Last week,
John Farmer covered the doctrine of judgment. This week, we will finish our
series on church doctrine by discussing the doctrine of the “New Heavens and New
Earth.” We will examine the Scriptures
to see what the Lord has to say about the New Heavens and the New Earth and more
specifically the New Jerusalem.
What is
heaven? Heaven is a place, not just a
state of mind. Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Our Father who art in heaven.” Luke
records in his gospel:
“When he had led them out to the vicinity of
Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them,
he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned
to Jerusalem with great joy.” --Luke
24:50-52
Luke begins the book of Acts of the Apostles at the same point where he ended the Gospel of Luke. Acts 1:6-11 records the following:
So when
they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore
the kingdom to Israel?”
He said
to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by
his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on
you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
After he
said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from
their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as
he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of
Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same
Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way
you have seen him go into heaven.”—Acts 1:6-11
That is
our blessed hope: that the Lord will come back to us in the sky in the same way
that the apostles had seen Him leave. The heaven to which we refer is the same
as the heaven to which the disciples had seen Him leave in Acts. However, there
is going to be a new heaven and a new earth that will be different than this
one.
The Lord, speaking
through the prophet Isaiah, says, “Behold,
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
The Lord says again in
Isaiah 66:22: “As the new heavens and the
new earth that I make will endure before me,” declares the LORD, “so will your
name and descendants endure.”
Another passage about the new heaven and
earth is II Peter 3:10-13.
But the day of the Lord
will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the
elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will
be burned up.
Since all
these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to
be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the
day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the
elements will melt with intense heat! But
according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in
which righteousness dwells.
Theological scholars have
two schools of thought regarding this passage of Scripture. The first, adopted
by the Reformed scholars, emphasize the verses that say that the present
heavens will be renewed. This first
group doesn’t believe that God would totally destroy the heavens and the earth
and start all over again since Genesis 1:31 records that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” They believe that the passage in II Peter 3:10
refers to the surface of the earth being destroyed, not the entire planet.
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which
the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with
intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.”—II Peter 3:10
The second school of
thought, adopted by the Lutheran Scholars, emphasize the verses that say that
there will be an entirely new heaven and a new earth. “But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new
earth, in which righteousness dwells.”-- II Peter 3:13
They cite John’s recording of the Lord’s
words in Revelation 21:1-5 as the basis of their belief:
“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. 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, “Now the dwelling of God is with
men, and he will live 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.”
He who
was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said,
“Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”—Revelation 21:1-5
Both groups of scholars
have merit in their beliefs and teachings because of the scripture references
that they emphasize. One thing to note here is that they both could be true
based on the time period that the events take place. That is, the heavens may disappear as we now
know them and may be destroyed by fire and intense heat and the earth could be
laid bare. The Lord could come down from
heaven and set up His kingdom on this earth for 1000 years and then release
Satan and allow him to deceive the nations one last time. After this we know that the Lord will destroy
Satan and all those whom Satan had succeeded in deceiving. Finally comes the judgment
which we heard about last week.
For all whose names are
not found written in the book of life, the judgment will involve punishment. They will be sentenced to serve that punishment
in the lake of fire for all eternity.
Those whose names are written in the book of life are the Church, the
Bride of Christ.
Then one
of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came
and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the
Lamb.”
And he
carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the
holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of
God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear
jasper. It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates
twelve angels; and names were
written on them, which are the names
of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north
and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the
city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The one
who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates
and its wall. The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as
the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its
length and width and height are equal. And he measured its wall, seventy-two
yards, according to human
measurements, which are also
angelic measurements. The
material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The
foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone.
The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third,
chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the
seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth,
chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates
were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of
the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
I saw no
temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And
the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of
God has illumined it, and its lamp is
the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will
bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there)
its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of
the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination
and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in
the Lamb’s book of life. —Revelation 21:9-27
As these verses
explain, the New Jerusalem is going to be beautiful because God has chosen it to
be His home place and Jesus has prepared a place there for us. Jesus said in John
14:2-3 “In My Father’s house are many
dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare
a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you to Myself, that where I am, there
you may be also.”
Coming back to Revelation
21:21: And the twelve gates were twelve
pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city
was pure gold, like transparent glass.
I
will not attempt to describe how beautiful the new heavens and the new earth
heaven and the new Jerusalem are going to be, because I fall so very short in
even being able to describe how beautiful the old ones are. However, I do want to attempt to describe how
big the New Jerusalem where we will live for all eternity since the Bible gives
a dimension of the base of the city and its height.
First,
how large is the city? Our understanding of its dimensions varies slightly
depending on the version of the Bible that you use as a reference. The ESV and
NIV versions say it is 12,000 stadia in length and width (Rev. 21:16). A stadia is 607 feet, which translates to
1,400 miles, (which is what the NLT Bible says). However, the KJV and the NASB
and some other versions say 12,000 furlongs, which translates to 1,500 miles.
Regardless
of whether the city is 1,400 miles or 1,500 miles in length and width, it is
shaped like a square at the base. This means New Jerusalem is larger than India
(1,269,219.3 sq mi) with the New
Jerusalem being 1.96 million square miles or 2.25 million square miles. Although
there is some disagreement regarding how the measurements are described, these
measurements are meant to be literal since they are described as man's
measurements which are also angelic measurements (Rev. 21:17).
To
give you a better idea just how big the New Jerusalem is, here are some
representations of what it would look like on the present Earth if the city is
shaped like a cube. The first picture
shows the New Jerusalem centered over the present-day Jerusalem:
However,
if you have never been to the region of the present Jerusalem and seen how
small it is compared to the world, this picture might not mean much to you. So
here is how it would look if the New Jerusalem were to come down and sit in
North America. As you can see it covers
over half of the United States and a huge portion of Canada.
So
how much living space (I am referring to volume of living space) is in the
city? Depending on whether you use 1400 miles or 1500 miles as your dimension, you
will get different values. I will examine both so that you will get somewhat of
a lower and an upper value, and I will compare those two values to my own
living space.
Using
1400 Miles as the height of the city, and converting it to feet we get:
1400
miles X 5280 feet per mile = 7,392,000 feet
Now,
dividing that height by 11 feet as the height of each story we arrive at the
height of the city as measured in stories:
7,392,000
feet ÷ 11 feet per story = 672,000 stories high
If
each story had a floor that was 1 foot thick then there would be 672,000 feet
of space that would not be considered living space from the total vertical
height of the city. We will subtract
this space.
7,392,000
feet – 672,000 feet of floor thickness = 6,720,000 feet of height without counting
floor slabs in between.
7,392,000
feet wide X 7,392,000 feet long X 6,720,000
feet high =3.671919821 X 1020 cubic feet of volume.
As
of the year 2011 it is estimated that 107,602,707,791
people were born on the earth (roughly 107.6 Billion people) since the
beginning of time. I don’t know if that
is true or not—the number seems a little high.
But if we round that number up just a little to say 108 Billion people (or
108 X 109
people), and we divide that number into the area of the New Jerusalem, we
get the following result:
3.671919821
X 1020 cubic feet ÷ 108 X 109 persons = 3.399925760 X 109 cubic feet per person or roughly 3.4 billion
cubic feet of space per person.
I
live in a one story house where there is a little less than 2000 square feet of
living space and a little less than 10 foot ceilings. Using the 2000 square feet with 10 foot
ceilings (approximating to make the math a little easier):
2000
square feet x 10 feet = 20,000 cubic feet
So,
I live in 20000 cubic feet of living space.
Taking the total of 3.3999256 x 10 9 cubic feet per person and dividing it by
my 20,000 cubic feet of living space you get the following result:
3.39992576
X 109
cubic feet ÷ 20,000 cubic feet =
169,996.288 times as much as I have now.
In
other words, if each person that ever lived were to take up residence in the
New Jerusalem, he or she would have roughly 170 thousand times the volume of
living space that I have now, if the living space were divided equally.
As
I mentioned earlier, some Bible say about 1500 miles rather than 1400 miles for
the length and width and height of the New Jerusalem. I will now do the same math as earlier with
the 1500 mile measurement:
1500
miles X 5280 feet per mile = 7,920,000 feet.
7,920,000
feet ÷ 11 feet per story = 720,000 stories high
Again
approximating each story including a 1 foot thick floor (720,000 feet
non-living space):
7,920,000
feet – 720,000 feet of floor thickness = 7,848,000 of height without counting floor
slabs in between
7,920,000
feet X
7,920,000 feet X 7,848,000 feet high = 4.922767872 X
1020 cubic feet of
volume
4.922767872
X 1020 cubic feet ÷ 108 X 109 persons = 4.5581184 X 109 cubic feet per person, or roughly 4.5 Billion
cubic feet of space per person.
And,
once again, if I compare this to my own 20,000 cubic feet of living space:
4.5581184
X 109
cubic feet ÷ 20,000 cubic feet =
227,905.920 cubic feet per person
In
other words, if each person that ever lived were to take up residence in the
New Jerusalem, he or she would have roughly 228 thousand times the volume of
living space that I have now if the living space were divided equally.
So,
in summary, there would be somewhere between 170,000 and 228,000 times the
living space that I live in now for each person that ever lived (if all of
their names were written in The Lamb’s Book of Life)! However, unfortunately, we know that this is
not the case.
According to a study (based on the 2010 world population of 6.9 billion) by
The
Pew Forum, there are:
·
2,173,180,000 Christians (31% of world population), of which 50% are Catholic, 37%
Protestant, 12% Orthodox, and 1% other.
·
1,598,510,000 Muslims (23%), of which 87-90% are Sunnis, 10-13%
Shia.
·
1,126,500,000 No Religion
affiliation (16%): atheists,
agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion.
One-in-five people (20%) in the United States are religiously unaffiliated.
·
1,033,080,000 Hindus (15%), the overwhelming majority (94%) of
which live in India.
·
487,540,000 Buddhists (7%), of which half live in China.
·
405,120,000 Folk Religionists
(6%): faiths that
are closely associated with a particular group of people, ethnicity or tribe.
·
58,110,000 Other Religions (1%): Baha’i faith, Taoism, Jainism,
Shintoism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo, Wicca, Zoroastrianism and many others.
·
13,850,000 Jews (0.2%), four-fifths of which live in two
countries: United States (41%) and Israel (41%).
Another
study says that 80% of the United States claims to be Christian but only 45% of
these claim to be Born Again believers.
However, our culture of tolerance, diversity, and perversity does not
reflect a nation of that many Christians.
According
to the 2016 World population clock (www.worldometers.info/world-population)
as of today, Sunday, May 1, 2016, there are now
a little over 7.4 billion people in the world alive today. So why did I spend so much time inundating you
with all of the numbers and the geometry and math and the formulas? I want to show you that the New Jerusalem
will be big enough to hold 108 billion people comfortably. Now, we can’t change the destination of the
100 billion people that have already lived and died since God created the world,
but each one of us can share the truth of the gospel with part of the 7.4
billion people that are alive today and a part of our sphere of influence.
Thus,
I have three take-away points that I want you to remember from this message
today.
1.
The
New Jerusalem, where we will be living for all eternity, is either already
prepared or in the process of being prepared, and will be big enough to hold
everyone who was ever born on earth, giving credibility the verse in John that
tells us that God did not wish for any to perish but for us all to come to
repentance.
2.
There
are still 7.4 billion people alive today, and most them do not know the way to
salvation through Jesus Christ. These
include Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, those who have no religious affiliation, and
those who call themselves Christians (including Protestants and Catholics) but
don’t really know Him as their personal Lord and Savior and are not truly born again.
3. God wants us to share
the truth of the gospel with everyone who is part of our sphere of influence
while there is still time.
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