THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH
Revelation 21:1-4, 9-12, 21, 25-27
We have reached the concluding act in the great
drama to "the things which shall be hereafter." The number of God's
elect is accomplished; the bridal day of the Church Triumphant has at
last arrived—the consummated bliss of Christ and His people. It is the clear
shining after rain; the morning, without clouds; "the darkness is past and
the true light shines." All the apocalyptic scenery regarding the Church
Militant (the church on earth) terminates with the previous chapter. All its
fierce Armageddons are fought—the great assize is dispersed—the Books are
closed—the inquiry hushed, the 'wide gulf' is fixed forever. The Evangelist
is now represented standing like another Noah on the heights of Ararat,
gazing on a renovated world. After passing through the crucible of its own
latent fires, it has come forth, immortal, from its ashes, in new
resurrection-attire. On the occasion of the deluge, although a vast aqueous
mass rolled over the surface, or part of the surface of the globe,
submerging its hills and valleys, this did not involve the destruction of
the planet. It rose rather from its water-baptism clad in fresh loveliness
and verdure. So, we have strong reason to believe, will it be in this second
and last fiery baptism. The earth will be in a state of melting—the elements
"melting with the fervent heat." The now imprisoned fires sweeping over its
surface, charring its forests, and reducing its rocks to powder. But though
there will be displacement, dislocation, decomposition, there will be no
annihilation—these will be no more than fiery purifiers, from which
it will come forth, newly created—attired in more than pristine beauty.
Travelers, who have ascended Mount Vesuvius, tell us that
some of the old lava-channels, which years ago poured down their molten
streams of destruction, are now covered with luxuriant vines and purple
clusters. So will it be on a vast, gigantic scale, with this world and its
thousand volcanoes of living fire. Life and luxuriance will once more clothe
its seared and smitten sides. From that tremendous conflagration will emerge
"a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness."
One special feature alone is here noted in its altered
physical aspect, that there will be "no more sea." These last fires have
dried up the watery element—reclaimed those vast solitudes of ocean, which
now often form a rampart, preventing the brotherhood of nations. The world's
habitable surface being thus indefinitely widened and expanded, room will be
made for all "the nations of the saved." Do not think that these picturings
of a renewed and renovated earth are too strange and incredible facts for
human belief. They are not a whit more so than other Scriptural revelations
dearest to our hopes and encircling our every thought of the future. Not
more strange, surely, is the astounding truth that the body laid in
the grave resolved into its primitive clay—moldering in insensible dust—is
one day to rise exultant from the tomb, its pulses beating with
immortality! Not more strange is the fact of the unsightly seed or
grain, embedded in the ground, springing up in graceful and multiplied form;
or the dull, torpid, loathsome caterpillar, bursting its dark
prison-house and soaring aloft in varied and brilliant hue. Not more strange
or unaccountable are any of these, than that this earth, convulsed,
shattered, disorganized—a wreck of matter—shall emerge from its grave in
holiday attire—break from its chrysalis shell, radiant with beauty, "like
the wings of a dove, covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow
gold."
In the present chapter, we have brought before us, in
succession, what the Apostle saw and what he heard. In other
words, we have THE PICTURE, or what was presented to his eye;
and THE VOICE, or what was addressed to his ear. In vision, John
stands on the bare, naked platform of the new heavens and the new earth,
over which we may imagine the morning stars are again singing together, and
all the sons of God are shouting for joy. As he gazes—lo! a resplendent
city, and one of gigantic proportions, with towers, walls, and
gates—reminding him, at a glance, of his own beloved Jerusalem—seems slowly
and magnificently to descend from the upper heavens. At first, as if dazzled
with the sight, and awed by the majestic voices which accompany and follow,
he ventures on no description.
By and by, however, in a subsequent verse, he is
conducted by an angel—a bright inhabitant from the spirit-world—to a great
and high mountain. From this height he obtains a more thorough survey. He
marks that the city has twelve gates, each gate sentineled by angels—that
these gates are never shut at all by day, seeing that the city itself is
bathed in a flood of everlasting brightness; "for there is no night there."
All the costliest material—gold and crystal, and every stone of priceless
value, from the jasper to the amethyst, are employed as the earthly
symbols and exponents of a glory which cannot otherwise be translated into
human language.
What unutterable thoughts must have thrilled through the
beloved Disciple's soul at that moment of all moments! For what was that
moment? It was the fulfillment, in vision, of all his life-long prayers and
longings. It was the birthday of the perfected Church! Amid the
crowding reflections which rushed to his mind on the figurative descent of
this new Jerusalem, his memory seems at the instant to travel back to
the streets of the old Jerusalem. He thinks of solemn words uttered
by Divine lips within view of its towers and temples, "Behold the bridegroom
comes!" The new city suggests the emblem of this sacred parable. The
Bridegroom has come!
The last vision in the chapter preceding, was of the
Judge seated on His throne. But now that enthroned Lord has left the
judgment-hall for the coronation-hall. The Day of the everlasting marriage
has arrived. Make way for the Bride—the Lamb's wife!—the glorified Church
without spot or blemish or any such thing. "The new heaven and the new
earth" are her royal bridal chamber. "I, John, SAW the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband!" Such, then, was the PICTURE which rose before the
enraptured eye of the seer of Patmos.
Having sought briefly to describe what John's eyes saw,
let us now turn to what his ears heard; let us turn from the Picture,
to THE GREAT VOICE.
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying,
"Look, the home of God is now among His people! He will live with them, and
they will be His people. God Himself will be with them. He will remove all
of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or
pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever."
And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am
making all things new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for
what I tell you is trustworthy and true."
The evangelist spectator is not now forbidden, as on a
former occasion, to "write." When the seven thunders uttered their voices,
after the appearance of the rainbow-crowned angel as detailed in the tenth
chapter, and when he was about to transcribe, a prohibition was addressed
from heaven, "Write not." No such arrest is at present put upon his hand. It
is the reverse. He receives the positive instruction from the great Judge
Himself, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and
true." God graciously authorizes him to pen the glorious revelation for
the comfort of His Church in every age. "He that has ears to hear, let
him hear." The utterance of the unknown Speaker contains a beautiful
twofold description of the citizen's felicity. First, we have a positive
description of what that bliss is to comprehend; and second, a negative.
The POSITIVE—"Look, the home of God is now among His
people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God Himself
will be with them."
The NEGATIVE—"He will remove all of their sorrows, and
there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world
and its evils are gone forever."
We shall in the present chapter confine ourselves to the
positive aspect of heavenly happiness. The essence of this positive bliss
is, yet again, to consist in (what we have had occasion to note more
than once as a main characteristic of heavenly felicity set forth in
previous visions), the everlasting presence and enjoyment of God Himself!
"Look, the home of God is now among His people! He will live with them, and
they will be His people. God Himself will be with them." That holy
city, new Jerusalem, descends, but it descends not alone. The name of the
city from that day shall be Jehovah Shammah—"The Lord is
there." The children of Zion are joyful in their King. Farther, does not
this passage seem strongly to indicate, that the Great God of heaven designs
to make the new redeemed earth the future abode of the Shekinah-glory—His
own palatial residence, the special seat of His vast empire, the metropolis
of eternity? "Look, the home of God is now among His people! He will live
with them, and they will be His people. God Himself will be with them." Just
as Jerusalem—the first Holy city—was the sacred capital, the seat of the
theocratic government—so this "holy city, new Jerusalem," the home of the
Church triumphant, would seem destined to be the future capital of a
rejoicing universe. Jehovah is to transfer the pavilion of His heavenly
glory to His ransomed world.
There is a throne in the city; "And the one sitting on
the throne said, 'Look, I am making all things new!'" In one beautiful
sense, indeed, already may it be said, with reference to Christ's
incarnation, that the tabernacle of God has been with men. Jesus, the
incarnate Son, pitched His tabernacle in the midst of human tents. "The
Word," says John in his Gospel, "came and dwelt (or lit. tented or
tabernacled) among us." And it is this sublime antecedent fact which disarms
the other of any marvel and incredibility; no, which, indeed, would almost
render appropriate and befitting the transference of which we speak,
of God's manifested presence from the invisible heaven to the visible
platform of a regenerated earth.
We cease to wonder at the bestowment of peerless honors
on a world that was selected, amid a wide sisterhood of planets, for such a
marvelous display of love and mercy as in the atonement and death of the
Prince of Life and Lord of Glory! If this is the case (as we know on
Scripture authority it is) that God passed by the angels that sinned—and
as the word literally means, those, too, highest in state, principal in
rank—the aristocracy of heaven; if God passed by them, "For surely it is not
angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants;" if He selected this
insignificant world of ours on which to uprear that wondrous cross, and
make it the theater of His Son's humiliation and death—is there any
improbability, rather, is there not the strongest presumptive probability,
that He may convert the scene of surpassing abasement and suffering into
the scene of honor and exaltation; and to principalities and powers in
heavenly places make known by the Church (the Church redeemed and glorified)
His own manifold wisdom?
There would, we confess, have been something almost
transcending belief, in the thought of this earth being thus marked out for
such peculiar and pre-eminent distinction, if we had not the antecedents of
Gethsemane and Calvary. But after the great "mystery of godliness, God
manifest in the flesh," we can marvel at no other mysteries; no, we seem to
see a sublime congruity in the world where the God-man suffered,
being the spot where the God-man glorified is eternally to reign.
"Why do you look with envy, O rugged mountains, at Mount Zion, where
God has chosen to live, where the Lord Himself will live forever?" Psalm
68:16. But we shall not farther expand this thought. For, after all, the
mere locality is comparatively immaterial.
More momentous, delightful, and comforting is the great
truth we have found so often reiterated in these visions, as forming the
main element in the bliss of the ransomed citizens—namely, that God is in
their midst. Twice over in one verse is it here said, "Look, the home of
God is now among His people! He will live with them, and they will be His
people. God Himself will be with them"—the fully verified meaning and
interpretation of "IMMANUEL" (God with us). It has been beautifully said,
that just as every lovely and varied tint in field and flower is traced to
the one pure, parent, colorless ray—so every gate and jasper wall and
sapphire pavement in that jeweled city, owe their brilliancy and glory to
the altogether lovely One, "the Light which no man can approach unto."
Oh, wondrous assemblage! Oh, amazing honors! The
tabernacle of the great God with redeemed men! As the ranks of the
unredeemed cherubim and seraphim gather around the Holy city—hovering with
their bright wings over the new Jerusalem—we can picture them exclaiming, in
a higher sense than the words ever bore on earth, "How beautiful are your
tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel!" The City of the Heavenly
Jerusalem, although it is described here as of immense size, is but one
House. All will dwell together as brethren, as children of the same
Heavenly Father, in one Everlasting Home. 'In My Father's house are
many dwelling places.'
We have room for only one other point in the suggestive
themes of these verses—the near and intimate fellowship which is to exist
between the ransomed multitude and their God, further brought out in the
additional strong and expressive language, "And God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes." What does this mean? We need not say that there can
be no tears in heaven. The symbol must be explained by reference to some
earthly feelings. It has been truthfully observed by an expositor of this
passage—his remark, we think, furnishes the right key to the interpretation
of the figure—that "the most sacred test of affection is to wipe away a
tear."
It is indeed the most delicate of all offices one human
being can perform towards another, that of offering sympathy in seasons of
tearful sorrow. The most experienced "sons of consolation" can testify, that
the more they venture to come into personal contact with aching hearts, and
to cross thresholds darkened with bereavement, the more do they feel the
great solemnity of the ground; that sorrow is a thing of that exquisite
tenderness, that no stranger dare intermeddle with it. Every bereft spirit
will respond to words of an earnest writer, who evidently knows well what a
sacred thing it is to give sympathy; or, in the significant figure now
before us, to "wipe away a tear." Oh, the preciousness of silence in the
hour of heart-cutting grief! Oh, the misery of the minstrels and people
making noise! Oh, the jarring discord of glib sympathy! Oh, the
bitter mockery of commonplace condolence! Oh, for those who know how to
speak with the pressure of the hand; for those to whom God has given
the mute eloquence of the eye; for those who do not pretend to
understand our grief! Yes, we repeat—it is no ordinary one—no ordinary
friend—who can dare touch these harp-strings of sorrow!
There are indeed such, in seasons of deep desolation,
whom we love to welcome into the smitten home. There are hands we love on
such occasions, to hold. While drawing back from the cold commonplace
contact of ordinary routine sympathy, there are those to whom, in this
significant language of John, we gratefully entrust the wiping away of
the gathering or falling tear. Such, however, is the prerogative alone
of true and faithful, of tried and tested friendship and love. 'Behold,'
says John, in the expressive figure of this passage—Behold the endearing
relationship which will exist between God and the believer in that Holy
city. They will confide in Him as lovingly and tenderly, as the bereft one
on earth, who allows the hand of human affection to wipe the tear-dimmed
eye!
Are we looking for this city which has foundations, whose
builder and maker is God? Amid the other gorgeous symbolism, do we keep in
mind that which has met us under various figures in previous descriptions,
and which is suggested here under a new one, its "streets of pure gold like
transparent glass"—that vast as are its dimensions, a gigantic cube, with
gates in every quarter, wide open for the admission of every tribe of God's
spiritual Israel, yet within it "there enters nothing that defiles."
Multitudes of the saved are to be welcomed in—yet there is one badge of
citizenship indispensable in the case of every person in these teeming
millions—"the pure in heart" alone can "see God."
The sentinel angels at every watch-tower have the old
prophetic summons addressed to them, "Open the gates to all who are
righteous; allow the faithful to enter." Isaiah 26:2. Over every
entrance is the superscription, "This is the gate of the Lord through which
the righteous may enter." Psalm 118:20. "Blessed are those who wash their
robes so they can enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from
the tree of life"—the City which has foundations! There are no permanent
foundations for anything here in this present world. Here we have no
"continuing city." Earth's most stable social and domestic structures are
sand-built, not rock-built. They are at the mercy of every capricious
hurricane; and death, sooner or later, will convert them into a mass of
ruins! Let us seek to live under the elevating assurance, that we are
the soon to be glorified inhabitants of this new Jerusalem! taking as our
motto, "Pilgrims and Strangers on the earth!" "Our citizenship is in
Heaven!"
Let us live up to our peerless privileges, as those who
in the future are to dwell with Him who has promised to be with us and to be
our God. If trial be appointed—the loss of earthly friends—earthly
portions—be it ours to fall back from the wreck and bankruptcy of the
present world, and focus on our glorious inheritance to come! Let us take
down our harp from the willows; and sing, it may be amid withered props
and perishable refuges—amid rifled homes and falling
tears and the shadows of death, "But they were looking for a
better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be
called their God, for He has prepared a heavenly city for them!"