Abstract
It’s such a well known passage of scripture, isn’t it? Heard often at funerals, its comforting words and images are clearly intended to reassure the bereaved that, despite the pain and suffering undergone by their now deceased relative or friend, yet all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. If one were of a frivolous turn of mind, which I often am, one might easily imagine a giant hand appearing from heaven, holding a large white hankie with which it proceeds to wipe our eyes, blow our nose, and stand us up properly. In the context of a funeral service, however, we rarely have the opportunity to hear, never mind begin to explore, the text’s deeper and far more powerful message of comfort and promise to the living, as much as of hope for the dear departed.
The whole of the Book of Revelation is jam-packed with references and allusions to the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, as well as to texts elsewhere in the New Testament, and the vision of the new Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 is perhaps one of the richest examples. Working through the passage verse by verse, below are the references I was able to identify and locate with relative ease; there are surely many more if one has time to look for them.
In verse one, we hear of a new heaven and a new earth, an image drawn from Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22, in which long life, a fruitful earth, and rewarding work are promised for God’s people, including those drawn from nations other than Israel. In Isaiah, the promise of long life suggests that people will still die eventually, but in Revelation this promise is augmented; those whose survive the judgement in chapter 20 may drink of the water of life, and presumably live forever thereby. We note that the first heaven and earth have ‘passed away’ (in 20:11, heaven and earth flee from God’s presence and ‘no place was found for them’), they are not destroyed either by fire or by water (see God’s promise not to destroy creation again by water in Genesis 9:11). This age is complete, the end of the aeon for which God founded the earth (Psalm 78.69, the Hebrew here means ‘for a long time’ or ‘from antiquity’, not forever in the sense we understand that word). It is important that here there is no more sea, since water, while valued for its life-giving properties, was also greatly feared for its propensity to destroy and to take life away. The sea in the Hebrew Bible is used to represent chaos, as in the first creation story (Genesis 1:1-2), the flood (Genesis 7:1-8:19), and God’s answer to Job from the whirlwind (Job 38:8-11). In this new heaven and earth, at last righteousness is at home; it is uncorrupted by sin (2 Peter 3:13, although the jury is still out as to whether the writer of the epistle or the apocalypse had the idea first), and unthreatened by the chaos of water, war, or politics.
Verse two sees the new Jerusalem descending from heaven, dressed as beautifully as a bride. Here the imagery draws on Isaiah’s vision of the nation of Israel as a once rejected wife now reconciled to her husband (Isaiah 50:1), the redeemed Jerusalem renamed My Delight is in Her and the land Married (Isaiah 62:4). Galatians 4:26 understands the heavenly Jerusalem as the mother of all who are saved by grace, leading us to see the bride here as representing the church which, as bride of Christ, gives new birth to all who accept the offer of salvation through the work of Christ.
In verse three we hear God speak, declaring that God’s home is now with mortals, he lives among us and we are his people. This is covenant talk, reflecting the intimate relationship with God first experienced by the man and woman in the Garden of Eden, but soon lost. It was promised to Abram and his descendants (Genesis 17:7-8) and its renewal is foreseen by Jeremiah (31:33, 32:38) and Ezekiel (37:23, 27). God tabernacles with his people, as when, by an angel, God went before the escapees from Egypt (Exodus 14:19-20) and his glory filled their newly constructed mobile shrine (Exodus 40:34). Ezekiel saw the return of God to dwell with his people, in the renewed temple in a rebuilt Jerusalem (43:7). Isaiah too promised such a close – almost neighbourly – relationship for God and the people when speaking of the coming Immanuel, the child to be known as God-with-us (Isaiah 7:14), the child identified in the gospels with Jesus (Matthew 1:23, John 1:14), God made flesh, living and moving among us.
Verse four’s description of God wiping away tears, the departure of death, and the end of grief and sadness, quotes, albeit in a slightly garbled manner, Isaiah 25:7-8 and 35:10. The Isaiah passage looks forward to a heavenly banquet on Mount Zion. The host, of course, is God, and the menu on offer is the finest fare imaginable in a mostly agrarian culture. Whilst originally this would have referred to a cultic feast, part of the normal procedure for festivals celebrated at the temple in Jerusalem, in time the idea was taken up into Israel’s expectation of the Messiah, thus making the meal part of the rejoicing anticipated in the new age, when the present era would be over and God’s kingdom on earth undisputed and total. In the life and teaching of Jesus, the motif of a heavenly meal played a prominent role. Whereas in Isaiah it is the people of Israel who dine at God’s table, with the unholy and the irreligious put outside, Jesus’ table practice welcomed those on the fringes of polite society, or even well beyond its bounds (Luke 15:2). All these aspects of feasting with God would have echoed in the minds of Revelation’s first readers and hearers in the church, assuring them that this will be the party to end all parties, the ultimate celebration, to which they are invited while death and ignorance are not.
Verses five and six form a fitting climax to the scene now set before us. Again, God speaks, confirming the re-creation of heaven and earth and anything else good that might once have been in existence. The voice of God goes on to declare the completion of the divine plan, and the identity of God as Beginning and End, Alpha and Omega. This statement of identity forms part of an antiphon called back and forth between God and Jesus (or the Lamb) at the beginning and end of the book (1:8, 1:17, 21:6), climaxing when is Jesus describes himself as Alpha and Omega, first and last, beginning and end, thus ascribing to himself equality with, participation in, the person of God (22:13). God in Christ offers once more the water of life – sweet water, unlike the salty waters of destruction – reminding us of Jesus crying out in the temple, ‘…let the one who believes in me drink’ (John 7:38) and Isaiah’s offer on God’s behalf of free water, wine, and milk (Isaiah 55:1).
Here then is life, the offer of that fullness of life for which Jesus first came (John 10:10). The offer is not, however, limited to those who have already died, nor is it valid only for some unspecified future time. For the believer, the offer is open today; intimate companionship with God is kept from us only by our failure to see through the veil of our worldly experience and recognise the presence and power of God all around us. Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that the kingdom of God was and is near or among them, which means it is among and within us too (Mark 12:34, Luke 17:21). Matthew closes his gospel with an account of Jesus’ farewell to the disciples, in which he reminds them that he is always with them, and therefore us, until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). If we will open our eyes and look around; if we will look back on our lives as followers of Jesus; if we can lift our heads to see beyond the cares and troubles of this world, we will see God’s presence all around us, like threads of gold worked into the tightly knitted fabric of our lives, as it is in the many biblical references that form John’s revelation. Hereby, God comforts us, not so much with a finely woven handkerchief to wipe away our tears, as by the gift of Christ’s constant presence, the fulfilment of the hopes, dreams, and promises of all the years.
Coming Next Month
Next month’s issue has “Christian Hope” as its focus. Angus Paddison writes about “Speaking of Hope”, while Leslie Milton offers “Hope in the promises of God: Some New Testament Reflections on Christian Ministry”.
Could any of our readers help to identify the authors of two quotations from John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer (OUP,1936)? They come on 25th Day Morning, and are as follows:
1. A wise woman said: The divine moment is the present moment.
2. A wise woman said: He asks too much to whom God is not sufficient.
Replies to Robin Boyd: