Scripture Daily

Context No. 314 of 4322 · Revelation

Context · Reflection

Revelation 21:1-8: in context

1I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.” 5He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.” 6He said to me, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. 8But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

This is the vision the whole Bible has been moving toward, and it is worth noticing which direction things travel. John sees a new heaven and a new earth, and then he sees the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. The movement is downward. The end of the story is not people escaping up to a distant heaven; it is God bringing heaven down to dwell on a renewed earth.

A loud voice makes the point unmistakable. Behold, God's dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. The word repeats, with them, with them, because presence is the whole prize. And then the promise gets intimate, almost startlingly so. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, no more mourning or crying or pain. That is not a distant deity issuing a decree. It is God's own hand reaching to a face and wiping it. Then the one on the throne says, behold, I am making all things new, and it is worth hearing precisely: not making all new things, discarding the old, but making all things new, taking what is and restoring it. He calls himself the Alpha and the Omega and offers the thirsty the water of life, freely.

The destination was always presence and comfort, God moving in with us and tending to us personally, not a rescue that carries us off somewhere far away. Do I picture the goal of my faith as escaping upward to a remote heaven, when the promise is God coming down to live with me and to wipe the tears off my own face with his hand?

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