2. It is well to remember the time at which the words were written down. The He v elation came to St. John in a time of the utmost danger to the Church. Jew and heathen were at last united in hatred to the name of Christ, and were putting forth all their power to destroy those who believed in Him. St. James, * J. Cuckson, Faith and Fellowshipt 54.
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St. Peter, St. Pcaul, had lately passed to their heavenly home through the gate of a glorious death. The fall of the Holy City was close at hand. The old memorials of God's presence were vanishing from the earth. They whom from of old He had chosen to be His own people were being cast away and scattered upon the face of the world. Death and hell were riding triumphant over everything that was marked with God's name. Change was come in its most terrible form, as sheer destruction, destruction most of all of that which was best of all. Then it was, when God seemed to be deserting the earth, that a great voice was heard out of the throne saying, " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God : and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes ; and death shall be no more ; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more ; the first things are passed away." The first heaven and the first earth were passed away ; a new heaven and a new earth could already be seen by one whose eyes God opened. But behind the new heaven and the new earth was He who made them ; and what, when He Himself spoke, He announced as His work was the work of making all things new.
^ The new heaven and the new earth are here already, for they mean only a new and different relation between God and men — between heaven and earth — from that which existed before. Since Christ ascended and sat at the right hand of God, the new heaven has begun. Since the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and the glory of the only-begotten Son of the Father appeared, the earth also has become new.^
^ The magnificent hope and prediction of God's final and decisive victory find expression in nearly every part of the sacred volume. The Psalms and Prophecies, not less than the Gospels and Epistles, recognize the conflict which is going on unceasingly between God and forces hostile to Him; between God and the Satanic hosts, the powers of darkness and the obstinacy of de- praved and misguided man. But, one and all, they declare that the conflict is not to be perpetual. The underlying and final note of all their predictions is keyed to a song of Divine victory, which will be complete and universal. There is to be an end of iniquity, and the wicked are to cease from troubling. The enemies of the Lord, and all that is opposed to Him, are in some way to perish, or
^ Schleiermacher.
294 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH
be subdued under His feet. There are to be new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, and nothing but righteous- ness will be known, and God is to be King over the whole earth, and by implication over every unimaginable place beyond the earth.i
3. When we give the words the widest range, and understand them of God's whole government of the world, He is always making all things new. Even when the course of the world is very quiet and seems to be at a standstill, He is but changing the manner of this His work, for some of His most wonderful re- newals are wrought in silence. He is Himself described as He that sitteth on the throne. He rules, but rests as He rules. The Author of unceasing change, He knows no change within Him- self. He is older than the oldest things; His name is the Ancient of Days. The old and the new have thus alike their perfect pattern in Him. His counsels partake of both ; on the one hand, they stand fast from age to age ; on the other, they are ever advancing from step to step by new births of time.
^ The ends for which nature exists are not in itself, but in the spiritual sphere beyond. Nature always points to something beyond itself, backward to d, cause, above to a law, and forward to ends in the spiritual system. God is always developing nature to a capacity to be receptive of higher powers. Under the tension of the Divine energy in it, it always seems to be " striving its bounds to overpass." This discloses in nature a certain reality in Hegel's conception, that nature is always aspiring to return to the spiritual whence it came.^
^ Some have interpreted this passage as applying to the millennium, but, as St. Augustine says, to do so is " audacious," because the previous chapters clearly show that the millennium, the resurrection and the judgment have all preceded this, the final, act in the awe-inspiring drama shown to us in the Kevelation. That there are several " heavens " such references as the " seventh " and the " third " seem to indicate ; and if, as many think, our earth is only one of many worlds, peopled it may be by beings of varied forms, powers and attainments, it may easily follow that after being caught into the clouds for judgment, the saints will descend to a renovated " heaven and earth " — the " Holy City," purified and cleansed for a people beloved of the Lord. That His