The Heaven Comes Before the Earth
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And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. (Revelation 21:1)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. After the thousand-year Kingdom Age has been concluded, God will create a new heaven and a new earth. The heaven comes before the earth.
But Paul stated that the natural comes before the spiritual:
Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. (I Corinthians 15:46)
So it is that God has bound us in the prison of the flesh because we are not ready to be entrusted with the true value, with that which is eternal.
But when God begins to create what is to endure in His sight, what is of eternal value, He begins with the heaven, with the spiritual.
Today God is perfecting our spiritual nature. God is creating a new race of people in which the spiritual has been perfected. After the spiritual aspect has been developed to God’s satisfaction, God will provide a new environment for the new race. . . . and to the spirits of just [righteous] men made perfect, (Hebrews 12:23)
Man’s desire is for a change of environment, a paradise. But God’s desire is to change the man. When the man has been changed, then God will change his environment.
Christ came to change us, to create righteousness, holiness, and obedience in us. Only when this has been accomplished will we be ready to receive the eternal life of God’s Presence and a paradisiac environment.
After we have been delivered from our wretched spiritual condition and restored to fellowship with God, God will give us the pure, peaceful, beautiful environment we desire.
The only problem with the garden of Eden was the inhabitants. God removed Adam and Eve from their marvelous surroundings and placed them in a setting of weariness and pain.
Current Christian understanding is that Christ has come to forgive Adam and Eve and to bring them back into Paradise on the basis of His (Christ’s) own worthiness. This is not the case. Christ has come in order to perfect in Adam and Eve a spiritual nature that no longer will rebel against God. Only after Adam and Eve, through Christ’s virtue, have been able to overcome sin will they be permitted back into Paradise—regaining access to the tree of life.
. . . To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7)
Christian grace is not a covering of what man is so he can be permitted to reenter Paradise. Christian grace is the Divine Virtue of God in Christ given to man so he can become a fit inhabitant of Paradise. To allow unchanged man to reenter Paradise would be to set the stage for another rebellion against God.
There must be a new heaven before there can be a new earth, to speak figuratively.
It may be observed that the new Jerusalem is not brought down to the new earth until after the thousand-year Kingdom Age and the Day of Judgment have been concluded. It is not until after the Bride of the Lamb has been perfected, and every person who has been born on the earth has appeared before the Judgment Seat of Christ, that the holy city will make its appearance. All judgment must be accomplished first. Only then will God descend in His holy tabernacle to the new earth.
The order of the development of the Kingdom of God is as follows:
The perfect and perfected Head, Christ, died on the cross for the sins of all men, and then was raised from the dead as the Beginning of the new creation of God.
Christ is brought forth in the overcomers. The overcomers are a firstfruits of the Wife of the Lamb. The firstfruits are, after Christ, the beginning of the Kingdom of God and will be raised to meet Christ at his appearing. They will receive back their bodies from the dead and will be filled with eternal life when the Lord appears in the clouds of glory. This is the first resurrection.
The remainder of God’s elect, of the Body of Christ, will, as we understand the Scriptures, be brought to spiritual maturity during the thousand-year period. Whether the weaker believers also will be raised when the Lord appears but in an inferior state or whether they will receive back their bodies at a later date we are not sure. But of one fact we are certain: no person ever will partake of the tree of life until he or she has, through Christ, overcome the world, sin, and self-will (Revelation 2:7; 3:4). No individual has the right to partake of the tree of life until he or she is living a righteous and holy life before God (Revelation 22:14).
All the nations of the earth will be judged. The persons whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be brought forward into the new world. The persons whose names are not written in the Book of Life will be thrown into the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.
The first earth and heaven will be destroyed and a new heaven and earth will appear. On the new earth will be the nations of the saved. The perfected Church—the Wife of the Lamb, the Body of Christ, the new Jerusalem—will descend from the new heaven and come to rest on the new earth.
The nations of the earth will walk in the light of the new Jerusalem. This means that the saints who make up the new Jerusalem will serve God by ruling, teaching, and blessing the members of the nations of the saved. All the nations of the earth will be ruled from the city of Jerusalem.
God’s purpose in redemption includes as part of its goal restoring man to Paradise. But such restoration is not accomplished by forgiveness alone. Restoration is accomplished by the creation of Divine government, beginning with Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords.
It is only as Divine government is established perfectly, with the accompanying development of righteousness, holiness, and obedience in all of God’s creatures, that the love, peace, and joy of God’s Presence can return to the earth.
The Kingdom of God is the doing of God’s will in the earth as it is in Heaven. God is concerned with obedience, with government, with righteousness, with holiness on the part of His creatures.
Notice that the last two chapters of Revelation, which are the climax of the Scriptures, present a walled city, not a beautiful garden. This is because God is interested in holiness and obedience. The wall represents the rejection of uncleanness and rebellion, the division between the more holy and the less holy, preventing the less holy from entering the more holy until the Divine laws are being obeyed. Until God is being obeyed it is not possible for mankind to enjoy Paradise.
There can be no harmony, no peace, no joy, no fruitfulness, no blessing until God is being obeyed completely. The walled city, the center of Divine government, comes first. After that will appear the Paradise for which all men long. It is so in us as individuals. It is so throughout the universe and for all time.
It is a fact that whatever is true on the grand scale in the past, the present, and the future, is true on a small scale in our individual life today. We can test the accuracy of our understanding of the future by examining what God is teaching us today in the seemingly insignificant circumstances and things of our daily life. Whatever is of truth now is of truth always. This is because God is unchanging.
We do not change because we die or because we are in the Kingdom Age or in the new Jerusalem. Change comes only as we receive Jesus and grow in Him. God does not solve the problem of sin and rebellion by bringing unchanged man to a better place. God solves the problem of sin and rebellion by changing man. Man’s environment improves (eventually) as man improves. This is an eternal reality.
We cannot find what we are looking for by moving from one place to another. What we desire can be found only in Christ. Our heart’s desire can be realized where we are now if we will look to Jesus.
But there may be delay. Sometimes God points out to us an eternal treasure of incalculable worth and lets us know He will give it to us. Then He does not bring His promise to pass for a season. God waits until we come to appreciate fully the quality of what He is giving us. An inheritance gained too quickly and easily cannot be appreciated. When the Lord is ready to give us an eternal treasure we must be prepared to exercise heartbreaking delay until God is able to explain to us thoroughly the fullness of the value of what He is giving to us.
It is impossible to have a new earth until there is a new heaven. Heaven is the place of God’s throne. The earth cannot be the place of God’s throne until Heaven and earth have become one. First there must be righteousness, holiness, and obedience to God. Then peace and joy will follow. It is not possible to set aside successfully this principle of the Kingdom of God, as world history teaches us.
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