Kerygmania: Revelation 21:5 "See, I make all things new"

EutychusEutychus Shipmate
edited January 2022 in Limbo
Here is a link to the interlinear text of this verse.

In the premillenial setting I grew up in, I always understood this as meaning that after the eschaton, Jesus would be installing a new one of everything worth while: a (brand) new Heaven, new Earth, etc.

But looking into this passage for a recent sermon I discovered that one gloss of this verse mentioned in Thayer's lexicon is "bring all things into a new and better condition", an idea which is taken up in a couple of more recent French translations I looked at.

Mind officially blown.

Is the prospect of "making all things new", then, not so much one of substitution as one of transformation of what already exists? That led me off into all sorts of thoughts relating to Christ reconciling the world to himself, swallowing up evil, and so on, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the meaning of this verse in particular.

Comments

  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Thank you, @Eutychus, really interesting! I must admit that I’ve always assumed that it meant renewing all creation, sort of putting it back to a ‘pre-fall’ state. But what has now really struck me is that the verse includes heaven as well and that, somehow, I’ve never actually paid any attention to that. How can heaven be remade or transformed, is it not perfect already?! Intriguing!
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    Yes, "reset" a bit like the Matrix is certainly what I had assumed, but I think transformation is a much huger and more exciting concept.

    As to heaven, I suppose there was war in it...
  • Curiosity killedCuriosity killed Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    I've always assumed it means that we, as followers of Christ, are directed to work towards His Kingdom on earth, and working towards that/achieving that is the great commission.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    The first example, for me, is Christ's glorified body after the Resurrection. Still Jesus, but totally of the Kingdom, now past pain, now past even opening doors. :wink:
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Lyda wrote: »
    The first example, for me, is Christ's glorified body after the Resurrection. Still Jesus, but totally of the Kingdom, now past pain, now past even opening doors. :wink:

    Yes, Christ being the first fruits, anticipating when all creation is glorified / transformed after the eschaton?
    I've always assumed it means that we, as followers of Christ, are directed to work towards His Kingdom on earth, and working towards that/achieving that is the great commission.

    Could you unpack this a little, please? Do you see the church (I.e. followers of Christ) as bringing about the new heavens and new earth through their work for the Kingdom and increasingly pushing back the forces of evil (I think it’s the Church Triumphant position)?
  • More or less. I wouldn't describe anything as pushing back the forces of evil, because that description is not one I agree with; I think ascribing sin and "man's inhumanity to man" to an external force is a cop out. Man is quite capable of evil without being influenced by any so called forces of evil.
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Ah, there I totally agree with you, except, and I’m not sure how to express this, I do think the sins that we commit do, sort of, create an atmosphere of evil. Sorry, I’m not explaining it well, I’ll give it some thought and try and think of how I can express it more clearly.
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Here is a link to the interlinear text of this verse.

    In the premillenial setting I grew up in, I always understood this as meaning that after the eschaton, Jesus would be installing a new one of everything worth while: a (brand) new Heaven, new Earth, etc.

    But looking into this passage for a recent sermon I discovered that one gloss of this verse mentioned in Thayer's lexicon is "bring all things into a new and better condition", an idea which is taken up in a couple of more recent French translations I looked at.

    Mind officially blown.

    Is the prospect of "making all things new", then, not so much one of substitution as one of transformation of what already exists? That led me off into all sorts of thoughts relating to Christ reconciling the world to himself, swallowing up evil, and so on, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the meaning of this verse in particular.

    In my cultic decades this was after the Millennium - which is running late! All of reality (i.e. 'the universe') was going to be upgraded, transcended, glorified after all the incorrigible had been annihilated. Same as you I suspect.

    Now? It's a metaphor for the hope of postmortem transcendence. Which would be nice... And an even more strained metaphor for the idea of the incarnation changing everything for one now. Faites vos jeux!
  • Lyda wrote: »
    The first example, for me, is Christ's glorified body after the Resurrection. Still Jesus, but totally of the Kingdom, now past pain, now past even opening doors. :wink:

    David Bentley Hart has a controversial but, IMO, very useful and intriguing article here about the resurrection.
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Mm, very interesting article, but is going to take me several readings to really understand / process!
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    But looking into this passage for a recent sermon I discovered that one gloss of this verse mentioned in Thayer's lexicon is "bring all things into a new and better condition", an idea which is taken up in a couple of more recent French translations I looked at.

    That's the historical teaching of the church illustrated in the phrase 'rest in peace and rise in glory" isn't it? Where Heaven comes down to Earth and the Earth is effectively 'resurrected' (all creation goes through a similar transformative process to Christ at resurrection).
  • Martin54Martin54 Suspended
    Aye, death is the way. Nothing ever comes back. Apart from ineffably after incarnations transcend.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Here is a link to the interlinear text of this verse.

    In the premillenial setting I grew up in, I always understood this as meaning that after the eschaton, Jesus would be installing a new one of everything worth while: a (brand) new Heaven, new Earth, etc.

    Is the prospect of "making all things new", then, not so much one of substitution as one of transformation of what already exists? That led me off into all sorts of thoughts relating to Christ reconciling the world to himself, swallowing up evil, and so on, but I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on the meaning of this verse in particular.

    As someone who grew up in a similar premillennial setting, I would be interested in knowing what your 'current working theology' was prior to reading that particular interpretation of that verse - because I assume in the interim you have been exposed to other forms of eschatology both directly and indirectly (in the works of Lewis, Wright and others).
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited July 2019
    I think growing up I had quite a disembodied understanding of Heaven, and Hell.

    I reckon I first really thought about the idea of transformed embodiment, with a new but recognisable body, in my teens, on a youth camp.

    More ideas on embodiment and transformation followed with a uni friend asserting that Durham cathedral would be in the New Earth since it was clearly one of the things on this earth worth saving.

    I think the next big influence after that was indeed Lewis' The Great Divorce. I don't read much theology at all and I've never read NT Wright.

    The difference rereading that verse made to me was seeing more scope for universal reconciliation and transformation, encompassing the reconciliation and transformation of evil, which in my limited understanding is more of an Orthodox way of looking at things.

    I guess my personal jury is still out on whether Hell a) exists b) is in fact how some experience Heaven (cf. Lewis' dwarfs) c) is utlimately empty, or is more of an antithesis of existence, an absence of anything, than a 'positive'.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    I think the next big influence after that was indeed Lewis' The Great Divorce. I don't read much theology at all and I've never read NT Wright.

    [That is interesting to me for different reasons - my premillennial setting was a very auto-didactic one which I suspect isn't uncommon; and the abiding reaction against that is a strong subscription to the idea that all the Churches teaching across space and time is both necessary and a intended as a blessing to the Church as a whole. I don't read a huge amount of theology any longer - though I listen to some theological stuff and seek it out on occasion.]
    The difference rereading that verse made to me was seeing more scope for universal reconciliation and transformation, encompassing the reconciliation and transformation of evil, which in my limited understanding is more of an Orthodox way of looking at things.

    There are also echoes of that in Colossians (1:15-20) as well as the various imagery used for the new creation in Isaiah.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    It's also in 2 Cor 5:11-21, which is one of my "personal best bits", especially v19.
  • MaryLouiseMaryLouise Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    This thread is illuminating, an aspect I haven't thought about in years: that transformation is brought about through the ministry of reconciliation, 'God reconciling the world to himself in Christ'. (2 Cor 5: 19)
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