I suppose, when we arrive in heaven in our new bodies, the first thing we will notice with great joy and thankfulness is that everything is new and different. All the old things of the flesh and of the old world will be gone—or will we even give it a thought? There will be no more sadness, only joy. There will be no more death, only life. There will be no more mourning, only joy and rejoicing. There will be no more crying, only laughing and praising God. There will be no more pain, only peace and pleasure.

I think it will be worthwhile to go through all of these five points (from Revelation 21:4) and try to get a better grasp of the changes.

No more sadness. All through one’s life there is always some degree of sadness. Some people seem to be sad all the time for one thing or another. Others appear to be happy most of the time; but perhaps they have found ways to hide their deep-down sadness. Nonetheless, when we see Jesus and we are instantly made like Him, all our tears will disappear. He will wipe them all away. And then we will say with Paul, “He has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57). And we will know that He has accomplished it by His own suffering and death on the cross. As the prophet Isaiah has written, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore. And our sorrows He carried…and by His scourging we are healed” (Isa. 53:4-5).

No more death. The impending death of a loved one and news of our own death is always grievous. We can do nothing about it. We may delay it for a while, but soon it will come. But Christ has abolished that enemy forever. By His death and resurrection, He has established victory over death—for Himself and for all who believe in Him. Now we may say with Paul, “Death is swallowed up in victory. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YUR STING” (1 Cor. 15:54-55)?

This victory will be absolutely confirmed for us in heaven. We will forever not feel the doom or the pain of it. It is no more.

No more mourning. Mourning is a deep-down brokenness over our own sin and failure. Because we are all sinners, we all go through mourning. But mourning is particularly prevalent with those that want to be closer to God, with those who regularly humble themselves when

they feel pride creeping up in themselves. Hence, in their obedient humility they will be miserable and mourn over their sin (Ja. 4:8-9).

Though mourning is something we ought to do now because of our condition, in heaven we won’t have to mourn since we will have no sin. In fact, the absence of mourning will be a constant reminder that God has removed our sins from us, having forever cleansed us of all sin and put us on the wonderful path of light and joy forever.

No more crying. Crying is not necessarily bad for us. It is a very natural way a baby expresses his or her needs when feeling hungry, tired or feeling discomfort—since they can’t communicate any other way. For an adult, it isn’t a matter of communication, but more of an outlet of strong emotions in times of sadness or feelings of rejection or pain—but sometimes even of happiness.

I don’t know if there will be absolutely no crying in heaven. We may cry out of extreme happiness or thankfulness to God. But never out of sadness or pain or discomfort. All that will be gone. Christ will have taken care of that on the cross. It will have all been paid for. We will be free from it all. All our emotions then will be only of joy, and laughter, etc.

No more pain. Certainly, Christ bore much pain on the cross for us. He bore all the pain in payment for our sins. We still have pain now since we still sin. But when we see Jesus and He turns our body into glory, our pain will vanish. Where sin is present there is pain. But when sin goes away, so does pain. It will be forever gone.

These are the five things that are listed in Revelation 21:4 as being “no longer.” But I wonder if maybe there are other things that would be included. Yes, I’m sure that in addition to these five things that are at the top of the list, there are many things that are from the flesh, from sin, and from the devil that will be no more. And we won’t ever have to worry about them popping up into our minds ever again; for as the prophet Isaiah has written (in Isaiah 65:17), “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.”