Our rest is written about in Revelation 14:13, where John says,
And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “Write, ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them.”
From this verse we may affirm that the souls of all those who die in the Lord (and also, all those who are raptured) will be at rest from all labor and strife of being in an ungodly world and of the sins of the world. But, in contrast (from verse 11), all those who are not believers will have no rest day and night for eternity. Here, in the context, it speaks of those unbelievers during the Tribulation who receive the mark of the beast; but it will be the same for all unbelievers—they all will have no rest, only torment and strife. Therefore, this rest we speak of here (in verse 13) is a serenity of the soul, a peacefulness of a life made perfect in holiness by the blood of our Savior. And it is even that way now when we confess our sins and resolve to obey Him. He lets us rest in Him and we are at peace; thus, for all of eternity in heaven we will have that same rest—and an even greater rest.
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.”
Yes, and we will be living in His house with Christ and the saints forever.
In Revelation 21:2-3, John wrote,
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
This, I think, is the greatest difference on the positive side. Yes, we will have no more evil and sin and pain to deal with, but we will have a marvelous and beautiful home, and wonderful fellowship eternally with the Father and the Son and all the saints.
This future heavenly blessing of dwelling with God is a fulfilment of a promise made to Israel based upon their obedience. In Leviticus 26:11-12 God said to them,
‘Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject you. 12 ‘I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.
Though this promise was originally made exclusively for the Jews, now all non-Jews can reap their spiritual blessings through faith in Jesus Christ, who is of the seed of Abraham and of David.Yes, all who have received entrance into heaven by faith in Jesus Christ will have the pleasure of God’s constant presence. In fact, we will be living in God’s house—His tabernacle. I can think of two passages that refer to this. In John 14:1-2 it says,
Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
Then also in 1Thessalonians 4:17, speaking of the rapture of the church, Paul writes,
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord (bold for emphasis).
In my study I have been examining all the differences from the old earth to the future, new earth (Rev. 21:1). In this blog post we will look at three different views on the meaning of the phrase “there is no longer be any sea” (from Revelation 21:1. Then we will return to each of the three views and consider both the negative and the positive points. I think this will help us to arrive at the true meaning of this phrase, “there is no longer any sea.”
First view, that there will no longer be any water (H20).John MacArthur holds this view. He believes that the new heaven and earth will not have a water-based environment, that our new bodies will no longer need water (H20) to exist, that our glorified bodies and all that grows on the earth will be based on a completely different life principle. And the water referred to in Revelation 22:1 and 17 will not be H20, but heavenly water that will be water of eternal life.
Second view, that there will no longer be oceans and seas.This is probably the most popular view, held by many Christian scientists. It is a belief that the earth will be restored to its original state—that the oceans and seas we have now resulted from the flood, whereas before the flood there was probably only fresh water from rivers and streams. This view of course supposes that the earth will not be destroyed, but will be restored to its original condition.
Third view, that there will no longer be evil.This view may hold some popularity because of the few biblical reference to the word “sea” as symbolizing evil or demonic.
Well, I think all of these views have some positive (or true) points, as well as some negative points. For now, I will hold back my opinion as to which view I think is correct, or the strongest. I think the best way to go at this is to give you both the positive and the negative points on each view (as I see it), then let you ponder it.
The first view, no water.The positive point on this view is that there may be coming something better than water. It is a belief that our new heaven and earth will be made of something better—everlasting and indestructible. It supposes that the water in our bodies and in our plants and in our atmosphere is not now indestructible; hence the new creation of a new life substance. Whatever that substance is, we don’t know, but God knows and it will be glorious. It will be a “water of life” that is not H20, but something better.
On the negative side, there doesn’t seem to be any other Scripture that supports this view, other than the fact that God will make all things new and that He will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life (Rev. 21:4-5), which may not be water as we know it. There is nothing specific in Scripture that says that there will no longer be H20 on the new earth. Also, I think the people that are most opposed to this view are those who now enjoy water sports and all the beautiful plants and flowers that are water-based. They just can’t imagine eternal life without these things. These are the same people who believe that God will bring the earth back to the way it was in the very beginning in the garden of Eden where everything was made up of very pure water.
The second view, no salt-water oceans and seas; just fresh-water rivers and streams.The overwhelming positive side of this is the belief that if this is how the earth was originally (as God made it), then it must be what He will do to make it as He originally intended.
The negative side of this argument is that we don’t have enough biblical evidence just in those few words— “no longer any sea” —to support this view.
The third view, that “sea” is symbolic of evil.I will bring the negative side to this view first. At first glance, we don’t see anything in the wording here to suggest symbolism or that God is not speaking literally.
On the positive side, by examining the word “sea” in some Scriptures we will find that it represents something evil or wicked. Here are a few examples.
Isaiah 57:20
But the wicked are like the tossing sea,
For it cannot be quiet,
And its waters toss up refuse and mud.
Psalm 74:13
You divided the sea by Your strength;
You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.
Revelation 13:1
And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore.
Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names.
I admit, that our argument (that sea is symbolic of evil) from the first two verses is rather weak; but, I think, in Revelation 13:1, it is strong. John MacArthur comments: “The sea represents the abyss or pit, the haunt of demons…The picture is of Satan summoning a powerful demon from the abyss…”9
Also, to further this symbolic argument; the wording, “there is no longer any sea,” is very similar to the wording in verse four, “there will no longer be…” This tells me that there may be a connection in the context between the meaning of “sea” and in the words in verse four— “tears, death, mourning, crying, and pain.” Hence, I think we may see that “sea” not only has the meaning of evil and demons, but also the similar meaning of death, mourning, crying and pain. And so, we see that all these things are the things of the first heaven and earth that will pass away. Hence, when the writer of Revelation says, “and there is no longer any sea,” He could very well be meaning that there will no longer be any evil or anything of the old earth that is connected to the sinful, evil world.
It may seem that I am leaning toward the third view, and that may be true; but I am still open to the other views. We will see.
In the new heaven and earth there will be no more sin and corruption.It will all be gone. And because that is true, as the Psalmist says in Psalm 16:11, our life will be eternally full of joy and pleasures. And we will have nothing to fear from any evil ones; we will dwell securely forever (Psalm 16:9). And all that surrounds us on the earth and in the heavens will be free of any curse. All that we see and touch will be delightful to us. Nothing will ever harm us. Everything will be perfect; perfect weather, perfect air to breath, just the right amount of light we need, and no fear of storms. And I can’t imagine how beautiful God will make it for us. Everything that we think is beautiful now in nature will be much better, much more beautiful. And all that we eat and enjoy now, it will be much better—tastier and more enjoyable. (from Revelation 21:1-5)
Stephen Nielsen 