The New Creation

The New Testament reading this Sunday is from Revelation 21. Revelation is a difficult book. Many Christians avoid it (Martin Luther famously advocated removing it from the canon of Scripture), while other Christians become obsessed with its strange images. However, as Tim Smith reminded us two Sundays ago, Revelation is a work of profound Christian hope for those in the midst of suffering, offering some of the most beautiful images of worship in all of scripture. Biblical scholar Craig Hill, in his excellent book In God’s Time, notes, “On first glance, Revelation, that most eschatological of biblical writings, appears dark, dismal, and foreboding.” However, “when the book shifts focus to the distant horizon, it radiates light. It offers a luminous vision for which we may yet hope.” This why Revelation has been so meaningful to Christians in the midst of deep suffering.

Chapter 21 is the penultimate chapter of Revelation, in which we catch a glimpse of the new creation. Among other things that could be said about the text, I’d like to make two observations. First, note the spatial imagery: “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). We often think that, at the end of time, humans will leave earth for heaven, which is inevitably seen as “up.” In this text, however, we see that the New Jerusalem, the city of God and God’s people, actually descends from heaven to earth, thus transforming earth in such a way that the petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come . . . on earth as it is in heaven,” is finally, completely answered.

Second, listen to Jesus’ words about ministry and mission: “And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new’” (Revelation 21:5). Again, many Christians inhabit a narrative in which God is planning to destroy the world, and take humans away from it. Here, however, we see that God is actually renewing the world. The cosmos is the work of a deeply creative God, and, while sin has broken it, God continues to love it. Rather than destroying the cosmos, then, God is beginning to renew his beautiful creation through the power of Jesus’ cross and resurrection. N.T. Wright puts this succinctly in his important book Surprised by Hope where he writes that the early Christians “believed that God was going to do for the whole cosmos what he had done for Jesus at Easter.”

This has important implications for the Christian discipleship. First – and this is why this text is read during Easter season – the resurrection of Jesus has cosmic implications. It is not only immaterial souls that Jesus is saving, but physical bodies and rivers and solar systems. This is why Paul writes that the whole creation is object of God’s saving love. He writes to the Romans, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Second, the tangible acts of renewing creation – whether healing bodies, growing vegetables, or building institutions geared toward human flourishing – have an eternal value. In other words, if we believe that God’s mission includes renewing all of the creation, then acts of creation renewal in which we participate will, in a very real sense, last into eternity. As N.T. Wright says:

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, of one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrection power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.

So, then, this text from Revelation demonstrates that the scope of God’s salvation, and the church’s mission that flows from it, is much broader and “thicker” than we may have thought. As often happens in the book of Revelation, glimpses into heavenly realities lead to worship. And, as Jamie Smith writes in his new book You Are What You Love, “The goal of Christian worship is a renewal of the mandate in creation: to be (re)made in God’s image and then sent as his image bearers to and for the world.” As we prepare for worship this Sunday, then, may we have ears to hear and eyes to see just how beautiful God’s salvation is, and then go into the world, empowered by the Spirit in and through whom God is, indeed, making all things new.

Peace,

Chris