Revelation 21:1-4 - Homilies By S. Conway

The new heavens and earth.

The retribution of God has fallen on the enemies of Christ and his Church. Death and hell, Satan, the beast, and the false prophet, have been cast into the lake of fire. The thunders of God's vengeance are hushed; the manifestations of his love to his redeemed now only remain to be told. And here their ultimate and eternal blessedness is shown to us. Their abode and condition are described as "new heavens and a new earth." Let us inquire—

I. WHEREFORE ARE THEY CALLED " NEW "? The heaven, the earth, the holy city, are each called "new." Now, this may be because, in part, they are:

1 . Physically new. We do not think this earth will be "burnt up," nor the elements "melt with fervent heat," nor that there shall be, literally, "a new heaven and a new earth;" all such representations we regard as metaphorical, and as telling only of great moral and spiritual changes that shall take place. But in so far as this earth has been marred and defiled, injured and degraded, by man's sin—as it has been—in that respect and degree will it be made new. The thorns and briars, the poisonous and hurtful herbs, and all else that is significant, and the result of sin, will disappear; the pestilence will no longer walk in darkness, nor destruction waste at noonday. So far will it be new. There will be:

2 . A new manner of dealing with us on the part of God. This may be intended by the expression on which we are commenting. For "heaven and earth" is an expression used in Scripture to denote the dispensations of God. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth" ( Haggai 2:6 ). The prophet is telling of the whole Jewish economy, which was to disappear and to give place to another and better. So it had been in the past; the patriarchal gave way to the Mosaic, and that was to give way to the Christian; and that, in its turn, will give way to the new heavens and new earth—a new order of things between God and man.

3 . And, assuredly, it will seem new. For "no truth is more clear than this, that the world is to a man according to the state of his mind." To the voluptuary, it is a scene of animal gratification; to the worlding, it is a scene for barter; to the poet, it is beauty; to the philosopher, it is science; to the saint, it is a temple. Change a sinner's mind, and you change the world to him. He feels, and. sometimes says, "The world is a new thing to me"—"a new heaven and anew earth." And may we not, therefore, be sure that, to the new, regenerated, and perfect nature, all things will wear another aspect, the heaven and the earth will be as new?

II. WHEREIN WILL THE NEWNESS APPEAR ? There will be, according to these verses:

1 . A newness of absence. Much that we have known here we shall not know there, for they will no longer be. See the things of which it is here said they shall be no more.

2 . And there will be newness in what is present. Take only these opening verses as proof. They assure us of: