Rejoicing In The New Creation

Rejoicing in the New Creation

Excerpted from “God Rejoicing in the New Creation”

Sermon #2211

Delivered on Lord’s Day, July 5, 1891, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

As we see in so many Old Testament prophecies, God delights in transforming the old into the new. We can eagerly anticipate a new creation, a new Kingdom, a New Jerusalem, a New Earth.

Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. 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. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.

Isaiah 65:17-19

Spurgeon • This passage, like the rest of Isaiah’s closing chapters, will have its most complete fulfillment in the latter days when Christ shall come; when the whole company of his elect ones shall have been gathered out from the world; when the whole creation shall have been renewed; when new heavens and a New Earth shall be the product of the Savior’s power; when, forever and forever, perfected saints of God shall behold his face and rejoice in him.

I hope and believe that the following verses actually describe the condition of the redeemed during the reign of Christ upon the Earth:

“They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD. (Isaiah 65:21-25)

But the work which is spoken of in the text is begun already among us. There is to be a literal new creation, but that new creation has commenced already, and I think, therefore, that even now we ought to manifest a part of the joy. The Lord himself will rejoice, and we who are in sympathy with him are exhorted and even commanded to be glad. Let us not be slack in this heavenly duty.

Do you know what this work of creation is, which is here three times promised in the words “I create. I create. I create.”? It is evidently a second creation, which is altogether to eclipse the first and put it out of mind. Shall I tell the story?

The first creation was so fair that, when the Lord looked upon it, with man as its climax and crown, he said, “It is very good” (Genesis 1:31). But it failed in man, who should have been its glory. Man sinned, and in his sin he was so connected with the whole of the Earth that he dragged it down with him. The creation was made subject to vanity, and it groans in pain until now.

But the infinitely blessed God would not be defeated, and in infinite condescension he determined that he would make a new creation which should rise upon the ruins of the first. He resolved that under a second Adam something more than Paradise should be restored to the universe. He purposed that he would undo, through Jesus Christ, the Seed of the woman, all the mischief that had been wrought by the serpent. He has begun to undo this mischief and to work this new creation, and has so begun that he will never withdraw his hand until the work is done.

He has commenced it thus—by putting new hearts into as many as he has called by his Spirit, regenerating them and making them to become new creatures in Christ Jesus. These the apostle Paul tells us are a kind of firstfruits of this new creation. Our newborn spirits are the first ripe ears of corn out of a wonderful harvest that will come by and by. The saints’ spirits are, first of all, newly created, but their bodily parts remain in the old creation. Hence we suffer pain, for though the Spirit is life because of righteousness, “the body is dead because of sin” (Romans 8:10).

By and by their bodies shall be newly created, when, from beds of dust and silent clay they shall rise into immortal beauty. The Resurrection will be to the body what regeneration is to the soul. When body and soul are thus created anew, the whole Earth around them, in which they dwell, shall be, at the same time, renewed also. And so God shall make the spirits, the minds, and the bodies of men all new.

Inasmuch as this ought to be the subject of joy, and the text invites us to it, I come to press upon you the sweet duty of present delight. Oh, when happiness is made a rule, when joy is made a command, I cannot but hope that God’s people, to whom I am now speaking, will answer the call! Has gladness become the rule? Then we will gladly enough obey, and our hearts shall dance for joy.

Alcorn • God’s people were right to expect the Messiah to bring an earthly kingdom. That’s exactly what God had promised: “All kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him” (Psalm 72:11, NKJV). An explicitly messianic passage tells us, “His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth” (Zechariah 9:10, NIV).

God promises that he has a great future in store for Jerusalem, in which he will “extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream” (Isaiah 66:12, NIV). All the nations will bring their cultural treasures into a healed and peaceful Jerusalem, precisely as Revelation 21:24 portrays.

Isaiah 66 says that peace will come to Jerusalem and Jerusalem will become a center of all nations. The Lord says, “I . . . am about to come and gather the people of all nations and languages, and they will come and see my glory” (Isaiah 66:18, NIV). This prophecy is clearly fulfilled in the later chapters of Revelation. Jerusalem will again be a center of worship. Because this Jerusalem will reside on the New Earth, wouldn’t we expect it to be called the New Jerusalem? That’s exactly what it is called (Revelation 3:12; 21:2).

Scripture’s repeated promises about land, peace, and the centrality of Jerusalem among all cities and nations will be fulfilled. On the New Earth, a host of Old Testament prophecies will ultimately be fulfilled. There the people of God will “possess the land [erets, the Earth] forever” (Isaiah 60:21, emphasis added).

Every time Jewish people greet one another with “Shalom”—loosely translated “Peace”—they express the God-given cry of the heart to live in a world where there’s no sin, suffering, or death. There was once such a world, enjoyed by only two people and some animals. But there will again be such a world, enjoyed by all its inhabitants. Knowing that this glorious future awaits God’s children can give us perspective and courage to face our present sufferings, which are very real, yet in view of eternity only fleeting.