Revelation 21

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==revelation 21:1:

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.

“A new heaven and a new earth” may sound to some like an advertisement about a product that is “new and improved” in our consumerist economy. This kind of thinking contributes to frantic accumulation and reckless disposal. It’s a cycle that alternatingly strips and chokes our planet and vulnerable communities with overconsumption and pollution. But, as Eugene Boring notes, “God does not make ‘all new things,’ but ‘all things new.’” In other words, John’s apocalyptic vision is about renewal rather than replacement. John’s is a new vision for Creation, but intimately related to the previous one. -Leah D Schade; A New Heaven and a New Earth? Revelation 21:1-6

==revelation 21:2-4:

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.
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.
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

Notice that God says three times that He is going to personally make His home with us. To be a Christian is to be a member of His own family. The result of all that is written in the Bible is a divine city where God can be forever close to the ones He loves. This speaks volumes about the heart of God and the love He has for His people. He paid an impossibly high price for us in the death, burial, and resurrection of His only Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Who was raised again in order that He would become our Savior and the Ruler of this soon to come city – the New Jerusalem. --Hope Faith Prayer

Since we forfeited the garden, humans have been pierced with a home-longing. We leave home looking to find home. Yet it always seems to elude us. It’s never the same if we go back. Our own new relationships still leave us with the ancient yearning. The Welsh use the word hiraeth (hee′-ryth) to describe the powerful, unassuageable cry for home. Hiraeth evokes the stab the roamer feels upon at last arriving back: this isn’t it. There’s yet a farther shore more home than even this cherished place. We can dream of it, but we don’t know how to get there. I’d like to suggest this Christmas that we allow this hiraeth to draw us to the manger. For there our true Home arrived to gather us back. He who is our heart’s homeland took up residence within the broken, ruined land of our lonely exile. The Son of God came to get us and bring us back to communion with his Father and the Spirit. --Gerret Scott Dawson

In v. 3, an unidentified voice from God’s throne says God’s “tent” (skēnos) will be among the people. This is the terminology that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) used for the tabernacle the Israelites had in their wilderness wandering. It is also the language the Gospel of John uses to describe the incarnation in 1:14. The image intends to convey the closest proximity possible. God will live directly with the people. They are fully God’s people and fully in God’s presence. In that presence, God fully claims them as God’s own. -Leah D Schade; A New Heaven and a New Earth? Revelation 21:1-6

Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. It is one of the mightiest, if not the very mightiest, rewards God Almighty holds out to those who accept His Son as Savior and by persistent well-doing show forth their title to eternal fellowship with the hosts of glory. It is a joyous, noble, inspiring, cheering doctrine. It has encouraged the martyr at the stake and sustained the bed-ridden Christian tormented by the burden, the weight, the ailments of the flesh. Its message has charmed our childhood, heartened our maturity, inspired our old age. It has given us the brave fortitude to bear the trials and temptations of life with unbowed head and unfaltering step. There is not a soul among us, no matter how seemingly indifferent or unconcerned, who is not at times—and these times come oftener and oftener with the advance of years—brought face to face with the problems of the reality, of the very existence of heaven. It is my purpose, God aiding, to bring to your minds, hearts, your souls some of the glorious, victorious truths about heaven, its citizens, its perfections, its conditions, and, perhaps most of all, to point out to you what you must do to get there; then to plead with you in all the passion of my soul that you put your feet by faith in the way of the cross that leads to God and to heaven. My outline is simple, brief, and, I hope, to the point. I know there is a heaven. I know what kind of place it is. I know I am going there.
I. I Know There Is A Heaven
Fairness says so. Decency, justice, rightness, honor, honesty, common sense, demand it. Where would the justice, the boasted equity of God, were there no heaven? Christians do not always have the best of it in this life. Many of them are poor. Many of them are sick. Many of them are oppressed, afflicted, tormented. There is very little reward for them in this life. Tell me, can you believe that the sacrificial saint and the selfish sinner will meet God and enjoy the same conditions of life beyond? Fairness requires that there be a difference. Heaven is the difference. Fairness says so.
Feeling says so. There is something in my heart as there is surely in your hearts, some affection, some emotion, some drawing, pulling, echoing something that tells us again and again that there is life beyond the skies, a life with God, a life with joy, of tenderness, purity, holiness, peace, where these troublesome, trying, tempestuous burdens that afflict us will be sloughed off and we shall stand free and upright in the sight of God and of His Christ. Look into the very depths of your souls. Tell me, is it not so? Is there not in your hearts a longing for the fellowship of God, for the communion of Christ, for the freedom of the Holy Spirit, for the presence of the angels? That feeling was placed there by God. It has grown with the passing of the years. Surely God would not have endowed you with that yearning, kept it alive all these years, unless he meant to satisfy it in His own good time, in His own good will. This life cannot be the all in all. Our feelings prohibit such a thought. There must be a heaven. There is a heaven. Feeling says so. Faith says so. Faith is confidence in the Word of God. The Book unmistakable, definitely, shoutingly, pressingly, imperatively teaches that there is a heaven. Doubt it, and the whole Christian system is exploded. Jesus spoke the fact of God when He said, "In my Father's house are many mansions… I go to prepare a place for you."
Faith says so. Backed up by, founded on the inerrant, unchangeable, unmistakable, eternal Word of God. The world that Christians are seeking, is a city whose founder and builder is God, a city of peace, of rest, of bliss, of reward. There is a heaven. Faith says so.

April 4, 2024: At Christianity Today, Andrea L Robinson wrote: During the Crusades in the Middle Ages (A.D. 1095–1291), Western Europeans hoped retaking the Holy Land would usher in the return of Christ—and multitudes of Muslim and Jewish people were slaughtered in the process. A couple hundred years later, Protestant Reformers maligned the papacy of the Catholic church as the Antichrist. Soon after, American colonists sought to establish a “New World,” which was closely identified with the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21. Thus, England was seen as the “Beast,” and the British Stamp Act became his mark.
In the 1980s, apocalyptic thinking vilified Russia as an “evil empire,” who, along with China, was identified as Gog and Magog (Rev. 20:8)—vicious enemies who will come against God’s people (and/or Jerusalem) before (or after) the Millennium. Today Iran and Palestine are two more contenders for the Gog and Magog title. At the same time, some among the Russian Orthodox faith believe that America leads the forces of the Antichrist.
My point is that if you are reading the Book of Revelation looking for specific details—a date for the world’s end, the name of an antichrist, or nations to label as enemies of God—you’ll find them. There have always been, and there will always be, forces that oppose God and his people.
But it’s important for us to understand the underlying eschatology behind narratives like the Left Behind series, since it lingers on in the evangelical consciousness and colors the lens through which many still read and interpret the Book of Revelation. One key facet of this worldview is dispensational premillennialism, which holds that true believers will be raptured—or supernaturally transported—to heaven, prior to seven years of intense geological, social, and political upheaval during which the Antichrist will rise and the Jerusalem temple will be rebuilt.

August 8, 2024: Pure Flix Insider reported: In the Great American Original movie, "Mr. Manhattan," young siblings AJ and Reuben experience the loss of their parents and their uncle, Mason, becomes their new guardian. Mason struggles to provide for the kids, balance his work pressures as a successful lawyer in the big city and process his own grief. Bible verses for grief help us to focus on the peace and eternity that God promises each of us as His beloved followers. In this Bible verse, God promises us that our pain, grief and loss has a purpose. While this side of heaven has pain, loss, and death, we can be comforted by knowing that in eternal life, these things will have "passed away." We each have a place in eternity where we will no longer have to experience these pains.
Mason knows that comforting his niece and nephew doesn't take away the pain and grief they feel of missing their parents. Dani, their babysitter and family friend, tries to remind them of God's promises of Revelation 21:4 (NIV). She uses their pain and grief to be a lesson on the promises of eternal life, a life without loss.

November 25, 2024: Phillipine Star reported: Doctors diagnosed four-year-old Solomon with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a progressive muscle-degenerating disease. A year later, doctors discussed wheelchairs with the family. But Solomon protested that he didn’t want to have to use one. Family and friends prayed for him and raised funds for a professionally trained service dog to help keep him out of that wheelchair for as long as possible. Tails for Life, the organization that trained my service dog, Callie, is currently preparing Waffles to serve Solomon. Though Solomon accepts his treatment, often bursting out in song to praise God, some days are harder. On one of those difficult days, Solomon hugged his mom and said, “I’m happy there’s no Duchenne’s in heaven.”
The degenerating effects of sickness affect all people on this side of eternity. Like Solomon, however, we have an enduring hope that can strengthen our resolve on those inevitable tough days. God gives us the promise of “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). Our Creator and Sustainer will “dwell” among us by making His home with us (v. 3). He will “wipe every tear” from our eyes. “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (v. 4). When the wait feels “too hard” or “too long,” we can experience peace because God’s promise will be fulfilled.

==revelation 21:5-7:

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.
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.
7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

==revelation 21:8:

"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."

"Whoremonger" is one who has allowed immorality to become a lifestyle. Sorcery includes drugs and the occult. Liars have made falseness a way of life.
New International Versions says:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
The construction is changed in the middle of the verse. The fearful are those who, through cowardice, have not overcome (cf. ver. 7). Abominable; those defiled with abominations (cf. Revelation 17:4). And murderers, and fornicators (cf. Revelation 14:4; Revelation 17:1, 2). And sorcerers (cf. Revelation 9:21; Revelation 18:23); those who deceived the heathen. And idolaters; the heathen who were deceived by them. All liars; all who are false in any way. Their part is in the lake, etc. (see on Revelation 20:10). These took no part in the first, spiritual, resurrection (Revelation 20:6); they now, therefore, inherit "the second death." --Pulpit Commentary

“There are clearly only two options: to conquer and inherit the eschatological promises, or to suffer the second death in the lake of fire (21:8)” ( Richard Bauckham’s book, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, p. 92).

==revelation 21:9-26:

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.
10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;
12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
13 On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.
16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.
17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.
18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.
19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;
20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.
21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.
22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.
23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.
25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.
26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

September 4, 2023: John Piper wrote on the subject of 'Will We Work in Heaven: In 2 Corinthians 12:4, Paul said he saw things in heaven that no man can utter. In 1 Corinthians 2:9, Paul says that “God has prepared [things] for those who love him” that are beyond human imagination. They’ve never entered into the heart of man. He tells us that our resurrection bodies will be spiritual bodies (1 Corinthians 15:42–49). Well, who can say all that is involved in a spiritual body?
John speaks in Revelation 21:23 of a world in which there will be “no need of sun or moon . . . [because] the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Well, who can imagine a world with no sources of created light, but only God’s light? And in Revelation 21:18, John says the city, New Jerusalem, “was pure gold, like clear glass.” What’s that — gold that is clear as glass? Jonathan Edwards wrote an entire sermon on that text, Revelation 21:18, and here’s the title: “Nothing on Earth Can Represent the Glories of Heaven” — because there is no such thing on earth as gold that is clear as glass, and that’s the way it’s going to be like.
So yes, I think we will work in the final age to come. Whether we will do what we were gifted for here, or whether we will have wholly new giftings, a thousand times greater, or what kind of work John Piper will be doing, I leave in the hands of God, who planned the universe for the happiness of his people in himself. We will not be disappointed.

==revelation 21:27:

And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Jack Wellman

When I was witnessing to a stranger the other day, he was convinced that he was a pretty good person, but compared to whom? Compared to his own ideas of what is good and what is bad. God’s idea is that we need to be perfect, having the required righteousness of Christ. I reminded him that none of us are really good, not even one of us (Rom. 3:10); it’s just that we’ve been forgiven by a very good God. He said, “Well, at least I’m not a murderer,” but I told him that each of us will have to stand and give an account for what we’ve done in this life (Rom. 14:12; 1 Cor. 5:10) and that God will not say, “Well, compared to your neighbor there, you’re a pretty good guy.” No, we will stand alone, and God won’t say, “Okay, I’ll wait until you find someone who’s worse than you and then judge you according to how bad they are.” Try that in a court of law. I can guarantee that it won’t work.
Paul said that not only is it foolish to compare ourselves with others, but we dare not even try to classify ourselves in a certain standing before God based upon what we think (2 Cor. 10:12a). Jesus said that we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48) and that our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20), so that presents a problem. Nothing sinful or imperfect can even enter heaven (Rev. 21:27). We must compare ourselves to the model of Christ and not others, and that’s a pretty high bar to reach, but there is a solution. For those who have repented and trusted in Christ, they will be seen as having the same righteousness as Christ (2 Cor. 5:21). Problem solved. - Jack Wellman; Rhetorical Jesus; Do You Compare Your Life To People Around You, or to Me? 10.8.23