I ONCE HEARD A STORY about a real estate developer who wanted to buy a warehouse. The building had been empty and unused for years, and it was in terrible condition. The walls were covered with graffiti. Vandals had broken the doors, smashed the windows, and strewn trash all around.
The buyer met the owner to tour the property. The owner said, “I apologize for the condition of the warehouse. I plan to fix those doors and windows, and I’m going to put a new coat of paint on the place.”
“Don’t bother,” the buyer said. “I’ll take it exactly as is. I’m only interested in the land. I’m going to demolish the building.”
That’s the way God works, whether He is dealing with an entire universe or a single human soul. When the Lord comes into our lives, He doesn’t come to fix a broken window and slap on a new coat of paint. As Paul tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
And as we look at Revelation 21 and 22, we see that God, the Cosmic Real Estate Developer, is not going to patch up the old heaven and the old earth with Band-Aids and baling wire. He’s going to take a wrecking ball to the universe and start over from scratch. He’s going to destroy the old heaven and earth and replace them with a new heaven and a new earth. In Revelation 21:5, the Lord tells John, “I am making everything new!” This will be the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah:
“See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.” (Isaiah 65:17)
And it will be the fulfillment of the New Testament prophecies of Jesus and the apostle Peter:
[Jesus said,] “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Matthew 24:35)
By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. . . . That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:7, 12–13)
As the book of Revelation moves toward its conclusion in Revelation 21 and 22, we see seven new things come into being as the old order passes away. Those seven new things are:
1. A new heaven;
2. A new earth;
3. A new Holy City, the New Jerusalem;
4. New inhabitants of the city—both Old and New Testament believers;
5. A new paradise, a restored Garden of Eden in the midst of the New Jerusalem;
6. A new Light to illuminate the city; and
7. A new temple. (There will be no temple building in the New Jerusalem; it will be replaced by the new “temple” of the New Jerusalem, which is the living and glorious presence of God the Father and God the Son—Revelation 21:22.)
In these chapters, John gives us a richly detailed picture of the place Jesus is preparing for us right now—the new heaven and the new earth. What will the new heaven and new earth be like? What will eternal life be like in the New Jerusalem? As we fix our eyes on our present and future hope of heaven, we will lose our fear of dying—and gain greater courage and enthusiasm for living.
John’s first glimpse into heaven in Revelation 4 gave us a series of images that were largely symbolic, requiring interpretation. As we turn to Revelation 21, where John describes his vision of the new heaven, the new earth, and the New Jerusalem, we need to apply discernment, because some portions of this chapter are intended to be interpreted symbolically while others are meant literally.
John gives us an interesting detail in Revelation 21:1: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” We should not move past that verse without giving serious thought to the phrase “there was no longer any sea.” I believe this is a literal description of the new earth. The disappearance of the sea will be a radical change in the structure of the earth that will have profound implications for life on earth.
Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously observed, “How inappropriate to call this planet ‘Earth’ when it is quite clearly ‘Ocean.’” Three-quarters of the earth is covered by water; only one-quarter is comprised of land. All life on earth depends on water for survival, and Earth is the only planet we know of where there is sufficient water to sustain life.
Whenever scientists send a robot probe to Mars or some other planet, what is the first thing they look for? Water! They want to know if there might be life there. Water makes life possible—at least, life as we know it. Any planet that has never had water has, by definition, never sustained life.
The fact that the new earth will have no sea is significant. Why? Because when we receive our glorified resurrection bodies, when we become like our resurrected Lord, we won’t need water to survive. The human body is made up of about 60 percent water. The adult human heart and brain are about 73 percent water. Our bodies use water for cell division, digestion, the removal of waste, regulating body temperature, manufacturing hormones and neurotransmitters, and delivering oxygen throughout the body in the bloodstream.1
But our resurrection bodies will be based on a different life principle than the biological principles of this fallen universe. When astronauts walked on the moon, they had to wear their Earth environment around them in the form of the spacesuit—or they would have died. But in our resurrection bodies, we’ll be able to visit the airless moon without spacesuits.
Though I believe we should take John literally when he says “there was no longer any sea,” there is probably a deep symbolic meaning in those words as well. John was exiled on an island in the Aegean Sea, completely surrounded by water. When he stood on the shore and looked out over the sea, he longed to be with his loved ones in Ephesus—but the waters formed an impassable barrier.
For John, the sea meant separation. You and I have loved ones we were once close to, yet we are separated from them by death. In the new heaven and the new earth, there will be no death, no separation. The sea of death that separates us will be gone. We’ll be united with them and with our Lord forever and ever.
Next, the apostle John describes a sight that must have taken his breath away—and once again, I believe John is describing a literal future reality, not a symbol to be interpreted:
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:2–4)
The Holy City, the New Jerusalem, is the capital city of the new heaven and the new earth. I believe John wants us to understand that the New Jerusalem is meant to be interpreted literally. That’s why he later gives us the exact dimensions of this vast city.
John wrote the book of Revelation in about AD 96, about twenty-six years after the Romans under General Titus destroyed the earthly Jerusalem, including the temple. Jesus had told His disciples before the crucifixion that the temple would be destroyed and “not one stone here will be left on another” (Matthew 24:2; Mark 13:2; Luke 21:6). Exactly as Jesus prophesied, the Romans pried apart all the stones of the temple, searching for gold and other loot.
Can you imagine what a shock it was to the Jews to see their Holy City leveled by the Romans? Can you imagine the horror of seeing their magnificent temple burned, dismantled, and removed from the city skyline? Remember the shock America felt after 9/11—then imagine the emotional throes America would have experienced if all of Washington, DC, had been destroyed by a foreign power: the Capitol, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial. Such an event would be burned into our national consciousness for decades. That’s what the destruction of Jerusalem was like for the Jews.
When John wrote about the New Jerusalem, the old Jerusalem had been gone for more than a quarter century, yet the collective wound was still fresh. John was saying, in effect, “I know that after all these years, you are still in shock over the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. But don’t worry about the earthly Jerusalem. I have seen the New Jerusalem—and it is going to be amazing. When you reach the New Jerusalem, you won’t believe your eyes.”
I love the current city of Jerusalem. I have visited there a number of times. I have friends there, and it is a beautiful city. There’s no other city in the world with a richer history then the Holy City where David and Solomon reigned, and where Jesus the Messiah walked, taught, was hailed as King, was crucified and resurrected. Yet it is precisely because Jerusalem is a sacred city to the world’s three largest religions that the city is racked with pain, rage, and suffering.
When God creates the new heaven and the new earth, the New Jerusalem will descend out of heaven like “a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). Why will the New Jerusalem be so stunningly adorned? Because that city will be home to the bride of Christ, the true church of all believers. Those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, who have received Him as Savior and Lord, are the bride of Christ. We will live in the New Jerusalem. We will all be invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.
The New Jerusalem comes out of heaven. God speaks from the throne, the fixed center of the universe, and He announces that His dwelling place is now among the people. He will wipe away all their tears, and death will be no more.
If there is a burden on your heart, if there is sadness and regret, if there are tears in your eyes as you read these words, I have wonderful news for you: Jesus Himself is going to touch your eyes and wipe away your tears and take away your sorrow. There will be no hurt, no fear, no loss, no separation, and no regret in heaven. Satan will not be able to harm us or harass us there—he will be less than a memory.
In the midst of the vision of the New Jerusalem, the Lord speaks directly to John and gives him a message for all who read the book of Revelation: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children” (Revelation 21:6–7). Jesus wants everyone reading this book to have one more opportunity to receive Him as Lord and Savior.
Jesus goes on to tell John that “the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars” will be condemned to the lake of fire, the second death (Revelation 21:8).2 This doesn’t mean that if you have committed some of these sins in the past, then you are beyond salvation. Jesus is saying that all those who continue in these sins, those who reject Jesus and refuse to repent and turn to Him for salvation have doomed themselves to eternal separation from God.
When Jesus speaks of “the cowardly, the unbelieving,” He is talking about those who respond to persecution by worshipping Caesar and denying the Lord Jesus. This does not mean that a person who collapses in fear and denies Christ is beyond salvation. After all, the apostle Peter did exactly that, denying Christ three times before the crucifixion. But sinners must come to Christ and confess their sin, repent of it, and seek forgiveness.
Those who will not repent of their sin have no place in the eternal City of God. Their place, Jesus says, is in the lake of fire. If the book of Revelation teaches anything, it’s that the choices we make today will determine our future. Our eternal destiny will be one place or the other. We will either be in heaven with Jesus—or in hell with Satan. There is no third alternative. Reward or judgment? We must choose.
I know how unpopular the teaching of God’s judgment is today. Many ministers either avoid this subject or deny the existence of hell. There are many churches that deny the biblical doctrine of hell—the Unitarian Universalists, Christian Scientists, the assorted New Age cults, and yes, increasing numbers of Protestant churches. They preach a message that says, “It doesn’t matter what you do with Jesus. God is nonjudgmental. He accepts everybody.”
But if God does not judge sin and disobedience, then why did Jesus have to die?
Many times over the years I have pointed out that Jesus spoke more about hell than He spoke about heaven. And I stand by that statement.
But in recent years some people have disputed that statement. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, they would have us believe that Jesus hardly ever mentioned eternal judgment. They say that when Jesus talked about the fires of “Gehenna” (which translates as “hell” in our English Bibles3), He was referring to a trash dump outside of Jerusalem, not a place of eternal punishment.
They have rationalized the story Jesus told about Lazarus, the beggar who was in paradise with Abraham while the rich man suffered in Hades. They claim that Jesus was just making a point about helping the needy. He didn’t really intend for us to believe in a literal hell. Even though the Lord’s teaching on hell could not be any clearer, many false teachers are twisting themselves into pretzels to avoid what God’s Word plainly says.
The Bible teaches that every soul was formed in the womb to live for eternity. Every soul is immortal, but not every immortal soul will live forever in heaven. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis lays out the logic of hell. He explains it in the terminology of a Cambridge scholar, so to make his meaning clear, I will paraphrase his words and give you the gist of his thinking.
Lewis says, in effect, “I would give anything to be able to truthfully say, ‘Everyone will be saved.’ But my reason replies, ‘Should God save people against their will?’ The doctrine of hell is one of the main reasons non-Christians attack Christianity as ‘barbarous,’ and one of the main reasons they question the goodness of God. The opponents of Christianity say that belief in hell is a detestable doctrine. In fact, I detest the notion of hell myself—I hate it from the depths of my being. The problem with the doctrine of hell is not simply that God would send people to their final and eternal destruction. The problem is more difficult to understand than that: the doctrine of hell says that God is so loving and merciful that He actually became a man and submitted Himself to death by torture to save us from eternal ruin—yet, when we refuse to accept the gift of salvation, God permits us to choose hell of our own free will, and He won’t lift a finger to stop us from destroying ourselves.”
That’s the Youssef paraphrase of C. S. Lewis. In his original quotation, Lewis concludes: “Here is the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is hell.”4 Lewis is absolutely right. The real question is not whether the doctrine of hell is detestable. Of course it’s detestable. The notion of hell chills us to the marrow. Yet we still must answer the question, “Is it true?”
I believe that the assault on the doctrine of hell in our times is part of the satanic strategy of preparing the world for the coming of the Antichrist. Before the Antichrist (with a capital A) is revealed, the world will be overrun with antichrists (with a small a). These antichrists, these false teachers, will infiltrate the church and occupy pulpits and church leadership positions. They will write best-selling books that will be published by Christian publishers. Those books will be sold in Christian bookstores.
As the teaching of the doctrine of hell becomes increasingly unpopular, many genuine believers avoid teaching on the subject. They still believe the Bible, but they are too timid to stand up and defend biblical truth. They don’t want to be attacked; they don’t want to be criticized; they don’t want members of their congregations getting upset and leaving the church. They won’t deny the truth about hell—they just won’t talk about it.
I once had a conversation with a preacher who said to me, “The reason I don’t talk about hell is because it offends so many people in my congregation. To avoid conflict, I just avoid the subject of hell altogether and keep my messages positive.”
I thought, Don’t you think I want to avoid it too? I don’t enjoy conflict. I don’t enjoy being criticized. But I didn’t enter the ministry to become a motivational speaker. I entered the ministry to preach the full Word of God, from cover to cover, leaving nothing out. If I “offend” a member of my congregation out of hell and into heaven, then I have fulfilled my mission.
Some people say, “The gospel is good news. How can hell be good news?” Well, the answer is obvious. It makes no sense to say we are saved unless we make it clear what we are saved from. We are saved from hell—and we are saved to heaven. That’s the essence of the good news. Unless we speak clearly and accurately about eternal judgment, unless we make it clear what salvation is all about, we are wasting our time building churches and preaching sermons.
The Bible is clear: the wages of sin is death—eternal death (Romans 6:23). So what is eternal death? It is separation from God in hell forever and ever. That’s bad news—but there is good news, the greatest news in the history of the human race. While every one of us deserves hell, God in His mercy offers us eternal life as a free gift.
You may think, Michael Youssef is teaching Christianity 101. This is elementary. It may be elementary to you, but there are many false teachers who are denying these simple truths—and many believers are falling for it. So I want to make sure you know that not only is heaven for real, but hell is for real as well. God is holy and just. And God is love. If you reject His love, demonstrated on the cross, then you will be judged by God’s holiness—and you will receive God’s judgment.
A neighbor of mine teaches a class for young professionals in a mainline denomination church. He recently told me, “We’ve been talking about the doctrine of hell in our class. And every person in the class agrees that God is too loving to condemn anyone to hell.” Then he waited for me to respond. I’m sure he thought I was going to argue with him.
His jaw dropped when I said, “I completely agree.”
He said, “Say that again?”
“I said I agree—God is too loving to condemn anyone to hell. That’s why God sent Jesus to die on the cross and save us from hell. He’s not willing that any should perish. But people possess the awesome, frightening power of free will. If they willfully reject the gift of salvation, they will condemn themselves to hell.”
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, is one of my heroes. He used to tell his cadets, when they came to be trained as officers in the Salvation Army, “If I had my choice, I would cancel these classes and I would send each of you to hell for just a few minutes. You would come back as great soul winners.”5
Hell is not a metaphor or a symbol. Hell is a place. And I’m certain that everyone who ends up there will have to admit, “God is just. He did not deal unfairly with me. I got here by my own choice. I got what I deserved.”
Jesus tells John that those who reject His offer of salvation will suffer “the second death.” But this warning of hell is coupled with an invitation to heaven and everlasting life: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children” (Revelation 21:6–7).
Next, an angel says to John, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:9). Then the angel takes John to a mountaintop to see the New Jerusalem. From Revelation 21:10 to 22:6, the angel takes John on a magnificent guided tour of the New Jerusalem.
The city is brilliantly lit from within by the glory of God. It gleams like a sparkling jewel, as clear as crystal. It has twelve gates, symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel, and it has twelve foundations, representing the twelve apostles. The city is built on the foundation of apostolic teaching, and its structure consists of the Old Testament prophecies.
The angel gave John the measurements of the city. It is a cube measuring 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height. Translating “stadia” into a more familiar system of measurements, we find that the city is going to be—are you ready for this?—1,400 miles long by 1,400 miles wide by 1,400 miles high. That means that each dimension of the New Jerusalem is equivalent to the distance from Atlanta to Denver, or from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
The volume of the New Jerusalem is going to be more than 2.7 billion cubic miles. No wonder Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2 KJV). A beautiful, brilliant crystalline cube measuring 1,400 miles on each side contains more than enough room for a few billion mansions.
The imagery John uses is indescribably beautiful. If you let your mind’s eye picture a vast crystalline structure glittering in colors of jasper, agate, sapphire, emerald, onyx, ruby, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, turquoise, jacinth, amethyst, and pure gold, you are just beginning to grasp the breathtaking beauty of the New Jerusalem. Does the new Holy City have a temple like the old Jerusalem? John writes:
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. (Revelation 21:22–23)
In the Old Testament, Moses built a tabernacle to symbolize God’s presence with Israel. Later, Solomon built the first temple in all its magnificent glory—and it, too, was a symbol of God’s presence with His people. The first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC. The second temple was built in about 516 BC. And orthodox Jews believe a third temple will someday be built on the Temple Mount.
All of these temples are symbols of God’s presence, but a symbol is not the reality. When the reality comes, when God is truly and visibly present with His people, we will have no need of symbols. That’s why the New Jerusalem has no temple. God Himself, and the Lord Jesus Christ, will be present among us in the new Holy City.
There will be no streetlights in the City, nor will the City need the sun and moon. God Himself will be the Light of the New Jerusalem.
In Revelation 22, John describes the river of life “as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city” (vv. 1–2). The wellspring of this river is God Himself. The river of life flows endlessly, symbolizing the perpetual flow of blessings from the Lord.
When I was a boy, we used to sing a song written by the nineteenth-century hymn writer Robert Lowry, who wrote many beloved songs, including “He Arose” and “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.” The hymn I recall is based on this scene in Revelation 22, and the chorus of the hymn may be familiar to you:
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, the beautiful river;
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God.6
That river of life flows from the throne, and believers will gather around the throne and around the river. They will worship the Lord, and there will be no night in that city because Jesus Himself is the Light. And the river of life will be a fountain of continual blessing and eternal life.
The book of Revelation is intimately connected with the book of Genesis in many ways. Here we see another connection. In the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam and Eve, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17). Satan deceived Adam and Eve; they ate from the tree and discovered the knowledge of sin. In so doing, they fell from their innocent state. By disobeying God, they received the penalty of death. And the human race has been under a spiritual and physical death penalty ever since.
Our span of life on this earth is limited, and each of us has a God-appointed expiration date. I have nonbelieving friends who see me work out in the gym, and they kid me and say, “I thought you were eager to go to heaven! But here you are, trying to prolong your life by staying healthy!”
I tell them, “I’m not trying to prolong my life. We all have a God-appointed time to die. All the exercise in the world won’t extend my lifespan by an extra minute beyond what God has decreed. But as long as I am in this body, serving the Lord, I want to give Him my all. And that means I need to stay as healthy as I can for as long as I can.”
No one lives forever in this fallen world, but in the New Jerusalem, there will be no sickness, no curse, and no death. This will be the new Paradise, the restored Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life (Genesis 3:22–24). But we will gather around the tree of life, which John says bears “twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). And we will enjoy the Edenic paradise that Adam and Eve lost.
John also tells us that we, God’s servants, will serve Him in the new heaven. We will have important work to do—meaningful, exciting, challenging work. As servants of the Lord, we may find that our work takes us to other worlds and distant galaxies. We can’t imagine all the plans God is working on in all the distant reaches of His universe. And John says that we will reign with God “for ever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
If you have never before looked forward to heaven with eager anticipation, I hope you are beginning to catch the excitement of heaven right now. I hope you will begin each day thinking about heaven. And I hope that as you go to bed each night, your last waking thoughts will be prayers of gratitude for the wonderful gift of heaven.
Do we truly understand the destiny that is ours as God’s redeemed people? If we did, we wouldn’t become so easily upset by the problems we face each day. Our earthly trials are not worthy to be compared to the glorious home our Lord is preparing for us (Romans 8:18). The best way to face all of our earthly trials—including the ultimate trial, death itself—is to view all of life through the lens of our true home in heaven.