SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/25/2015 9:39 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Appearance of the New Heaven and the New Earth
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Revelation 21:1
Message of the verses: “1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.”
As we begin
this chapter we see some familiar words that John has used before in his
writing of the book of Revelation, as he begins “Then I saw.” John MacArthur writes that this phrase is kai eidon in the Greek. He writes “It has introduced each of the
climactic events beginning with the return of the Lord Jesus Christ in 19:11.” We then see the phrase “for the first heaven
and the first earth passed away,” and this speaks of the fact that the old
heaven and earth are gone as we explained in an earlier SD. They were actually “uncreated” and the reason
was because of sin. At this point all of
the sinful beings both man and angels are in the lake of fire where they will
remain forever.
Let us look
at a couple of passages in the book of Isaiah that have to do with the phrase “new
heaven and a new earth.” “17 "For
behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be
remembered or come to mind (Isaiah 65:17).
Next we look at Isaiah 66:22 “22 “For just as the new heavens and the
new earth Which I make will endure before Me," declares the LORD, "So
your offspring and your name will endure.”
These predictions that Isaiah made are not reality in the vision that
John sees in Revelation 21.
Now we need
to look at the word “new” and John MacArthur writes “Kainos (new) does not mean new in a chronological sense, but new in
a qualitative sense. The new heaven and
the new earth will not merely succeed the present universe in chronological
sequence; they will be something brand new, fresh, never before seen. God must create a new heaven and a new earth
because the first heaven and the first earth passed away.” We believe that if the first heaven and the
first earth hand not been polluted by sin that there would be no need in God
making a new heaven and a new earth, but it was and so He had to.
I have
highlighted the words “and there is no longer any sea” from verse one and we
see that the new heaven and earth will not have any sea. He doesn’t tell us a lot about this but He
does say that there is no sea. When we
go back to the creation of planet earth from the book of Genesis we find out
that it first began with water and then we learned that the Spirit of God
hovered over it for the first day. “The
earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and
the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.” We see the word “moving” in this verse which
is Genesis 1:2 and that word means “to hover.”
The way that I learned about this word was to think about how a chicken
or mother hen sits on top of her eggs so that they will hatch and so we can see
that the Spirit of God was in effect “hatching” the earth for it was completely
made of water and now we see that there will be no water in the new heaven and
earth. Three fourths of the earth is
covered with water and blood is 90% water and we are made up of over 60% water
so water has an important function in our world today. John MacArthur writes of this new heaven and
earth: “Thus the new heaven and new
earth will be based on a completely different life principle than the present
universe. There will be a river in
heaven, not of water, but of the ‘water of life’ (22:1, 17). Without a sea, there can be no hydrological
cycle, so that every feature of life and climate will be dramatically
different.”
We will
close this portion of this SD with a quote that John MacArthur uses in his
commentary from Robert L. Thomas who from a metaphorical perspective summarizes
“Most justifiably see this void as representing an archetypical connotation in
the sea (cf. 13:1; 20:13), a principle of disorder, violence, or unrest that
marks the old creation (cf. Isa. 57:20; Ps. 107:25-28; Ezek. 28:8)….It is not
that the sea is evil in itself, but that its aspect is one of hostility to
mankind. For instance, the sea was what
stood guard over John in his prison on Patmos and separated him from the
churches of Asia….The sea is the first of seven evils that John says will no
longer exist, the other six being death, mourning, weeping, pain (21:4), the
curse (22:3), and night (21:25; 22:5).”
I want to quote
from my Spiritual Diary from 11/23/2005 which is from Revelation 21:1-2. Some of the things that I wrote then are
similar to the things that I wrote in the one from today.
“Even
though John describes some new things in these last two chapters of the letter,
it is sometimes hard to get a grasp on what it all will look like and be
like.
Dr. Wiersbe points out some things
in his book on Revelation concerning these final two chapters that are worth
recording here.
Genesis Revelation
Heavens and earth created 1:1 New heavens and earth, 21:1
Sun created 1:16 No
need of the sun, 21:23
The night established, 1:5 No
night there, 22:5
The seas created, 1:10 No
more seas, 21:1
The curse announced, 3:14-17 No
more curse, 22:23
Death enters history, 3:19 No
more death, 21:4
Man driven from the tree, 3:24 Man restored to paradise, 22:14
Sorrow and pain begin, 3:17 No
more tears or pain, 21:4
“There are
disagreements among Bible scholars as to what happens to the old heaven and
earth when the new one’s come into existence.
2 Peter 3:10 says that the earth will be destroyed by fire: “But the day of the Lord will come like a
thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be
destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” The word used as elements means “basis
building block” and could be referring to atoms, and since scientist do not
know what holds the atoms together, but we do, for Jesus is said to hold things
together, if the power of them were suddenly released, then the entire universe
would be destroyed and it would be just as Peter describes it here by
fire.
“John goes
on to write that there will no longer be any sea on this new earth. The present earth is 3/4 water, but this will
not be the case of the new earth.
“In verse
two John goes on to describe the New Jerusalem, as it comes down out of heaven
from God and it is made for the bride adorned for her husband. John is describing the beauty of the New
Jerusalem. In John 14:1 Jesus tells His
disciples that He is going away to make a place for them, and some believe that
the New Jerusalem is what He was referring to.
“One more
thing about the new heaven and earth, and that is that they were written about
in the OT, and I will give two quotes from Isaiah: Isa. 65:17 “For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.” Isa. 66:22 “For just as the new heavens and
the new earth Which I make will endure before Me," declares the LORD, ‘So
your offspring and your name will endure.’”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: One of the things that I learned today or
better yet reminded of is that sin can and still does destroy many things.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Not fall into the lure of
sinful things that do their best to tempt me.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Jairus’ daughter” (Mark 5:22-23).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who said ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat’?”
Answer in our next SD.
10/25/2015 10:17 PM
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