A Whole New World

Isaiah 65.17-25

Introduction 

Christmas is over and now it’s on to New Years. Every New Years we all start thinking about the future. 2021 is almost over and it’s old news. We dream up ways that we can make 2022 better than last year. I think everyone is hoping 2022 will bring us back to more normalcy than 2020 or 2021. We envision ways in which the upcoming year can be successful. In the next week the gyms will be flooded and the produces sections will be picked over. Some of you are buying a new house; some may be trying to get pregnant. Maybe you’re thinking about a job promotion, graduation, taking a vacation, retirement, or spending more time with the grandkids. Wherever you find yourself this morning, you’re probably thinking about the future and hoping that it’s merry and bright.

I can promise you, if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, you have a bright future. The Bible tells us that Christ is going to return someday to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. As we finished the season of advent together on Christmas Eve, we’re reminded our hope is not only in the first coming of the Lord Jesus, but also in his future second coming as well. When we talk about these issues of the end times theologians use the word eschatology – the study of the last things. The last things began when Jesus resurrected from the dead and ascended to heaven sending the Holy Spirit. We’ve been living in the last days for over 2,000 years.

Sometimes when Christians start thinking and talking about the last things, it gets tense. People start arguing and treating third tier issues such as millennial positions like they’re distinguishing marks of orthodox Christianity. They are not. What we want to meditate on this morning is not the minor details that good Christians have disagreed upon for the last two millennia, but the major doctrine that is the central hope of Christianity, and this is it – Jesus is returning to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. I want to encourage your heart this morning, believer. If you’re trusting in Jesus, hope will not put you to shame. As we start this new calendar year together as a church, let’s meditate upon the new creation together. As we prepare for New Years Eve parties this week, let’s feast on the bread of life.

Long before John saw his revelation of Christ from his island prison cell, Isaiah spoke of a new heaven and a new earth. We’re going to see that the new creation is not just a New Testament doctrine, but also a hope that stretches back into the old covenant. The book of Isaiah is a prophetic judgment against Israel and Judah for their sin, but as the rest of the story of redemption does, this judgment will be accompanied by salvation. By the time we get to the end of the book of Isaiah, YHWH is giving the prophet a vision of the glorious future of God’s people, and here in chapter 65, he envisions a glorious new world. Let’s journey into the text this morning and catch a glimpse of this whole new world that God has planned for us, so don’t you dare close your eyes.

In verse 17 he starts, for behold. We live in a time where people don’t behold anymore. Everything is instant. Your Keurig makes your coffee right away, by the time you get to the drive-thru window your food is ready, you can type anything into Google and you have instant information, but seldom do we behold. The word itself seems foreign to us. It’s like a word from a fairytale – behold! The was a princess who lived in a tower. God beckons us here to take a break from our hectic, stressful, busy lives and to behold. The doctrine of new creation ought to be precious to us. It shouldn’t be something that we get angry and fight over. Instead we should be like a woman who just got engaged and can’t stop staring at her diamond. The more she gazes at it her heart is made glad.

YHWH says, “behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.” In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1.1), and now he takes us behind the curtain to reveal to us that he’s going to do it again. But unlike a disappointing sequel or an overhyped sophomore album, this new creation is going to be even more glorious than God’s “very good” inaugural creation. The original creation was marred by sin and death after Adam’s fall, but in the new world the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. Now we have to pause for a moment and check our surroundings so that we read the text correctly. Let me give you a quick hermeneutical reminder. Notice the way that the text is structured in most of your Bibles. It’s not printed in normal paragraph format, but is staggered. The editors are showing you that this pericope is poetic, so we don’t want to read it like we would a history book or a newspaper, or even a letter, but as a poem.

So when Isaiah says that the former things shall not be remembered, I don't think that he means that we’ll all have eternal amnesia. If that were the case, I don’t see how our life now would matter. This is similar to what Jesus says in John 16, when a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. She no longer remembers the anguish because it’s been replaced by joy. It doesn’t mean that she can’t intellectually ascent that she was in pain, but that the joy of what she gained makes the pain worth it. She doesn’t remember it in the sense that it cripples her. When we inhabit God’s new world, the joy of being with Jesus will make all of the pain and suffering that we endure for him in this world worth it. 

I love what the LORD says in verses 18-19. He gives his people a command, reasoning, and a promise. He says, [b]ut be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. God commands us to rejoice and be glad forever. The Hebrew text literally reads, “Rejoice and rejoice forever and ever!” Both words are 2nd person plural imperatives. He’s commanding his collective people to celebrate. Then he gives the reasoning – he created his people for rejoicing. Because that’s true, he gives us a promise. He will rejoice in us. We must rejoice in this new Jerusalem because that’s why God’s making it and he himself will rejoice in the eternal city. 

Rejoicing is the only appropriate response to the new creation because there will be no weeping. In fact, death itself will be laid to rest. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. Now remember, this is poetic language, so don’t let your modernistic, western mind cause you to stumble as you read it. You may wonder, “I thought that death is finished, why does he say that young men will die at 100?” This wrong reading of the genre has cause theologians to try to answer it with hypotheses about the millennium and what not. The truth is, first of all, Isaiah didn’t have a clear picture of what the day of the LORD would finally look like. What is two events – the 1st and 2nd coming of Christ – looked like one event to him. Isaiah didn’t have the New Testament to help him understand. But second, remember, this is poetry. He’s saying this new world is going to be so full of life that if a man died at 100, he’d be considered young. My grandfather died at 102. No one considered him a young man. 

But in the new world abortion, miscarriages, cancer, and dying too young will be a thing of the past. So will homelessness and theft. Sin and suffering are not welcome in God’s new world. It’s as if God is undoing the curse that infested the world from the fall. Notice the Edenic language that he uses in verses 22-25. His people shall be like a tree. Whenever you see tree imagery in the Bible, it should take your mind back to Genesis 1-3 and the garden hope. We will be like trees that are fruitful. He says, “my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.” The word “enjoy” literally means to wear out. The elect will exhaust the bounty of the work; there will be no return lost.

Notice also that verse 23 is a literal reversal of the curse. In Genesis 3, Eve was cursed with pain in labor and delivery and Adam was cursed in his labor of provision. But Isaiah says, they shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity. The labor of both Adam and Eve will be un-cursed. Notice also in verse 24 that the communication that was lost from the garden will be fully restored. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The curse had affected the animals, but that too shall be made right. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox. Since the fall, shepherds have had to protect the sheep from wolves, but in the new creation, they’ll graze side by side. There’s one animal that will be forever cursed, even in the new earth. Dust shall be the serpent’s food. Part of the curse of Genesis 3 is that the snake will now slither on his belly because of the part that he played in Satan’s rebellion. Man was made from dust and the reptile tried to devour him. Now he can eternally bite the dust.

You know, there’s another biblical author who reinterprets the language of creation too, and he helps us understand Isaiah a little better. The Apostle John begins his gospel, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made (John 1.1-3). In verse 14 John says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory. God’s new creation has begun in the advent of Christ Jesus. He is the firstborn of the new creation.

We have the hope of new creation because Jesus is the new creation and he’s going to cover the globe with his glory. Isaiah says, in verse 25, that in the new world that we will not hurt or destroy in the holy mountain. That’s true because Jesus was hurt and destroyed on mount Calvary. Jesus was crushed for our transgressions; he was pierced for our iniquities. God’s wrath was poured out on the Son on the cross and because he did, we’ll never have to. Because Jesus was hurt on the mountain, we shall not hurt in the mountain. 

And when Jesus Christ walked out of the tomb on that first Easter morning, He started the new creation. Jesus is the first fruit of the new creation, which guarantees that the rest is coming. Jesus is already covering the globe with new creation hearts as people repent and believe in his gospel. And one day he will cover the globe with resurrected saints who never sin nor desire sin. Don’t disconnect your eschatology from the gospel. Jesus is new creation and he’s bringing the new heaven and the new earth.

The call of the gospel is to repent and believe. Turn from your sin and place your trust in Christ alone. 2nd Corinthians 5.17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. When you turn from your sin and trust in Christ, the process of new creation starts from the inside out. Look to the cross and the empty tomb, for their you find your fresh start. There you will find the one who makes all things new.

Conclusion

I said Christmas is over, but that’s not true. We’re actually only in the second day of the Christmas season. Christmas starts on December 25th and lasts all the way until Epiphany on January 6th – the 12 days of Christmas. That’s because the Magi found Jesus on the 12th day. The hope of new creation is really a Christmas doctrine, for the best thing about the new world is that God dwells with his people. Revelation 21 says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Matthew gives us some insight into what really happened on that first Christmas night in chapter 1 of his gospel. He says, all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). Jesus is God with us. The hope of new creation is that God will be with us forever. So let me encourage you, if you only have one New Year’s resolution this year, make it this: live like the doctrine of new creation is true. Long for the new world. Spend your money like it’s not eternal. Give of your time like you’ll live forever. Eat, drink, and be merry because a day is coming when it’s always Christmas and never winter.