4 minute read
New Heavens. New Earth
By Rev. Mark Buetow
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The universe began with the creation of the heavens and the earth. When the Lord makes all things new on the Last Day, there will be a new heavens and new earth. The universe is a physical place. It’s made of matter and energy. The new heavens and the new earth will be physical places. There will be matter and energy, maybe not quite in the way we know now, for there will be no more decay and death, but there will be physical matter nonetheless. This is what we believe when we confess in the Apostles’ Creed: I believe…in the resurrection of the BODY and the life everlasting. An eternal new creation. Not just some ghostly existence where our spirity spirits float around on fluffy clouds. New bodies. Bodies that don’t die, but bodies, nonetheless. Bodies that live in a world that God makes new when He comes again and makes all things new.
Somewhere in the past we got it into our heads that when we die we “go to heaven.” Would it surprise you to learn that the Bible never teaches such a thing? When God made the heavens and the earth, He planted a garden—a paradise in Eden—and there, by His Word and Spirit, put the man and woman He created. Just so, Jesus tells the thief who asks to be remembered that “today you will be with Me in paradise.” When we usually think of “heaven” our minds tend to gravitate to the popular depictions of people in white robes with wings hopping from cloud to cloud carrying harps. Frankly, it’s a vast and dull whiteness that doesn’t really sound exciting at all.
But the Holy Scriptures don’t describe Paradise this way. It’s a city of gold, the New Jerusalem. It’s a river flowing with beautiful trees alongside that give their fruit every month. It’s a paradise filled with the saints who get to see Jesus face to face. What could be better? But that’s the key: There will be a new heavens and a new earth, but its center, its sun, its life is the Lamb of God: Jesus. In fact, it is Jesus Himself who shows us that our everlasting life isn’t just some ghostly boredom but rather a beautiful new physical creation that will last forever.
Consider, first of all, that when the Son of God came to save us, He came as man. He took on a human nature in the womb of Mary. This is the mystery of the incarnation and of Jesus’ life, suffering, and death. The mystery is that the eternal, uncreated Son of God could become man, become one of us, and have a physical body that could grow, hunger, thirst, be pierced, bleed, and even die. To redeem what He created, God came into that very creation.
And the new creation is glimpsed when Jesus is raised from the dead. Jesus was no mere ghost or spirit. He still has His body, but now it’s a resurrected, glorified body. It’s a body that can still show His nail and spear marks and be touched. It’s a body that can walk along the road while He teaches the scriptures to His disciples. It’s a body that can cook up some fish for breakfast and eat with His disciples. So the days that Jesus spends with His disciples after His resurrection and before His ascension teach us, first of all, that when we are raised from the dead, our bodies will be raised. Jesus teaches us furthermore that our eternal life is one in our bodies, that is, a physical existence. It’s no existence stripped of our bodies! Our bodies are gifts. God made them. He’ll raise and remake them at the Last Day, too, so they can live forever with Him.
And notice how the very physical elements of this heaven and earth are used by Jesus to give us the hope of eternal life in the new heavens and new earth by already promising us our own resurrection from the dead. Consider baptism, which has a physical element—water—to which is added God’s Word. And St. Paul says that we who have been baptized have been buried and raised with Christ (Romans 6). Consider also the Lord’s Supper. Bread (made from grain) and wine (from grapes) along with which Jesus gives us His very Body and Blood for the forgiveness of sins. And He says that those who eat His flesh and drink His blood will be raised up on the Last Day (John 6). Consider how the Lord delivers the Word into your physical ears by the physical voice of your preacher, preached from an actual book written by the hands of the apostles and prophets. Physical. Creation. Matter. Energy. Real. Not ephemeral and ghostly and spirity.
And these gifts of Jesus are the connection between our lives in this heaven and earth which are passing away and the new heavens and the new earth which the Lord will make on that Last Day. While this heaven and earth may pass away, the Word of the Lord will never pass away (Luke 21) and therefore you will pass from one to the next because you are surrounded by and given life by that very Word. Think about it. God created everything by speaking His Word. He made you a new creation by His Word. He will raise you from the dead and give you everlasting life, in your body, by His Word. When you die, your earthly body will be laid to rest in the dirt of this creation. But on the Last Day, when this heaven and earth passes away, the Lord will raise you up and give you an immortal body which will live with Him forever in the new heavens and earth.
Matter. Physical stuff. Earth. Flesh. Blood. Bodies. Everlasting life is not an airy “heaven” of floaty spirits drifting in eternal boredom! Everlasting life is the new heavens and the new earth. It’s a paradise at the center of which is the Lord Himself, giving us everlasting life and light and wiping away every tear and keeping us forever and ever from sin and death. This is the life that has already begun for you at the holy font in this creation and will continue on and on forever and ever in the eternity of the new creation. New heavens. New earth. The home of righteousness. Because that’s where Jesus will be.
Rev. Mark Buetow is the associate pastor elect of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in McHenry, Illinois. He also serves as the deputy and media services executive for Higher Things. He can be reached at buetowmt@gmail.com.
