8. The vision of the new heaven and the new earth does not
1 Ruskin, Modern Painters, pt. ix. ch. xii. § 18 ( WorJcSj rii. 458). * John Brown Paton, by his Son (1914), 190.
REVELATION xxi. i 299
necessarily suppose the annihilation of the old creation, but only- its passing away as to its outward and recognizable form, and renewal to a fresh and more glorious one. The idea of the term " new " used by the writer of the Apocalypse in this verse is not that things present are blotted out of existence, and a new order of things quite strange, foreign, and novel is brought into being, but that the things of old are made new, raised to a higher plane, given a fresh start, free from all that has marred their beauty, and hindered their due development. While, then, the continuity is not broken, the change is very great, so great that it can be said that "the first heaven and the first earth were passed away."
Two words in the New Testament are translated " new," but there is a difference between them. The one contemplates the object spoken of under the aspect of something that has been recently brought into existence, the other under a fresh aspect given to what had previously existed, but been outworn. The latter word is employed in the text, as it is also employed in the phrases a " new garment," that is, a garment not threadbare, like an old one ; " new wine-skins," that is, skins not shrivelled and dried ; a " new tomb," that is, not one recently hewn out of the rock, but one which had never been used as the last resting-place of the dead. The fact, therefore, that the heavens and the earth here spoken of are " new," does not imply that they are now first brought into being. They may be the old heavens and the old earth ; but they have a new aspect, a new character, adapted to a new end.
11 Life is always opening new and unexpected things to us. There is no monotony in living to him who walks even the quietest and tamest paths with open and perceptive eyes. The monotony of life, if life is monotonous to you, is in you, not in the world, . . . It is God, and the discovery of Him in life, and the certainty that He has plans for our lives and is doing something with them, that gives us a true, deep sense of movement, and lets us always feel the power and delight of unknown coming things.^
With brain o'erworn, with heart a summer clod. With eye so practised in each form around, — And all forms mean, — to glance above the ground Irks it, each day of many days we plod,
^ Phillips Brooks.
300 A NEW HEAVEN AND A NEW EARTH
Tongue-tied and deaf, along life's common road. But suddenly, we know not how, a sound Of living streams, an odour, a flower crowned With dew, a lark upspringing from the sod, And we awake. 0 joy and deep amaze ! Beneath the everlasting hills we stand, We hear the voices of the morning seas, And earnest prophesyings in the land, While from the open heaven leans forth at gaze The encompassing great cloud of witnesses.^
9. We need not be staggered by this prophecy, for science delights to show that many heavens and many earths have already passed away. As the geological world was the rough draft, or series of rough drafts, of this more beautiful and finished world on which we now gaze, so this present world is a dim foreshadow- ing of the ultimate spiritualized theatre of human life. There is much in nature to-day that mars its loveliness, that spoils its music; it is full of sad facts which sorely puzzle and distress reflective men; but we may confidently believe that in the ages to come these painful problems will be eliminated. The process of perfecting is ever going on, and who shall say when or where it will stop ? Nature has emerged out of so many catastrophes with added glories that we are perfectly justified in once more looking beyond fire and flood for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The "new heavens" and the " new earth " shall be purified from every blot ; the thing becomes, with time, more reasonable ; all the splendid possibilities of the universe shall be realized; earth and sky shall cease to groan; the whole creation shall be adorned as a bride for her husband.
^ Brotherhood, peace, glory to God in the highest, good will towards men — all are coming, fast coming. The world began with a paradise, and it shall end with one. The first was a corner of the planet; the second shall stretch
From where the rising sun salutes the morn,
To where he lays his head of glory on the rocking deep.*
^ It is the hope of a new heaven and a new earth that cheers the emigrant as he comes out for the first time to Canada. " I shall find there," he says, " ' a new heaven and a new earth.' I » Edward Dowden. ^ ^, l^ Watkinson, The Blind Spot, 197.