As we step into a new year this week, a biblical verse that might capture our attention is this one:
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Revelation 21:5)
It is a vision of magnificent authority. God speaks as a King from a throne in the new heavens and earth. As if this were not enough, God directs that John (the writer of Revelation) must record these trustworthy words for all generations. Let’s ponder these words for a moment.
First, “making all things NEW...”
How much that we judge to be new, is really new?
We each have a worldview, which is like mental blinders that dictate our range of vision or categories within which comprehend the world around us.
Consider travel from one place to another. We have expanded our categories to include travel by foot, horseback, railroad (interestingly, the “iron horse”), automobile, airplane and teleportation (“Beam me up, Scotty!) None of these methods—even teleportation which is still science fiction—are really new, however. They are all variations on the same theme of traveling from one place to another.
Or consider the “new” 5G networks to be rolled out later in 2019. With 5G, you can download an entire movie in 17 seconds, as opposed to six minutes with 4G (what must surely then feel like an eternity). But is 5G really new, or just faster?
Yet, some things are really new. Discovering electrons within the atom and how to manipulate them to create electronic devices was truly new. But I would argue there is far less really “new” than we often imagine (especially when ‘new and improved’ is every product’s go-to endorsement).
A clue to how God thinks about the “new” is found throughout the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, who repeatedly quotes God saying things like this:
“I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19)
Here the new thing is “new” because it is totally unexpected. It is outside the peoples’ pervasive worldviews, outside the categories through which they see and organize their world. It’s an unexpected as a river in a desert.
When all seems lost and hopeless, God will rescue his people from their captivity to the worldly powerful Babylon (and by implication, rescue all people from captivity to sin and evil).
Second, “making ALL THINGS new...”
Can we conceive comprehensively of what “all things” might include?
Here are four areas:
1) A NEW Creation
“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.” (Revelation 21:1)
New physical bodies will enjoy a new physical creation. Again, creation will be radically new because all vestiges of pain and evil and decay will be extinguished. Paul put it like this: “The creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the liberty of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21)
Creation will return to how God planned it in the very beginning. But even better! It will be so totally NEW we humans currently don’t have mental categories to describe it. Therefore, biblical writers envisioned as best they could within their worldview, e.g. streets of gold, walls of precious gems, etc. No one need be disappointed if these descriptions are not literally true; they are describing something so NEW, it is indescribable!
2) A NEW Body
“We shall certainly be united to him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5).
Jesus was resurrected in a new physical body and so shall all who trust in him. The popularized view of a “heaven” of disembodied spiritual beings is all Plato, never the Bible. Plato believed the physical body was a source of evil, so escaping the body was desirable.
However, the Bible teaches just the opposite! God repeatedly calls all things he made them “good” and then “very good” in the creation story. Our resurrected bodies will indeed be “new” because they will be radically different than our current bodies (no pain, hurt or tears) yet also have continuity with our present body just as did Jesus’ resurrected body with his earthly body.
3) A NEW Being
Paul writes of his own inner turmoil:
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:22-24)
Like many commentators, I believe Paul is speaking of his life after trusting Jesus. We seek to follow Jesus, yet so often find ourselves doing the very things we hate. We want to love but end up despising others. We want to trust yet are filled with fear and anxiety. We want to be kind but often our tongues are our greatest enemy.
So, here’s another dimension of “making all things new”—we will finally be pure, not only in actions but in the far deeper realms of thought, desire and attitude. This is such a discontinuity from our current condition that it, too, qualifies as NEW. As Isaiah says, it’s like a river flowing in a desert.
4) A NEW Openness
“Blessed are the pure in heart,” Jesus said, “for they shall see God.”
Perhaps the most mind-blowing NEW thing of all is that, in this new reality, all the barriers between human beings and God have been swept away. The creature will once again “walk in the cool of the evening” with his or her Creator as did Adam and Eve in the garden.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (I Cor. 13:12)
“All things” includes radically NEW physical bodies, in an amazingly NEW physical creation, with a NEWLY purified and finally whole inner-being.
And rather than cower in fear in God’s presence—as we see happen in every biblical story of a human being actually encountering God—we will instead luxuriate and rejoice.
As we think about a new year, we can celebrate this newness to come. Radical newness overflows where God is “making all things new.”
