After the Resurrection: The New Heavens and the New Earth

Passage: Matthew 28:18-19

Main Idea: When the first believers launched the church after the resurrection of Christ, they were not looking to go to heaven. They were looking for God to begin the new heavens and new earth.

Message Goal: Increase the awareness of a new cosmic event that began with the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Introduction: The End of the Age

When Jesus appeared among the disciples after His resurrection, He gave specific instructions. He wanted them to be made aware of what their responsibility would be now that He had risen. He commanded:

Go

Teach

Baptize

However, these three commands are followed by a promise. He says, “I am with you until the end of the age.”

Now, this promise does not imply that Jesus will leave them at the end of the age. Rather, there is a point to which God’s providential presence will be among them. In other words, there’s a mission assigned to the protective presence of Jesus that would no longer be needed once the point is reached. Hence the use of the preposition to.

Then, there’s this interesting use of the word end. This word does not mean destruction, but consummation. Here, the word end means to bring to (final) completion or fruition.

Lastly, there’s the word age or world as it has been popularly translated. The term does not mean earth, as often assumed. Rather, it means period in history with its distinctive features.

Friends, it is so interesting to see and understand that the commandment to go, teach, and baptize literally has a context that suggests that these things will no longer be conducted in the same fashion once the “end” occurs.

A question we could ask as modern believers is: how has our going, teaching and baptizing changed since the coming of the end? If preaching was done as a method of reaching a contextual end, what or how are we to preach, go, and baptize today?

Obviously, the gospel and even our presentation of it must be contextual. When this is done, we are able to minister within context and with great impact.

Understanding The New Creation

There are two major scriptures that demonstrate a major idea concerning what the disciples would have been looking forward to after the resurrection: 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Galatians 6:15.

According to the Lexham Figurative Language of the Bible, new creation refers to:

the believer’s ontological transformation in Christ

the community of Christian believers

the end-time cosmological renewal and restoration

The idea of new creation can also be consider new human/humanity or “new man/self” (see Ephesians 2:15; 4:23-24; Colossians 3:9-10).

However, it is important to realize that the major caveat to the entire idea of new life/ new heaven/ new earth was all of these without the law, sin, and death.

New Creation as Ontological Transformation

When we think about new creation, we must think about the transformation that occurs within our actual being. This we call the ontological transformation. This is what Paul is referring to in 2 Corinthians 5:17. However when Paul makes this statement to the Corinthian church, he is thinking of two Old Testament passages (Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:26-27).

New Creation as Christian Community

When Paul thinks of new creation in terms of Christian community, he’s thinking of the Exodus. That is, the Jew and Gentile both have an exodus as their point of reference and reflection. For Israel, the literal exodus is their point of reference, and from that idea of deliverance, Paul uses it to form a “new” exodus for the Gentiles. As we are joined together in these ideas of deliverance a new motif is built with Christ at the foundation of it, making all who believe—both Jew and Gentile—one (see Ephesians 2:11-22, c.f. Isaiah 40-55).

New Creation as Cosmic Renewal and Restoration

Lastly, Paul’s vision of new creation is deeply rooted in a renewed creation and its ultimate restoration. He gets this idea from passages in Isaiah, particularly Isaiah 65:17, c.f. Romans 8:18-23). In this renewal a few things happen:

Israel is forgiven and sins remembered no more

The Gentiles come to Zion in worship and receive acceptance

The Messiah rules over the kingdom until it is delivered unto the Father.

As believers in Christ, we are born again to a newness of life. Paul says we are a new creation. New (Greek kainos) means “in contrast to something old” (BAGD, 394). It has the sense that the old has become obsolete and should be replaced by what is new. In such a case the new, as a rule, is superior to the old (BAGD, 394). Creation (Greek ktisis) carries the idea of “that which is created as the result of that creative act” (BAGD, 455). Paul describes the Christian as this kind of new creation. Creation is always God’s work, never ours. Circumcision and other acts of law cannot be part of the new creation, for man performs them. We can be a new creation only as God chooses and creates. Only when he takes our old fleshly self and creates a new person of the Spirit are we counted among his people. Being part of his people is the only thing in the world that counts for anything. (Anders, M. (1999). Galatians-Colossians (Vol. 8, pp. 84–85). Broadman & Holman Publishers.)