Our Inheritance: New Heaven and New Earth
See, I am making all things new…Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children. (Revelation 21:5, 7)
Inheritance is a dominant plot line in God’s story. “Inherit” or “inheritance” appear almost five hundred times in the biblical text, and most often relates to “land inheritance.” Joshua, for example, uses the language fifty-nine times, primarily in reference to God’s “land grant” to Israel.
The correlation between land and inheritance, between territory and kingdom, runs throughout the plot of the biblical drama. People need land, kingdoms need territory, and the inheritance of the people of God is a new heaven and a new earth.
Abrahamic Promise
When God blessed Abraham, he promised to bless all nations (Gen. 12:2-3). Included in that Abrahamic blessing is the land promise: “I will give this land to your offspring” (Gen. 12:7).
This promise is both overplayed as some identify the contemporary state of Israel with this land and undervalued as others see no fulfillment in Israel’s Messiah. The former think the state of Israel is its fulfillment (or at least its beginning) while the later believe the land promise no longer applies. There is a third way.
The land is Israel’s inheritance as the firstborn child of God among the nations (Ex. 32:13; Lev. 20:24; Num. 4:20; Deut. 4:21). God gave the “land for an inheritance to Israel” (Joshua 11:23). One need only to skim the Torah, especially Deuteronomy, to recognize the central role land plays as the inheritance Israel receives from Yahweh as God’s child (Deut. 4:21, 38; 15:4; 19:10; 20:16; 21:23; 24:4; 25:19; 26:1; Psalm 105:11; 136:21-22).
As part of the Abrahamic promise, the land is not conditioned by the Mosaic covenant (Gal. 3:6-9). The “inheritance” is by faith rather than by the works of the Torah (Gal. 3:17-18). This means God’s intent to fulfill the promise to Abraham is not conditioned by Torah-obedience. Whether the nation of Israel at any particular time possesses the land is conditioned on Torah-obedience, but the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise is unqualified. It is as unconditional as the promise of the Messiah is.
God gives land, and God gives rest (Josh. 11:23). “Rest” is what God gives to Israel when they seek Yahweh (2 Chr. 14:1, 5-6; 20:30; 23:21), and rest means “no war” (2 Chr. 14:5). “Rest” reappears in the prophets as Israel’s hope. The righteous will rest, but the wicked will not (Isa. 14:7; 30:15; 32:17; 57:20). Ultimately, God’s people will rest in the land without fear (Jer. 30:10; 46:27). Both Isaiah and Micah see a time when the nations will learn war no more, the earth will be at peace, and no one will be afraid (Isa. 2:1-4; Micah 4:1-5). The earth, it seems, has not yet experienced such.
This language echoes God’s purpose in creation. God’s land grant to Israel is analogous to God’s gift of the earth to Adam and Eve when “placed” (rested; Gen. 2:15) in the Garden to serve and protect it (their priestly task). Adam and Eve were priests in God’s temple, God’s home. This was God’s inheritance for humanity.
The land grant to Israel is also eschatological. The new heaven and new earth are what God creates as an inheritance for redeemed humanity. What Israel inherited in the book of Joshua typifies the inheritance God will give to humanity. A day is coming when not only Israel is the “heritage” of God, but also Egypt and Assyria are God’s people and heirs (Isa. 19:25). A day is coming when the meek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5).
Prophetic Expectations
Psalm 37 illustrates how the hope of inheriting the land, living in the land, and experiencing God’s goodness in the land is integral to Israel’s joy in the Lord. Disturbed by the prosperity of the wicked, the psalmist assures Israel that those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. Six times the psalmist promises—and Israel liturgically rehearses—Israel will ultimately receive its promised inheritance. They will “inherit the land” (Ps. 37:22, 29). Jesus quotes Psalm 37:11 when he announces: “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5).
This enduring hope of “inheriting the earth,” a renewal of the creation, is pervasive in the prophetic literature. The prophetic message of hope envisioned a “new heaven and a new earth” (Isa. 65:17). God’s commitment to the land pervades the prophetic hope of Israel.
That same message of hope resonates with disciples of Jesus. While the present is filled with “times of refreshing” from the presence of the Holy Spirit, the future brings a “the time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:20-21). Here are a few representative prophets where land renewal is prominent.
“I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be plucked up out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God. Amos 9:15
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. Isaiah 55:13
And the Lord will be king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and his name one… And it shall be inhabited, for never again shall it be a doomed to destruction. Jerusalem shall abide in security. Zechariah 14:9, 11.
The most stirring text, which New Testament writers echo, is Isaiah 65:17-25.
“For behold, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people, no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for the one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and the one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build houses and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring blessed by the Lord, and their descendants as well. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroyon all my holy mountain,” says the Lord.
The elderly and children are supported rather than abandoned, everyone has appropriate shelter and housing, everyone is employed with meaningful work, everyone has adequate food and drink, children are blessed, creation will live in shalom with itself, and chaos—the serpent—will disappear in the dust. This is accomplished by the work of the Messiah (Isa. 11:1-9).
Heirs of the Promise
Galatians 3 argues the promise was made before the Torah and is, therefore, not conditioned by Torah-obedience. Israel will inherit the land as God promised Abraham, and God is faithful. Paul explicitly states, “it was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise” (Rom. 4:13).
This is a significant point. The Abrahamic promise belongs to the children of Israel. The land is part of the Abrahamic promise. The children of Israel will possess the land; it is their inheritance. It is an unconditioned promise.
But who is Israel? Who are the children of Abraham? Since the “promise comes by faith,” it is “guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring–not only to those who are of the law” (e.g., Torah-obeying ethnic Israel) “but also to those who have the faith of Abraham” (e.g., including the nations). In this sense Abraham is the “father of many nations;” he is the “father of us all” (Rom. 4:16-17). The Gentiles (nations) have been grafted into Israel through faith (Rom. 11:17). Those who belong to Messiah are the children of Abraham and thus “heirs” of the promise (Gal. 3:29). Renewed Israel includes Jews and Gentiles, and together they constitute the “Israel of God” as part of God’s “new creation” (Gal. 6:15-16).
But does this include the land? Yes, it does. Abraham was the “heir of the world” (cosmos), not just the land of Palestine (Rom. 4:13). The inheritance of the children of Abraham is heaven and earth.
We do not obtain this land by violence or by purchase. We receive it by faith in the Messiah and on the ground of the Messiah’s faithfulness. The “faith(fulness) of Jesus” secures the inheritance for Israel, and we participate in it through faith (Gal. 3:22). The Messiah is the heir of the all things, and we are co-heirs with the Messiah through faith (Rom. 8:17).
The creation is our inheritance. We wait, according to Romans 8:18-25, for the full adoption into the family of God when our bodies are redeemed (resurrection) and the creation is liberated (new heaven and new earth). That is our inheritance. John echoes the whole Abrahamic trajectory (Genesis 17:7-8) in Revelation: “Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children” (22:7, emphasis ours).
The Abrahamic promise was first given to ethnic Israel but, by faith and because of the Messiah, it includes the nations as well. Perhaps on the new heaven and new earth the redeemed of ethnic Israel will dwell in Palestine—in the land between the rivers of Egypt and Babylon—but the whole earth will belong to the people of God as they again reign on the earth with God. The kingdom of God will fill the earth!
This accounts for Paul’s pervasive “inheritance” language. He writes about inheriting “the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5). He praises God for the gifting us with the Spirit as a down payment of our inheritance, which will arrive when God has fully redeemed God’s treasured possession (Eph. 1:14). Through faith, Paul writes, we are “qualified to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light” (Col. 1:12).
The fullness of the kingdom of God, which is yet future, is our inheritance. It is the final fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise through which God will make Israel a great nation, a great name, and bless all the nations. That promise, including the whole cosmos, belongs to all those who place their hope in God’s Messiah.
Consequently, the new heaven and new earth (creation renewed) is integral to the plot line of the story of God from creation through Abraham to new creation. The earth is the inheritance of God’s people, and one day the reign of God will fill it from the east to the west, from the north to the south. The whole earth, unlike its present condition, will become “Holy to the Lord” (Zech. 14:20).
Inheriting the (New) Earth
At a climactic moment in the drama of Revelation, “loud voices in heaven” announce (Rev. 11:15):
The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.
This evokes gratitude and worship from those who surround the throne of God. They “give thanks” because the Lord God Almighty has “begun to reign.” This reign involves the judging of the dead, the rewarding of the saints, and—significantly for our purposes—“destroying those who destroy the earth” (Rev. 11:16-18, emphasis ours).
Here “earth” does not refer to people because the Apocalypse habitually refers to the “inhabitants of the earth” for such. This refers to creation. The creator of “heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water” (Rev. 14:7) judges those who destroy the earth God created. This is one reason why creation itself worships the Father and the Son, as “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them” give “blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever” to the Lamb (Rev. 5:13).
When the “destroyers of earth” are judged, the saints are redeemed. When the earth is avenged, the creation rejoices. When the kingdom of God fills the earth, the redeemed “from every tribe and language and people and nation” will become ministering priests and “reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:10).
God’s dramatic story reaches its goal in Revelation 21-22. The climatic picture is wondrous (Rev 21:1-5a).
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. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I herd a loud voice from the throne saying,
“Behold, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 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.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
“New heaven and new earth” echoes the creation story in Genesis 1-3. The echo, however, is no mere restoration of creation. Rather, it is a transformation or transfiguration of the present, old creation into something new.
Though chaos remains in the old creation, chaos will disappear in the new. Darkness—part of the original chaos in Genesis 1:2—will no longer exist in the new creation since “the glory of God is its light” (Rev. 21:23; cf. 22:5). The waters of the deep, representing chaos, were part of the old creation, but in the new there will be no more sea (Rev. 21:1). “The sea is no more” assures chaos no longer exists.[1] The consequences of tragic human choices, described in Genesis 3, no longer exist in the new creation—death, mourning, and pain (Rev. 21:4). Indeed, the curse of Genesis 3 is removed (Rev. 22:3). Chaos no longer poses any threat to creation. The earth will never again suffer from human choices or chaotic forces.
Everything chaos and sin produce in the present, old world—death, mourning, pain—will disappear in the new one. The old world will pass away, everything will be made new, and the new world will emerge as a place where God dwells with humanity. What God has prepared for us in heaven (God’s dwelling place) will descend to the new earth under the new heavens in the new creation. God will again dwell with humanity just as God did in Eden.
But Eden is no longer one place on the earth. Rather, Eden fills the earth. The whole creation, unlike in Eden, is God’s sanctuary, the Holy of Holies. The new city is a perfect cube, just like the Holy of Holies in Israel’s temple. But there is no temple on the new earth because the cosmos itself is the temple of God.
The city in Revelation 21-22 stands in contrast with the great city of Babylon in Revelation 17-18. While the latter is filled with greed and immorality, the former excludes all sinfulness. While the latter has dominated and ruled the earth as “the kingdom of this world” since humanity’s expulsion from Eden, the new Jerusalem will fulfill all the hopes of the prophets and the Abrahamic promise. In the new Jerusalem the nations are healed and blessed, provisions are abundant, and the tree and water of life are in the midst of the new earth forever.
Does God create ex nihilo, out of nothing, like God did in the original creation? Is the old creation annihilated and then a totally different world created? We don’t think so.
God’s promise is: “See, I am making all things new” (Rev. 21:5). The text does not say God will make new things. Rather, God will make all things new. This is restoration, healing, and renewal.
Conclusion
This is a new beginning. It is renewal. It is new creation. It is analogous to new life after the Flood, or a new Exodus when Israel entered the promised land. The new earth is our inheritance, and God invites the redeemed “to inherit these things,” where God will be our God and we will be God’s children (Rev. 21:7). This is our inheritance.
Bullet points
- God unconditionally promised Abraham’s descendants they would inherit the whole cosmos.
- Christians are Abraham’s descendants and therefore heirs of that promise.
- The meek will inherit the earth when everything is made new in the new heaven and new earth.
Questions
- Does the Abraham promise include the land such that Abraham is the “heir of the cosmos?” What does it mean for Christians to recognize they are “heirs” of the Abrahamic promise?
- Are the prophetic hopes of Israel all fulfilled in the present age, or is there a fuller experience of this hope in the age to come?
- What is new about the “new heaven and new earth,” and what does it mean for the “old” to “pass away”?
[1] Jonathan Moo, “The Sea That is No More: Revelation 21.1 and the Function of Sea Imagery in the Apocalypse of John,” Novum Testamentum 51 (2009): 148-67.