The new Earth

This is a chapter from the free downloadable eBook on Prophecy and End Times

We all know Christian’s go to heaven when they die, but is floating around in heaven our final destination? Definitely not! It is abundantly clear from Revelation 21 & 22 that our final destination is a renewed Earth; and yet this thought is remarkably absent from many Christian’s awareness. At the end of Revelation we see that the final state is literally “heaven on earth”:

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. (Revelation 21:3)

God makes his home amongst mankind. Heaven and earth are brought into one. The physical becomes eternal. This is the ultimate fruit of all that God set out to do. Having raised up a family for himself of his own kind, he then brings into existence a suitable world for them to inhabit with him. This new (or renewed) Earth is in many ways parallel to the body of the risen Christ in that Christ’s body was both spiritual and physical. He could eat and ascend to heaven in the same body. His body was ultimately fitted for an Earth that is also a merger of the physical and the eternal. Our new bodies in the resurrection will be of this type too, for they will be the same as that of the risen Christ who was “the firstborn from the dead”. Thus we also will possess bodies fitted for this new Earth, the physical and eternal Earth.

And so at that time the saying will be fulfilled:

...the meek shall inherit the earth... (Psalm 37:11, and in Matthew 5:5 reworded)

It’s interesting to observe that there are some differences in the new Earth, for example Revelation says:

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. (Revelation 21:1)

From about this point on though it starts to get quite hard to discern between the physical and the spiritual in applying the descriptions in the passage. We are told that a great city descends out of heaven from God, which is the bride of Christ. Paradoxically this is given dimensions and appears to be physical, yet we know that “the bride of Christ” speaks of all the saved in Christ. Some might say that it speaks just the church, however note that the city not only has the twelve names of the apostles in its foundations, but the 12 gates of the city are named after each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Thus the two parts of the bride (or the two brides if you like) are seen here brought together into one. And really, were they ever as separate as some bible teacher’s say? Was not the church grafted onto the stock of Israel and the prophets? In that metaphor at least they are therefore all part of the same tree. Anyway, mysteries abound in this passage, the bulk of which we will no doubt only understand when we get there.

But what of some of the planks of popular culture concerning the heavenly city? Are the streets really paved with gold and does it have pearly gates? Concerning the streets of gold, John in his vision appears simply to be grasping for a likenesses, as he actually just says:

...the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. (Revelation 21:18)

...the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. (Revelation 21:21)

Taking these together you can see it may not be entirely literal since gold does not look like transparent glass. What about the pearly gates? Well, it does say that each gate of the city is made of a single pearl, so this is accurate (though may still just be metaphorical of its beauty – i.e. that they look like pearls, rather than actually coming out of an oyster as such). However the idea of Peter meeting people as they turn up at the pearly gates is complete nonsense. Believers go straight to heaven as Jesus told the thief on the cross when he said “today you shall be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). In two places in Revelation we see believers “clothed in white raiment”; they have died and are in heaven awaiting the marriage of the lamb. At the time of the marriage they return with Christ at his coming (Rev 19), at which point they take on their new bodies like that of the risen Christ¹; bodies able to enter the physical realm once again. They rein with Christ for 1000 years in the millennial kingdom (Rev 20:6). All of this occurs before this time of the new heavens and new earth and the descent of the heavenly city. Unbelievers on the other hand never turn up at the pearly gates to be rejected. When they die they go to Hades to await the second resurrection, the resurrection of the unbelieving dead to the judgment of the great white throne from where they are cast into the lake of fire (Rev 20:15).

When it comes to the glorious promise of the new earth and the heavenly city it’s sad to say that myth abounds far more than fact, even in many Christian circles. What is fact however is that we will dwell with God on a new Earth. This is truly wonderful, for the Earth we live on now, where not spoilt by man, is of such great beauty and really is a very fit dwelling place. This understanding carries with it the likelihood of animals and other aspects of creation being present; perhaps we will even be involved in ongoing acts of creation. But on the subject of what we shall do in this place the record is silent. We can speculate, but we really cannot know the things that God has in store for us. We know the spirit of it through the Holy Spirit in us, but the actual out-workings of the what, where and how are left a mystery.

Yet we know that it will be absolutely wonderful and earnestly pray for the coming of time when:

...there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain... (Revelation 21:4)

For even during the Millennial kingdom this state does not exist, in that Christ still rules with a “rod of iron” (Rev 12:5) and there is still mention of men dying:

...the child shall die a hundred years old... (Isaiah 65:20)

(In other words, dying at a hundred will be considered as the death of a child)

So it’s only in this end state that “death is swallowed up in victory” (I Corinthians 15:54). Thus in the closing passage of Revelation we have a prayer of the bride and the spirit for the hastening of these great things, along with an invitation for all who would to come and partake of them:

And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)

This is a chapter from the free downloadable eBook on Prophecy and End Times