Revelation 21:1-6
Last post, I quoted/commented the following:
'What God has made clean.' What did God call good in the beginning? All of creation. What did Jesus shed his blood to redeem? All of Creation. What is God redeeming through the work of the Holy Spirit? All of Creation.
Revelation 21 begins with a bold proclamation - "a new heaven, and a new earth"
Redemption is completed in the act of the Messiah coming to redeem all of Creation that chooses to worship God alone. Here we see the New Jerusalem coming DOWN from heaven. Now what does all this mean? Is creation redeemed and restored? Or is the physical world, the first heaven and first earth, destroyed in favor a new celestial home - heaven in the traditional Protestant sense? I don't claim to know the answers, not would I want to make claims that are speculative - the very next chapter in Revelation warns against such things. But the question must be asked:
Why would a wise and divine Creator spend history/time redeeming and restoring Creation - evidenced/proven/completed in the death and resurrection of the "only begotten Son" Jesus - and then suddenly reverse course (and overturning the imagery of the prophet(s) in Isaiah) and destroy that Creation and whisk a remnant off to a celestial city beyond the cosmos?
This is a question that will proven in God's timing alone. However, the beautiful image is that of two worlds/realms - currently separated by the chaos of sin & death - are being restored by the victory of God begun at the cross. It is this restored unity, this heaven, this perfected state, that ALL the writers of scripture speak to.
Heaven is a widely debated subject by writers, thinkers, and dreamers. In search of how it is to be defined, we must speak of it in relation the kingdom that Jesus himself spoke to:
"The word 'kingdom' is a translation of the Greek word 'basileia' which in turn is a translation of the words 'malkuth' (Hebrew) and 'malkutha' (Aramaic). These words do not define kingdom by territory but by dominion. Jesus said of the Kingdom of God that one cannot say, 'Look here it is!' or 'There it is!' Luke 17:21. According to C.H. Dodd, the common translation of 'malkuth' with 'basileia' in Greek and hence 'kingdom' in English is therefore problematic; a translation with 'kingship,' 'kingly rule,'reign' or 'sovereignty' should be preferred.[10]"
(courtesy of WIKIPEDIA)
In both Isaiah and Revelation, the coming of Messiah ushers in the eternal age where heaven and earth are no longer separated by sin and death. The kingdom, or reign, of God is unified. It is interesting to note that along with the "first earth," the "first heaven" is also passed away. Hmmmm. Maybe heaven is not all about angel wings and us cloud hopping for eternity...maybe it is the idea that the separation between us and God is no more, and things are set right in Creation.
Note verse 3:
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;'"
and Verse 5:
"And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.' Also he said, 'Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.'"
"the home of God is among the mortals," "He will dwell with them," and "I am making all things new"
The thing to ponder is the inflection of these types of phrases from God through God's chosen writer of the book of Revelation. It denotes not something created elsewhere but the transformation of something already created. It is "all things new" not merely "new things." See the difference?
The takeaway point:
I believe heaven is the unity of God with Creation. I believe it is the reign of God for eternity, in which those who accept the salvation offered by God are united with their Creator to live as they were intended to. For me, God is redeeming and transforming all things through the power of the Holy Spirit. And one day, God will complete the transformation. The systems of sin and death - the corruption of humankind's misuse of all of Creation - will be overturned and defeated.
No more war. No more hate. No more abuse of any part of Creation. No more death. No more sin. No more pain. And we will KNOW that the will of God is complete.
21:4 says "he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."
"The first (or former) things" - a reference to the curses of Genesis 3 - are passed away...and we see that chaos is again conquered as it was in Genesis 1. I don't want to be whisked away to utopia somewhere beyond the stars. I want to be here when the world Jesus called me to love is redeemed and set right once and for all. I want to worship my God as I was meant to when God called us all "very good"
Amen.
1 comment:
of course, God 'restored' the world once already with a flood... it's possible that the earth won't be decimated into oblivion, but rather purged, cleansed in just as catastrophic a sense as the flood of noah's day. we 'go to meet him in the air' maybe we do (briefly) 'live in the clouds' so to speak until the purging is complete and things are restored/made knew. just a thought
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