In previous years, many churches and Christians divided strongly over issues related to the end times. How was Christ going to come back? When was he going to come back? Is there a secret rapture of the church? What about a millennial kingdom? The answers became a litmus test for authentic Christian belief and separated brothers. Later Christians turned off by such things led some to overcorrect and neglect doctrines about the last days for fear of division. While we should not too harshly divide on secondary matters, we should celebrate and live in light of the essential things God has promised about our future.
In fact, Paul commands we spend time meditating on these things. In Colossians 3, he says, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (3:1-14).
How might our lives be different if we spent time—maybe just fifteen minutes—each week, reflecting on the future that awaits us as Christians? One passage that is especially helpful for this is Revelation 21:1–8. Thinking on these verses, let’s consider four ways God is making all things new. This means four promises that should shape our lives in the present.
1. God Promises a New Creation (21:1)
After seeing many other things throughout Revelation, John says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away” (Rev 21:1). This is the fulfillment of the vision of God’s workings in the Old Testament (Isa 65:17).
And this comes as a solution to humanity’s ruin of God’s original creation. Because of our sinful rebellion, the creation was cursed. Sin and death entered the world and it never gets better. No matter how close we get to God, no matter how educated and moral a society becomes, we are all still sinners. Creation remains contaminated. Yet intimately connected to God’s plan of redeeming his people is his plan to redeem all of creation as well (Rom 8:21–24). And just as humanity will experience glory, so will the world as God make a whole new creation.
We have visionary language describing this new creation, yet it can be hard to get our minds around. Even John’s description of a world without the sea (Rev 21:1). Does that mean no more vacations at the beach? No. For the ancient peoples the sea represented chaos, confusion, and evil, waters violently turning up mud and mire (cf. Isa 51:9 57:20; Dan 7:2–3). Even in this book, the great satanic beast is pictured rising out of the sea (Rev 13:1). Thus, for John to say there was no more sea doesn’t mean there was no more oceans. It means this a whole new creation that nothing of sincorrupting it! There is no more chaos, no more danger, no more violence. No more sin.
2. God Promises a New Relationship (21:2-3)
John says, “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling placeof God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’” (21:2-3).
Being apocalyptic literature, Revelation uses mixed metaphors. Here, we see God’s people as a bride and a city. Notice that, in this bride language, we have a people so arrayed in the glorious beauty of purity and righteousness that she is pictured as a bride, adorned on her wedding day, ready to commit herself fully to her husband. No longer is there a hint of spiritual adultery (cf. Hos 2:16–17). From a human perspective, there is nothing more joyfully intimate than the consummation of a loving marriage. Yet, it’s a mere taste of the pleasure and perfection of the life between God and his people for all eternity!
What about the city imagery? God wants us to see our hope of redemption as being profoundly social. Today, people often avoid the city in favor of owning land because more people concentrated in an area means more opportunities for sin. Yet, God’s solution is not spread the people out, but to make a new kind of city. Here is a city filled with new people who love their God and love each other. No locks, no loneliness, no lack of love for our neighbor. That’s the future God has in store for us.
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling placeof God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’” (21:2-3).
3. God Promises a New Existence (21:4)
Just as God is going to make creation new, so also is he going to make his people new. Not just spiritually, either, but physically. John says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Rev 21:4).
The Bible says that Christ died for sinners, but he didn’t stay dead. And it’s clear that he didn’t just appear to be alive. His disciples touched him, saw him eat, even walked close enough to feel his breath on a long journey (Luke 24:36-40). It’s this same risen Christ who will return for his people and “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil 3:20-21).
As Christians, one day our bodies will become like the risen Christ. The Christian hope is not about floating around like ghosts in robes with halos and wings. It’s about God taking the rotting corpse in a coffin, or the smallest dust of long faded remains, and recreating them into a radiant, everlasting body fit the glories of God’s presence. Then God and his people can enjoy face-to-face fellowship for all eternity. That’s the Christian hope; the hope of the resurrection.
4. God Promises a New Experience of Salvation (12:6b-8)
God’s people have salvation—we have passed from old to new, from death to life, from darkness to light (2 Cor 5:17; Col 1:12–13). But we do not experience all of what God has for us in salvation. What lies ahead is the final culmination of redemption in Christ. John records him promising us: “To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (Rev 21:7). What will we have? Fullness of life for all eternity! God himself in all his glory and the beauty of the new creation will be the inheritance of his people. People, who themselves will be so transformed as to resemble God himself.
At the same time, “for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Rev 21:8).Part of the glory of the new heavens and the new earth is that there will be no sin—ever. But that also means that before these things, there will be a final judgment that separates God’s people from everyone else. Christ will return the same way he ascended to heaven after his resurrection, and there will be a winnowing of wheat and chaff, a division of sheep and goats, a declaration of the just from the unjust. And while those who have trusted God and find their life in Christ will experience his salvation, those that have persisted in their rebellion will be consigned to an eternity of conscience torment in hell (Matt 25:31–46). So perfect is the dwelling of God with his people that no sin or evil or the results of sin and evil can possibly tarnish it.
Live New Lives in the Present
I have often heard people say that it’s possible to be so heavenly-minded that you’re no earthly good. But New Testament shows the very opposite to be true. The more one thinks about the future and what is to come, the more useful they are now. We can be so heavenly minded that we become of immense earthly good.
These truths have massive implications for how we live in the here and now. If we really believe the amazing salvation promised to us will one day be reality in its fullness, then we must also believe the reality that not everyone knows Christ. The reality of hell should motivate to see people escape hell and for Christ to enjoy more worshipers. Moreover, the reality of the church’s destiny should motivation to see and serve believers now in light of what we will become. It’s the assurance of the hope of heaven that releases radical, risk-taking love now. It’s the hope of new creation that allows us to shed earthly dreams and priorities to invest in eternity. Therefore, let us remember the future we have in Christ and live today because of what is to come.
These truths have massive implications for how we live in the here and now. If we really believe the amazing salvation promised to us will one day be reality in its fullness, then we must also believe the reality that not everyone knows Christ. The reality of hell should motivate to see people escape hell and for Christ to enjoy more worshipers. Moreover, the reality of the church’s destiny should motivation to see and serve believers now in light of what we will become. It’s the assurance of the hope of heaven that releases radical, risk-taking love now. It’s the hope of new creation that allows us to shed earthly dreams and priorities to invest in eternity. Therefore, let us remember the future we have in Christ and live today because of what is to come.
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