Monday 9th December
Read Revelation 21:1-4
“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’” (NIVUK)
These words begin the seventh and final vision of the sixth septimal sequence in Revelation (say that quickly out loud…). As such, like all the seventh’s in John’s stunning revelation, it looks beyond Jesus’ return and into the future. What a future it is!
The vision begins with ‘a new heaven and new earth’ (v1). It begins this way because what was previously there has passed away. Some mistakenly believe that John saw creation as it is now, with trees and mountains and oceans, wiped out of history and a new heaven and earth established in its place. The first creation, having succumbed to the devils’ schemes and being irredeemable, required God so start again. However, that requires us to believe that God was thwarted in some way, unable to redeem His amazing creation from the evil embedded within it. Which contrasts rather strongly with victory proclaimed through Revelation!
I prefer to read ‘pass away’ as analogous to our fate. We ‘pass away’, only to rise again, resurrected with an imperishable body, but with true continuity with what has gone before. Like our bodies, creation itself will pass away before being transformed. Perhaps that is why John declares there was no longer any sea (v1). If the tears, death and mourning reflect the fallen, weak and perishable aspects of bodily existence that will ‘pass away’ (v4), then the ‘sea’, in biblical parlance, represents the unruly, disordered chaos within creation itself. So it too is gone.
Which is somewhat of a relief, because it is difficult to fathom something as majestic as the ocean being absent from a new earth. What will be absent from the new creation is the chaos and disorder introduced at the beginning. Something which should only draw forth praise. (Psalm 98)
