Rev 21:1 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.

     

The book of Revelation leaves us with a number of questions, but above all else it shows us God who is sovereign and God who is working to a timetable – which has an end! The trouble with trying to grapple with understanding the things in Revelation, is that they are all prophetic and the one thing I know about personal prophecy is that it WILL be fulfilled by God, but often not in ways that we can see now. This may be literal or it may be figurative and commentators will argue over it.

 

But what does this verse say in its simplest form? It says that God is working towards something that will be different at the end from what it was at the beginning. An intriguing phrase here is “had passed away”. Not “it was destroyed and something utter new was made to replace it", which many of us have traditionally thought here. No, see it as we've just said, ‘different at the end from what it was at the beginning'. Because of the work of Jesus, the end is very different from the earlier part of history – think about it.

 

Why no longer any sea? Well the sea is something that divides the land, separates the nations. Whatever else this says it says that God's end product will produce a people, an experience that epitomises total unity. God's end product will be one people and who are utterly united. Check out how you feel about the rest of the Church.