A New Heaven and a New Earth.
We saw, when the great white throne was set up, and One sat on it; that the earth and the heaven fled away from before His face, and that there was found no more place for them. Geologists are very anxious to keep us informed of their theories of what happened on this earth before the divine record. We are able to tell them very accurately its future history. We are able to tell them that the present heavens and the earth, by His word, are laid up in store, kept for fire unto a day of judgment: that the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise, and the elements, burning with heat, shall be dissolved, and the earth, and the works in it, shall be burnt up. It is Peter (2 Pet. 3) who tells us this; and he further informs us that its object is to bring in the day of God, for which a new heaven and a new earth will be formed. The previous heaven and earth had existed seven days of 1000 years each, according to the word “one day as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:88But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. (2 Peter 3:8)). Six days formed man’s day, viz., two days to show man without law, two days to show man under law, and two days to show man under grace—two witnesses of each great fact, and, in each, two prominent personal witnesses: Enoch and Noah, Moses and Elijah, Christ and the Holy Ghost. In each, one was taken up into heaven, and the other testified on earth. But the seventh day, the day of the Lord, introduced as with the stealthy and sudden approach of a thief, and ending by the dissolution of all things, was for the display of all God’s ways and purposes and counsels in THE MAN—HIS MAN—THE SECOND MAN—THE LORD JESUS—JEHOVAH’S FELLOW.
The new heavens and the new earth are for another purpose. They are for the display of God Himself. It is the day of God. The Lord Jesus has delivered up His kingdom, and now God is all in all. This section, therefore, and the two following ones, have to do with God’s day, God’s kingdom, God’s people. It is God my King. There are no subordinate rulers, as in the previous earth. There are no boundaries, such as form nations, for there is no more sea. All the population of the new earth will have been born in the old earth, in which righteousness did not dwell. Those who were born there had a righteousness provided by God for them, and in it they ever stood before Him. That righteousness, founded on blood-shedding, was of God’s providing; and none but those possessing it, in whatever period they lived, had to say to God. Consequently, as righteousness did not dwell there, all God’s elect, from Abel, who brought the firstling of his flock, down to the millennial worshippers (Ezek. 45:2020And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house. (Ezekiel 45:20)), did thus confess that they were in a place which they were not of, and of a place which they were not in. But now, in the new heavens and earth, righteousness dwells. They are at home, and so is God. He dwells with them, and they dwell with Him. The heavenly and the earthly distinctions are kept up there as we shall presently see; but all is on a vastly different footing from anything that preceded it; but the prevailing feature is, “I will be to him God, and he shall be to ME son.” Here we do not find any mediatorial kingdom. The Lamb is not in the scene. God is all in all. No sorrow nor crying more, no earthly people of God distinct from the inhabiters of the earth. These are God’s people, and God is with them Himself, but withal His tabernacle is with them. This is the holy city, the New Jerusalem. The Church has her own character, is the habitation of God in a special way, when the unchanging state comes, and all is made new. God is the end, as the beginning. Him that is athirst now, God will refresh with the fountain of the water of life—the overcomer shall inherit all things. At present the world is Rephidim, a place where there is nothing to satisfy the thirst; and where the same spirit is at work that obtained in Israel, for the people committed two evils there, when they cried to Moses, saying, “Give us water, and we drink.” Moses’ faithful answer shows the spirit at work, for he says “What! ye strive with me? What! ye try Jehovah?” Not so in God’s day; God will be the source of supply and not only so, but none other will be wanted. It will be, God is my God; I am His son.
The New Jerusalem
Attention has been called, in an earlier portion of this work, to the enormous prominence given to Babylon in the Apocalypse. That prominence is due to the fact that by the craft of Satan and the depravity of man, a vile sham has obtruded itself before men as the Church, the bride of Christ, which this book exposes as a foul and meretricious harlot, and decribes as hurled to her just doom. But so much the more does it enhance the importance, in the eyes of Christ, of the true thing, the bride, the Lamb’s wife. He loved the Church; He gave Himself for it. Nay, more: God gave it to Him. The interests of God and of Christ are identical. Dear as the Church is to Christ, it is equally so to God; for Christ is the Head of the Church, which is His body, His bride. And it is God’s household; God’s temple.
Now, unto the beautiful new earth, wherein righteousness has its dwelling-place, is seen the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. We heard, a thousand years before, in Rev. 19, heaven’s triumphant exultations that the marriage of the Lamb had come, and His wife had made herself ready. And presently, when this marvelous episode of the day of God has been unfolded to us in these first eight verses of Rev. 21, the Spirit of God will go back again, and supplement what He told us in Rev. 19, by a description of the bride’s beauty. The subject is one on which He delights to dwell. He will do it in such a way as to convey to our minds that while the first and second beasts were a travesty of God’s Christ and Christ’s witness, the harlot Babylon was a travesty of the bride, the Lamb’s wife, while the city Babylon was a travesty of this holy city, New Jerusalem, the subject of this vision. And as the one was described in full, so will the other be, and by the same angel. One of the greatest aids to interpretation is to discern not only what God tells us, but how He tells it. It is for want of this discernment that so many blunders have been made, and the idea obtained that the Book is difficult to comprehend. Take the Gospels, for example. God has given four views of His Christ, viz. King, Prophet, Man, Son; in each of which we have “Emmanuel” (God with us), Himself manifested. The ignorant believer has tried to harmonize, with the result of rendering the whole pointless. Now, in this Book God has presented the same truth from several points of view, and it has been one of the main objects of this work to enable the general reader to rightly divide what he reads, so as to discern where the matter in hand starts afresh. God’s order is divinely mathematical. Man’s mathematics will not solve it. But let any devout soul simply and obediently look to God for light, and he will find all Scripture, whether prophetical or otherwise, plain and simple. God has not set His children riddles to solve, but He has provided food, clothing, and education. To the unbeliever it will be a riddle, and nothing else; but what was light to Israel was darkness to Egypt (Exod. 14:2020And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night. (Exodus 14:20)).
It has been remarked in its place that the “day of God” is not, strictly speaking, the subject of this Book. Yet the fact of its being introduced at all, shows the great importance and significance of its introduction. One main object is to show that the Son of Man’s kingdom has been so righteously begun, continued, and ended, that God’s rest can begin. The reign of righteousness gives place to a new heaven and new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Christ reigns till He has annulled all rule, and all authority and power. Then comes the end, when He gives up the kingdom to Him [who is] God and Father. But, be it well observed, in all this mighty change the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, the holy city, the New Jerusalem, undergoes no change. She preserves the freshness of her youth as in the day of her espousals. And why? Because all that she is, is the display of CHRIST’S GLORY. The fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in Christ (Col. 2:99For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)). The Church is called the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:2323Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:23)). The purpose is that it should be filled [even] to all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:1919And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:19)), and that it should attain its full growth (Eph. 4:1313Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4:13)).
God’s Dwelling Place
In John 1:1414And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) we have a beautiful expression concerning Christ, which is here used in respect of the Church, including, of course, Christ the Head. It is said, in the scripture referred to, “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us.” Now here, in this new earth, a great voice out of heaven says, “Behold! the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them”; and here 2 Cor. 6:1616And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (2 Corinthians 6:16) falls into its place; for God has said, “I will dwell among them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be to Me a people.” All the things that characterized the former earth—tears, death, sorrow, crying, pain—all shall be absent from this blest scene, for the former things have passed away. The Spirit by Isaiah uses these terms in describing the Millennial blessedness, hence the distinction made about former things having passed away. Peter, too, refers to Isaiah, but looks to its fulfillment in a larger sense in God’s day. Hence we get the word from the throne; He who sits there snakes the decree, “Behold, I make all things new.” The Church was a new creation in Christ are the old world had passed away. All things are now made new to match her, and it is to be no secret. “Write it”; make it known. These words are like Him who makes them, true and faithful. The decree is confirmed in the words “It is done.” This is God’s way of confirming, e.g., “Let light be, and light was.” Then comes His title as a confirmation, as we saw in the case of the Lord Jesus. He is first and last, beginning and end. All is included in Him. It is the divine signature to the decree. In what follows, we have the Spirit’s comment in the words of exhortation and warning. Three classes are addressed—the thirsty one, the overcomer, the cowardly. Let us use the precious opportunity to take up the word of exhortation. Thirsty one, are you tired of all the weary wretchedness of this disjointed world of heartbreaks? Does the scorching sun and the east wind and the withered gourd make you cry bitterly for the rest that remaineth? You shall have it, weary soul. God knows your distress; He has measured your tears; He has weighed your sorrows; He has gauged your griefs; He knows your hunger and thirst after righteousness, and He says, “Blessed one, you shall be filled.” You have His word for it that He will give you of the fountain of the water of life freely. And you, overcomer, you too are parched with thirst; and the strife, and the worry, and the harass of the warfare is great. Still you faint not. Or, if faint, still you pursue. On your knees one minute, and sword in hand the next; you have a hard time of it for a little moment. But courage! You shall inherit everything. And God says He will be your God, before He says you shall be His son—He wants you. But to you, cowards, unbelievers, with all the list of horrors that follow your names, what can I say? What dare I say? I can only say what God says, you will “have your part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death,” if you remain where you are.