unbelievers and the abominable (in practice), transgressors against nature (see Rom. 1); 2. Murderers and fornicators (cruelty and sensuality—a well-known pair); 3. Sorcerers and idolaters. Even here the affinity is manifest. Now, however, a seventh sort supervenes, apparently,—liars. But it is not without import that an addition is here made—καὶ πᾶσιν—in accordance with which these latter are classed with idolaters. Idolatry is in several instances in the Apocalypse designated as falsity (see ch. 14:5; also Grot., ch. 21:27; 22:15; comp. Rom. 1:25).—Unbelieving.—According to Bengel and Ewald: Apostates from the faith. According to Düsterdieck: Inhabitants of the earth hostile to the Christian faith. In the universal judgment, this distinction is no longer of any importance; the heathen is an unbeliever—the unbeliever is a heathen.—Abominable.—Those who through the working of abomination have made themselves abominable, ἐβδελυγμένοι, flagitiis fœdi.—Their part.—Change of construction. We are not to overlook the fact that they have deserved their lot, i.e., have drawn it upon themselves as the penalty of their sin.
1 The Day of Judgement, albeit a fearsome day for those not inscribed in the scroll of life, has not been accompanied by a Big Bang or some other act of cosmic destruction. It is those powers now consigned to the lake of fire which have been intent on destroying the earth. Despite many popular readings of the Apocalypse, such destruction could not be further from the mind of God. Rather, what is revealed in this climactic final vision is that God’s mind is intent on recreation. This is but part of that larger narrative which has been unfolding in previous chapters, a narrative of that new Exodus, modelled on the old, which is a return from Babylonian exile to the new Jerusalem (with Ezekiel 40–48 and Isaiah 40–66 playing an important role: see Mathewson 2003). This motif of an Exodus-like return from exile provides the interpretative lens through which the seven congregations are urged to make sense of their own situation.
There is, however, one dramatic difference between the former things and the new or renewed state of affairs: there was no more sea. The three-tiered universe has collapsed into two tiers, and almost immediately will collapse into one (21:3), thus overcoming that fundamental separation between God and God’s people. Understood literally, this phrase would mean the sad demise of what is in some ways the most beautiful part of the created world: from Patmos, John would have witnessed the Mediterranean sun reflecting brilliantly upon the deep blue waters of the Aegean. Yet Revelation is not speaking literally, but mythologically. The sea has been a threatening presence, both in heaven (e.g. 4:6) and in the world below, where it has been associated with the monster, and other demonic forces in its other guise of the Abyss (e.g. 9:1–6; 11:7; 13:1). Given the underlying Exodus imagery, it has also evoked the dangerous Sea of Reeds to be crossed, the necessary passage leading to salvation (e.g. 15:2). Its ultimate departure here replays in different imagery the consigning of the dragon and its accomplices to the lake of fire.
A better understanding is that of the cleansing and renewal of the cosmos after Christ returns. Instead of making “all new things,” Christ makes “all things new”