Revelation 21:1

Revelation 21:1. It is a new heaven and a new earth that the Seer beholds, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away. Yet it is not necessary to think of an entirely new creation, as if the first had disappeared, and a second were called into existence by a fresh creative act of the Almighty. The last clause of the verse, and the sea was no more, is itself at variance with any supposition of the kind; for, had the old heavens and earth been literally extinguished, the sea would have shared their fate, and no special mention of it would have been required. The same conclusion is to be drawn from the word used by St. John to mark the fact that the heavens and the earth which he now saw were ‘new.' Two words are employed in the New Testament to express the idea of newness, the one bringing prominently forward the thought of a recent introduction into existence (as in the case of young persons), the other of that freshness or continuing greenness of quality which may belong even to what is old. In this latter sense the body of our Lord was laid in a ‘new tomb,' in a tomb not it may be recently prepared, but which, because no man had as yet been laid in it, retained that quality of freshness by which it was fitted for Him who could see no corruption. In like manner the ‘tongues' referred to in Mark 16:17 are described by the same word for ‘new.'

In one sense old, they were devoted to a new purpose, enabled to express the mysteries of a new and higher state of being. The ‘heavens,' the ‘earth,' and the ‘Jerusalem' here spoken of are in this sense ‘new.' They are the ‘new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness' (2 Peter 3:13). The meaning of the last clause of this verse is difficult to determine. But it seems clear that we are not to understand the words in their literal acceptation. We must seek the solution of the difficulty in that meaning of the word ‘sea' which we have found it necessary to apply in almost every passage of this book where we have met it. The ‘sea' is not the ocean; it is the emblem of the ungodly. It connects itself with the thought of restlessness, disorder, and sin. These shall be excluded from the better and higher state of the redeemed in their abode of future blessedness.