Rev. Rob Jones
June 9, 2026

Revelation 21:1-5 

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, the 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,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”[i] 

5 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.”

Our text today is Revelation 21:1-5: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth… and he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”

These are not small words for tired people. These are not ornamental words for religious sentiment. These are throne-room words. They come to the church when she is bruised by grief, wearied by sin, and surrounded by a world that seems to crack a little more each day. And into that weary world, God does not merely offer advice. He gives a promise. He does not say, “Try harder and patch it up.” He says, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Notice the text does not say God makes all new things, as if He were discarding His world and replacing it with another. It says He is making all things new. The God who created the world will also renew it, and continues the process. The One who formed man from the dust will not surrender His handiwork to the grave. Redemption is not an afterthought. It is the triumph of the Lamb who was slain and now reigns.

John sees “a new heaven and a new earth.” This is the fulfillment of what the prophets longed for and what the saints have awaited through every century of tears. The Christian hope is not escape from creation, but the liberation and renewal of creation under the reign of God. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues that Revelation’s closing vision is about heaven and earth coming together in God’s final dwelling with His people, not humanity’s permanent escape from the world.[1]

In Genesis, before God separated the land from the water, the earth was completely covered with water. We are told that the earth was formless and empty. In other words, it was Chaos. John says in Revelation, “The sea was no more.” In Scripture, the sea often represents chaos, danger, and the place from which the beast arose. This does not mean John is declaring war on oceans and shorelines. He is telling us that in the new creation, all that opposes God, all that threatens His people, all that churns with rebellion and fear, will be gone. The restless deep will not have the final word. God’s throne will.

Then John sees “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” That is striking. The end of the story is not souls floating upward into vagueness. It is a city coming down. God’s future is not less than earthly; it is more. It is more than creation, more purified, more beautified, and filled with God’s glory.

And it is described as a bride. Why? Because the final state of the church is not merely survival. It is communion. The church, washed by the blood of Christ and clothed in His righteousness, will be presented in splendor. What sin has stained, grace has cleansed. What death threatened, Christ has secured. What God began in mercy, He will complete in glory.

Let me put it this way. Imagine an old cathedral that has stood for centuries. Smoke has blackened the walls. Rain has crept into the stones. Vandals have scarred the doors. To the passerby, it may look ready for ruin. But then the master craftsman returns. He does not look at it in disgust and say, “Tear it down!” He restores it to the original design, and beyond that, he brings out beauties no one has seen for generations. The cathedral is still itself, yet made radiant. It is the same with the world God made, and with His people as well. Grace does not annihilate; grace restores and perfects. Grace brings us back to one with God. 

Then comes the center of the passage: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.” That is the heart of heaven and earth made new. The greatest gift of the new creation is not gold streets, reunion, or even the end of pain. The greatest gift is God Himself. “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

This has always been the covenant promise from the very beginning. In Eden, God walked with Adam. In the tabernacle, God dwelt among Israel by shadow and sign. In Christ, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” In the church, God dwells by His Spirit. But here is the most important part: the dwelling is open, unbroken, immediate, and full. There is no veil or temple shadows, no distance caused by sin. The whole story of Scripture runs to this point: God with us, and we with God, forever.

There is an old saying often attributed to Samuel Rutherford, the seventeenth-century Scottish pastor, that “the miles to heaven are but few and short.” [2] The reason that saying comforts believers is not that heaven is geographically near, but that Christ has made the way sure. The distance between a holy God and guilty sinners was greater than the distance between earth and the farthest star, and Christ has crossed that distance by His blood. If He has reconciled us to God now, He will certainly bring us home then.

Verse 4 may be one of the most comforting, tenderest verses in all of Scripture: ‘He 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.”

Notice who wipes the tears. God does. This is personal consolation. Not merely the removal of sorrow in the abstract, but the intimate comfort of God to His people. Every tear has been seen. Every funeral, every hospital room, every betrayal, every private grief that no one else understood—none of it has been lost to God. The hand that governs history is the same hand that wipes our tears.

And death shall be no more. The last enemy, not the last inconvenience, but the last enemy, shall be destroyed. Death has cast a long shadow over every generation. It has entered palaces and poorhouses, nurseries and nursing homes, battlefields and quiet bedrooms. But in the new creation, death itself dies.

History gives us dim reflections of this longing. In 1665–1666, the English village of Eyam became known for isolating itself during an outbreak of plague to spare surrounding communities. Later retellings sometimes romanticized the story, but historians agree that a quarantine was imposed and that a great many villagers died in that period.[3] Even where the details are debated, the story endures because it touches something deep in us: We ache for a world where sacrifice is no longer needed to hold back the grave. Revelation 21 declares that such a world is coming—not by human heroism, but by divine victory.

Think of what that means. No more oncology wards. No more final goodbyes spoken through tears. No more wandering minds lost to dementia. No more secret chronic pain. No more anxious nights. The former things shall pass away because the curse itself shall be broken. We do not build this world; we cannot build this world.  Through the grace of God, we receive it.

Then comes the royal declaration in verse 5: “I am making everything new!” Not “I will try.” Not “I invite you to imagine it.” But “I am making.” The renewal has its certainty in the sovereign God. Because He sits on the throne, His promise cannot fail. Because He is the Creator, renewal is not difficult for Him. Because He is the Redeemer, renewal is not distant from His heart.

Charles Spurgeon once preached on this very verse and drew attention to the divine force of that statement: “I make all things new.” He argued that the glory of God as the renewer of creation is no less wondrous than His glory as the original Creator.[4] That is exactly right. The gospel is not God improving the edges of human life. It is God raising the dead, justifying the ungodly, sanctifying the stubborn, and at last renewing the whole of creation in righteousness.

There is another image that helps here. During the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral in England after its destruction in the Second World War, the decision was made not simply to erase the ruins, but to build in a way that remembered judgment and testified to hope. The ruined shell remained beside the new cathedral as a witness to both devastation and renewal.[5] That is not the new creation itself, of course, but it is a useful historical picture. God does not deny the reality of ruin. He overcomes it. The scars of this age are not the final architecture of the world to come.

And then the Lord says, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” John must write because suffering saints need more than uplift; they need certainty. These words are trustworthy because they come from God, who is faithful. They are true because appearances cannot overturn them. When your life seems to preach the opposite message, Revelation 21 still stands. When cemeteries fill, and nations rage and bodies fail, the throne still speaks: “Behold, I am making all things new.”

So how should we live in light of this promise? I have often used this passage for funerals, and I tell families that we should grieve with hope. Christians do grieve, but not as those who have no hope. Revelation 21 does not mock our tears; it promises their end.

I also say, we should resist despair. The world is broken, but history is not moving toward chaos. It is moving toward the unveiled dwelling of God with His people.

Finally, I tell them, we should come to Christ. The new creation belongs to those who belong to the Lamb. The same Christ who will one day renew all things is even now making us new by His Spirit. If anyone is in Christ, there is already the beginning of that coming world.

Brothers and sisters, the world as we know it is not the world as it shall be. The grave is real, but it is not ultimate. Tears are real, but they are not eternal. Pain is real, but it is not sovereign. The throne is occupied. The promise is spoken. The future is secure.

So, hear the word of the Lord: “Behold, I am making all things new.” And let the church say, Amen.

Sources

[1] N. T. Wright, “Beneath the Tree of Life: The City of the Age to Come,” Plough, January 10, 2020; see also “Beginning to Think About the New Creation,” N.T. Wright Online.

[2] Samuel Rutherford, saying commonly cited from Letters of Samuel Rutherford, ed. Andrew A. Bonar (historical attribution widely preserved in editions of Rutherford’s letters).

[3] Xavier Didelot, “Heroic Sacrifice or Tragic Mistake? Revisiting the Eyam Plague, 350 Years on,” Significance 13, no. 5 (2016): 20–25. The sermon intentionally uses a cautious summary because later retellings of Eyam include debated details.

[4] C. H. Spurgeon, “A New Creation,” sermon on Revelation 21:5, published in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit(published 1915; sermon text available through Spurgeon archives).

[5] Historical background on Coventry Cathedral and postwar reconstruction is widely documented in cathedral histories; it is used here as a brief historical illustration of devastation and renewal.

^[i] Revelation 21:3–4 is not a direct, word‑for‑word quotation from a single Old Testament verse. It is a Spirit‑inspired synthesis John uses to alludes to several key passages, especially:

1. God dwelling with His people (Rev 21:3) most clearly:
   1. Leviticus 26:11–12 – “I will make my dwelling among you… I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”
   1. Ezekiel 37:27 – “My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Also echoed in:

1. Exodus 25:8 – “And they shall make me a sanctuary so that I may dwell among them.”
2. Zechariah 8:8 – “They shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”
3. The end of tears, death, and sorrow (Rev 21:4) especially:
   1. Isaiah 25:8 – “He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces…”
   1. Isaiah 35:10 – “Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
   1. Isaiah 65:19 – “I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.”
   1.  

Revelation 21:3–4 is John’s climactic, prophetic weaving together of the covenant promise (“I will be their God, and they shall be my people”) and the Isaianic hope of the end of death and tears (especially Isaiah 25:8), rather than a quotation from one single verse.