Well last Lord’s Day, if you were with us, you will remember we began a short series considering the Biblical teaching on the doctrine of heaven in an effort to obey the command of the apostle Paul in Colossians 3:1-2 – “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above and not on things that are on earth.” We are to set our minds upon them. We are to be heavenly minded. And if we are going to become more heavenly minded, it will greatly help us to put away our speculations and dismiss the lure of mere sentimentality and to work to get the Scriptural portrait of heaven clear in our thinking. And so last week, we considered what we call “The History of Heaven.” We looked at its creation as the dwelling of God and at the present state of heaven as the throne room of the exalted Christ and the joyful, though temporary resting place for the disembodied souls of the believing dead. There they live in the bliss of Christ’s nearer presence, happy and at peace, yet longing still for that great coming day when they shall no longer be unclothed but further clothed with a resurrection body and all things will be made new.
I should say that last Sunday’s sermon was one of the most commented upon sermons I’ve ever preached here, not because of its general content or subject matter, but because I dared to suggest that cats aren’t going to make it into heaven. In fact Rae, our organist, earlier showed me an ornament that she had brought. She said, “I have an update on your sermon last week.” And on the ornament it says, “Heaven is where you get to see all the cats you’ve ever loved.” So I’ll grant that there are a variety of opinions on that secondary issue. However, we got to see something of the character, I hope, of heaven as it currently is, but there’s also a future for heaven, a world that is yet to come, and that’s our topic today – “The Future of Heaven.”
In a moment, we are going to read Revelation chapter 21, which is probably the most important place where the future of heaven is described for us. But we’re also going to need to look at two other passages. We don’t read them, but I want to perhaps encourage you to have your Bibles ready to turn there at the appropriate time in the sermon later – Romans 8:18-25, and 2 Peter 3:1-13. Romans 8:18-25, and 2 Peter 3:1-13. The Romans and Peter passages are less focused on the heaven to come itself, what it will be like, and more focused on the process through which the present cosmos will give way to that new world when it comes. They actually offer two contrasting but ultimately complementary windows on the great coming cosmic transformation.
And so given that, here’s how I want to proceed this morning. First of all, as we look at Revelation 21, we’ll think about the place that we call heaven that God one day will create – the new heavens and the new earth. The place. Then secondly, as we consider the Romans 8 and 2 Peter 3 passages, we’ll look at the process by which that coming heaven will arrive. And then finally by way of application, we’ll consider the patience that this vision of the coming renewal of all things reveals in God and requires from us. So there’s the outline – the place, the process, and the patience. Before we get to all of that, let’s bow our heads together and then we will read the Scriptures. Let us pray.
Our Father, we pray now as Your Word is spread before us that You would open our hearts to give us Your light, to give us understanding, to see with the eye of faith what the Scriptures reveal of the glory that yet awaits for us, of that inheritance, glorious in the heavens, prepared by Jesus, kept for us who are being guarded through faith, for a salvation that is ready to be revealed at the last time. For we ask it in Jesus’ name, amen.
Revelation chapter 21. This is the Word of God:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’
And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.’
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed – on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Amen.
The Place
Well let’s think first of all about the place – heaven that will be, the place. In Revelation 21, as we’ve just read, John says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’” So John actually is borrowing his vocabulary there from Isaiah 65:22 where the Lord speaks of a “new heavens and a new earth that I will make.” So the Biblical vision for the conclusion of history is cosmic renewal; a new creation in this age. Heaven is the beautiful, holy habitation of God, and earth is the realm of creatures, sinful and fallen in Adam. But in the age to come, the dwelling of God, we are told, will be with men. Heaven and earth will be one and we will dwell in the presence of the Lord forever. In particular, as we read Revelation 21, you will have noticed the heaven to come is described as a city, the “new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The heaven to come is a city in which God and human beings live in perfect fellowship and intimacy, where sadness and sickness and suffering, where sin and death will never intrude.
It’s a breathtaking scene, but as John’s vision of the heavenly city unfolds in chapter 21 that we read, and actually also in chapter 22, there are two features of the picture that stand out in particular that I want to highlight for us. First of all, we learn that the city is a temple-city; a temple-city. And secondly, it is a garden-city. A temple-city and a garden-city. Let’s think about each of those in turn for a moment.
A Temple City
The city is a temple-city. The new creation, the heaven to come, will be a temple-city. Starting in chapter 21 verse 9, John says, he describes the city in some detail. It is, he says, suffused with the glory of God, beautiful like precious stones shining and radiant. And the city is secure, isn’t it? It is the supremely safe place. That’s what these walls and gates are intended to emphasize. You will notice later in the chapter the gates are never closed because it is perfectly secure. There is no threat or any danger. Heaven is the perfectly safe place. And it has twelve gates, three on each of the four walls. And on each gate, one of the names of each of the twelve tribes of Israel is inscribed. And likewise, the walls have twelve foundations, each one inscribed with a name of each of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is the message? What is the symbolism? Well simply that the whole people of God belong here. It is home. This is their place. The true and final and utterly secure home and dwelling of ever sinner saved by grace since Adam was expelled from the garden, from the old covenant and new covenant churches, all are here. And in verse 16, the angel accompanying John – notice this – he measures the city. Now let’s remember, this is apocalyptic literature, and the dimensions, like the other imagery, they are not to be pressed too literally. We are dealing with symbols and metaphors. But I do think we are meant to notice that the dimensions, the measurements reported, are nevertheless vast. They are vast. “What is accordingly dismissed by this imagery are all narrow, confining anticipations of the heavenly order,” writes Bruce Milne. “Here at last,” he says, “is scope and vastness and space. Away with all grudging and impoverished images. Life in this world is necessarily curtailed in a vast array of ways, limiting boundaries expressed the nature of mundane existence. Heaven, by contrast, is the throwing back of these limitations. It is the experience of freedom in its ultimate terms. Heaven is immeasurably vast.”
And vitally, did you notice that the measurements describe a perfect cube? Did you see that in the text? It’s length and width and height are equal. You probably know that the Holy of Holies, the very heart of the temple, is constructed in precisely this way. Only now here, the whole city takes on that character. In verse 22, John says, “I saw no temple in that city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” In other words, the God whose glory fills every inch of the city, turns the whole city into the Holy of Holies. And every child of God will dwell there, in the sacred space of the innermost presence of the thrice-holy, triune God.
And then in verses 18 through 21, John returns describing the walls and the foundations that bear the names of the tribes of Israel and the names of the apostles. Do you see that in the text? Verses 18 through 21. And he does it, notice, by likening each to a different precious stone – jasper, sapphire, agate, emerald, onyx, carnelian, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, amethyst. It’s all meant to reinforce how spectacular, how beautiful, how glorious this place will be, for sure, but there’s more going on than that. Here is another tieback to the temple imagery drawn from the Old Testament scriptures. In particular here, John’s description echoes the twelve precious stones sown into the tunic of the high priest, each stone inscribed with the name of one of the tribes of Israel. And the high priest wore this tunic every time he went into the Holy of Holies to intercede on behalf of the people of God. The names of God’s people were literally written over the heart of the high priest.
But now here in heaven, the heavenly reality, the great High Priest Himself, to whom every earthly high priest pointed as a mere type and shadow, the Lord Jesus Christ, He will dwell in our midst and we will live with Him in the city that pulses and vibrates with His glory. And there we will be truly forever on His heart, always with Him in the Holy of Holies where He will ever be attentive to our deepest soul needs. That’s the message. The city is a temple, a holy place, a place of communion and fellowship with God in Jesus Christ where His glory dwells and His people are joined in unceasing fellowship with Him and with one another. It is a temple-city. Do you see that? A temple-city. And we will be a kingdom of priests to our God, there forever to praise Him.
A Garden City
But it’s also a garden-city. It’s a temple-city and a garden-city. If you flip over and look at the opening verses of chapter 22 of the book of Revelation, you’ll see that very clearly. Revelation chapter 22:
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”
So what is this? This is Eden restored and surpassed, isn’t it? That’s what it is. The river of the water of life, the tree of life in the middle of the city, proceeding from the throne of Jesus Christ, healing the nations – the curse that marred the old world upon Adam’s fall and upon his expulsion from Eden, here it is now, undone. Here, the Lord Jesus at last makes His blessings flow far as the curse is found. There is, we are told, nothing accursed there. And the mandate originally given to our first parents, to tend and work the garden, now finds its ultimate fulfillment here in the new garden-city of God that is a great symbol of heaven. His servants will serve Him there, day and night.
Just to be clear, it’s not really, or at least not exactly an image of a return to Eden, at least not to Eden lost. Rather, what we are being shown here is that the heaven to come surpasses the paradise of Eden that once was in the same way that Jesus Christ, the last Adam, far surpasses the first Adam. Eden was the alpha point. Heaven is the omega, the new Jerusalem, the garden-city of God. The condition in which our first parents were made and put in Eden was one of sinlessness, and yet of fallibility. They could fall, and they did fall. But when we get to glory, we shall be like Christ, for we shall see Him as He is. There we shall be both sinless and infallible. We will not fall, nor can we ever. Our condition will far surpass the state in which our first parents were made, for the glory of the exalted Christ will be reflected from our resurrected humanity. There we will be, as the hymn writer puts it, “Saved to sin no more,” dwelling at last in harmony with God and with the world. The alienation that we feel, the dissonance that we feel between ourselves and our environment at last, will be undone and we will be perfectly at peace, able now as the catechism says, “to glorify God and fully and perfectly and uninterruptedly to enjoy Him forever.” The place. Just a little glimpse. There’s so much more to say, but a little glimpse of the place to which God one day will bring all who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. A temple-city and a garden-city.
The Process
Then secondly and very briefly, I want you to think with me about the process by which God is going to accomplish the great transition from the world we now know to the world that is yet to be. In the first place, we think about the place itself. Now secondly, the process. Here’s where I want you to turn to Romans chapter 8 for a moment. Romans chapter 8 verses 18 through 25. Romans 8:18-25. And right away as you scan your eye over the passage, you’ll see that the present creation is waiting, it’s longing for the great day of new creation. Do you see that? Look in verse 19 for example. “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” Verse 22, “The whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” So the creation, and we along with it, are groaning and aching and longing for the dawn of the day of coming resurrection. And the creation longs for that day – notice this carefully – not because it will be remade and then human beings will be remade to fit a perfected creation. That’s not what Paul says. No, he says “creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” The freedom of our coming resurrection glory is the thing creation itself will obtain and into which it will be set free. We will be remade in the resurrection. We will be like Jesus with a glorious resurrection body. And then God is going to remake everything else to fit us.
We, I think, become so shaped by the naturalism of evolutionary science that we simply assume human beings are the way we are because we have adapted to our environment. But the teaching of the Bible is actually that the world is adapted to human beings. God made the world for us, shaped it to fit us, that in it we might bring Him glory and serve Him. Adam’s sin, of course, ruined all of that, breaking the world. That’s why we now experience dissonance and alienation and disconnection and hostility from our environment. We often feel that we don’t quite fit and that we don’t belong, that something’s wrong with us and the world around us. But in the new creation we will be given resurrection bodies and then the whole cosmos will undergo a kind of resurrection of its own. It will be remade and remolded and reshaped. The very stuff of the world will become perfectly adapted and reconfigured to fit us as we now live perfectly for the glory of God, in harmony at last, at long last, with God and with the world and with one another.
Continuity and Discontinuity
Now as glorious as all of that is, please don’t miss the underlying presupposition in Paul’s teaching here. Very clearly he is saying there is going to be fundamental continuity between this world and the world to come. In Romans 8 it is this creation that longs for its own deliverance. The world to come is this world, finally swept up into the freedom of the glory of the children of God for which this world is waiting. That’s been his point in Romans 8. There’s continuity between this world and the world to come.
But if you turn over now to 2 Peter chapter 3, 2 Peter chapter 3, I want you to see another side of the same reality. Second Peter chapter 3. Look down quickly at verse 13. You’ll see that we are dealing with the same subject matter. Peter says, “We are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” So we are dealing with the same subject matter. But whereas Paul in Romans 8 affirms and emphasizes continuity, Peter in 2 Peter 3, emphasizes discontinuity. Verse 7, “The heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.” Or verse 10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved.” Verse 11, “All these things are thus to be dissolved.” Verse 12, “The heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!”
Paul emphasizes continuity. It is this world that will be remade. Peter emphasizes discontinuity. The transition from the age in which we now live into the new creation to come isn’t going to happen seamlessly. It will not be the climax of the gradual evolution of this world, perhaps in response to the hard work of Christians, somehow ushering in by our own labors the kingdom of heaven. No, it will be a final conflagration, Peter says. Remember in John’s vision in Revelation 21, the new Jerusalem doesn’t rise up from the earth, out of the old earth, as a result of our kingdom building efforts. It comes down out of heaven from God. It’s His gift, not our creature. And so John says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away.” Just like our bodies are destroyed in death and then remade by the power of God in the resurrection, the cosmos itself will undergo dissolution in the final judgment only to experience a remaking of its own. There will be a re-creation, not just a different creation. But let’s not minimize the cataclysm by which Peter says it will one day happen.
The Patience
The Patience of Believing Christians
Now why are we dwelling on this process with these two contrasting angles on it – continuity and discontinuity? Well we’re dwelling on it because I want to hit on the last thing to say about the coming heaven that Scripture teaches us. The place, the process, now patience. In Romans 8, Paul highlights the continuity of this world and the world to come because he wants to accent hope. He wants Christians living here, suffering here, to long for the renewal of all things and to look forward with eagerness to the day when they themselves will be made new and all the world will fit them perfectly at long last. Suffering the abrasive experience of every one of us, of a world that doesn’t quite fit, it will all be gone forever on that day and Paul wants to awaken in our hearts hope and longing for that day to come. “In this hope we are saved,” he says. “Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with” – what? “We wait for it with patience.” Patience.
What should this vision of a future heaven do in your believing heart? It should fill you with a hope that generates patience as you endure suffering in this life. It helps you press on and bear up and wait with expectation knowing, “Though weeping may last for the night, joy is coming in the morning.” And the day, one day soon, the day will break at last and the shadows will flee away. And so we press on with hearts full of hope, waiting with patience.
Graham Cole, who writes on the subject of heaven, tells the story of a conversation he had with the Old Testament scholar, Francis Andersen. “By then in retirement, he was teaching as an adjunct. I knew he had been ill so I asked him, ‘Frank, how are you?’” I love this reply. “He said, ‘Nothing a good resurrection won’t fix.’” Isn’t that great? There’s a Christian hope! Enduring suffering with patience, longing for the great day to come. Nothing a good resurrection won’t fix. Patience.
The Patience of God
But then 2 Peter chapter 3, where Peter emphasizes discontinuity and the final judgment to come and the great conflagration that will set elements ablaze, he also is focused on patience – not now the patience of believing Christians waiting for the day, but rather here he accents the patience of God with us who delays that great and final day in His great mercy. People, in 1 Peter 3 verse 4, people were complaining. They were saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? Forever since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. So much for resurrection, Peter! So much for judgment day! If Jesus isn’t coming back, very frankly, we may as well live as we please.” That was their perspective. And so Peter replies, verse 8, “Do not overlook this one fact, beloved. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but He is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but all should reach repentance.” Here it is again, do you see it? Patience. The patience of God; the Gospel patience of God.
The only reason the judgment has not fallen and the elements do not yet melt with fire, is because God is patient with you. The world to come hasn’t arrived yet only because God wants you in it. He does not want you to perish eternally in your sin under His wrath and judgment. Do not mistake the apparent delay in the return of Christ and the arrival of the glory to come, do not mistake the apparent delay for a failure on God’s part to keep His promise. And do not use the fact that this tired, old world continues to spin much as it always has to validate your sin and excuse your unbelief and your rebellious heart. No, you need to realize what’s really going on. God is being patient with you. He’s giving you opportunity. There is a window. It will close. It’s open right now. A window of opportunity in which He Himself invites you to come and know and receive His mercy and grace in the Lord Jesus Christ who died that you might live.
One day the sky is going to roll back as a scroll, the trumpet is going to sound, the dead in Christ will rise, Jesus will come, judgment will fall, and the freedom of the glory of the children of God will spread outward from believers like a happy contagion to consume every molecule of the present cosmos until all things are made new. So world-weary brothers and sisters in Christ, fill your eyes with that bright hope and resolve now afresh to wait for it with patience. The day is nearer now than when you first believed. He is coming soon. Hold on. Press on. And you who do not know Him, do not think tomorrow will be the same as today or that all the days ahead of you will be the same as all the days that preceded you. No, God is being patient with you, but one day His patience will reach its appointed end and the window will close. Come to Christ now. He is the only safe harbor for your soul and the only gate that is open to the glory yet to come. Trust in Him. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we bless You for Your promise. Forgive us for our weak grip upon it, our feeble faith. We want everything now. We want everything we have and we want everything to come and we want it now. We are not patient. Please forgive us. Help us to see how the present sufferings are preparing for us a surpassing weight of glory, and then give us patience. And for anyone here who does not know the Lord Jesus Christ, O God, may this day be the day in which the life of the world to come breaks into their dead hearts, even now, and begins to make them new, raising them together with Christ, giving new life, taking away their hearts of stone and giving them hearts of flesh, and beginning the work that fits them for the world that is to come. Hear our cries we pray, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.