Revelation Chapter 21 Verse 1

1 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.

In 20:11 the earth and the sky fled from the presence of God, and no place was found for them. The figure of heaven and earth passing away is common in the Bible. God depicts the judgment of the ungodly by figuratively bringing their world to an end just as one day he will literally bring their world to an end.

We have seen throughout this book how literal events are used as symbols to describe other events. For example, we have seen the literal plagues of Egypt and the literal fire of Sodom used as figures to describe the judgment of Rome. Those literal events were past events, but we also see the same thing done with future literal events. The events that will occur at the literal judgment at the end of time are used here (and elsewhere in the Bible) to figuratively describe other judgments by God. So, too, the literal dismantling of the world that someday will occur is used here to figuratively describe the dismantling of Rome’s world.

In Isaiah 13 God dismantles the earth and the stars to depict the judgment of Babylon by the Medes. In Isaiah 34 the heavens are dissolved and rolled together as a scroll to depict a judgment against Edom. Matthew 24:29 describes the judgment of Jerusalem as a day when “the sun [shall] be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” Joel described the events leading up to the establishment of the church in Acts 2 as a time of “blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.” (Acts 2:19-20 quoting Joel 2:30-31)

Is verse 1 discussing the final judgment at the end of time? While that event could be described with language such as this, there is no reason to conclude that John has suddenly leapt forward in time by thousands of years. The context of Chapter 21 and the time frame of this book suggest that this language is describing the judgment of Rome. And that conclusion fits perfectly with how the same language is used in Isaiah and Matthew to describe other past judgments by God against great enemies of his people.

We know from Matthew 24:34 that Matthew 24:29 is describing a first century event (the judgment of Jerusalem). Why then can’t the same language here in Revelation 21 describe the judgment of Rome? If Matthew 24:29 is not the end of the world, why would someone feel compelled to apply this same language in Revelation 21 to the end of the world? What was said once in Matthew 24:34 about the judgment of Jerusalem is said four times in Revelation about the judgement of Rome. (1:1, 1:3, 22:6, 22:10)

Just as the apocalyptic language in Matthew 24:29 depicted the destruction of the Jewish world in Jerusalem, so the same language here depicts the destruction of the Roman world. Just as things would never again be the same for Jerusalem, so things would never again be the same for Rome. Their old world was gone. Something else was about to take its place. Remember Daniel 2:44 — “And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”

What is the new heaven and the new earth in verse 1? The language of judgment is often language of destruction, but the language of blessing is often just the opposite — language of creation. A new heaven and a new earth are created in which the previous oppressor (in this case, Rome) does not exist. The creation of a new heaven and a new earth depicts the removal of some specific enemy or some other radical change in circumstances. The particular change under consideration must be determined from the context — in this case, Rome.

In this case, the dramatic change in circumstance also includes the removal of the sea. That sea that separated God from his people and from which the first beast arose is missing in this new world.

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