Longing for Home

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood (1Pet 1:1-2, ESV).

“We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.” ―Madeleine L’Engle

WILL HEAVEN HAVE OCEANS?

From the Gospel Coalition blog . . .

A friend discovered the joys of body surfing in midlife, when she and her husband moved to Southern California, within 40 miles of the beaches and breakers of the Pacific Ocean. So she was understandably troubled by Revelation 21:1 and the prospect that ocean’s azure waters and surging waves will be absent from the coming new heavens and new earth. A few verses later we read that God “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”[1](Rev. 21:4).

To such miseries, sin’s toxic byproducts, we say, “Good riddance!” But, we wonder, once the curse-stained first heaven and earth have given way to a new heaven and a new earth, why must the new cosmic order be sans sea, while we’ll still stand on terra firma?

Literal Interpretations of the Sea

My friend’s dismay assumes that the “sea” that will be “no more” in the new heaven and new earth is a vast body of physical water (all the oceans that blanket our present earth). That is understandable, since in Revelation, even amid its symbolic visions, “sea” should sometimes be understood “literally”—that is, physically. For example, God is to be worshiped because he created “heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (14:7; see also 5:13; 7:1-3; 10:2-8; 12:12). So it is not surprising that Revelation 21:1 has been understood as announcing that a large body of physical water, or all large bodies of physical water, or even physical water itself will not be present in the new earth. John Walvoord, for example, commented, “Most of the earth is now covered with water, but the new earth apparently will have no bodies of water except for the river mentioned in 22:2.”[2] John MacArthur goes further, interpreting the absence of “the sea” as implying the absence of all physical water (H2O) anywhere, in any form, on the new earth: 

The sea is emblematic of the present water-based environment. All life on earth is dependent on water for its survival. . . . But believers’ glorified bodies will not require water, unlike present human bodies, whose blood is 90 percent water, and whose flesh is 65 percent water. Thus, the new heaven and the new earth will be based on a completely different life principle than the present universe. There will be a river in heaven, not of water, but of the “water of life” (22:1, 17).[3]

On the other hand, Randy Alcorn, who admits to enjoying snorkeling, is troubled by the prospect that oceans and the wonder-evoking creatures that inhabit them would have no place in consummation of God’s new creation. He suggests that the “core meaning” of Revelation 21:1 is that “there will be no more of the cold, treacherous waters that separate nations, destroy ships, and drown our loved ones. There will be no more creatures swallowing up seafarers and no more poisoned salt waters.”[4] In a cosmos purged of pollution, salt water would no longer be needed to serve as a global antiseptic, so perhaps the “sea” that is “no more” refers only to salt water oceans. In the new earth “[h]uge lakes could, in effect, be freshwater oceans,” teeming with sea life.[5]

Interpretations of the Sea Elsewhere in Revelation and Earlier in the Bible

Speculations about the absence or presence or form of physical water in the new earth are intriguing, but we do better to take seriously the symbolic genre of John’s visions. John has seen a dragon, an ancient serpent, standing on the sand of the sea (12:17). Interpreters of every eschatological school recognize that this “serpent” is not a physical reptile, actual or mythical, but a visible symbol of a corrupt, immaterial, personal creature: Satan (12:9). Rising from that sea John saw a beast emerge, having ten horns and seven heads and resembling a leopard, a bear, and a lion (13:1-2). Bible students of all varieties recognize the echoes of Daniel’s night visions of four beasts rising from the sea (Dan. 7:1-8), which “are four kings” (7:17). So they agree that the beast of Revelation 13 is not a physical monster but a symbol of a human agent or agency, an individual or a state or a system, that violently opposes God and his people. If both the dragon on the seashore and the beast from the sea are symbols, not physical monsters, why would we assume that the sea itself is a physical body of H2O?[6]

It is important to notice that the imagery in John’s visions is drawn from the Old Testament’s rich store of symbolism. It is not only Daniel 7 that presents “the sea” as a picture of the source of restless evil (see Isa. 57:20) and hostile resistance to the Creator’s orderly reign. Without endorsing the mythological concepts of their Ancient Near Eastern neighbors, Israel’s prophets evoked their imagery in passages such as Isaiah 27:1: “In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.” The parting of the physical waters of the Red Sea at Israel’s exodus displayed his victory over greater foes than Egypt:

You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan. (Psalm 74:13-14)[7]

Throughout history the Lord wages war against the forces of evil that storm against his sovereignty and threaten to engulf his people, whether demonic powers or pagan nations:

O LORD God of hosts,
who is mighty as you are, O LORD,
with your faithfulness all around you?
You rule the raging of the sea;
when its waves rise, you still them.
You crushed Rahab like a carcass;
you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. (Psalm 89:8-10)

The Lord’s past victories over the dragon and its sea offer hope that he will intervene to redeem his people in one future, final foe-crushing, woe-banishing triumph:

Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD;
awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago.
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
who pierced the dragon?
Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep,
who made the depths of the sea a way
for the redeemed to pass over? (Isaiah 51:9-10)

By the time John’s visions reach Revelation 21:1, “the sea,” that turbulent realm from which the dragon launched its desperate assault on the offspring of the woman, is the last symbol of evil to be eliminated. The prostitute enthroned on many waters has fallen (14:8; 16:19; 17:16-17; 18:2-3). The beast from the sea, the false prophet, and the dragon have been consigned to the lake of fire (19:20; 20:10). Now, at last, as a new heaven and new earth appear, “the sea” itself is “no more.” Gregory Beale notes that the parallel wording of Revelation 21:1 and 21:4 shows that “the sea is no more” previews the fact that death “will be no more,” and mourning and crying and pain “will be no more” in the consummated new creation. The convergence of allusions to Isaiah 51:10-11 (the Lord’s triumph over the sea) and to Isaiah 65:16-19 (the new heavens and earth, replacing “the former things,” weeping and crying) leads Beale to conclude, “in all likelihood, ‘sea’ is figurative for old-world threats. Therefore, the presence of a literal sea in the new creation would not be inconsistent with the figurative exclusion of the sea in 21:1.”[8]

Avoiding Speculation

It is tantalizing to try to imagine what life will be like in the new heavens and the new earth, where every evil, misery, sorrow, and danger “will be no more.” Will there still be waterfalls and waves, puddles and ponds, lakes and even oceans? We infer that the new earth will be material because Jesus’s resurrection body, the “sample” of that coming cosmos that has invaded human experience in this age, could be touched and ingest fish and, presumably, “the fruit of the vine” (Luke 24:36-43; Matt. 26:29).

But “the sea was no more” in Revelation 21:1 is not intended to answer our questions about opportunities to surf or snorkel or sail on the new earth. Instead, it conveys good news: our divine Champion will come to destroy our every enemy, to wipe away our every tear, and to eliminate every realm of restless rebellion, securing for all eternity our joyful, holy communion with God, who will make his dwelling with us forever (Rev. 21:3).

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[1] Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

[2] John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ: A Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1966), 311.

[3] John MacArthur, Revelation 12-22 (Chicago: Moody, 2000), 263. Emphasis original.

[4] Randy C. Alcorn, Heaven (Wheaton: Tyndale, 2004), 265.

[5] Ibid., 266.

[6] John also sees a prostitute “seated on many waters,” which represent “peoples and multitudes and nations and languages” (Rev. 17:1-3, 15). So abundant waters—like those that constitute seas—have already appeared as symbols in Revelation.

[7] See also Ps. 77:16-20; 114:1-6.

[8] G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans , 1999), 1042-43. Emphasis added.

Dennis E. Johnson is professor of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California and associate pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Escondido, California. He is the author of Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation (P&R, 2001).

All Things New: God’s Bringing Creation to Its Glorious Destiny

I am signed up for articles that have anything to do with eschatology at Academia and got this in my mailbox this morning.  Great article, good information for my upcoming series on Colossians, and reinforces what I have been thinking and teaching for years about our future destination . . . 

I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. In high school, my best subject was art. I loved sketching, painting, sculpting.  But my parents explained that to consider art as a career would be unrealistic; I wouldn’t be able to make a living doing that. The argument from my church was different. Some pious Christians told me that art wasn’t a “spiritual” pursuit so it wasn’t a worthy vocation. “You’re a young man who loves Jesus,” they said. “Clearly, you should go to seminary.” So at eighteen I enrolled in the Jamaica Theological Seminary, an undergraduate institution in Kingston. But on the way to earning a BTh degree, my life was changed. It started with a theological paradox that affected me existentially.

A Hierarchy of Vocations?

On the one hand, the faith that I learned both from church and seminary was that ordinary matters in the “world” (including the physical and social worlds) were of less importance than “spiritual” matters. So if you really wanted to serve God and be utterly faithful to Christ, you needed to do some form of pastoral work.

But I knew that pastoring was simply not my calling.

By the age of twenty I had discerned that my gifts lay in teaching. I was interested in ideas; I wanted to make sense of the world, including the world of the Bible. And I could communicate what I was learning—to other students who were struggling with course material, in small group discussions and Bible studies, in topical talks at youth group meetings, and in sermons I preached in different churches.

But the pastorate? Absolutely no interest, no sense of calling; and I lacked the relevant gifts, except for teaching.

The result of absorbing this hierarchy of vocations (which was simply in the air) was that I began to feel like a second-class citizen in God’s kingdom in comparison to my fellow students who were planning on the pastorate or some other form of church work.

Creation and Incarnation

Yet, in contrast to this hierarchy, I was discovering the Bible clearly teaches that all people are made in God’s image and commissioned to rule the earth as his representatives (Gen. 1:26-28). And when God finished creating the universe, he looked at all he had made and saw that it was “very good” (Gen. 1:31). There was no hierarchy of better and worse in God’s world.

This realization led me to study the Bible with an eye to understanding its worldview.

It became important to me that the Creator who made the world “very good” had not given up on the world after sin. Instead, God became incarnate in the man Christ Jesus, thus affirming the value of the created order (even the material world)!

And Jesus lived as a Galilean peasant for thirty years. For most of his adult life he was simply an artisan, who worked with his hands—which speaks volumes about the validity of ordinary, earthly life.

I came to realize the sacred/secular distinction was bogus.

The Cosmic Scope of Salvation

But beyond creation and incarnation, there was atonement. I had always known that the blood of Jesus was shed for sinners (and that included me). But then I noticed Colossians 1:20 spoke of God’s intention to reconcile “all things” in heaven and earth to himself through the blood of the cross.

And, I was amazed by the vision of Romans 8:19-21, that the groaning of creation in its bondage to futility is accompanied by its anticipation of sharing in the same glorious liberation that God’s children will enjoy (described in verse 23 as the “redemption of the body”).

During this time I went on a hiking trip to Blue Mountain Peak, the highest point on the island. After a night on the Peak, a group of us got up early to watch a breathtaking sunrise at seven and a half thousand feet. After some minutes of silence, my friend, Junior, commented wistfully, “This is so beautiful; it’s such a shame that it will all be destroyed some day.”

I still remember the dawning awareness: I don’t think it will be. It did not make sense to me that the beauty and wonder of earthly life, which I was coming to embrace joyfully as part of my growing Christian faith, could be disconnected from God’s ultimate purposes of salvation.

By the time I was ready to graduate with my BTh degree, I had become utterly convinced that the Bible consistently teaches that God intends to bring creation to its glorious destiny—a destiny described in the New Testament as “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1; 2 Pet. 3:13).

So I had to cringe inwardly when at my graduation, a wonderful older lady from my church (a true “prayer warrior” grandmother figure) congratulated me on my newly-earned degree and exhorted: “Richard, I don’t want to hear when we get to heaven that you ever worked in a secular job.”

Well, I graciously thanked this loving woman for her prayers and support over the years and gave her a big hug. And then I proceeded to ignore her advice.

Not only was I planning on a “secular” job, but I no longer believed in “heaven” as the final destiny of believers.

Ever since then the Bible’s vision of the renewal of creation has grounded my teaching and research. And I have been personally invigorated by God’s intent to make “all things new.”

______________________________

J. Richard Middleton is professor of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis at Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York. He has written books on the Christian worldview and biblical studies including his latest, A New Heaven and a New Earth: Reclaiming Biblical Eschatology. His blog, Creation to Eschaton, suggests the wide range of his interest! Follow him on Twitter.

The Daily Tension Between the Already and Not Yet

Here is another quote from Schreiner's New Testament Theology which further explains the tension of the age we live in that I quoted earlier in the blog on New Creation:

Christians live in, so to speak, the "twilight zone," for they have  experienced the saving power of the age to come, and yet they still reside in the present evil age.  Even now Jesus reigns, but the consummation of his rule and the destruction of every enemy have not yet occurred (Eph. 1:21; 1 Cor 15:26-28).  Because of the cross of Christ believers are a new creation (Gal 1:4; 2 Cor 5:17), and yet the redemption that they enjoy (Rom. 3:24) is not yet completed, for they endure the anguish of death and await the redemption of the body (Rom 8:23); cf. Eph. 1:14).  In the meantime, as believers inhabit the interval between the inauguration and consummation, they must resist the blandishments of this world (Rom 12:2).  The world allures and captivates even those who have the first fruits of the Spirit, but those in whom the Spirit dwells must surmount fleshly desires and live in the realm of the Spirit (Rom 8:13).  p. 98-99.

The Struggle we Still Face as a New Creation in Christ.

The present world is still corrupted and awaits its full transformation (Rom 8:18-25).  Believers, then are a new creation in an old world.  But the reality is even more complex, for even though believers are new persons in Christ, in that the old person - the old Adam - was crucified with Christ (Rom 6:6; Col 3:9-10), they still put off the old person and put on the new (Eph. 4:22-24).  As Rom. 13:14 says, they must "put on the Lord Jesus Christ."  Believers await not only a transformed world but also their own final transformation." - Thomas Schreiner, New Testament Theology, p. 32.