Chapter Twelve

The New Heaven and The New Earth

The subject of our final chapter, the heavenly city and our eternal future happiness there, is such a tremendous, subject and such a wonderful, almost unimaginable “happy ending” that the final chapters of the Bible are also devoted entirely to it. Revelation chapters 21 and 22’s description of heaven is this grand finale of the Bible, the thunderous climax of the symphony of God, and reveals a place of resplendent beauty beyond the imagination of man.
The most stupendous things that you never even dreamed of are already in existence in that way-out home of the children of God—that heavenly city whose builder and maker is God. Even John’s description in Revelation couldn’t possibly do it justice. It is such a beautiful place that you can hardly even imagine it.
The more I think about heaven, the more thrilled I am and the more excited I get about what the Lord has prepared for us there. “As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God” (1 Corinthians 2:9–10).
They say that anticipation is 50 percent of enjoyment, so why not enjoy half of heaven now? We’re halfway to heaven here in spirit, and we can get half of the enjoyment ahead of time just by thinking about it, praising the Lord for it, thanking the Lord for it, reading about it, and anticipating it. We can have 50 percent of our enjoyment right now just by looking forward to it. After all, that’s where we’re going to spend eternity, so it’s a pretty important place, don’t you think? It’s our eternal home, the place that Jesus has gone to prepare for us forever, so we certainly ought to be interested in it.
In fact, all God’s children of faith since the beginning of time have been looking for “a city which hath foundations”—eternal foundations—“whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10). They were not satisfied with being citizens of this world, with its earthly, flesh-and-blood kingdoms of natural men and evil spirits. But rather they looked for a country made by God, a heavenly country, a heavenly city, built by the Lord.
For these all “confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city” (Hebrews 11:13–16).
God as good as says He’s proud of His pilgrims who know that this world is not their home and are just passing through, trying to get a job done for Jesus on the way. “For He hath prepared for them a city.” He’s got a city for you and me where we’re not going to need any passports or visas or even money. It’s your town, your hometown in heaven, and they’re all going to be your people.
So if you’re still looking for the perfect city and the perfect government in the perfect country with perfect people, just wait a little longer—it’s coming. Jesus promised, “In My Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:2–3).
That’s the only country where we really belong—the kingdom of God, the heavenly city. We seek a better country, the kingdom of heaven. That’s our nationality, our citizenship, our country—a country that has never persecuted the poor or oppressed the weak or destroyed the minorities of the world; a country that has never lost a battle and never fought a war for the wrong reasons.
We are citizens of the only righteous nation in the universe, the kingdom of Jesus Christ. We, in effect, renounced our citizenship in this world when we received the King of kings and the Prince of Peace, Lord of lords, God of heaven, Son of Righteousness and His kingdom into our hearts.
Heaven is a great place to look forward to, and I hope you will get thrilled and excited about it, as it will help you to bear some of the burdens and trials that you’re going through now when you realize the wonderful things that God has in store for you. “For the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
When you think about heaven, it helps you to bear some of the things you have to go through now. This is one reason that Moses could do it, because he had “respect unto the recompence of the reward, as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:26–27). He looked past all the troubles he had in Egypt and all the problems, and he saw the Lord and His reward in the future. He could put up with the present by foreseeing the future, thank the Lord! Seeing heaven helped him endure all that he had to go through here on earth.
“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.” He could have been pharaoh, the king of Egypt. “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward” (Hebrews 11:24–26).
He esteemed the reproach of Christ greater than all the riches of Egypt, the most powerful nation on earth, the richest nation in the world in that day, of which he could have had the most powerful position as its king. He looked beyond this earthly veil, this earthly level, and looked for an eternal heavenly city whose builder and maker is God.
All of those wonderful Bible heroes who are memorialized in God’s hall of fame in the 11th chapter of Hebrews considered themselves pilgrims and strangers here because they all looked for that heavenly city which hath foundations, the one country that really belonged to them and that they belonged to. They were able to endure all kinds of tribulation on this earth, and suffering and hard work and even torture and death, because they looked forward to that city, “a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
So it pays to think about heaven and talk about heaven and try to visualize heaven and what you have to look forward to—knowing that the suffering of this present time is nothing compared to the glories that we are going to share in the near future. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18). Hallelujah!
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Colossians 3:1–2; Hebrews 13:14).—The heavenly city, which will come down from God out of heaven and dwell with men. This is the hope of all ages: That now-unseen eternal world where we shall dwell with Him forever. That’s what we’re all looking forward to. Not pie in the sky, but heaven on earth! A new heaven and a new earth with its eternal city.
So as you read the following description of heaven and our wonderful future there, pray and ask the Lord, as did David of old: “Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law” (Psalm 119:18). Paul the Apostle, when writing to some of his followers about heavenly things, told them that he prayed continually “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:16–18). Ask Him to open your eyes and thrill your heart as you read about the wonders He has in store for you.
This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through.
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s golden shore
And I can’t feel at home in this world any more.

Remember, only the saved will be allowed to walk in the city. “And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it.” The only ones who can enter it are those “written in the Lamb’s book of life.” But it also says that “the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.” So it’s clear that there will be whole “nations” outside the heavenly city of the saved, whose “kings” will pay their respects to the city. Although these “unsaved” nations, peoples, and kings will not be allowed to live inside the holy city, New Jerusalem, they will be allowed upon the recreated surface of the beautiful new earth. They will have been resurrected and been to the Great White Throne Judgment of God, and each one’s judgment will have been decided, where he should go.
Apparently, although these folks were not saved in this life and thus will not be allowed entrance and citizenship to the great heavenly city, they will have either been entirely spared from or even released from the Lake of Fire, the place of severe punishment, and will be allowed to live on the surface of the earth outside the holy city, where His saints will rule over them. Speaking of the inhabitants of the holy city, it says, “And they shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).
So the new earth will apparently be populated by both those who were judged at the Great White Throne Judgment and were not considered bad enough to go to hell but were not saved enough through Jesus to go to heaven, and those who actually did go to hell, to the Lake of Fire, but who learned their lessons there, served their sentence and were then mercifully released, having finally come to the light and repented and reached some sort of reconciliation with God.
Since none of them were a part of the First Resurrection—the salvation of the first saints of God, the saved of this age of grace—but were all a part of the Second Resurrection, they will be in a separate class from us and will be permitted only to live on the surface of the new earth outside the heavenly city, while we will occupy the city itself. But to be able to enjoy the surface of the new earth, a genuine heaven on earth, will be a heaven in itself, salvation in itself, so they will certainly be thankful.
It will be paradise compared with hell and its prisons and its Lake of Fire and its torments, so that they will come, in a sense, to their final reward, depending on the degree of their sin, the degree of their punishment, the degree of their repentance, the degree of their reformation, you might say, or regeneration or reconciliation—but never within the holy city, only outside.
Even then, God’s going to continue to have mercy. He’s going to send His saints out of those twelve pearly gates of that holy city with the leaves of the tree of life for the healing of the nations. If that’s not a literal tree or literal leaves, it certainly is a marvelous figurative picture of the fact that we will be taking life from the city, some healing power or healing methods, to those outside who apparently still need some kind of healing. Maybe it is spiritual healing, maybe it’s mental healing, maybe it’s just simply to get them better prepared to know God and worship Him and love Him and serve Him in the outside.
It will definitely be another one of God’s ages or stages, one of His eras in which things are all going to be settled and made right and purified. The nations of the earth are going to be healed of all their diseases and sins and rebellions, and everything is going to be made perfect in a complete, eternal, universal reconciliation of all things to God Himself, both His natural creation and also man, all men who have ever lived on the face of the earth. It’s thrilling to think that we will still be engaged in the thrilling, soul-satisfying process of the redemption of man, of all men everywhere, the whole world for whom Jesus died. God’s Word says that He died for all men, “that all men might be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4).—Even those who don’t receive Him now, but who will believe and receive Him later.
So we will still have a job to do even in that heavenly city on the new earth and new heaven. Outside there will be all kinds of people who will still need the Lord’s healing and our help. That idea of us floating around on clouds, fiddling with harps and doing nothing, that’s the imagination of some cartoonist who has no idea of what it’s really going to be like!
It says we shall “reign for ever and ever” (Revelation 22:5). No matter how powerful and supernatural you are, ruling and reigning and governing is still a form of work. Even the angels are called “ministering spirits” (Hebrews 1:14), which means “serving” spirits. So if even the angels are ministering spirits, surely we’ll be ministering and helping others too.
You’re going to have lots of work to do in the afterlife, but it’s going to be a lot easier, thank the Lord. There’ll be no sorrow, no sickness, no pain, no weariness, no death, no more tears, and no more crying. That’s certainly going to make things easier.
But let’s hope that even in the new earth, there will someday come an end to the healing of the nations with the leaves from the tree of life.— So that all suffering and all punishment and all hell on earth will eventually end; so that all men everywhere, all the billions who ever lived, will finally be restored and reconciled and in a sense, saved, and live either with the elect, the elite, within the city, or else outside the city on the new earth, in varying stages and conditions and levels of either forgiveness or shame and contempt or whatever.
Not willing that any should perish
It sounds like a monumental, colossal task, that God is finally going to save everybody, or at least reconcile everybody, and restore everybody to some form of bearable existence on the earth. There are scriptures indicating that the time will come when everybody will believe, everyone will repent, every knee will bow, everyone will worship the Lord, every man will know Him, everyone will be corrected and virtually everyone will change.
What more could God do to show His almighty power and the fact that He never fails than to reclaim and regenerate and reconcile and reconstitute His entire creation, including everybody He has ever created? What greater thing could God do to prove that He never fails and love never fails than to finally “save” everybody? It won’t all be the same kind of salvation, but if He wants to, in a sense, He can save everybody and change everybody and restore everybody.
I am convinced that He still wants to teach and train and show everyone His love, and help them to receive it and get used to it and adapt themselves to it and His kingdom and His way of doing things and thus completely restore His whole kingdom and His whole creation, so that it will be one great grand victory in the end. So that nothing will be lost, nothing will be destroyed that was good, and He salvaged everything He possibly could.
The day is coming when, “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11). The Bible even says that He is “the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe” (1 Timothy 4:10). For “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Who will have all men to be saved” (2 Peter 3:9; 1 Timothy 2:4).
The Bible says there’s no end to His mercy. His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will He keep His anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 103:8–14).
It will be a better world then with better people who will have learned their lessons of the Law of the Love of God and will be happier than ever before, because at last they will be purged and purified of their sins of rebellion against Him and healed by the leaves of the trees of life, which His saints shall minister to them from where they grow by the river of life within the city.
There will be nothing but righteousness then— no more evil, no more wicked, no more wickedness, no more disobedience. All men everywhere will worship Him, all men everywhere will know Him, all nations shall fall down before Him and serve Him, and the whole earth will be restored.
“That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him. That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 1:10, 2:7).
And when that’s all done, who knows what God will have in store for us? Who knows but what the Lord may want us to colonize other worlds. What’s the whole universe and all this huge amount of space for if He’s only interested in this one little planet? So maybe there will be other worlds that we will have to salvage and save and restore and regenerate, reconcile and teach and train and heal. Maybe God didn’t go that far in His Word because we don’t have to know that far. He went far enough even to tell us this much, as much as He has.
Heaven is not the end. It’s only the beginning.
Are you ready for it? Have you got your reservation in? Are you going to be able to walk in that city? It says, “Only the saved shall walk therein” (Revelation 21:24).
Admission to this great heavenly city is free— already paid for by the blood of Jesus on the cross. All you have to do is receive Jesus as your Savior. Take Him now. Have your name put in the Lamb’s Book of Life in heaven so you’ll be sure you’ve got your reservation confirmed for one of those dwelling places in God’s golden city. That’s the place you’ll be happy forever with Jesus. If you love and receive and live for Him now, you can enjoy Him and heaven forever.
“And the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). God bless you with His wonderful gift of eternal salvation and a truly heavenly future to look forward to.