“And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).
What a truly magnificent statement, made by the One who sits on the eternal throne, the One who became incarnate in this world of sin and sorrow and death, who died to break the power of death, and who has earned the right to make this glorious announcement.
What a contrast to this present creation! We read that “the whole creation groans and travails in pain together till now” (Rom. 8:22). How sadly true is this statement! Everywhere we look there is sin and sorrow and sadness and death. Death marks all mankind for his victims It seems as if the enemy had triumphed. Politicians endeavour to right things. A few years of strenuous effort and they sink under the intolerable burden of their tasks. Generations come and go, and humanity does not learn the lessons of history.
If we were left without a revelation of a God of love, and of One whose purposes will stand for ever, we should be pessimists indeed. In despair we should cry, “Let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die” (1 Cor. 15:32). We should live in the present and shut our eyes to the blank future that lies ahead.
But thank God, a wonderful light has reached our souls. It is the light of new creation. The very thought comes as a soothing balm to our troubled spirits, as an incentive to live a life in view of it that will be pleasing to God. We look through the mist of this vale of tears, and we get a glimpse of everlasting sunshine. We struggle with our increasing weakness, and we are cheered by the thought of a new creation in which there will be no limitations, as of earth, no sickness, no weakness, no want, no struggle.
In that wonderful chapter in Revelation where we have the account given of the new heaven and the new earth, we have to content ourselves with what we might term a negative account of what lies before us. We are told what will NOT be there, rather than what will be there. We are told that there will be no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more crying, no more death. Take these things out of this present world and we would have the millennium at once. These are the things that are the result of SIN.
No sorrow yonder, no pain mental or physical, no death, we may well leave it at that. The prospect is delightful. We would rather not know what is in store for us. If it had been good for us to know, it would have been revealed.
It seems as if the Scriptures intended that we should be occupied with the Person who makes the place rather than the place. For we may well ask, What is it that gives character to new creation? We answer that it is the Head of the new creation that gives character to it, the One who brings it into being, its Head and Sustainer. So we read, “If any man be IN CHRIST there is a new creation” (1 Cor. 5:17, N.T.). Christ gives character to new creation. New creation is not the old creation improved, renovated, continued on a higher plane. It is not the carrying forward into the next world the relationships of this present life. We are told in this connection that, “Henceforth we know no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more (2 Cor. 5:16).
In new creation there is “neither Jew nor Greek—neither bond nor free—neither male nor female—all one IN CHRIST JESUS” (Gal. 3:28).
Every believer in the Lord, sealed by the Holy Spirit of God, is already IN CHRIST. There is what Scripture designates as the “inward man” (2 Cor. 4:16). The “outward man,” the physical man connected by has body with the fallen creation, perishes. If the Lord does not come, we shall each, believers though we are, age like other people, lose the freshness of our faculties, and die; but, thank God, there is the “inward man,” that new creation that death cannot touch, and for which death is only gain.
But this has a special aspect for us, and results in conduct of a certain kind. This “inward man” is spiritual, incapable of sin, with true and holy desires and affections. So we read, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which works by love” (Gal. 5:6). This means that new creation is not a matter of form or ritual or outward profession, but of reality, of life, divine life with its affections and desires. It links us up with another world, whose principles are the very opposite of the principles of this world, whose end will be to present the Antichrist as its highest achievement, bringing about its destruction under the hand of God in government.
Faith and love are the two great elements at work—faith, that links us up with the unseen, the truly real; love, that is the very nature of God, not human love, which is drawn out to that which ministers to its own gratification, but divine love, the very nature of God.
Again, the result of new creation is seen in a life of good works. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God has ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Good works are works that spring from a heart devoted to Christ with an intelligent sense of what is pleasing to God. Good works according to God would not be the building up of the present course of things an this world. Many a work done by Christians is acclaimed as a good work, when all the time it is only building up that which will be burned up in the day of judgment.
And further we are put in relation to each other. Jew and Gentile are brought together in Christ. He has made “in Himself of twain ONE NEW MAN, so making peace” (Eph. 2:15). To get the germ of this idea will help us immensely. We may belong to different nations, to different social positions, to different sexes, but IN CHRIST all these differences vanish. This One new man takes every believer to complete it. Believers have “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24).
We have begun with the “inward man,” but the day is fast approaching when we shall have new creation bodies, we shall be like Christ; the redemption of our bodies will take place, and then there will finally come the day that will end days, when that glorious new heaven and new earth will burst upon our astonished gaze, and there will be the fixed eternal state, the blissful eternity when God shall be all in all.
What a joy to His heart when sitting on the throne, He shall say, “Behold, I make all things new”—new, never to grow old, never to lose its lustre, never to be invaded by sin, God’s own rest for ever in which we shall be blessed for ever and ever!