Revelation 21  

“Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”  II Peter 3: 13 

Our level of anticipation for heaven grows greater as we get older.  When we think of a place where sin has never entered, where there are no tears, no death, no sorrow, and no pain, our desire to experience such a place deepens.   

There are many ideas afloat about what we will be like there and what heaven will be like.  The Bible speaks much about it, and it is best to be scriptural.  Let’s not be afraid to be literal.  The Bible is a literal book, and what is clearly stated should be received as such.  

John saw a new heaven and a new earth.  Isaiah tells us that the former heaven and earth shall not be remembered (Isaiah 65:17).  The glory of it shall be so much more glorious that the old shall not compare.  

John also saw the holy city coming down out of heaven.  Here is the literal dwelling place of God, the place prepared as a tabernacle where God shall dwell with us forever.  This glorious city comes down into the new heaven and earth.  John describes the size and grandeur of this city.  

There is no specific place of worship, for the entire place is for worship.  The nations which are saved shall be there, yea even the kings, for all are kings and priests to God.  They shall bring the glory of the new earth into it, because the gates of the city shall never close.  The city and the new earth and heavens are one glorious whole.  We err in trying to separate them.  Think of them as a place, for that they are.  

We seem to feel that heaven, to be heaven, must be mystical, vaporous, ethereal.  Believe it to be real.  This shadowland, with all of its darkness and spiritual wickedness, numbs our spiritual senses.  Nothing will be more tangible, nothing more real, than heaven.  Anticipate it.  

~James Baer