All Things New ...

Ever wonder what happens after the ending … “and they all lived happily ever after”?  Scripture could have ended at the second coming of Christ.  From that moment on, everything we need to know, could have been told to us directly by Jesus.  Every event that is going to happen from then on, will happen, as it is supposed to.  Our trust in God will be complete.  His work of perfection in us complete.  So why keep revealing even more of our future then, to us now?  Our previous study shows that even after our redemption is completed, scripture goes on to reveal there is an end, a final end, to evil.  Evil is gone away now forever at this point.  Death itself, and hell, have been consumed in the lake of fire.  The flames have gone out.  Our freedom of choice has been preserved, and love has finally conquered evil forever, as only love could do.  So why not end scriptures then?  Why are there yet 2 more chapters in the book of John’s recorded Revelations?  These remain Revelations of Jesus Christ.  And while we are not there yet, nor perfected yet, there is still something more we need to know about what will happen then, that is relevant to us today.  Somehow the knowledge of the aftermath of evil is needed for us today, in order to help us know our Lord better, and make a better choice to let Him redeem us completely.

So John begins in chapter 21 and verse 1 writing … “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”  In one verse, everything we know today is wiped away.  Every monument built by men, every glittering city, from ancient Babylon bathed in gold, to modern New York City towering into the sky, there is nothing of any of them left.  Everything we spend our lives building in this world today, every project at work, every effort to better our lives in ever increasing ease or splendor, is wiped away.  From country estates, to third world hovels, there is nothing left of any of them.  Nature too, is to be reset.  The Grand Canyon, Sahara Desert, Rain Forests of the Amazon, Siberian winters, and Sequoia trees of the Pacific Northwest are all wiped away in a moment.  The magnitude of the Pacific ocean, Atlantic ocean, and polar regions are all to be reset as well, with John stating there is no more sea.  The Mediterranean sea was the only one John had ever known, it is considerably smaller than the oceans we are familiar with, and still there is no sea to be left.

Is it possible, this simple verse is offered to us now, so that our priorities can be properly set?  No matter what we value or work to build in this earth, it is NOT going to last forever.  No amount of work we do in this world, no job we undertake, is anything more than temporary.  Everything we know is to be wiped away and made new, made perfect.  The only thing that endures from this world to the next, is you - having submitted yourself to the power of Jesus Christ’s redeeming love.  When once your salvation from your slavery to self has begun, you begin to notice there is yet further treasure that could endure past the complete destruction and renovation of this world … it is those you choose to love.  As His love grows more and more within you, you come to realize there is no such thing as an enemy.  An enemy is only a closest friend, who simply does not know it yet.  The love of Christ is great enough to embrace ALL of us, not just some, not just those of like mind, or like faith.  To see His love reach those we love brings to us an infinite treasure whose worth will never be fully appreciated.  To see His love reach those who used to call themselves our enemy, is of no less worth.

John continues in verse 2 … “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”  Jerusalem of old was the city where the Ark of the Covenant was brought.  It was the place where the presence of God could be felt by His people.  It is no accident that past the end of all things we know, the city of New Jerusalem (or heaven) is to once again be the city where the presence of God is to be felt by His people.  You will notice John does not call the city of heaven the new “Rome”.  Nor does he refer to it as the new “Washington D.C.”, or new “Babylon”.  These 3 cities were built by men as well.  They all purported to serve the living God at one point or another.  Yet none of them are so honored.  Even Jerusalem is actually the city where Christ was rejected.  Its only connection to the presence of God was from the Temple Services of the original covenant.  Yet God chooses to honor His original covenant with Israel and redeems the name of this city, associating it with heaven itself, and preserving its association with Himself, and His presence.

John continues in verse 3 … “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”  Do these words sound familiar, they should.  It is the renewal of His covenant with Israel and with us.  Before the Ten Commandments were ever spoken by God to Israel, one question was asked of them … did they want to be His people?  Before Abram became Abraham, only one distinction was ever made … Abram had chosen to follow God.  Noah found grace.  Adam was His creation.  You will be saved by only one choice, to accept Jesus Christ as the source of your salvation.  Your choice to submit who you are to the love of Christ, to allow Him to remake you and alter what you love and how you love, causes you to engage in the same covenant that Israel once embraced.  You follow God and then you are saved.  Here past the end of all things, is a renewal of the covenant that has never been abandoned by God.  We may have abandoned our end of the deal, but God has not.  And in the light of perfection God renews it yet again.

John continues in verse 4 … “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”  There it is.  Upon having witnesses those who we loved meet their final end, our hearts still break at their rejection of the perfect freedom we have found.  There is no joy in witnessing death for those who love Christ.  There is no spirit of retribution, or even of justice, only of sorrow, only of a longing for a different set of choices and outcomes.  No one who has had the love of Christ perfected in them looks upon the misery of others, even of those who deserve the pain they are in, with joy, or glee, or a sense of accomplishment.  There is no such thing as vengeance in His kingdom.  Redemption abounds, vengeance is nowhere to be seen.  Those who while on this earth longed to have crimes against them avenged and punish the criminal for his act, have not yet had the redemptive love of Christ perfected in them as yet.  Redemption forgives.  It forgives even when there is no logical reason to forgive.  It is not that the perpetrator deserves forgiveness, they do not.  They have in fact caused pain.  But evil and pain are not diminished by punishment, they are only abated and transformed by love.  There will be one final sadness in heaven, and then it will be wiped away by our Lord.

This revelation is given to John, in order for us to still do something about it while we can.  Imagine how hard it will be to see the loss of your child, or your parent, or your sibling or spouse – knowing you missed the opportunity to love them while here on this earth.  You might have offered forgiveness to them when they did not deserve it, and in so doing, demonstrate to them the love of Christ in the here and now.  Perhaps your forgiveness of real pain they have caused you, might allow them to see Christ’s love in a different way.  Perhaps the love you show to others NOW, is the love that allows them to see Christ and be saved standing with you on that great day of sadness, instead of consumed before your eyes upon it.  Imagine the enemy who today wants nothing but to cause you pain.  Imagine that enemy forgiven by you, now standing beside you closer to you than a brother, a person who loves you so much he would willingly lay down his life for you.  Imagine a bond that will never be broken between you and a former enemy despite all the deeds of the past.  This is what Christ does for us then and now.  Can we not do it for each other here through our submission of our will to His powerful love?

In His mercy, Christ must wipe away our tears one more time.  He must bring us off of our faces prostrate upon the ground, knowing the deeds we have done, but also experiencing His forgiveness for all of them.  We must at last offer the hardest forgiveness there is to offer, our forgiveness to ourselves.  But in the words of Christ unto John there is also hope.  There is to be no more pain.  It is not just Death that has been done away with, it is also pain.  An eternally burning hell where the wicked are punished through flaming torture for what they have done for all time and eternity would certainly qualify as “pain”.  And yet here John is stating in simple language and facts, there will be NO MORE PAIN. 

What begins here is not a lack of feeling, but an amplification of it.  Our sensory organs are not diminished but enhanced.  What changes to eliminate pain, is WHO we love, and HOW we love.  We will lack all self-love, and live to love only others.  In so doing we put the happiness of everyone else ahead of our own, and find we have never been happier doing it.  Our attention to detail will have increased, as will our knowledge.  There will be no accidents in heaven.  We will move with perfect coordination, and perfect trust in God to protect and educate us.  There will be no thorns nor any reminder of the curse of this world upon the rose, or the earth remade.  Should we leap, we will experience only joy.  Should we dive, exhilaration.  Should we fly, the thrill of flying.  John’s simple language promises us that death and pain and all the former things will have passed away.

John continues in verse 5 … “And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.”  Here again Christ re-affirms that He alone is the CREATOR.  Evolution may be a process Christ puts in place for His creations, but it is not the genesis of what He creates.  We come to exist by the power of His will.  In this sentence Christ announces he will be re-creating ALL THINGS NEW.  Should we have ever doubted that our Lord has the power to create our world in six days and rest upon the seventh, that doubt should exist no longer.  For at the end of all things, the Lord resumes His creative powers to once again make it all new.  He further states to John to “write” for these words are true and faithful.  This is not a conditional promise.  It does not rely upon us in any way to see it fulfilled, it is something that Christ is going to do … period.  Creation will resume as evil is ended.  New things will be coming into existence by the imagination and power of Jesus Christ.

John does as he is asked and continues writing in verse 6 … “And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.”  The promises of Christ are true.  The revelation is intended for us in THIS time.  We would not need these words then, we need them now.  This is yet another affirmative promise of what Christ promised the first time He was here.  We are to drink of the waters of life freely (His gift to us).  We are to live forever.  Our salvation is complete.  Our salvation is DONE.  Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega, He is the beginning and ending of our faith, and of our redemption.  It is not just His death upon the cross that sees this hope fulfilled.  It is our choice to let Him re-create who we are, what we want, and how we love.  It is Jesus Christ alone that sees us saved.

These texts once again blow away the false doctrines of Satan who tells us all, that WE need to be responsible for our own salvation.  Islamists are wrong in their belief that man is essentially good, and can choose to do evil no more.  Buddhists are wrong.  Pagans are wrong.  Atheists are wrong.  And sadly, all too many Christians and Adventists are wrong.  We are not saved through our own power, but solely through the power of Jesus Christ.  We are not saved through the power and intellectual understanding of our doctrines and beliefs but solely as we follow and submit to Jesus Christ.  We are not saved because we worship on the seventh day, or keep the commandments of our Lord, for though we have done these things from our youth, yet still there can be something missing.  That something is Jesus Christ.  He alone can save us from who we are, from what we are.  There are not many pathways to God, there is only one.  The path of Jesus Christ is sure.  ALL others lead nowhere.  These are the Revelations of Jesus Christ, not some nebulous namby-pamby god who has no real power to save anything but the feeling of a “good time”.  Jesus Christ alone is real.  It will be He who makes all things new.  It will be He who has saved us from who we were.

John continues in verse 7 … “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. [verse 8] But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.”  Here the words of Christ are clearly intended for us in our day.  He that overcometh.  What is it we are to overcome?  Not sin, for we have surely proven we are powerless against a good temptation.  Not others, for our gospel is not about domination of others, but of loving others.  We must overcome self, by submitting self to Christ.  We must trust in Christ to see His victory in us.  We must trust in Christ to see Him fulfill His promises to save us, while we do nothing but allow Him to do so.  Our natural inclination is to take control, not to give it over to Christ.  Our natural inclination is to try to save ourselves, and choose to stop our sins, not to give our every desire over to Christ.  To trust Christ with who we love, how we love.  To trust Christ with our children, our parents, our spouse, our very existence.  To overcome we must submit to Christ.

The promise of our Lord is to be our God, but He will see us not just as His creations but as close as His own child.  He will be our God.  But we will be “His son”.  Jesus sees us as His family, as His children.  He is more than our best friend, more than our God, but our Father as well.  He is more to us than any earthly parent has ever been, for He is both perfect, and God.  But in this statement, He joins humanity to Himself in a way like no other.  We have yet to fully understand what this means to us.  But what we can see clearly, is His so great love for us.  We are more to Him than a casual acquaintance.  We are more to Him than just “people”.  We are His family.  We are equal in that designation.  There is no hierarchy in what He describes.  No rulers over others, but equal before God.  Each of us so valued, each of us so loved. 

Notice too, the alternative to being redeemed of God, the first characteristic listed is “fearful”.  In nearly every greeting between God and mankind, the first words uttered, are … do not be afraid.  It is our fear that keeps us from seeing ourselves redeemed.  Our natural instinct for self-preservation trumps our willingness to let God have full control of our lives.  We fear losing what we love to God.  We fear losing some sin we think brings us joy.  So we hold it back from His transforming power.  We tell Him to leave that one alone.  And like a cancer that cherished sin, leads us to reject transformation of others parts of who we are, until we choose to remain exactly as we find ourselves, locked into the chains of self-love.  What we hold back from God will be the source of our undoing.  To be freed from sin, we must give it all to Him. 

Next on the list of alternative ideas, is listed unbelieving.  Our fear precludes us from letting go.  It is then supported by our lack of trust, lack of confidence, lack of faith in what we cannot see or do for ourselves.  Our unbelief fosters our fear, it adds fuel to it.  Our unbelief prevents us from letting God do for us what He so longs to do for us.  It keeps us in a state of darkness.  It keeps us from fully experiencing His love.  His gifts to us are disregarded or explained away as mere chance or coincidence because we do not believe they come from Him.  We are quick to give Him the blame, but rarely ever the credit.  We do not believe that He will save us if we submit, so we keep trying to save ourselves through our own power and will.  We fear that should we let go, we will only deepen in sin, not see it removed.  If we choose to stop exercising our last remaining bits of self-restraint, we will fall so deep into sin we will never escape its grasp.  But what we fail to see and believe; is that we are already there.  Our sin already has us in chains.  We are already slave to its pull and desires.  To be freed from them, we must offer them ALL to Christ, and believe in what He has promised.  This is putting faith into action.

What follows fear and unbelief is the natural state of mankind bound in the slavery of self-love.  What remains then is abominable, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars.  This list is not exclusive of what remains when one is bound to the slavery of sin.  But it sure hits the highlights.  Those who hate and kill.  Those who love sex more than they love people.  Those who would seek power from Satan in order to gain it over others.  Those who would worship anything other than Christ, most often the god in the mirror.  And those who tell little white lies, and think them benign.  The degree of sin is a misnomer.  All sin is a variation, a spot on the degenerative spiral downwards, that has no end to its depravity.  Lucifer did not start out a murderer of God, but he became Satan, and did in fact see Christ killed on a cross.  This process did not take place in a day, but it did take place.  The original sin of choosing to love self just a little bit, degenerated into killing Christ. 

Again this remains a Revelation of Jesus Christ.  All things are to be made new.  But this revelation is given to us now, so that we can affirm our salvation in the only one who can see it done in us.  Jesus truly is the Alpha and Omega of our salvation.  It is His call we respond to initially, and His work in us that sees us finally perfected in His transformative love.  All things are to be made new.  This includes you and I.  This includes the world in which we live.  This includes our priorities.  This can only be done fully when evil is a thing of the past, when pain and death are to be seen no more.

And the revelations and story were not over yet …