God will not concede the earth
to the enemy
(evil, disease, death, destruction).
It will be remade.
It will be renewed.
+ G.E. Ladd,
+ G.E. Ladd,
The Gospel of the Kingdom
In reflecting on the finale of this Advent season, I'm returning to this post in order to remember the finale the Lord of our stories is writing. When so much is in upheaval, it is good, as St. Peter said, to:
Prepare your minds for action
and exercise self-control.
Put all your hope in the gracious salvation
that will come to you
when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.
and exercise self-control.
Put all your hope in the gracious salvation
that will come to you
when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world.
+ 1 Peter 1:13
And we get to do just this during Advent when we look to Jesus' second coming as we remember His first, turning again to Revelation 21:1-6 to behold what happens when Jesus finishes what He started.
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.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride
beautifully dressed for her husband.
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.
for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away, and
there was no longer any sea.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride
beautifully dressed for her husband.
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.
‘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.”
He who was seated on the throne said,
“I am making everything new!”
Then He said,
“Write this down,
for these words are trustworthy and true.”
“Write this down,
for these words are trustworthy and true.”
He said to me: “It is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the Beginning and the End.
To the thirsty I will give water without cost
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the Beginning and the End.
To the thirsty I will give water without cost
from the spring of the water of life.
Place of God
The Bible concludes its epic story with a portrait of the city coming from heaven, and this is exactly the way the Bible had to end. Only the book of Revelation provides a fitting conclusion to the story begun in Genesis. With its bookends of Genesis and Revelation the Bible takes us from creation to new creation.
The final eschatological vision
in the book of Revelation is the answer
to Jesus' Church's constant prayer:
In the last two chapters of Revelation,
John of Patmos paints a portrait of
the arrival on earth of the heavenly city,
New Jerusalem,
the city of the Lamb.
What John shows us is not heaven
but a renewed earth
marked by fidelity and justice.
The paradise Adam and Eve lost
is what the Lamb recovers.
The city Abraham
was always looking for,
but only saw from afar by faith,
is what the carpenter of Nazareth
is building.
In the closing chapters of the Bible,
the lost garden of Eden
and Abraham's sought after city
are combined in the
garden metropolis of the Lamb.
The big story the Bible tells
doesn't end with people
going off to heaven
but with heaven coming to earth.
The Bible consistently points to a world remade by the coming glory of God. Isaiah prophesied that the deserts will bloom with roses, that there will be no more weeping heard on the earth, that the days of God's people shall be like the days of the tree, and that the wolf and the lamb will lie down together. The lion will chew straw like the oxen. This is the world renewed and the world remade. The prophet Amos said the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the mountains shall drip sweet wine (9:13). Habbakuk joined in and said the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (2:14). Paul taught that even nonhuman creation will join in the redemption of the children of God (Romans 8:19-22).
God isn't going to concede the earth
to His enemies.
The incarnation is Jesus showing up
in this physical place and saying,
"This is Mine."
The Bible always places men and women on a redeemed earth, not in a heavenly realm removed from earthly existence. God will not concede the earth to the enemy. It will be remade. It will be renewed.
People for God
The coming of New Jerusalem is celebrated as a great wedding. Just as Jesus began His earthly ministry at the wedding in Cana, now the ascended Christ presides over the marriage of heaven and earth. John seems to say it this way:
The tragic divorce
The tragic divorce
between heaven and earth
is now reconciled by the Lamb.
John calls his vision of a flourishing human society healed by Jesus New Jerusalem. It's a new Jerusalem because, though it's a new thing in salvation history, it has continuity with what God was doing all through the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets. The perennial vision of the prophets was that Jerusalem would embody fidelity of worship and a commitment to neighborliness, and thus be a light to the nations. But the prophets spent most of their time calling Jerusalem to repent of its idolatry and injustice. Instead of being a light to the nations, Jerusalem was mostly just another city build on the idolatry of self-interest and the injustice of exploitation. As Jesus began His ministry He spoke of fulfilling the aim of the Law and the Prophets, and of gathering people around Himself who would be the light of the world, a city set on a hill. Thus John the Revelator describes the city of the Lamb like this:
And the city has no need of sun or moon
And the city has no need of sun or moon
to shine on it,
for the glory of God is its light,
and its lamp is the Lamb.
The nations will walk by its light,
and the kings of the earth
will bring their glory into it.
+ Revelation 21:23-24
+ Revelation 21:23-24
All creation has come before
this throne and is seen ...
In worship, every sign of life
and every impulse to holiness,
every bit of beauty and
every spark of vitality ...
are arranged around this
throne center that pulses light,
showing each at its best,
picking up all the colors
of the spectrum to show
off the glories.
Around this throne,
everything is seen as it rightly is.
You, creation, around this throne
is seen rightly as it is:
beautiful and glorious.
+ E. Peterson,
+ E. Peterson,
Reverse Thunder
The people of God are being gathered from among the full range of the world's ethnic diversity: every tribe, tongue, and nation. Various ethnicities are an expression of God's creative beauty. No one ethnicity and no one culture can bear the brunt or the weight of the breadth and beauty of the Creator God of the universe.
It's important to understand that John doesn't depict New Jerusalem as belonging purely to a distant future but as a present reality in the process of becoming. New Jerusalem is both present and still arriving; it's now and not yet. That a little more than two centuries after his composition of Revelation most of the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity shows what a remarkable prophet John was! Twenty centuries later the expansion of the New Jerusalem continues. We also live in the tension of the now and not yet.
Today it is the task
Today it is the task
of every local church
to be a kind of suburb of
the New Jerusalem here and now.
"We’re called to
a very specific kind of work.
To make a Garden-like world
where image bearers
can flourish and thrive,
where people can experience and
enjoy God’s generous love.
A Kingdom where God’s will is done
“on earth as it is in heaven,”
where the glass wall
between earth and heaven
is so thin and clear and translucent
that you don’t even remember it’s there.
That’s the kind of world
we’re called to make.
After all, we’re just supposed to continue
what God started in the beginning.”
+ J.M. Comer,
Garden City
New Jerusalem is a marriage —
the marriage of God and humankind,
the marriage of heaven and earth,
the marriage of garden and city.
Adam's lost garden and
Abraham's longed-for city are united
in holy matrimony in New Jerusalem.
As a garden city, New Jerusalem
brings well-being to both people
and planet.
In our hurting world every city
needs communities of Jesus followers
committed, now more than ever,
to bringing this healing.
With nations raging and warring,
with a planet melting and burning,
it's time to live as citizens
of New Jerusalem.
Today humanity stands at a crossroads. The way of the beast points to the lake of fire. The way of the Lamb points to the New Jerusalem.
Today humanity stands at a crossroads. The way of the beast points to the lake of fire. The way of the Lamb points to the New Jerusalem.
Presence with God
In the new heaven and new earth, there is work, there is culture, and there is feasting without any toil. On top of all this, we see in Revelation 21:1 that there is no sea. To men and women across biblical times, the sea stood for chaos. They were terrified of the sea. They wouldn't want to go near the sea. It was unknown. It was chaotic.
In the remade heaven and earth,
there is no chaos.
Can you imagine no chaos —
not just in your life
but in the world?
It's hard to get my mind around a world without chaos. It's always there in my house, at my office, on the freeway, or on an airplane to wherever. But not here. There will be no chaos.
No tears. No death. No disease. No mourning. No crying. Imagine a reality in which no one is sick. No one is sad. No one is crying about anything. There's literally nothing to mourn. The passage also says the "former things have passed away" (v. 4). No regrets, no heartache, no shame. All things made new.
This ever-increasing joy
of the renewed earth,
physical bodies, and reality
isn't that the sunsets are prettier,
or that we're not struggling
in our jobs,
or that there are no more tears,
death, disease, or loss.
The reward is the presence of Jesus
— unblocked, unfettered, with nothing
to keep us from seeing Him completely.
in the middle of that perfect love
and in the middle of that power
is what all this extraordinary.
Will there be
better Rembrandts, better Raphaels ... ?
Shall we read better poetry, better drama,
and better prose?
Will scientists continue to advance
in technological achievement?
Will geologies continue to dig out
the treasures of the earth, and
will architects continue to build
imposing and attractive structures?
Will there be exciting new adventures
in space travel?
+ A.A. Hoekema,
The Bible and the Future
If these are the beauties
(right now on earth)
afforded to sinful humanity,
what does God have in store
for those who love Him?
+ North African St. Augustine
I'd argue that if you could live forever
but you couldn't be in His presence,
then you wouldn't want to live forever.
You've already experienced this —
things get old to you.
Why don't things get old here?
Because Jesus is an inexhaustible well.
In light of all this,
we can trust Jesus when He says:
Take heart!
I have overcome the world.
I have overcome the world.
+ Jesus
(John 16:33)
And we can be strong in Him
in light of the strength of His might
by saying:
In Christ Jesus I am an Overcomer.
I was made for this day,
and this day was made for me.
I am uniquely wired by God
and placed right where I am
by Him for service to Him.
I see reality for what it is,
and I live courageously.
I lament the destruction sin
causes in this world, and
I cling to my security found in Jesus.
I hold on to Him with total surrender,
and I stand with Him as a stabilizing,
unanxious presence
amid this immoral and chaotic world ...
until He returns to make all things new.
He who has called me is faithful.
He will surely do it.
+ Excerpts and references in the post above
were compiled and adapted
from M. Chandler's The Overcomers,
E. Peterson's Reversed Thunder,
G.E. Ladd's The Gospel of the Kingdom,
J.M. Comer's Garden City,
E. Peterson's Reversed Thunder,
G.E. Ladd's The Gospel of the Kingdom,
J.M. Comer's Garden City,
A.A. Hoekema's The Bible and the Future,
and B. Zahnd's
Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.
and B. Zahnd's
Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God.
Bonus song:
All My Tears
All My Tears
Jess Ray, 2025 A.D.
When I go, don't cry for me.
In my Father's arms I'll be.
The wounds this world left on my soul
Will all be healed and I'll be whole.
Sun and moon will be replaced
With the light of Jesus' face.
And I will not be ashamed
And I will not be ashamed
For my Savior knows my name.
It don't matter where you bury me.
It don't matter where you bury me.
I'll be home and I'll be free.
And it don't matter where I'll lay,
And it don't matter where I'll lay,
I'll my tears will be washed away.
Gold and silver blind the earth,
Temporary riches lie.
Come and eat from heaven's store.
Come and eat from heaven's store.
Come and drink and thirst no more.
So weep not for me, my friend,
So weep not for me, my friend,
When my time below does end.
For my life belongs to Him
For my life belongs to Him
Who will raise the dead again.
(Chorus)
(Chorus)
Bonus posts:
Christ is all,
