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A New Heaven and a New Earth

The thousand years are over. Satan has been let out, has gathered the nations one last time, and fire from heaven has ended it (Revelation 20:7-10). The dead have stood before the great white throne, and death itself has been thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:11-14). The Lamb's wife has been married since before He rode out (Revelation 19:7, 11). Then John writes one more "I saw":

✝️ Revelation 21:1-2 (ESV)

1 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. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

In one sentence: When the thousand-year Sabbath is over and the last judgment is done, God makes the new heavens and new earth He promised through Isaiah and comes to live in them with His people, and the Law's eighth days point to it as the first day of a week that is never counted again.

This study covers the new creation. Its companion, The New Jerusalem, covers the city that comes down into it.

Key Takeaways

(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)

Types & Prophecy

Prophecy. "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (Isaiah 65:17, ESV). Peter waits for it "according to his promise" (2 Peter 3:13, ESV), and John sees it done (Revelation 21:1).

Type. The eighth day. The Feast of Booths ran seven days, and then "on the eighth day you shall hold a holy convocation" (Leviticus 23:36, ESV), and the eighth day is itself "a solemn rest" (Leviticus 23:39, ESV). On the eighth day of the priests' ordination "the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people" (Leviticus 9:23, ESV). Scripture never calls the new creation "the eighth day"; the early church did (Epistle of Barnabas 15), and the pattern in the Law supports it.

Lessons about Jesus

  • Jesus finishes what He began. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end" (Revelation 22:13, ESV).
  • Jesus is the first piece of the new creation. He rose on the day after the Sabbath (Matthew 28:1), "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20, ESV).
  • Jesus reigns without end. The throne in the new creation is "the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1, ESV). "Of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:33, ESV).

Memory verses

✝️ Revelation 21:3 (ESV)

3 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.

✝️ Revelation 21:5 (ESV)

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true."

Be Transformed

  • Think. Everything you can see is "stored up for fire" (2 Peter 3:7, ESV). The new heavens and new earth "shall remain before me" (Isaiah 66:22, ESV). Weigh your week by which of the two it is spent on.
  • Attitude. Grieve as someone who knows the end of the story. God will wipe the tears away with His own hand (Revelation 21:4).
  • Do. Read Revelation 21:1-7 aloud to someone who is grieving this month, and tell them who said it.

Prayer

Father, Maker of heaven and earth, you have promised a new heaven and a new earth, and you have never broken a promise. Thank you for your Son Jesus, the firstfruits of the new creation, who rose on the first day and will make all things new. Keep us patient while the old creation groans, holy while we wait, and certain that you will dwell with us and wipe away every tear. Let us drink now from the water of life you give without price.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Study outline

  • After the thousand years. Where Revelation 21:1 stands in the order of events, where Peter's fire falls, and which fire falls when.
  • What Isaiah promised. The verb only God performs, and the verse that seems to put death in the new creation.
  • What John saw. Revelation 21:1-8, phrase by phrase: new, no sea, God's tent, all things new, and who is outside.
  • The eighth day. Seven days and then one more, through the Law, Noah and the resurrection.
  • The age to come. The New Testament's two ages, and how the thousand years and the new creation fit inside them.
  • Discussion questions. Five, for a group or on your own.

After the thousand years

The last page of the old creation

Revelation 20 gives the order, and it is plain. After the thousand years:

  1. Satan is released and gathers the nations "for battle" (Revelation 20:7-8).
  2. They surround "the camp of the saints and the beloved city," and "fire came down from heaven and consumed them" (Revelation 20:9, ESV).
  3. The devil is thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).
  4. John sees the great white throne: "From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them" (Revelation 20:11, ESV).
  5. The dead are judged "according to what they had done" (Revelation 20:12, ESV), and "Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:14, ESV).
  6. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth" (Revelation 21:1, ESV).

The first heaven and earth end at the throne. They flee from the face of the Judge (Revelation 20:11), and at Revelation 21:1 John sees them "passed away." Death goes into the lake before the new creation arrives (Revelation 20:14), so there is no death to carry across. John will say so plainly: "death shall be no more" (Revelation 21:4, ESV).

After the thousand years, in four lanes: Satan, the dead, earth and sky, and fire. At His coming Satan is bound, the first resurrection, the earth stands, and flaming fire on the living nations; the thousand years; Satan released, Gog and Magog, fire from heaven, the devil into the lake; at the great white throne the rest of the dead judged, earth and sky flee, and Peter's fire placed there on this site's reading; Death and Hades into the lake; then the eighth day.

Select the chart to open it full size. The dashed card is this site's reading, set out under Where Peter's fire falls.

Where Peter's fire falls

Peter describes the same end with fire. "The heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly" (2 Peter 3:7, ESV). "The heavens will be set on fire and dissolved" (2 Peter 3:12, ESV). Then: "according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells" (2 Peter 3:13, ESV).

Revelation settles the order. Peter's fire falls at the end of the old creation and before the new one, which puts it at Revelation 20:11. Two further steps are inference, and this site takes them with the dispensational reading. The first is that Peter's "day of the Lord" (2 Peter 3:10) is a period that opens with the thief-like coming and closes with the dissolution a thousand years later. John Walvoord calls this telescoping: "the beginning and the end of the day of the Lord are mentioned in the same passage" (Bible Knowledge Commentary, on Revelation 21:1). Heaven and Earth Will Pass Away sets that reading out, and gives the case of those who put the return and the new creation together. The second is whether the fire of Revelation 20:9, which falls on Gog and Magog, is the same fire as Peter's. Revelation does not say.

Water, then fire

Peter sets the two judgments side by side. "The world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire" (2 Peter 3:6-7, ESV). God closed the first way Himself: "never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth" (Genesis 9:11, ESV), a promise that holds "while the earth remains" (Genesis 8:22, ESV). The next judgment of the whole earth is by fire. Heaven and Earth Will Pass Away traces the pairing through the prophets and Jesus' words, and sets out what 1 Enoch and Josephus expected.

Which fire, and when

Fire comes at both ends of the thousand years. Luke 17:30 ties Lot's fire to "the day when the Son of Man is revealed," and Paul says He comes "in flaming fire" (2 Thessalonians 1:8, ESV). That fire judges the living nations and leaves the earth standing for the kingdom. At the close, "fire came down from heaven" on Gog and Magog (Revelation 20:9, ESV), and then "earth and sky fled away" (Revelation 20:11, ESV). On this site's reading, the fire that dissolves the heavens (2 Peter 3:10-12) falls there, after the thousand years. Readers who hold one event at the return put all of it together.

This shows that God judges the whole world and keeps His own through it. "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment" (2 Peter 2:9, ESV). Noah came through the water, one of "eight persons" (1 Peter 3:20, ESV). Taken Before Judgment follows that rescue pattern through Enoch, Noah and Lot.

After the Sabbath

This site reads the thousand years as the seventh day of a week of history, the Sabbath of the world (A Day Is a Thousand Years; compare Hebrews 4:9). So Revelation 21 opens on the day after the seventh. This shows that God rules history as surely as He ruled the first week. He worked, He rested, and He will begin again, and each step comes in the order He set.

What Isaiah promised

The verb only God performs

✝️ Isaiah 65:17-18 (ESV)

17 "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 18 But 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.

"Create" is בָּרָא (bara, H1254), the verb of Genesis 1:1. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament notes that in its basic form it "is used … only of God's activity and is thus a purely theological term," and that it "denotes the concept of 'initiating something new,'" citing this verse (TWOT 278). "New" is חָדָשׁ (chadash, H2319). Isaiah uses the same verb for the city in the next breath: "I create Jerusalem to be a joy" (Isaiah 65:18). The new creation and the new Jerusalem arrive together in Isaiah and together in Revelation 21:1-2.

The next chapter adds how long it lasts, and who it is kept for: "For as the new heavens and the new earth that I make shall remain before me, says the LORD, so shall your offspring and your name remain" (Isaiah 66:22, ESV). God ties Israel's name to the permanence of the new creation. This shows that God's promise to Israel outlasts the old creation. It is written into the new one.

Isaiah 65:20 and the telescope

The difficulty is two verses later. In the same passage "the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed" (Isaiah 65:20, ESV). Revelation 21:4 says death "shall be no more." The ESV Study Bible lists three ways Christians read the passage: an idealised picture of restored Jerusalem, the millennium, or the eternal state (note on Isaiah 65:17-25). This is contested.

The dispensational answer is that Isaiah sees two distant events together, as he does elsewhere. Isaiah 61:1-2 sets the first and second comings in one sentence (Luke 4:17-19 stops reading halfway), and Daniel 12:2 puts the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked side by side, which Revelation 20:5 separates by a thousand years. Walvoord applies the same principle here: Isaiah 65:17-19 describes the new heaven and new earth, and Isaiah 65:20-25 the millennium (Bible Knowledge Commentary, on Revelation 21:1). Revelation supplies what Isaiah compresses: a kingdom on this earth where death is rare, then a new earth where it is gone.

What John saw

"New"

John calls the heaven and earth καινός (kainos, G2537), "new." Revelation uses the word nine times: a new name (Revelation 2:17; 3:12), a new song (Revelation 5:9; 14:3), the new Jerusalem (Revelation 3:12; 21:2), and here (Revelation 21:1 twice; 21:5). The Greek Old Testament uses the same word at Isaiah 65:17. Greek has another word for "new," νέος (neos, G3501), and it never appears in the book.

Some argue from kainos that the new earth is this earth renewed. The Louw-Nida lexicon puts kainos and neos in the same meaning group (58.71), so the word cannot settle it. Irenaeus held renewal. He wrote that "neither is the substance nor the essence of the creation annihilated," only "the fashion of the world passeth away" (Against Heresies 5.36.1). Walvoord holds a "totally new" creation from the "passed away" of Revelation 21:1 (Bible Knowledge Commentary, on that verse). Both agree that the old creation ends and the new one is God's work. Heaven and Earth Will Pass Away weighs the texts, among them "the creation itself will be set free" (Romans 8:21, ESV) and the heavens "will be changed" (Hebrews 1:12, ESV), and leans to renewal through judgment.

"The sea was no more"

This is the most debated line in the paragraph. The beast rose "out of the sea" (Revelation 13:1, ESV) and the sea gave up its dead (Revelation 20:13), so many read the sea as a figure for chaos and death. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that the sea is positive elsewhere in Revelation (Revelation 5:13; 15:2), and suggests it is replaced by the river of life (note on Revelation 21:1). Walvoord reads it plainly: "no large body of water will be on the new earth." What the text settles is simpler. The sea that held the dead has nothing left to give up.

God pitches His tent

✝️ Revelation 21:3-4 (ESV)

3 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. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

"Dwelling place" is σκηνή (skēnē, G4633), "tent" or "tabernacle," and the verb that follows, "he will dwell," is σκηνόω (skēnoō, G4637), "to tent." The CSB and LSB footnote both. σκηνόω appears five times in the New Testament: once in John, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, ESV), and four times in Revelation (Revelation 7:15; 12:12; 13:6; 21:3).

The voice is quoting a promise God made at Sinai. "I will make my dwelling among you … and will be your God, and you shall be my people" (Leviticus 26:11-12, ESV). Ezekiel repeats it for the restored nation: "My dwelling place shall be with them" (Ezekiel 37:27, ESV). The Word tented among us for thirty-three years. In the new creation God tents with His people and never strikes the tent. The tears and the death in verse 4 come from Isaiah: "He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces" (Isaiah 25:8, ESV).

This shows that God's goal was always to live with His people. The tabernacle, the temple and the incarnation were each a stage on the way to it. The Bride of Christ follows the same promise from the Lamb's wife's side.

"Behold, I am making all things new"

✝️ Revelation 21:5-7 (ESV)

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." 6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

Three of the Greek words, Ἰδοὺ καινὰ ποιῶ (idou kaina poiō), "Behold, new things I make," are the Greek Old Testament's words at Isaiah 43:19: "Behold, I am doing a new thing" (ESV). God said it to exiles about the road home from Babylon. He says it from the throne about everything.

Paul uses the same words for you. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV). Behind "the new has come" is ἰδοὺ γέγονεν καινά (idou gegonen kaina), and behind "It is done!" in Revelation 21:6 is Γέγοναν (gegonan, G1096), from the same verb. The new creation has already begun in everyone who is in Christ, and at Revelation 21 it reaches everything else.

The water "without payment" is Isaiah's: "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters … without money and without price" (Isaiah 55:1, ESV). The heritage is a son's: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son" (2 Samuel 7:14, ESV) was said of David's heir, and Revelation 21:7 gives it to "the one who conquers." The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible notes that the Greek makes each believer God's child individually (note on Revelation 21:7). That is adoption, completed.

Who is outside

Verse 8 names "the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable" and the rest, and says "their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8, ESV). The new creation is holy because God has judged. Walvoord reads the list as the evidence of an unsaved life, and adds that "many will be in heaven who before their conversions were indeed guilty of these sins." Every name written in the Lamb's book of life is there by grace (Revelation 21:27).

The eighth day

Seven days, and then one more

The Law counts in sevens, and then several times it adds a day.

The eighth day What happens on it
A son's circumcision (Genesis 17:12; Leviticus 12:3) He enters the covenant
A firstborn ox or sheep (Exodus 22:30) "On the eighth day you shall give it to me"
The priests' ordination (Leviticus 9:1, 23-24) Ministry begins; "the glory of the LORD appeared to all the people"
A cleansed leper (Leviticus 14:10, 23) He is brought back "before the LORD"
The Feast of Booths (Leviticus 23:36, 39) A holy convocation and "a solemn rest"

Each time, seven days complete something and the eighth begins what the seven were for.

Seven rows of seven small squares, each followed by a gold eighth: a son's circumcision, a firstborn animal, the priests' ordination, a cleansed leper and the Feast of Booths from the Law, then, dashed as readings of the pattern, the day Jesus rose, the first day after the Sabbath, which Barnabas calls the eighth day, and the week of history followed by the new heaven and new earth. Below, Noah's household, the eight persons brought through water whom Peter makes the pattern of baptism and the resurrection (1 Peter 3:20-21).

The Feast of Booths makes the point most clearly. Its last day is הַשְּׁמִינִי (hashemini, H8066), "the eighth," and it is called an עֲצֶרֶת (atzeret, H6116), a "solemn assembly" (Leviticus 23:36). It is also a שַׁבָּתוֹן (shabbaton, H7677), "a solemn rest" (Leviticus 23:39), the same word the verse uses for the first day. The Greek Old Testament renders it ἀνάπαυσις (anapausis, G372), "rest." So the eighth day does not end the rest. It carries the rest past the count of seven. 2 Enoch, a Jewish work usually dated to the late first century AD, though the date is disputed, calls the eighth "a time of not-counting, endless" (2 Enoch 33:1), and A Day Is a Thousand Years traces it there.

Noah, and the day Jesus rose

Peter counts the people in the ark: "eight persons, were brought safely through water" (1 Peter 3:20, ESV). Then he draws the line himself: "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you ... through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 3:21, ESV). "Corresponds" is ἀντίτυπον (antitypon, G499), "antitype." The eight brought through the water and the believer raised with Christ are one pattern in Peter's own words, and he ties it to the resurrection. In his second letter the phrase ὄγδοον Νῶε (ogdoon Nōe, G3590) is Greek idiom for "Noah, one of eight," which the ESV renders "with seven others" (2 Peter 2:5), so the pattern rests on 1 Peter 3:20-21. Noah and his family stepped out into a washed world, a people brought through judgment into a new beginning, and Peter sets that flood beside the coming fire (2 Peter 3:6-7).

Jesus rose "after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week" (Matthew 28:1, ESV), the day after the seventh. Within a century the church was calling it the eighth day. The Epistle of Barnabas, from the early second century, has God say:

when, giving rest to all things, I shall make a beginning of the eighth day, that is, a beginning of another world. Wherefore, also, we keep the eighth day with joyfulness, the day also on which Jesus rose again from the dead. — Epistle of Barnabas 15 (ANF vol. 1)

Justin Martyr made Peter's link explicit. The eight in the ark "were a symbol of the eighth day, wherein Christ appeared when He rose from the dead" (Dialogue with Trypho 138).

Booths, the millennium and the eighth

The Feast of Booths gathers these threads. In the millennium the nations "shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths" (Zechariah 14:16, ESV). In Revelation the great multitude carries "palm branches" (Revelation 7:9), the branches of Booths (Leviticus 23:40), and the One on the throne will "shelter them with his presence" (Revelation 7:15, ESV), the verb σκηνόω again. On a dispensational reading the seven days of Booths picture the kingdom, and the eighth day pictures the new creation that follows it. That is typology, and it rests on the pattern above; no verse states it.

On "the last day of the feast, the great day," Jesus stood and cried, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink" (John 7:37, ESV). The NKJV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible calls it "the climactic eighth day" and notes that the Scriptures read on the feast's last day were Ezekiel 47 and Zechariah 14, the rivers flowing from the temple and from Jerusalem (note and article on John 7:37). John himself says only "the last day," so the number is an inference, and the seventh day has its defenders. Either way, the invitation is the one the new creation repeats: "To the thirsty I will give" (Revelation 21:6), and "let the one who is thirsty come" (Revelation 22:17, ESV).

What the pattern can carry

The eighth day is a pattern Scripture shows, and the study treats it as that. The number is not always good: the beast "is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction" (Revelation 17:11, ESV). Numbers in Scripture gives the general caution. What the pattern carries is what Revelation 21 states outright: after the seven comes a beginning that God makes, and it does not run down.

This shows that God finishes His work and then begins something that never needs finishing. Jesus rose on the first day of that week. So your resurrection is already dated on God's calendar.

The age to come

This section covers the age on the far side of the line. The line itself, the New Testament's "end of the age" and why Hebrews says it has already begun, is The End of the Age.

The world to come

Jewish teaching in Jesus' day called the far side of that line "the age to come," or "the world to come." The Mishnah says, "All Israel have a portion in the world to come" (m. Sanhedrin 10:1), in Hebrew חֵלֶק לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא (chelek la'olam haba). Its proof text is Isaiah 60:21, "Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever" (ESV), from the chapter Revelation 21:23-26 draws on for the city's light and open gates. Revelation uses "portion" language of the same things: a μέρος (meros, G3313), a "share," in the first resurrection (Revelation 20:6), in the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8), and "in the tree of life and in the holy city" (Revelation 22:19).

Jesus used the same frame. Whoever leaves home for Him receives "in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:30, ESV). "Those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore" (Luke 20:35-36, ESV). Paul sets Christ's name above every name "not only in this age but also in the one to come" (Ephesians 1:21, ESV). And Hebrews says believers have already "tasted … the powers of the age to come" (Hebrews 6:5, ESV).

Where the thousand years fits

The New Testament places the start of the age to come at Christ's return, the point Matthew calls "the end of the age" (Matthew 24:3, ESV); The End of the Age shows how Jesus joins the two. Jesus dates the παλιγγενεσία (palingenesia, G3824), "the new world," "when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne," with the Twelve "judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matthew 19:28, ESV). Hebrews calls it "the world to come" that God subjected to man, and says, "At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see … Jesus" (Hebrews 2:5, 8-9, ESV).

On the dispensational reading this site holds, the thousand years is the first stage of the age to come, and the new heaven and new earth is its unending stage. Paul writes of "the coming ages" (Ephesians 2:7, ESV), and the Greek is plural, ἐν τοῖς αἰῶσιν τοῖς ἐπερχομένοις. Revelation 22:5 ends with the saints reigning εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, "to the ages of the ages." Readers who hold no intervening millennium take the age to come as the eternal state, beginning at the return. Both readings put the resurrection at its door (Luke 20:35) and God's people in it forever. Luke 20:36's "cannot die anymore" describes the resurrected. On the dispensational reading, people who enter the kingdom in mortal bodies can still die, which is why Isaiah 65:20 has death in it and Revelation 21:4 has none.

The Son hands over the kingdom

Paul describes the hinge between the two stages. "Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. … The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:24, 26, ESV). Death is destroyed at Revelation 20:14, so the handing over falls there, at the end of the thousand years. Its purpose is "that God may be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28, ESV).

Paul's "end" is τὸ τέλος (to telos, G5056), the last step in his order: Christ the firstfruits, then His people at His coming, then the end (1 Corinthians 15:23-24). Matthew's "end of the age" is συντέλεια, and it falls at the coming itself. On this site's reading the two stand a thousand years apart. The age closes when Christ comes, and the end comes when the Son hands over a kingdom with no enemies left. Readers who hold no intervening millennium put both at the return.

That does not end the Son's reign. The throne of the new creation is "the throne of God and of the Lamb" (Revelation 22:1, 3, ESV), and Gabriel promised Mary that "of his kingdom there will be no end" (Luke 1:33, ESV). Walvoord concludes that 1 Corinthians 15:24 "does not mean that Christ's reign on the throne will end but that it will change its character" (Bible Knowledge Commentary, on Revelation 22:1). Christ reigns to put down every enemy, and then He reigns with the Father in a creation with no enemies left.

This shows that God is bringing everything under one head. His plan is "to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Ephesians 1:10, ESV). So you may live now as a citizen of the age to come. Hebrews draws the conclusion: "let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken" (Hebrews 12:28, ESV).

Discussion Questions

  1. Revelation calls the heaven and earth καινός (kainos), and the lexicon puts neos in the same meaning group. What does Revelation 21:1 make certain about the new creation, and what does it leave open?
  2. Isaiah 65:20 has death in a passage that opens with "new heavens and a new earth." Read Isaiah 65:17-25 beside Revelation 20:4-6 and 21:4. Which verses sound like the kingdom, and which like the new creation?
  3. The eighth day of Booths is "a solemn rest" (Leviticus 23:39), and Jesus rose on the day after the Sabbath. What does the eighth day carry forward from the seventh, and what does it begin?
  4. Paul says the Son "delivers the kingdom to God the Father" (1 Corinthians 15:24), and Revelation puts the Lamb on the throne forever (Revelation 22:1, 3). How do you hold the two together?
  5. Paul says the new creation has already come in you (2 Corinthians 5:17), and Hebrews says you have tasted "the powers of the age to come" (Hebrews 6:5). Where did you see that this week?
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Group study · 40 minutes

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Revelation 20:7-21:8

The point When the thousand-year Sabbath is over and the last judgment is done, God makes the new heavens and new earth He promised through Isaiah and comes to live in them with His people, and the Law's eighth days point to it as the first day of a week that is never counted again.

0–5min

Ask: What will the new heaven and new earth be like? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

5–12minRead it aloud BSB

Revelation 20:7-21:8 20:7When the thousand years are complete, Satan will be released from his prison, 8and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore. 9And they marched across the broad expanse of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. But fire came down from heaven and consumed them. 10And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. 11Then I saw a great white throne and the One seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from His presence, and no place was found for them. 12And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. And books were opened, and one of them was the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their deeds, as recorded in the books. 13The sea gave up its dead, and Death and Hades gave up their dead, and each one was judged according to his deeds. 14Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. 15And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. 21:1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. 4‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.” 5And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are faithful and true.” 6And He told me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life. 7The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. 8But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.”

12–25minLook closer
What does it say?
What did it mean to them?
What does it mean for us?
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A New Heaven and a New Earth

The study in brief
  1. After the thousand years. Where Revelation 21:1 stands in the order of events, where Peter's fire falls, and which fire falls when.
  2. What Isaiah promised. The verb only God performs, and the verse that seems to put death in the new creation.
  3. What John saw. Revelation 21:1-8, phrase by phrase: new, no sea, God's tent, all things new, and who is outside.
  4. The eighth day. Seven days and then one more, through the Law, Noah and the resurrection.
  5. The age to come. The New Testament's two ages, and how the thousand years and the new creation fit inside them.
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A New Heaven and a New Earth

12–17minStep 1 · After the thousand years

1Revelation calls the heaven and earth καινός (kainos), and the lexicon puts neos in the same meaning group. What does Revelation 21:1 make certain about the new creation, and what does it leave open?

17–21minStep 2 · What Isaiah promised

2Isaiah 65:20 has death in a passage that opens with "new heavens and a new earth." Read Isaiah 65:17-25 beside Revelation 20:4-6 and 21:4. Which verses sound like the kingdom, and which like the new creation?

21–26minStep 3 · What John saw

3Paul says the new creation has already come in you (2 Corinthians 5:17), and Hebrews says you have tasted "the powers of the age to come" (Hebrews 6:5). Where did you see that this week?

26–30minStep 4 · The eighth day

4The eighth day of Booths is "a solemn rest" (Leviticus 23:39), and Jesus rose on the day after the Sabbath. What does the eighth day carry forward from the seventh, and what does it begin?

30–35minStep 5 · The age to come

5Paul says the Son "delivers the kingdom to God the Father" (1 Corinthians 15:24), and Revelation puts the Lamb on the throne forever (Revelation 22:1, 3). How do you hold the two together?

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A New Heaven and a New Earth

35–40minBe transformed
  • Think. Everything you can see is "stored up for fire" (2 Peter 3:7, ESV). The new heavens and new earth "shall remain before me" (Isaiah 66:22, ESV). Weigh your week by which of the two it is spent on.
  • Attitude. Grieve as someone who knows the end of the story. God will wipe the tears away with His own hand (Revelation 21:4).
  • Do. Read Revelation 21:1-7 aloud to someone who is grieving this month, and tell them who said it.
Memory verse

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.

Revelation 21:3 (ESV)
Pray together

Father, Maker of heaven and earth, you have promised a new heaven and a new earth, and you have never broken a promise. Thank you for your Son Jesus, the firstfruits of the new creation, who rose on the first day and will make all things new. Keep us patient while the old creation groans, holy while we wait, and certain that you will dwell with us and wipe away every tear. Let us drink now from the water of life you give without price.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Notes
The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/new-heaven-and-new-earth/
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Group study · step by step

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Revelation 20:7-21:8

Open Ask: What will the new heaven and new earth be like? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

Read it aloud Revelation 20:7-21:8

Step 1After the thousand years — Where Revelation 21:1 stands in the order of events, where Peter's fire falls, and which fire falls when.

1Revelation calls the heaven and earth καινός (kainos), and the lexicon puts neos in the same meaning group. What does Revelation 21:1 make certain about the new creation, and what does it leave open?

Step 2What Isaiah promised — The verb only God performs, and the verse that seems to put death in the new creation.Key verses: Isaiah 65:17-18

2Isaiah 65:20 has death in a passage that opens with "new heavens and a new earth." Read Isaiah 65:17-25 beside Revelation 20:4-6 and 21:4. Which verses sound like the kingdom, and which like the new creation?

Step 3What John saw — Revelation 21:1-8, phrase by phrase: new, no sea, God's tent, all things new, and who is outside.

3Paul says the new creation has already come in you (2 Corinthians 5:17), and Hebrews says you have tasted "the powers of the age to come" (Hebrews 6:5). Where did you see that this week?

Step 4The eighth day — Seven days and then one more, through the Law, Noah and the resurrection.

4The eighth day of Booths is "a solemn rest" (Leviticus 23:39), and Jesus rose on the day after the Sabbath. What does the eighth day carry forward from the seventh, and what does it begin?

Step 5The age to come — The New Testament's two ages, and how the thousand years and the new creation fit inside them.

5Paul says the Son "delivers the kingdom to God the Father" (1 Corinthians 15:24), and Revelation puts the Lamb on the throne forever (Revelation 22:1, 3). How do you hold the two together?

Be transformed
  • Think. Everything you can see is "stored up for fire" (2 Peter 3:7, ESV). The new heavens and new earth "shall remain before me" (Isaiah 66:22, ESV). Weigh your week by which of the two it is spent on.
  • Attitude. Grieve as someone who knows the end of the story. God will wipe the tears away with His own hand (Revelation 21:4).
  • Do. Read Revelation 21:1-7 aloud to someone who is grieving this month, and tell them who said it.
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A New Heaven and a New Earth

The point When the thousand-year Sabbath is over and the last judgment is done, God makes the new heavens and new earth He promised through Isaiah and comes to live in them with His people, and the Law's eighth days point to it as the first day of a week that is never counted again.

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/last-things/new-heaven-and-new-earth/
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Ancient sources

  • Epistle of Barnabas 15, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1 (public domain) — the eighth day as "a beginning of another world."
  • Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 138, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1 (public domain) — Noah's eight as a symbol of the eighth day.
  • Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.36.1, Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1 (public domain) — the creation's substance not annihilated.
  • 2 Enoch 33:1, as quoted in A Day Is a Thousand Years.
  • Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1, from "Mishnah Yomit" translated by Dr. Joshua Kulp, licensed CC-BY, with the Hebrew from the Torat Emet edition (public domain), retrieved through references/build/sefaria.py from the Sefaria-Export dataset.

Commentaries, study Bibles and lexicons

  • John F. Walvoord, "Revelation," in The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Victor Books) — on Revelation 20:11; 21:1; 21:8; 22:1. Quoted briefly with attribution.
  • ESV Study Bible (Crossway) — verse text (ESV) and notes on Isaiah 65:17-25 and Revelation 21:1-8.
  • NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Revelation 21:1 and 21:7 and John 7:37.
  • NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Revelation 21:1-8, consulted.
  • CSB and LSB translators' footnotes on Revelation 21:3 ("tent", "tabernacle").
  • R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer and Bruce K. Waltke, eds., Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Moody), entry 278, בָּרָא (bara), by Thomas E. McComiskey.
  • MACULA Greek and Hebrew morphology with Louw-Nida domains, and the Septuagint lemma data (open licence) — occurrences of καινός, σκηνόω, ὄγδοος, μέρος and παλιγγενεσία; the Greek Old Testament at Isaiah 43:19, 65:17 and Leviticus 23:39.

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