Lesson 45: New Heaven and New Earth

Revelation 21:1-8
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.
2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 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.
4 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.”
5 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.”
6 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.
7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be My son.
8 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.”

Jesus, Creator of all that exists now, will make a new Heaven and a new earth. An interesting difference between our current earth and the new one is that there will not be oceans on the new earth; everything will be land capable of producing good things. Everything will be as God intended it to be when He first created. God even promises us that it will be so perfect that we will not even remember this earth or things we loved here (Isaiah 66:22).


Next, we see the Holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down to earth. This is the same place Jesus promised His disciples and us that He was preparing for us in John 14:1-6. He takes us there when He catches-up the Church at the Rapture, and it is hidden with God outside of time and space when all the old heavens and earth are destroyed. But now it comes to earth to be the “capitol city” of all creation. We will look at this city more in our next lesson.

Jesus’ promise in verse 4 is that He will wipe every tear from our eyes. Not only does this mean there will be no more mourning or pain or sorrow, it also means that we will not cry because we are so happy! In our present bodies we do this sometimes because we are too happy for words, and our bodies are not able to express this total joy. Our new bodies will be able to handle perfect joy, perfect peace, perfect love, perfect everything! No more tears!!

*What does the “spring of water…given without payment” mean to you?