Revelation 21 The New Jerusalem
1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
5He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
6He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
The dream of a new heaven and a new earth was deep in Jewish thought. And this thought is equally strong between the Testaments. The picture is always there and the elements are always the same. Sorrow is to be forgotten; sin is to be defeated and the temporariness of time is to turn into the everlastingness of eternity. Barclay says that this ongoing belief is a witness to three things - to the longings of our souls, to our awareness of sin and to our faith in God.
Then we come across this most famous phrase in the Book of Revelation, "And there was no more sea". This phrase has a double background according to Barclay. First, it has a background in the great mythological beliefs of John's time. In the Babylonian story of the creation of the world there is a long struggle between Marduk, the god of creation, and Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. In that story the sea, the waters beneath the firmament, become the dwelling place of Tiamat. The sea was always an enemy. The Egyptians saw it as the power which swallowed up the waters of the Nile and left the fields barren.
1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
5He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."
6He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
The dream of a new heaven and a new earth was deep in Jewish thought. And this thought is equally strong between the Testaments. The picture is always there and the elements are always the same. Sorrow is to be forgotten; sin is to be defeated and the temporariness of time is to turn into the everlastingness of eternity. Barclay says that this ongoing belief is a witness to three things - to the longings of our souls, to our awareness of sin and to our faith in God.
Then we come across this most famous phrase in the Book of Revelation, "And there was no more sea". This phrase has a double background according to Barclay. First, it has a background in the great mythological beliefs of John's time. In the Babylonian story of the creation of the world there is a long struggle between Marduk, the god of creation, and Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. In that story the sea, the waters beneath the firmament, become the dwelling place of Tiamat. The sea was always an enemy. The Egyptians saw it as the power which swallowed up the waters of the Nile and left the fields barren.
Second, it had more of a human background. The ancient peoples hated the sea, even though by the time of John, they were voyaging long and far. They did not possess the compass yet, and so, as far as possible, they coasted along the shores. The sea represented all their fears and they longed for a day when there would be no more sea.
Next John says that he sees the "the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband". Here again is a dream of the Jews which never died - the dream of the restoring of Jerusalem, the holy city. Again, Barclay points out that there is a double background.
1) There is an essentially Greek background. Plato's idea of forms taught that in the invisible world there existed an exact copy of everything on earth and that all things on earth were imperfect copies of the heavenly realities. If that is so there is a heavenly Jerusalem of which the earthly Jerusalem is an imperfect copy. It further means that God is the source of all ideals. The ideal is a challenge which, even if it is not worked out in this world, cam still be worked out in the world to come.
2) The second background of the concept of the new Jerusalem is entirely Jewish. John's vision of the new Jerusalem uses and amplifies the dreams of the prophets. It is easy to see how the new Jerusalem was a constant dream; and that John lovingly collected the different visions - the precious stones, the streets and buildings of gold, the ever-open gates, the light of God making the light of the sun and moon unnecessary, the coming of the nations and the bringing of their gifts - into his own. Here is faith. Even when Jerusalem was obliterated, the Jews never lost confidence that God would restore it.
Revelation 21 The New Jerusalem
3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Whose is this loud voice? It is the voice of one of the angels in the Presence of God. He says that God will live with us. The word used is the word for a tent. there are two main meaning here, according to WB. First, the tabernacle in the desert was the tent par excellence and represented the presence of God. Here in this world of things and of time and space we only realise the presence of God from time to time - in a spasmodic way; but in heaven we will be permanently aware of that presence. Second, there are two words totally different in meaning but similar in sound which in early Christian thought became closely connected. "Skene" (the word for a tent) is one and "Shechinah" (the glory of God) is the other. The connection in sound, Barclay points out, brought it about that men could not hear the one without thinking about the other. In the new age the glory of God is not to be a transitory thing, but something which abides permanently with the people of God.
This fellowship with God in the new age, the golden age, brings certain things. Tears and grief and crying and pain are gone. Death too shall be gone. That, too, had been the dream of the ancient prophets. "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces" (Isaiah 25:8). This is a promise for the future. But even in this present world those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted, and death will be swallowed up in victory for those who know Christ and the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his resurrection (Matthew 5:4; Philippians 3:10).
Mark
No comments:
Post a Comment