And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea exists no more.
After the great white throne, John's vision turns from judgment to a new creation. Commentators ask three things: how new it is, why the sea is gone, and how it differs from Isaiah's promise.
The verse follows straight on from the judgment of the dead.
The previous chapter closed with the solemn scene of eternal judgment. Now a vision of the cloudless beauty of the eternal state of blessedness opens before our eyes. The contrast is as sudden as it is magnificent.
Isaiah also promised new heavens and a new earth. Commentators draw a line between his picture and John's. Two things mark the difference: righteousness, and the sea.
Today righteousness suffers. In the millennial day it reigns. But in the eternal day it dwells happily; it is quite at home... This is not what Isaiah refers to (Isa. 65:17). His new heavens and new earth are only new in a moral sense, to suit the millennium. The sea also exists there, for he speaks of "the coastlands far away."
The change from reign to dwell carries the weight.
During millennial days, we read that "a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice" (Isa. 32:1). In the eternal state, righteousness will dwell. Ruling supposes there is evil to be repressed. In the eternal state there will be no sin to mar the new heavens and the new earth.
Commentators differ here. Some read the new creation as the old one transformed, on the pattern of the body raised from the grave.
No doubt the new heaven and earth will be made out of the old. By the power of God, the resurrection body will be formed out of our present lowly body. The present earth and heavens are destined for a similar change. After the dissolution they will reappear in the form of the new heavens and earth.
Others argue that renovation is too weak a word for what happens here.
You cannot call a renovated thing a new thing, and an earth purified by fire would simply be renovated. In Revelation 20:11 the earth and the heaven flee from the sight of Him who sits on the great white throne, and no place is found for them. A renovated earth must have a place found for it.
Whatever happens to the old creation, it is not wiped out of existence.
Fire brings about this dissolution, not annihilation (2 Peter 3:10). Scripture says nothing about any future act of creating material in a literal sense. It says nothing either about what some foolishly argue for: annihilation, the total extinction of being... Our planet will be put in the crucible, altered, changed, and made new, to remain for ever.
An older translation read "there was no more sea." The Greek decides which reading is right.
As a question of exact translation... if the Greek word for sea had no article, the older translation would have been justified. As it stands, the right reading is "the sea was no more", whatever the interpretation. In verse 4 of the same chapter, the same rule about the article shows the right reading to be "death shall be no more."
Its absence carries two meanings. One is about distance between people. The other is about what the sea pictures in this book.
The sea forms a barrier to contact. So the first and most obvious thought is that there will then be no more separation. Then we remember the symbolic meaning of earth and sea in this book. The earth speaks of ordered government. The sea speaks of unorganised masses of people or nations that are not in subjection. It teaches that every part of the new earth will be in ordered subjection to God, under His governmental control.
There is also a plain physical side.
One broad physical fact marks off the eternal state from everything that has ever been: the sea is gone. As the world now is, the loss of the sea would be fatal to all natural life. How vast the change then! The fact is that all mere nature will have completely passed away. The course of God's dealings through the ages is then over. All will be fixed for ever.
Nothing in this state will ever change again.
All is new. All is according to God in His nature. All is fixed... This is not the scene of the Lamb fulfilling purpose and prophecy. It is not the kingdom Christ holds as Mediator, nor the reign of righteousness. It is the kingdom handed over, and God all in all.
- New after judgment. The vision opens the moment judgment ends. Beauty stands right against the great white throne.
- New beyond Isaiah. Isaiah's new heavens and earth are new in a moral sense and still have a sea; John's belong to eternity.
- New, not merely repaired. Commentators differ. Is the old creation transformed, or replaced? Neither side allows annihilation.
- New without the sea. No barrier between people, no masses outside His control — every part of the new earth in ordered subjection to God.
- New for ever. Righteousness no longer reigns over evil but dwells at home, and God is all in all.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
The old heaven and earth have just passed away. Now John sees something arriving in the new creation: a city that is also a bride. Who is this city, why does she come down from heaven, and how can a city be a bride at all?
This chapter shows the same city twice, and the two scenes are a thousand years apart. The verse that comes later on the page describes the earlier moment.
The scene in verse 10 of this chapter comes a thousand years before this one in verse 2. In verse 10 John sees the "holy city, Jerusalem" in her glory during the thousand years, in relation to the earth of that day. In verse 2 that thousand-year kingdom has passed away for ever. John now sees the "holy city" coming down from the place she held during the kingdom, to take up her appointed place on the new earth. It is the "holy city," holy according to the nature of God. And it is "new Jerusalem," not the old one described in the Old Testament.
Many take the description as a picture of the believer's future home. One writer warns against reading a symbolic book literally here.
To grasp its meaning we must first clear our minds of one idea that sentiment has encouraged. It is the idea that the holy City is a literal description of the eternal home of believers. In a book where all the other visions are symbolic, it is unlikely that in this vision symbols should give way to literal description. Scripture names the City in so many words: "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." So it is clear that the City is a symbol of the Church in glory. Yet many details show that it is not only a symbol of the saints themselves. It is a symbolic description both of the Church in glory and of her eternal home.
Earlier in the book John saw a false woman and a false city. This one is their opposite.
In the future the Church is pictured as a Woman and a City… The Bride is spoken of as the Lamb's Wife, and is likewise described as "that Great City, the Holy Jerusalem." It is interesting that Revelation 17 presents the doom of the false bride, and chapter 18 of the false city — the Christian world that has abandoned the faith in the last days.
The verse gives two facts about where the city comes from.
It descends "from God," since it is all His own workmanship. And it comes "out of heaven," for its calling was from heaven. To heaven it had gone when the Lord Jesus came for all His saints.
Time wears out earthly brides. It has not touched this one, and now she comes the whole way down to the new earth.
Earlier she was only coming down from heaven towards earth. Now she comes right down to earth, because God has suited the new earth to this heavenly city… I have seen a good many brides in my day. I have met them a few years later, and what lines are on the brow, what cares are plain on the face, and how soon grey hairs have appeared… But what does John see? He sees, coming down from heaven, the one who has been the Lamb's wife for a thousand years, and she looks as bright, as beautiful and as fresh as the day she went up. Not a grey hair, not a wrinkle can be seen.
Scripture uses two words for her, bride and wife, and each carries a different sense.
The bride is more an object for the affections. The wife speaks of a vessel fully fitted to be a helper to the man… In her eternal place she is seen as "a bride adorned for her husband", and the term wife is not used. It suggests the closest possible relationship. It shows the place of favour and nearness we shall have with the Son throughout that eternal day.
The last four words of the verse turn a vision of the future into a question about the present.
"Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband!" Let us think about these last four words. In the light of them, could we bear the thought of being indifferent to His wishes now? Thank God, SHE will be for HIM then.
- Timing. Verse 2 stands after the thousand years. Verse 10 shows the same city a thousand years earlier, in her kingdom glory.
- Identity. The city is a symbol, not a street plan — she is named the bride, the wife of the Lamb. The picture covers both the church in glory and her eternal home.
- Origin. She descends "from God" because she is entirely His work, and "out of heaven" because heaven was her calling.
- Contrast. Babylon was the false bride and the false city, judged in chapters 17 and 18; this is the true one.
- Result. After a thousand years not a wrinkle shows. The word chosen for eternity is bride — the nearest place of affection, held for ever.