How many of you have ever seen the television
program Extreme Makeover: Home Edition? Basically in this program, a family in a
hopeless living situation has their old home completely transformed into
something new. Sometimes their old home
undergoes a radical renovation and sometimes it is replaced entirely, but
either way, their new home is completely “new” and better in every way. A possible title for sermon today could be EXTREME MAKEOVER: UNIVERSE EDITION,
because in Revelation 21:1-8, the
whole creation gets an extreme makeover, and God’s new creation is
indescribably better in every way. (Review?)
[21:1] 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.”
[5] 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.”
[6] 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. [7] The one who conquers will have this heritage,
and I will be his God and he will be my son. [8] 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.” (Revelation
21:1-8 ESV)
I believe this vision of the new creation is meant
to encourage God’s people to persevere.
Such a vision would have showed them that everything they were about to
face was worth enduring. Is this not
still true today? This vision of the new
creation gives us tremendous encouragement to persevere in the face of
temptation and persecution. It sets joy
before us that should motivate us to endure.
My prayer today is that we would be so taken with this vision of the new
creation that we would endure anything to enjoy it. If we are going to come to that place, we
will need to see in it a reward great enough to justify any that we might
suffer. So what is it about the new
creation that would cause us to be willing to endure anything to enjoy it?
I.
In the New Creation, God’s People will Enjoy a New
World (1,5)
After the final judgment (20:11-15), John sees “a new
heaven and a new earth” (1). They
have come because the “first heaven”
and the “first earth” have now “passed away.” This statement is the first in a string
of allusions to the book of Isaiah in this passage. Isaiah
65:17-19 reads: [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.”
John’s vision here in Revelation is seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.
This is part of God’s “making all
things new” (5), an allusion to Isaiah
43:19.
A question we will want to consider is what is
actually means for the first heaven and earth to pass away. You can read
about this event in greater detail in Romans
8:19-23 and 2 Peter 3:1-13. Some people believe that God will completely do away with the old creation
and create a new one from nothing (ex nihilo) as He did the first creation (Genesis 1:1). Others believe that this means that the new
creation will only be qualitatively new. In other words, God will do more of a
renovation and restoration of the old creation than a complete doing away with it. Here there is a real passing away, but also a
real continuity as well, much like a caterpillar’s transformation when it
becomes a butterfly. I tend to side with
this second option because of what Romans
8:18-23 says: [18] For I
consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with
the glory that is to be revealed to us. [19] For the creation waits with
eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. [20] For the creation
was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it,
in hope [21] that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to
corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
[22] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the
pains of childbirth until now. [23] And not only the creation, but we
ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait
eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Either way, what I want you to see is that the new
creation will be a whole new world. It
will be a real, physical place. It’s not
just a “spiritual state.” Heaven won’t
be a place where we just sit on a cloud, wearing a big diaper and playing a
harp. This language is meant to bring Genesis 1-2 to mind, where God
originally created the heavens and the earth.
This new heaven and earth will be another perfect world.
II.
In the New Creation, God’s People will Enjoy the
Fullness of God’s Presence (2-3,6-7)
Here I want to point out how verse 3 seems to be
an interpretive or summarizing statement about all that John is seeing. John is seeing all this stuff, and then we’re
given this announcement, alerting us to what all this means. A voice from the throne announces, “the dwelling place (tabernacle) of God is with man.” This is the big idea here, that what hasn’t
been a reality since the garden of Eden will now be a reality again: the
fullness of God’s presence will once again dwell with His people. This is one of the great themes of the Bible:
God dwelling with His people. In the
Garden of Eden, God walked with man in the cool of the day. We read over and over again that He was “with” the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, & Joseph). God’s presence
dwelt among the people of Israel in the Old Testament in the Tabernacle and in
the Temple. When Jesus Christ came into
the world, the Bible says that “the Word
became flesh and dwelt (tabernacled)
among us” (John 1:14). In the new covenant, God’s people are now the
temple of God’s Holy Spirit.
But none of the threads of this great theme do it
the justice that it deserves. This is
the day that the whole Bible has looked forward to! It is beyond human vocabulary to describe
what it will be like to dwell in the fullness of God’s presence. When something is indescribable, you can only
try to get close by piling up images that we can relate to. This passage gives us three such images. These
images attempt to describe the indescribable joy, intimacy, and deep satisfaction
that will come from dwelling in the fullness of God’s presence forever. First, there is the image of the bride and her husband (2). “The
holy city, new Jerusalem” (which will talk more about later in this
chapter) is described as a “bride adorned
for her husband.” This bride is a contrast to the great prostitute we saw
earlier in Revelation 17. God’s people are many times portrayed as His
bride in Scripture (Isaiah 62:4-5, 2
Corinthians 11:2), and this image is meant to communicate incredible joy and intimacy. The presence of
God in the new creation will bring with it all the joy and intimacy of a
honeymoon. Heaven will be the honeymoon
of God and His people, the happiest of all happily ever after’s. As a side note, it is interesting that there
was one wedding that took place before the fall and now only one wedding that
takes place after the curse is removed.
Then there is the
image of Father and son (7). God
promises the conqueror this
inheritance: God will be their God and they will be His children. Again, this is attempting to communicate that
we will know God in a most loving and
intimate way. Like a Father, God will
protect us, provide for us, look after us, etc.
Can you think of any two human relationships that are closer than
husband/wife and parent/child? Finally,
we are given the image of the thirsty
being satisfied (6). “Thirst” is an
image that Scripture sometimes uses to signify deep desire and longing for God (Psalm 42:1-2). This imagery communicates that heaven is a
place of deep satisfaction, where God
will satisfy our souls forever with Himself, because He is what makes heaven
heaven. So pile up the images in your
mind: the joy and intimacy of a wedding and honeymoon, the love of a Father and
son for one another, and the satisfaction water gives a parched individual, and
that is as close as we can get to describing what it will be to experience the
fullness of God’s presence forever.
What does this really teach us about God? It teaches us that God is heaven’s greatest treasure.
He is
better than a spouse. He is better than
a boyfriend or a girlfriend. He is more
satisfying than sex. He is better than
children. Was this not Paul’s point in
saying that being with Christ was “far
better” than anything he could experience in this life (Philippians 1:23)? He is
the highest and deepest joy that anyone can experience on either side of
eternity. I wonder, do we savor the
presence of God now like the psalmist in Psalm
16:11? [11] You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there
is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11 ESV)
III.
In the New Creation, God’s People will Experience
the Fullness of God’s Healing (4)
The new creation will also be a place where God’s
people experience the fullness of His healing.
God says that He will “wipe away
every tear” from our eyes, and “death
shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain
anymore” (4). This is another
allusion to Isaiah 25:8: He will swallow up death forever; and the
Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he
will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. These
statements imply that the curse of Genesis 3:14-19 has been lifted. Every consequence that our sin and rebellion
brought into the world is now removed.
How messed up is this world? Sin and death have reigned since Adam. It’s a world full of war, violence, hatred,
disease, natural disasters, tragedies, etc.
We get sick, we die, the people we love die. Sin destroys the lives of the people that we
love. They have to battle things like
addictions, divorce, and depression, disease, and eventually death. Sometimes death is sudden and sometimes it
slowly eats away the people we love, but it is never easy.
But this passage points us to a day when there
will be no more cancer. There will be no
more Alzheimer’s. There will be no more
heart disease. There will be no more
house fires or hurricanes. There will be
no more death for the people of God, nor any of the tears, mourning, or pain
that accompany it because we will experience the fullness of God’s healing.
IV.
In the New Creation, Those Who do not Belong to
God will Experience the Fullness of His Wrath & Separation (8): “BUT”
The next description we get of God’s new creation
comes as a sobering warning that not everyone is going. “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” (8). The inheritance of the wicked will be the lake
of fire, a place of eternal torment. This
is some very bad news because all of us find ourselves in this list. We are all rebels, guilty of the rebellion we
read about here. We are not the
“conquerors” that we read about in 21:7. But here is the good news: we can be. In Revelation
12:11, we learn here why the
conquerors were called so: it was because they were made conquerors by the
blood of the Lamb. What do the words or Romans 8:37 say? “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us.”
Those of us who are conquerors are so because Christ has conquered sin
and death for us. May we never forget
that the realities we read about in the new creation are blood-bought
realities, and they can be true for you if you will come to Jesus Christ in
faith and repentance.
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