Simply Good News: The Welcome Announcement of Jesus the KingSample

Day Seven: A New Heaven and a New Earth The Good News might be better news than most people suppose. The revelation of Jesus unveiled to the Apostle John offers signposts and symbols, which help us to grasp the great coming reality. Some of these signs point to the ways in which the Gospel is not an escapist dream. The idea of Jesus coming to take people away from this world misses the whole point. The Good News is not about leaving earth, it is about a new heaven and a new earth coming together. Heaven and earth are the twin-halves of God’s good creation—made to be together—and will one day be God’s dwelling place among his genuine humans.  Indeed, this Good News is already taking effect in the ‘real world’ through the Spirit’s power and work of renewal in the here and now. The Christian message announces that in Christ we become more fully human, not less. God is putting things right in his world by filling it with the presence of Jesus though his body, the Church. Indeed, God made humans to reflect his own glory, love, and wisdom into the world, returning their praises back to him in glad adoration. The Gospel is a welcome announcement about the future when the whole earth will be flooded with the presence of God and the rule of his Kingdom without end. It is an invitation and also a declaration that God’s people already share in that new world today. The Good News is not simply a question of life after death; rather, it is the Kingdom proclamation of the current reality of life after life after death.  When we say God’s new creation has begun, we are reminding ourselves where we are on God’s map and in God’s time. Revelation 21 is not about saved souls going up to heaven. It is about the New Jerusalem coming down to earth, resulting in the new heavens and new earth, which are one and the same place.  We see that what we embody as people of Good News foreshadows that God’s new world of heaven and earth will be more solid and more permanent and more glorious. God will be present as he has promised, and we shall respond appropriately in worship. We will inhabit God’s new world with new bodies to match. The Good News unveils how creation will be set free from its bondage to decay when God’s children are glorified and death will be no more for God himself will be with his people, forever. Question to consider: How might Revelation 21.1-4 encourage you to ‘rethink heaven’ as creation itself being renewed and restored by heaven and earth coming together? Living it out:  What new hope of the Christian message of Good News have you discovered and how can you embody and share it with someone today?