Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

21:1
1 St. John begins this, the last and lengthiest in the
final series of visions, with the words And I saw.
Although this is the seventh vision in the series, it is
the eighth occurrence of the phrase kai eidon – the
number 8, as we have already noted, being associated
with resurrection and regeneration (e.g., Hebrew males
were circumcised on the eighth day; Jesus [888], was
resurrected on the eighth day, etc.). St. John uses it
herein order to underscore the picture of cosmic
resurrection and regeneration: He sees a new heaven
and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first
earth passed away, having fled from the face of the
Judge (20:11). The old world is completely replaced by
the new; the word used is not neos (chronological
newness) but kainos (newness in kind, of superior
quality). Adam’s task of heavenizing the earth has been
completed, established on an entirely new basis in the
work of Christ. Earth’s original uninhabitable condition
of deep-and-darkness has been utterly done away
with: There is no longer any Sea or Abyss. There is
heaven and earth, but no “under-the-earth,” the abode
of Leviathan. What St. John reveals to us is the
eschatological outcome of the comprehensive, cosmic
reconciliation celebrated by St. Paul: “For it was the
Father’s good pleasure for all the fulness to dwell in
Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to
Himself, having made peace through the blood of His
cross; through Him, whether things on earth or things
in heaven” (Col. 1:19-20). 1
Yet this vision of the new heaven and earth is not to be
interpreted as wholly future. As we shall see repeatedly
throughout our study of this chapter, that which is to be
absolutely and completely true in eternity is
definitively and progressively true now. Our enjoyment
of our eternal inheritance will be a continuation and
perfection of what is true of the Church in this life. We
are not simply to look forward to the blessings of
Revelation 21 in an eternity to come, but to enjoy
them and rejoice in them and extend them here and
now. St. John was telling the early Church of present
realities, of blessings that existed already and would be
on the increase as the Gospel went forth and renewed
the earth.
Salvation is consistently presented in the Bible as recreation.
2 This is why creation language and symbolism
are used in Scripture whenever God speaks of saving
His people. We have seen how God’s deliverances of
His people in the Flood and the Exodus are regarded by
the Biblical writers as provisional New Creations,
pointing to the definitive New Creation in the First
Advent of Christ. Thus, God spoke through Isaiah of
the blessings of Christ’s coming Kingdom:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing,
And her people for gladness.
I will also rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in My people;
And there will no longer be heard in her
The voice of weeping and the sound of crying.
No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days,
Or an old man who does not live out his days;
For the youth will die at the age of one hundred,
And the one who does not reach the age of one hundred
Shall be thought accursed.
And they shall build houses and inhabit them;
They shall also plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build, and another inhabit;
They shall not plant, and another eat;
For as the lifetime of a tree,
So shall be the days of My people,
And My chosen ones shall wear out the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
Or bear children for calamity;
For they are the offspring of those blessed by the LORD,
And their descendants with them.
It will also come to pass
That before they call, I will answer;
And while they are still speaking, I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall graze together,
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
And dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall do no evil or harm in all My Holy Mountain.
(Isa. 65:17-25)
This cannot be speaking of heaven, or of a time after
the end of the world; for in this “new heaven and earth”
there is still death (though at a very advanced age –
“the lifetime of a tree”); people are building, planting,
working, and having children. Isaiah is clearly making
a statement about this age, before the end of the world,
showing what future generations can expect as the
Gospel permeates the world, restores the earth to
Paradise, and brings to fruition the goals of the
Kingdom. Isaiah is describing the blessings of
Deuteronomy 28 in their greatest earthly fulfillment.
Thus, when St. John tells us that he saw “a new heaven
and earth,” we should recognize that the primary
significance of that phrase is symbolic, and has to do
with the blessings of salvation.
Perhaps the definitive New Testament text on the “new
heaven and earth” is 2 Peter 3:1-14. There, St. Peter
reminds his readers that Christ and all the apostles had
warned of accelerating apostasy toward the end of the
“last days” (2 Pet. 3:2-4; cf. Jude 17-19) – which, as we
have seen, was the forty-year transitional period (cf.
Heb. 8:13) between Christ’s Ascension and the
destruction of the Old Covenant Temple, when the
nations were beginning to flow toward the Mountain of
the LORD (Isa. 2:2-4; Acts 2:16-17; Heb. 1:2; James 5:3;
1 Pet. 1:20; 1 John 2:18). As St. Peter made clear, these
latter-day “mockers” would be Covenant apostates: Jews
who were familiar with Old Testament history and
prophecy, but who had abandoned the Covenant by
rejecting Christ. Upon this evil and perverse
generation would come the great “Day of Judgment”
foretold in the prophets, a “destruction of ungodly
men” like that suffered by the wicked of Noah’s day (2
1. See John Murray, “The Reconciliation,” The Westminster Theological Journal,
XXIX (1966) 1, pp. 1-23; Collected Writings, 4 vols. (Edinburgh: The
Banner of Truth Trust, 1976-82), Vol. 4, pp. 92-112.
2. See David Chilton, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Ft.
Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1985), PP. 23-26.
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