Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #9 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are going to read Revelation 21:5:

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Here, God is speaking of the creation of the new heaven and new earth that will be inhabited by a “new” people, all those He has saved out of this world.  This is what He is referring to when He says, “Behold, I make all things new.”  It will be a completely new creation.

If we could go back to the beginning when God spoke and created this world and the universe and created man from the dust of the ground, we would see that all things were “new” and they were good and perfect.  There was no sin or death or misery because this world had not yet seen corruption.

But we know that man soon fell into sin when he believed the lie of Satan over the true commandment of God and, as a result, death entered into the world.  God cursed the creation in order that cursed mankind would not rule over a sinless creation.  Ever since that time, there have been plagues, hurricanes, earthquakes and all kinds of evil and destructive things that have come upon this world and the world has been in misery.  The people have been in misery.  As it says in Romans, chapter 8, the creation itself has been, as it were, groaning as a result of the corruption that has come upon it.

But now God is speaking of the former things being passed away and of God creating once again.  We have talked about this before, but God is a God that works.  He says in the Bible that He abhors idleness, so He commands man to work.  We work because God works and God is under His own Law.  When we read the creation account back in the Book of Genesis, God worked six days.  What did He do during those first six days?  He was creating the world, the universe, the sun, the moon, the stars, the animals, mankind and all the things that would inhabit the world.  On the seventh day He rested and He instituted the seventh day Sabbath from that point on for over 11,000 years.  The seventh day, Saturday, was the Sabbath Day and this was to teach man that there was to be “rest,” pointing to the work of Christ.  God’s elect were to trust in His works because salvation was not of man’s works in any way. 

The reason I mentioned this is because God’s work was creation, so when we look back into eternity past, we know that God has always “been” and He has existed forever.  If we could use the language of time, we would say it was an awfully long period of time.  What was God doing in eternity past?  We know He would have been working and from the Bible we know that one of the things that God calls His “work” is creation, so He would have been actively occupied in creating worlds and all that was involved with them.  He created this present world, but the Bible tells us this is not the only world God would create.  On the last day when this world is destroyed, what does the Bible tell us will happen?  God will speak and create a new heaven and a new earth.  So, once again, we see God performing the work of creation.  That is the second time that we are aware of, but the Bible speaks of “principalities and powers” that are witnessing the events of history that have taken place in this world, at least in some way or another.  God has put His salvation program on display to them, which highlights His glorious attributes of love, mercy, goodness, kindness, and so forth.

But, certainly, we know that God would not have been idle.  That would be sin and God is under His own Law, so He must have been very active and working and, in all likelihood, He has been occupied in the work of creating various creations and overseeing those creations, as He did with this world.  While this world continued, God created new “life,” generation after generation and He watched over it and maintained it.  The Bible says that the life of each individual is in the hand of God.  He has kept us alive and it is all part of God’s watching over His creation and it is part of the work that He performs.

But now there is a strong likelihood that we are very rapidly approaching the end of this world on October 7, 2015, which will not only be the end of this world but the beginning of a new heaven and new earth, a completely new creation.  It is something that is not “foreign” to God.  We know He created this world and the Biblical evidence suggests He has created other worlds and creations apart from this present creation.  We know the Bible reveals He will create again and, of course, we should not think that the creation of the new heaven and new earth will be all He will do.  God will continue to be God into eternity future and He is a brilliant infinite Being that certainly has other creations in store for Himself and for all His elect children.  I do not think there is any question that God will continue to create other worlds and creations as His work.

We are looking forward to one particular creation because it will mean the removal of the believers from this world into that other world.  The problem is that that present world is the only world in all of God’s works of creation that has seen corruption.  That will not be the case for the new earth.  It will not see corruption and that is why God likens it to an “everlasting habitation.”  It will be an eternal home and dwellingplace for the children of God and the only way it can be eternal is that it will never see corruption.  As we know, this world has seen corruption and it must be destroyed because of sin.  That is why the unsaved must also be destroyed.  The new earth is an everlasting possession for the children of God and they will also live for evermore, so there will be no corruption in that world and there will be no corruption in anything else that God will create.  It was only this one “work” of God in which God permitted Satan to fall and to present the “test” to Eve.  God permitted Adam and Eve to fall in order to demonstrate and put on display to all principalities and powers the wonderful attributes of God. 

It is one thing to know that God is “love,” but it is quite another thing to see it in action: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”  It is one thing to know that God is merciful, but it is another thing to see God bestow mercy upon a people that do not deserve mercy, but deserve to be destroyed.  Yet, God gives them eternal and everlasting mercy.  Through this demonstration, God has shown the glories of His Being, as He allowed this world to see corruption and He allowed mankind to fall into sin.  That is not to say that God is responsible in any way for sin.  There is no responsibility of God because mankind was created as a responsible agent and man is responsible for our own sins.  We cannot blame God for permitting the tests and for not holding us back from sin.  However, He is not responsible for the sin of Adam and Eve and all mankind that were in Adam.  We are responsible.  We are guilty of sin and we have brought these things upon ourselves.

Anyway, God makes this wonderful statement in Revelation 21:5:

…   Behold, I make all things new…

When God says this, we have to understand that it not like when a man talks.  In this world people throw around the word “new” all the time.  They say, “It is a new and improved product.”  It is a new car or a new house, but it is still part of this same old world.  God is speaking of a totally new creation. 

God started the renewal process with His salvation plan.  Let us turn to 2Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

That sounds very similar to what we read about the earth in Revelation 21:1:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

Then it said in Revelation 21:4-5:

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

This is what God said concerning those He has saved, His elect people that were redeemed out of the masses of mankind: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  For that individual, all things are become new and we wonder how that can be so.  How can God look upon you or me as a new creature after salvation when we are still the same person in our bodies?  We sound the same and we look the same and sometimes we act the same in some ways, so how can God use this kind of language?  He is looking at the first resurrection of the soul.  The heart of the one He has saved is drastically changed.  What was our old heart like?  The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”   All manner of evil flowed forth from that heart, but God changed that heart.  Remember the language that God used in Ezekiel.  If you think that God making things “new” is just found in the New Testament, we also see it in the Old Testament in Ezekiel 36:26-27:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

It is a new heart, a new spirit.  It is a new creature.  You are now a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.  You have been translated out of the darkness of this world into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.  In salvation, you have been elevated into the heavenlies to be seated in Christ Jesus and now you have a new born again soul that is perfect in every way, without sin, according to 1John.  There is no iniquity of any kind in the soul existence of the child of God and that is a completely “new creation.”  When God speaks of making something “new,” we can be sure it means that there is no more sin there.  If it is a new heart, there is no sin in that heart.  If there were sin, it would be just like the old heart.  Having a new spirit is basically the same thing.  So when God speaks of that new heaven and new earth, no sin will be found there, but He started the renewal process in His salvation program as He saved people out the world.  The first resurrection made them “new creatures,” but then God will complete the salvation of the elect by the resurrection of their bodies and they will receive new spiritual bodies.  According to 1Corinthians, chapter 15 it is a spiritual body, which is something we cannot really understand (when we put those two words together) because we think of a spirit as something without a body.  But it is a spiritual body that we will receive and then we will be one whole new personality, sinless in both body and soul and we will be placed in the new heaven and new earth where we will dwell with God forevermore.  There will be no more sin of any kind.

God gives the same kind of idea in Ephesians 2:15:

Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;

That is what salvation has done.  It has made of two, one new man.  He is a new creature with a new heart and new spirit with the indwelling presence of God.  That is the wonderful fact that has already happened to the child of God.

Also, it says in Ephesians 4:21-24:

If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

This is something that God has to do.  “This is the work of God, that ye believe,” it says in John, chapter 6.  We are saved by the faith of Christ, so God has to act upon us and do the work of salvation in us and, yet, the outworking of that is we will put off the old man and put on the new man as the Spirit of God within us begins to move within us and give us that ongoing desire to do the will of God.

Let us go to the Old Testament and look at another passage where the Lord speaks of making new things.  It says in Isaiah 43:18:

Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

This is an interesting statement because it is exactly what God said when He spoke of creating a new heaven and new earth in Isaiah 65:17:

For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.

This leads us to believe that in Isaiah 43:18, it is also in view and God is speaking of this present world when He says, “Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

Then He goes on to say in Isaiah 43:19-21:

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.

When we look at this whole passage we see that when God says He will do a “new thing” it is pointing to forming a people for Himself.  The language of “forming” reminds us of “creating” as, for example, Adam was “formed” from the dust of the ground.  God will make a new body of believers, not formed after the first Adam, but after the last Adam (the Lord Jesus Christ) and we will be like Him rather than like Adam.  When God says He will do a new thing, He will send forth a new Gospel (a new covenant) and He will form a “new creature,” and as verse 18 implies, He will create a new creation and the former things are not to be remembered.  All of this is involved when God speaks of doing a “new thing.”  As He said in our verse in Revelation 21:5:

 …   Behold, I make all things new…

You know, it is just a glorious hope and expectation that we, the people of God, have as we look forward to God shortly performing this and doing a work of creation to create a new heaven and new earth.  But, also, it is interesting that the Bible says that the creation (this present world) is also looking forward to the destruction of itself and the formation of a new heaven and new earth.  I know that idea would not “sit well” with some people that want to preserve this earth forever.  They want to protect “Mother Earth,” as they call it.  But, God, as it were, is putting words in the mouth of the earth (if it could talk) in Romans 8:19:

For the earnest expectation of the creature…

This word should have been translated as “creation,” as it is also translated in this same chapter.  Again it says, in Romans 8:19-22:

For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

The creation is, as it were, “groaning and travailing,” as it “waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” to be delivered.  It is very interesting how God speaks of the creation using this kind of language.  It is almost the language we would expect of a sinner looking for deliverance.

We have run out of time in this study.  We will pick this up when we get together for our next Bible study in the Book of Revelation.