Hi Friends,
As I write this morning, I’ve caught sight of a red-bellied woodpecker and a northern male cardinal gathering grub from the old oak tree outside my window. In our yard, buds are breaking forth into bright gold daffodils and purple agapanthus. Creation is indeed declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19:1), the glory of a God who makes all things new.
I’d love to know: What in the creation are you excited to see this spring?
In this season, I have also begun a new thing, a devotional I’ve wanted to write for awhile. In it, I focus on Revelation 21 and 22, asking the question, “What are we waiting for?” In other words, what is this “not yet” life that will one day be our eternal existence? And what difference does it make in our lives today? This month, we look at the new heavens and the new earth to see what they’re really like. Please join me in this brief meditation.
A new Heaven and a new earth
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away….”Revelation 21:5
Think of the best adventure movie you’ve ever seen. The battle is won, the bad guys defeated. The final image fades, then a new screen appears. Words scrolling across, “Five years later….” Glossy scenes slide in: the beloved heroes and heroines enjoy a feast with their families, hug their children, and tend a garden with their grandchildren.
If you can picture this, you get the idea of Revelation 21 and 22. The battle has ended, Jesus has won, and Satan and all of his minions have been tossed into the lake of fire (see Revelation 20:7-10). Now our real life, our truest life, the life we have been waiting for all of our lives, begins. John saw this new life because he was looking for it. What will we see when we begin looking for it?
Photo by Yulia Gadalina on Unsplash
A transformed heaven and earth
We see what John saw— a new heaven and a new earth. Throughout Scripture, the phrase heaven and earth taken together refers to the entire cosmos, the material and spiritual world. This heaven and earth are “new,” “kainos” in Greek, “best understood here in terms of something that has been qualitatively transformed in a fundamental way, rather than as an outright new creation ex nihilo….” (TDNT). The new heaven and new earth are the old heaven and the old earth fully transformed.
What about the first Heaven and the first earth?
But what about the first heaven and the first earth? They have “passed away.” What does it mean that the first heaven and the first earth have passed away? Many people have been confused by this question, so let’s explore.
The confusion arises from challenges translating 2 Peter 3:10, which the ESV translates, “…then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.” Older translations sometimes render the last part of the verse, “the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10, KJV). Most scholars agree that the old heaven and earth will not be completely destroyed, but rather, as Nathan Bierma explains, “…there will be a lot of destruction when God makes a new earth out of this old one, but it won’t be the kind of destruction that obliterates something to smithereens. As with metal in a white-hot furnace, all impurities, deformities, and corruptions of planet earth will meet their fiery demise. All that will remain is goodness” (Bierma, Bringing Heaven Down to Earth, 44). The fire, if indeed it is a literal fire, will purify and refine, leaving only what is glorious and glorifying. This vision fits far better with the apostle Paul’s assertion 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” (Romans 8:21).
What are we waiting for?
What are we waiting for? We are waiting for the new heaven and the new earth. It is coming soon, to a neighborhood near us, in fact, to our very own neighborhoods. Step outside your door, even better, explore this ruined but beautiful earth. Beavers and badgers and bucks, mountains and hills and plains, red clay and sugar sand and black loam…we can expect to see them all in the new heavens and the new earth. What we won’t see are landfills and landmines, evil dictators and cruel despots, starving children and stricken mothers.
How then shall we wait?
How then shall we wait? We wait by nurturing and caring for the present creation, savoring it for the glimpses of God’s glory it gives today. We wait by discarding dull images of heaven that involve floating around on clouds while humming to elevator music. We wait by seeing heaven as an earthy place where we will inhale deeply of clean air untainted by ozone or oxides, where we will walk joyfully through the woods alongside dogs and cats and wolves and lambs.
Prayer
Holy God, Creator of the Cosmos,
Open our eyes that we may see the signs that you will soon bring the new heavens and the new earth. Show us the end to our story, the end that begins our truest story, our story of living and loving in a whole, healed, and harmonious heaven and earth. Because we will dwell forever with whales and wildebeests, in forests and by rivers, grant us wisdom, skill, and energy to care well for the groaning creation today. In the name of our Redeemer we ask. Amen.
Read Revelation 21:1; 2 Peter 3:8-13; Romans 8:21.
For Reflection
1. Have you ever heard descriptions of heaven that made it sound boring? How does this description of the new heaven and the new earth make you more eager to live there?
2. Have you ever heard people say, “It’s all going to burn,” or “The earth will be destroyed”? Considering the Scripture in this meditation, what gives you hope that this creation will not be destroyed but transformed?
Recommended Reads
Some of my favorite books on Revelation:
Revelation: Hope in the Darkness, Study Guide with Leader's Notes (The Gospel-Centered Life in the Bible) by Scotty Smith
This small study is a wonderful primer on the book of Revelation, helping us to grasp the big picture.
Discipleship on the Edge by Darrell W. Johnson
Johnson’s book, written to help pastors prepare sermons and leaders to teach the book of Revelation, is highly readable and very helpful. He answers many of our questions about Revelation in a way we can understand.
Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination by Eugene Peterson.
Peterson always provides such lovely insight into Scripture. Here he invites us to use our imaginations to understand Revelation and writes in a way that empowers us to do so.
Other Recommended Reads
Like Our Father: How God Parents Us and Why that Matters for Our Parenting by Christina Fox. As a new grandparent I loved this book. I realized that as a young mom I often wanted a book to give me “how-to’s” or to fix my parenting problems, what I really needed was to know God more fully as my Father and to rest in his parenting of me as I parented my children. Christina brings out so many comforting characteristics of God, and it turns out they are characteristics he grows in us as parents: contra-conditional love, consistency, discipline, reasonable expectations, etc. I am so glad I read this book as I encourage my children in their parenting journeys.
These Precious Days by Ann Patchett.
A delightful essay collection by novelist Ann Patchett. Recommended to me by one of you (so please, send me your book recommendations!). This essay collection will lead you to consider the many different paths our stories can take and also to recognize the value of our stories and the “characters” in our lives.