(Revelation 21:1-8)

PERPETUITY OF THE EARTH AND THE RACE OF MAN—"END OF THE WORLD" NOT THE EXTINCTION OF THE EARTH—CONTINUOUS GENERATIONS—THE REDEEMED WORLD—THE SCENE OF IT—THE BLESSEDNESS OF IT—THE OCCUPANTS OF IT.

Rev. 21:1-8. (Revised Text.) And I saw heaven new and earth new: for the first heaven and the first earth are gone, and the sea no longer is.

And I saw the city, the holy, new Jerusalem coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God, with the men [or mankind], and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and he, the God with them, shall be their God.

And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall no longer be, neither sorrow, neither crying, neither pain, shall any longer be; because the first things are gone.

And the Sitter upon the throne said, Behold, new I make everything. And he saith, Write, because these words are faithful and true.

And he said to me, They are accomplished. I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I to him that thirsteth will give out of the fountain of the water of the life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit these things; and I will be God to him, and he shall be son to me; but the cowardly, and unbelieving, and polluted, and murderous, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all the false, their part [shall inherit] in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the death the second.

Humanity was created and constituted a self-multiplying order of existence,—a race,—to which this earth was given as its theatre, possession, and happy home. God created man in his own image; male and female created he them, and said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over it. When sin first touched man, it found him thus constituted and domiciled. Had the spoliations of sin never disturbed him, humanity, as a race, must needs have run on forever, and been the happy possessor of the earth forever. Anything else would be a contravention and nullification of the beneficent Creator's intent and constitution with regard to his creature man. Meanwhile came the fall, through the Serpent's malignity; and then a promise of redemption by the Seed of the woman. If the nature of the fall was to destroy the existence of man as a race, and to dispossess him of his habitation and mastery of the earth, the nature and effect of the redemption must necessarily involve the restitution and perpetuation of the race, as such, and its rehabilitation as the happy possessor of the earth; for if the redemption does not go as far as the consequences of sin, it is a misnomer, and fails to be redemption. The salvation of any number of individuals, if the race is stopped and disinherited, is not the redemption of what fell, but only the gathering up of a few splinters, whilst the primordial jewel is shattered and destroyed, and Satan's mischief goes further than Christ's restoration.

I therefore hold it to be a necessary and integral part of the Scriptural doctrine of human redemption, that our race, as a self-multiplying order of beings, will never cease either to exist or to possess the earth.

There is a notion, bred from the morbid imagination of the Middle Ages, which has given birth to many a wild poetic dream, which has much influenced the translators of our English Bible, which has unduly tainted religious oratory, song, and even sober theology, and which still lingers in the popular mind as if it were an article of the settled Christian creed, that the time is coming when everything that is, except spiritual natures, shall utterly cease to be, the earth consume and disappear, the whole solar and sidereal system collapse, and the entire physical universe vanish into nothingness. How this can be, how it is to be harmonized with the promises and revealed purposes of God, wherein it exalts the perfections of the Deity, there is not the least effort to show. The thing is magniloquently asserted, and that is quite enough for some people's faith, though sense, reason, and Revelation be alike outraged.

There is indeed to be an "end of the world." The Bible often refers to it. But men mistake when they suppose the world spoken of in such passages to be the earth as a planet. Three different words have our translators rendered "world: γη, which means the earth proper, the ground, this material orb which we inhabit; κοσμος, which means what constitutes the inhabitableness, the ornamentation, beauty, cultivation, external order, fashion of the world, but not the substance of the earth as a terraqueous globe; and αιων, which is used more than one hundred times in the New Testament, but always with reference to time, duration, eras, dispensations,—a stage or state marking any particular period, long or short, past, present, or future,—the course of things in any given instance, rather than the earth or any theatre on which it is realized. It may be earth or heaven, time or eternity, a material or an immaterial world, it is all the same as to the meaning of the word αιων, which denotes simply the time-measure and characteristics of that particular period or state to which it is applied. And this is the word used in all those passages which speak of "the end of the world." It is not the end of the earth, but the end of a particular time, age, condition, or order of things, with the underlying thought of other orders of things, and perpetual continuity in other forms and ages. Æons end, times change, the fashion of the world passeth away,—but there is no instance in all the Book of God which assigns an absolute termination to the existence of the earth as one of the planets, or any other of the great sisterhood of material orbs.

So in those passages which speak of the passing away of the earth and heavens (see Matt. 5:18, 24, 34, 35; Mark 13:30, 31; Luke 16:17; 21:33; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 21:1), the original word is never one which signifies termination of existence, but παρερχομαι, which is a verb of very wide and general meaning, such as to go or come to a person, place, or point; to pass, as a man through a bath, or a ship through the sea; to pass from one place or condition to another, to arrive at, to go through; to go into, to come forward as if to speak or serve. As to time, it means going into the past, as events or a state of things once present giving place to other events and another state of things. That it implies great changes when applied to the earth and heavens is very evident; but that it ever means annihilation, or the passing of things out of being, there is no clear instance either in the Scriptures or in classic Greek to prove. The main idea is transition not extinction.

Some texts, particularly as they appear in our English Bible, express this change very strongly, as where the earth and heavens are spoken of as perishing, being dissolved, flying away (Isa. 34:4; 54:10; Rev. 6:14; 20:10); but the connections show that the meaning is not cessation of being, but simply the termination or dissolution of the present condition of them to give place to a new and better condition. At least one such perishing of the earth has already occurred. Peter, speaking of the earth and heavens of Noah's time, says: "The world that then was being overflowed with water, perished." (2 Pet. 3:5, 6.) But what was it that perished? Not the earth as a planet, certainly; but simply the mass of the people, and the condition of things which then existed, whilst the earth and race continued, and have continued till now. Equally strong expressions are used with regard to the destruction or passing away of the old in the case of one born again to newness of life in Christ Jesus; but no one therefore supposes that the bringing of a man from Satan to God is the annihilation of him. It is simply the change of his condition and relations. And so in the case of the earth and heavens; for the same word which describes the change in the individual man is used to describe the change to be wrought in the material world. It is regeneration—παλιγγενεσια—in both instances (Matt. 19:28; Tit. 3:5), and therefore not the putting out of existence in either case. The dissolving of which Peter is made to speak, is really a deliverance rather than a destruction. The word he uses is the same which the Saviour employs where he says of the colt, "Loose him;" and of Lazarus when he came forth with his death-wrappings, "Loose him, and let him go;" and of the four angels bound at the Euphrates, "Loose them;" and of the Devil, "He must be loosed a little season." It is the same word which John the Baptist used when he spoke of his unworthiness to unloose the Saviour's shoestrings, and which Paul used when he spoke of being "loosed from a wife." It is simply absurd to attempt to build a doctrine of annihilation on a word which admits of such applications. The teaching of the Scriptures is, that the creation is at present in a state of captivity, tied down, bound, "not willing, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; "and the dissolving of all these things, of which Peter speaks, is not the destruction of them, but the breaking of their bonds, the loosing of them, the setting of them free again to become what they were originally meant to be, their deliverance. (Compare Romans 8:19-23.) And as to the flying or passing away, of which John speaks, a total disappearance of all the material worlds from the universe is not at all the idea; for he tells us that he afterwards saw "the sea" giving up its dead, the New Jerusalem coming down "out of the heaven," the Tabernacle of God established among men, and "nations" still living and being healed by the leaves of the Tree of Life.

Great changes in the whole physical condition of the earth and its surrounding heaven are everywhere indicated; but the idea of the extinction of the material universe amid "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds," is nothing but a vulgar conceit, without a particle of foundation in nature, reason, or Scripture. Things have no more tendency to annihilation than nothing has a tendency to creation. There is no evidence that a single atom of matter has ever been annihilated, whence analogy would infer that such a thing is not at all in the will or purpose of God. On the contrary, the teaching of Revelation is, that "one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but The Earth abideth forever." (Ecc. 1:4; Ps. 15:5; 119:90.) Whatever new cataclysms or disasters are yet to befall this planet, we are assured that they will not be as destructive even as Noah's flood; for God covenanted then, and said: "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, neither will I again smite any more every living thing, as I have done." (Gen. 8:21, 22.) It is specifically promised that "the meek shall inherit the earth," and that "the righteous shall dwell in it forever." (Matt. 5:5; Ps. 37:9, 11, 29; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 4:13.) And if the righteous are to inhabit it forever, it must exist forever. The kingdom of which Daniel prophesied is to be an everlasting kingdom, which shall stand forever. That kingdom is located "under the whole heaven," and takes in among its subjects "peoples, nations, and languages," and has its seat upon the earth. (Dan. 2:44; 7:14, 27.) But if the earth is to have an indestructible kingdom, it must itself be indestructible. John describes the sovereignty of this world as finally assumed by the Lord, even Christ, who is to hold and exercise it to the ages of the ages. (Rev. 11:15.) But how can Christ reign forever in a world which is presently to cease to be? God has specifically and repeatedly covenanted and promised a certain portion of the earth to a certain people for "an everlasting possession" (Gen. 48), in which they are to "dwell, even they, and their children, and their children's children, forever" (Ezek. 37:25), and not cease from being a nation before him forever. (Jer. 31:36.) How can this be fulfilled if the earth is to be annihilated?

There is also a peculiar consecration upon the earth which makes it revolting to think of its being handed over to oblivion. The footsteps of the Son of God upon its soil, the breathing of its atmosphere by his lungs, the saturation of its mould with his sweat, and tears, and blood, the wearing of its dust upon his sacred person, the warming of its fluids in his arteries, ought to be enough to satisfy us that neither the Devil nor destruction shall ever possess it. It is the place where God's only begotten Son was born and reared, and where he taught, and slept, and suffered, and died. It is the territory on which Divine Love and Mercy have poured out the costliest sacrifice the universe has ever known. It is the chosen theatre of the most momentous deeds that ever attracted the adoring interest of angels. It has furnished the death-place, the grave, the scene of the bruising and the triumph of Jesus Christ. And how can it ever be delivered over to everlasting nothingness? Perish what may, a world so consecrated can never be blotted out, or cease to be one of the most cherished orbs in God's great creation.

And with the continuity and redemption of the earth, goes the perpetuation and redemption of the race. For why is the one continued if not for the other? As surely as "the earth abideth forever," so surely shall there be eternal generations upon it. Paul speaks with all boldness of "the generations of the age of the ages." (Eph. 3:21.) After the termination of the present Æon, he contemplates many more Æons, even an Æon of Æons; and those interminable years he fills up with generations and generations. The covenant which God made with Noah, and all living things, the sign and seal of which still appears in almost every summer shower, is, by its own terms, unending in duration; but that duration is at the same time described as filled in with unceasing generations. (Gen. 8:21-22; 9:8-16.) Joel tells of generations and generations for Jerusalem through all that "forever" in which cleansed and ransomed Judah is to dwell in the covenanted land. (Joel 3:20, 21; Ezek. 37:25, 26.) Eternal generations were certainly provided for when humanity was originally constituted and made the possessor and lord of earth; eternal generations certainly would have been the effect of God's constitution and commands had sin not come in to interfere with the wonderful creation; and as surely as Christ's redemption-work is commensurate with the ruinous effects of the fall, eternal generations must necessarily be. Earth and multiplying man upon it surely would never have passed from living fact into mere legend had sin never come in. Much less, then, can they now pass into mere legend, since the new and more costly expenditures of redeeming love have been superadded to the original gifts of creative wisdom and beneficence.

We thus reach the underlying foundations and background of the sublime presentations of the text. The Apostle here beholds the final redemption of our earth and race, the restitution of all things accomplished, the damages, disorders and spoliations of sin repaired, the glorious picture of The Redeemed World.

I. OBSERVE THE SCENE OF THAT WORLD.

"Heaven new;"—not blotted out; not swept into nothingness; but retouched, changed, renovated, cleansed, and brightened up from all its old disorders and imperfections. The heaven over us now is very charming and beneficent. How beautiful and blessed the never-ceasing procession of sun, and moon, and stars, and clouds, and seasons, and days, and nights, and showers, intermingled as they are with heat and cold, storm and calm, gloom and brightness! This old garment of things is still full of rejoicing, and glory, and scenes and themes to touch, inspire, and lift, and discipline, and make glad the heart. What, then, will that new investment be, to which it is to give place! We cannot describe the meteorology of that new heaven; but it will be a heaven which no more robes itself in angry tempests and menacing blackness; nor ever flashes with the thunderbolts of wrath; nor casts forth plagues of hail; nor rains down fiery judgment; nor gives lurking-place to the Devil and his angels; nor is disfigured with dread portents; nor is subject to commotions breeding terror and disaster to the dwellers under them. We often look at the blue sky that arches over us, at the rosy morning's welcome to the king of day, at the high noon's flood of brightness, at the mellow glories of the setting sun, at the solemn midnight lit all over with its twinkling star-gems, and we are thrilled with the perfection and beauty of Jehovah's works. What, then, shall it be when the great Architect, set to do honour to the love and faithfulness of bis only begotten Son, shall put forth his hand upon it the second time, to renew it in a fresh and eternal splendour!

"And Earth new." The earth now is full of ailments and disorders, and in deep captivity to corruption, yet it has much attractiveness. Most men would prefer to stay in it forever, if they could. Ah, this homestead of our fathers for so many generations, carpeted with green and flowers, waving with pleasant harvests and shady trees, girded with glorious mountains, gushing with watersprings, gladdened with laughing brooks, ribboned with rivers that wind in beauty about the rocky promontories, varied with endless hills and valleys, and girthed about with the crystal girdle of the ruffled seas,—these numerous zones, and continents, and islands,—these youthful springtimes bursting out with myriad life under all their dewy steps,—these blazing summer glories,—these gorgeous mellow autumns,—these winters, with their snowy vestments, and glazed streams, and glowing firesides,—and living Nature in its ten thousand forms, singing, and dancing, and shouting, and frisking, and rejoicing all around us,—what pictures, and memories, and histories, and legends, and experiences have we here, to warm our hearts, and stir our souls, and wake our tongues, and put fire and enthusiasm into our thoughts, and words, and deeds! But this is only the old earth in its soiled and work-day garb, where the miseries of a deep, dark, and universal apostasy from God holds sway. Think, then, what its regeneration must bring!—an earth which no longer smarts and smokes under the curse of sin,—an earth which needs no more to be torn with hooks and irons to make it yield its fruits,—an earth where thorns and thistles no longer infest the ground, nor serpents hiss among the flowers, nor savage beasts lay in ambush to devour,—an earth whose sod is never cut with graves, whose soil is never moistened with tears or saturated with human blood, whose fields are never blasted with unpropitious seasons, whose atmosphere never gives wings to the seeds of plague and death, whose ways are never lined with funeral processions, or blocked up with armed men on their way to war,—an earth whose hills ever flow with salvation, and whose valleys know only the sweetness of Jehovah's smiles,—an earth from end to end, and from centre to utmost verge, clothed with the eternal blessedness of Paradise Restored!

And the Sea new, for I take the specification of it here the same as in the third commandment, where it is said, "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is." (Ex. 20:11; also Rev. 10:6.) It is not mentioned to indicate for it a different fate from that of heaven and earth, but because it is so conspicuous and peculiar a part of them. The sea is not heaven, neither is it earth; hence in God's enumeration of the first creation-work he mentions heaven, earth, and sea; and so in the new creation-work, we have again heaven, earth, and sea. It is the literal sea, just as the heaven and the earth are literal; but the non-existence affirmed of it is the same that is affirmed of the first heaven and the first earth. In other words, it undergoes the same Palingenesia which they undergo, and comes forth a new sea, the same as the old heaven and earth come forth a new heaven and earth. There is renewal, but no annihilation.

Some say there was no sea in the pristine condition of the world, and hence none will be in the finally redeemed world. But they are mistaken in both instances. The first chapter of Genesis tells of the formation of the seas contemporaneously with the formation of the dry land. (Gen. 1:9, 10.) When the flood came we are told that "all the fountains of the great deep were broken up," and that "the sea broke forth." (Gen. 7:11; Job 38:8.) There must then have been a sea from the beginning. It existed when Adam was in Paradise, as well as since Noah came out of the ark. And so there will be a sea in the new world, the same as a new heaven and a new earth. If not, this is the only passage in all the word of God that tells us anything to the contrary. We read of a river in the new earth, as of rivers in the original Paradise; and where there are rivers there are seas. When Christ as the cloud-robed Angel (chap. 10) set his feet on the earth in the solemn act of claiming and appropriating it as his own, "He set his right foot upon the sea," and thus claimed and appropriated it the same as he claimed and appropriated the ground. Many passages also which refer to Israel and the kingdom of God in the blessed times to come, distinctly speak of the sea as being turned in their favour, and as taking part in the general acclaim over the ultimate accomplishment of the mystery of God. (See Isa. 42:10; 60:5, 9; Ps. 24:2; 96:11; 98:6, 7; 1 Chron. 16:32; Rev. 5:13.) When the time to which the text refers arrives the present sea "no longer is," just as the first heaven and the first earth "are gone." There is no more left of the one than of the other, but likewise no less. Just as much of the sea as of the earth abideth forever. The Re-Genesis touches both alike, just as the first Genesis. As there is a renewed eternal heaven and earth, so there is a renewed eternal sea also, for one is a part of the other. Then, however, it will be no longer a thing of danger and dread, but only of beauty, joy, and blessing. Some of the old Rabbins taught that, in the new world of Messiah, men shall be able to walk the surface of the sea with equal ease that they now walk the earth. Nor is this unlikely; for the Saviour, as a man, walked on the sea, and did not sink; and so did Peter also, until his faith and courage failed him. The regeneration is the making of Christ's miracles universal. The miracles of Christ were the preintimations and beginning of the great Regeneration to come, and the new creation is simply those miracles carried out into universal effect. Why not then also this with regard to the sea? At any rate it will be subdued and rebegotten to Him who maketh all things new, and become a joy and service without being as now an unmanageable and dangerous hindrance and barrier. People only misread the text, and load themselves with endless perplexities, when they interpret it to mean the total abolition of all seas. As the old sea it is abolished, just as the old heavens and earth; but, as in their case, it is an abolition which eventuates in a more congenial sea, even a new sea.

A new City. Occasion will offer to consider this when we come to the special vision of it in the after portions of the chapter; but it here presents itself as the crown of the regenerated world. It is called by the old Hebrew name of Jerusalem (Ἱερουσαλὴμ), and not by the Grecized name of the earthly city (Ἱεροσυλυμα). If the heaven, the earth, and the sea be literal, then certainly must this also be a literal city. The harlot Woman was finally developed and embodied in a literal city, and it is the same with the true Woman. It is the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, who appears in this new city for eternal blessedness, as the old Adulteress appeared in the new Babylon for everlasting destruction. That was man's glory proudly lifting itself in defiance of heaven; this is the Lamb's glory, graciously descending in benediction to the earth. That was the consummation of this world's progress, and its end; this is the consummation of the achievements of divine grace, and its memorial forever.

It is a new city, one which never appeared before, one of which all other cities are but the poor preintimations, and one as compared with which all present cities will sink out of mind and memory. It is new in its materials, in its size, in its location, in its style, in its permanence, in its moral purity, and in everything characteristic of it. It is heaven-built; jewelled in its foundations, walls, and streets; perfected in everything that is charming and beautiful, "as a bride adorned for her husband;" lighting the nations with its brilliancy, itself ever luminous with the glory of God and the Lamb; the true "Eternal City;"—the imperishable palace of the immortal kings of the ages.

II. OBSERVE THE BLESSEDNESS OF THAT WORLD.

There is a long list of negations, telling the ills from which it brings relief.

Every tear is wiped away. He who dries them off is God himself. Human hands are poor at drying tears. If they succeed in removing one set, others come which they cannot wipe away. Earthly power, however good and kind, cannot go far in the binding up of broken hearts. Only the hand that made the spirit can reach the deep sources of its sorrows, or dry up the streams that issue from them. The springs of grief yield to no other potency. But then his loving Almightiness shall wipe every tear. "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and ye shall be comforted," saith the Lord. "Every tear," for they be many;—tears of misfortune and poverty, such as Job and Lazarus wept;—tears of bereaved affection, such as Mary, and Martha, and the widow of Nain shed;—tears of sympathy and mercy, such as Jeremiah and Jesus wept over the sins and calamities of Jerusalem;—tears of persecuted innocence, tears of contrition and penitence for faults and crimes against the goodness and majesty of heaven;—tears of disappointment and neglect;—tears of yearning for what cannot now be ours;—these, and whatever others ever course the cheeks of mortals, shall then be dried forever.

Death no longer exists. O the reign of death! Whom has it not touched! What circle has it not invaded! What home has it never entered!

There is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside howsoe'er defended,

But hath one vacant chair.

Around our churches lie our graveyards, and all the highways are lined with cemeteries and depositories of the dead. We can scarcely open our eyes without seeing the gloomy hearse, the funeral procession, the undertaker's warehouse, the shop full of mourning goods, or the stonecutter chiselling epitaphs. Every newspaper we pick up has its obituary lists, and every week brings forth its bills of mortality. On the right hand, on the left hand, before us, behind us, around us, beneath us, in all seasons, in all climes, everywhere, is death. We ourselves are only waiting, not knowing what day or hour we shall fall beneath its stroke. Physicians are sent forth by hundreds and thousands every year from our colleges and universities, and myriads of hands are ever busy collecting and preparing medicines for the sick; and yet there is no check, no restraint, to the career and reign of death! But, at length, an end to his fell dominion comes. The time will be when death itself shall die; not by the power of man, not by mortal skill or earthly medicines, but by the great redemption of God. When the sunlight of the new Genesis dawns upon this stricken world, the grand thanksgiving shall ring out over every zone, from the equator to the poles, that n;Death is swallowed up in victory." Never another dying-bed shall then be seen again. Never another grave shall then be dug. For "death shall no longer be."

Sorrow then ceases. Thousandfold are the heartaches and the griefs which now beset and torment the children of men. Choose what path of life we will, we cannot escape them. They follow us like our shadow. Bright as the lives of some may seem, each heart knoweth its own bitterness. Martyrs suffer where no faggots or flames are visible. But there is a boundary line over which no sorrows ever pass,—the line which divides between the new earth and this. There hearts no longer bleed in secret; there the cold shadows never again fall on sensitive souls; there the killing frosts no more settle on the springing plants or blooming flowers of human peace. Christ drank the cup of sorrow for our world, and it will be found empty then.

And all crying shall be hushed. Sore complaining is the commonest sound on earth. It is often without just cause; but there is no stoicism from which it is never wrung. Man comes into the world with a cry, and goes out of it with a groan, and all between is more or less intoned with helpless wailing. The cry of pain and passion—the cry of fear and strife—the cry of wrong and oppression—the cry of want, and harm, and danger—the cry of torn affection and blasted hopes—the cry of weariness and disability—the cry of suffering and of death—the cry of a thousand unnamed distresses—how it vibrates on every breeze in every land! But the Halleluias of the renewed world will drown out the voice of woe forever.

Neither shall pain any more be. O the racking torments to which these mortal bodies are exposed! O the ills, and aches, and sharp distresses which come upon us through these earthly tenements! But they shall come no more when the new world comes.

These are blessed exemptions, but there is greater good.

Life is there,—life that is life,—life in its highest fulness and noblest activities and associations,—eternal life,—for all who tread the soil and breathe the air of that new world. "The water of life" flows there free and plenteous for each and all. What that water is, is more than we can tell; but it is a water of freshness, purity, and cleansing,—a water that slakes all thirst,—a water that revives against all symptoms of age or decay. Though years heap on years, and centuries on centuries, and cycles on cycles, never shall they dry up the moisture of immortal youth and beauty which those blessed waters give. They are the life-waters which gladden eternity, and which make eternally glad.

A soul-satisfying worship is there. The children of men there join in sublime fellowship with heaven; for it is "on earth as it is in heaven." The Tabernacle of God, with Deity visible and approachable, as when Adam talked with his Maker as a friend and companion, shall be there, with its living oracles of unveiled truth, and assemblies of the sons of God into which Satan can no more insinuate his foul presence, or introduce a doubt, or jar, or imperfection in the flow of unsullied adoration.

And with it all is the possession of God himself. Jehovah is the highest good, the sum of all good. Union and intercommunion with him, the possession of him, is the crown of human blessedness and glory. To have God with us as our God, to know him, and see him, and enjoy him as our own, is the very height and coronal of all human attainment and possession—the focal point of all the promises—the fruition of the sublimest hopes. In this eternal life reaches its acme and fullest bloom. In this man reaches the superlative of glory; for in it he inherits all things. Such then and so transcendent is the blessedness of the new world, never more to end.

III. OBSERVE THE OCCUPANTS AND POSSESSORS OF THAT WORLD.

Not the "cowardly" who shrink from the conflict with sin, ashamed or afraid to avow and maintain their faith in God and his Christ;—not the "unbelieving," who set at nought the testimonies of their Maker, scorn to trust for salvation in the merits of a crucified Saviour, and will not have Christ to rule over them;—not the "polluted," who basely degrade themselves with their uncleanness, bestiality, and abominations;—not the "murderers," whether such by outward act or inward malice;—not "fornicators," whether of the body or the cherished lust of the soul;—not "sorcerers," practitioners in the black arts, conjurers, necromancers, and seekers and exercisers of powers such as God has forbidden;—not "idolaters," whether in the form of pagan worship, or the giving of the heart to covetousness, selfishness, Mammon, or what is not God;—nor any false ones, who make, or love, or act lies;—for "the cowardly, and unbelieving, and polluted, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all the false, their part [shall inherit] in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." Not one of all such characters ever comes into the new heaven and earth.

But all saints are there—the Church of the first-born—the holy people of God from Abel to the last martyr under the Antichrist. Jehovah has had a people in every age,—a people called out from the world, marked with holy signs, pervaded with a holy spirit,—a people signalized as pilgrims and strangers on the earth ever seeking for a firmly founded and continuing city whose maker and builder is God. Such were the patriarchs of the early ages, who saw the promises, and embraced them, and lived on earth as citizens of another and heavenly country. Such were the prophets, who prophesied beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow, and searched and inquired into those blessed things which the angels also desired to look into. Such were those in the first centuries of the Church who held fast the name of Jesus, and denied not their faith in him even amid the roaring flames, and when the blood of his confessors flowed like water. Such were those who sighed and cried through the gloom of the Middle Ages, like souls under the altar, and those who afterwards shook the torch of Jehovah's truth afresh to light the modern nations into life. And such are those in every land, of every tongue, of every age, who show by their lives and testimony that they seek a city yet to come. All these are there, not in flesh and blood, not returned to an earthy corporeal life, but in resurrection transfiguration, made like to the angels, like to their Redeemer now in glory, and having their home-place and palace in the Golden City for which they looked, and wrought, and waited, and suffered when one earth. These are there, as occupants of the new heavens, the dwellers in the new city, the sublime and heavenly kings and priests of the eternal nations and generations.

And the still ongoing race redeemed is there. Many can think of none but glorified saints in this grand picture; but the terms of the record will not construe with that idea. The glorified saints all belong to the celestial city, and have their home and residence in it. That city is the Tabernacle of God which comes down out of the heaven. Yet when it comes, a great voice out of the throne says: "Behold, The Tabernacle of God [is] with the men, [with mankind], and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and he, the God with them, shall be their God." Who then are these to whom the Tabernacle of God comes, and with whom it dwells? Who are these people distinct from it, and whom it is to enlighten and bless? Who can they be, if not the nations of the ongoing race, dwelling in the new earth in the flesh? They are redeemed now, holy, innocent, undying, and the Lord's people forever; but only the Church of the after-born, and not of the firstborn. Jesus, in Matthew 25, describes a judgment of "the nations," when, as a shepherd, he shall divide the sheep from the goats, and when the sheep "nations" shall be set on his right hand, and "go into life everlasting," whilst the goat "nations "go" into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." So, in the next chapter, we read of these same sheep "nations" walking by means of the light and aid of this celestial city (chap. 21:24), but quite distinct from the royal Church of the firstborn, which is the New Jerusalem, the Lamb's Wife. Likewise the whole analogy of the Scriptures, from first to last, bears along with it this implication. There is not a word which asserts any purpose of God to terminate the perpetuity of humanity as an ever-expanding race. It was constituted and given command for unending perpetuity before sin touched it. If it fails to go on forever, it can only be in consequence of the introduction of sin. But there has been promised and constituted a Redeemer to ransom it from all captivity to sin and corruption. And if his redemption does not go far enough to exempt the ongoing race from being finally extinguished, then it is not redemption, and the Destroyer beats out the Almighty Redeemer. There is no escape from this alternative if we do not allow that the race of man as a race continues in the new earth, and there realizes its complete and final recovery from all the effects and ill consequences of the fall. Ransomed nations in the flesh are therefore among the occupants of the new earth, and the blessed and happy dwellers in it, as Adam and Eve dwelt in Paradise. The Sitter on the throne saith, "Behold, new I make everything." That everything includes heaven, earth, and sea, and by necessary implication, had we no other proofs, the race of humanity is also included as a subject of the great Re-Genesis. Hence said the Almighty to Isaiah, "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. Be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create. And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them." (Isa. 65:17-25.)

Men may think we dream when we thus propose to read God's word as it is written; but he has anticipated all their rationalizing and scepticism. The Sitter upon the throne saith, "Write, because these words are faithful and true." There can be no mistake about it. God knew how to say what he meant, and he knew the meaning of what he did say. And to that which he has said, he affixes his own infallible seal, that the words are "faithful and true." Here, then, let us rest till their fulfilment comes.

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