The New Heavens & The New Earth
Isaiah 64:1-12, 65:17-25
Main Idea: We are to long with patience for the glorious day God renews all things in Christ.
I. Lamenting the Present (64:1-12)
Isaiah cries out in a longing (‘Oh’) for God to “rend” the heavens and to rip open the “curtain” (cf. Isa. 34:4) that separates & conceals him from humanity. He is longing for God’s presence (3x) and a showcase of his glory to his adversaries and the nations.
This longing comes from a palace of lament; God’s surprising work all feels past-tense (64:3), and Jerusalem and God’s people are in shambles, all while he is seemingly absent (64:10-12).
The longing for God to come is one of the deepest longings of the human experience because it is in our creational design.
“So much of our restlessness and disappointment is the result of trying to convince ourselves that we’re already home… [but we are called] to a refugee spirituality – unsettled yet hopeful, tenuous but searching, eager to find the hometown we’ve never been to.” ~ James K.A. Smith
But Isaiah knows firsthand (cf. Isa. 6) that an encounter with God’s presence is terrifying because of our sin. Isaiah describes our sin using 4 images (64:6):
Unclean Leper: sin spreads like a disease & infects all things
Polluted Garment: even our best efforts are not as good as they look
Fading Leaf: sin causes decay & breakdown
The Wind: sin controls us & takes us places we were never meant to go
What Isaiah could not have known is how God would answer this prayer & fulfill this longing. God has indeed already “rend the heavens” in Jesus Christ to forgive us of our sins & to promise his steadfast presence (Mt. 28:20).
Hebrews 9:28: … so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
II. Life in the End (65:17-25)
At the end of the story, God does not give up on the earth and his creation. He remakes a new heavens and a new earth, renewing and restoring all that has gone wrong because of sin. God’s people will spend eternity not in the clouds or a serene garden like Eden, but the idealized city of Jerusalem (cf. Rev. 21:2).
“Many people want to go to heaven the way they want to go to Florida – they think the weather will be an improvement and the people decent. But the biblical heaven is not a nice environment far removed from the stress of hard city life. It is the invasion of the city by the City. We enter heaven not by escaping what we don’t like, but by the sanctification of the place in which God has placed us.” ~ Eugene Peterson
This new heavens and the new earth is marked by 4 things in Isaiah 65:
Joy (65:17-19). All the hardships of the “former things” in this fallen world will be forgotten. We are invited to “be glad and rejoice forever” in their place.
Revelation 21:4: 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.”
Life (65:20). Isaiah speaks metaphorically to try and accommodate our minds to understand something that we cannot fathom: the end of death itself. In this heavenly city, “death will have no more power and sin no more presence” (Motyer).
Fulfillment (65:21-23). Life will be marked by security & work will be fulfilling - reversing the curse to Adam in Gen. 3:17-19. There is no threat of attack or another stealing, and the gates of this heavenly city are always left open (Rev. 21:25-27).
Peace (65:24-25). God will never again feel asbent, but he will “answer” his people before they even call. All of creation (including) the animals will experience shalom, and the serpent will forever live in humiliation.
“The work of Christ is not just to save certain individuals… The total work of Christ is nothing less than to redeem this entire creation from the effects of sin. That purpose will not be accomplished until God has ushered in the new earth, until Paradise Lost has become Paradise Regained… God will not be satisfied until the entire universe has been purged of all the results of man’s fall.” ~ Anthony Hoekema
