Peter Barnes: Revelation 21:1-4 : NO AUDIO
(17 June 2018)
SERMON NOTES : THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH (Revelation 21:1-4)
Each year about 30 million people die, and their eternal destiny is set forever. But the Old Testament contains the promise of a new heaven and a new earth (Isa.65:17; 66:22). Revelation 21-22 tell us of the new heaven and the new earth.
1. Heaven will be joined to earth.
– 21:1-2. Heaven comes down to earth, and they become one. Eden is restored as a kind of temple wherein God dwells.
– Christ’s people are described both as a city (new Jerusalem) and as the bride. Those two images contrast with the harlot of Revelation 17 and Babylon of Revelation 18. See Isa.52:1-3; 62:1-5 (the city and the bride are one).
– heaven is the intermediate state. Those Christians who have died are reigning with Christ in heaven, but they return with Him to take their place in the new heaven and new earth – Eph.1:10.
2. God will dwell with His people.
– 21:3; Lev.26:11-12; Jer.31:33; Ezek.37:27; 2 Cor.6:16. We
– here in 1 Pet.1:8; then in 1 John 3:2.
3. The death of death.
– 21:4; Gen.3:16-19 lifted; Isa.35:10 (also in 51:11).
– Kim Phuc Phan Thi, the Vietnamese girl whose skin was badly scarred by napalm in 1972 when she was only nine. She has to fly from her home in Toronto down to Miami for treatment which is very painful. Dr Jill explains that it is ‘pain with a purpose’. Contras with Isaac Watts writes of what is to come for the Christian: Then shall I see and hear and know/ All I desired and wished below,/ And every power find sweet employ/ In that eternal world of joy.