And Yet… God is making all things new

 

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And Yet… God is making all things new

 

Well it’s been a minute since I have been up here, so I figured I would ease into it and not tackle too difficult of a topic today.

I mean it’s Super Bowl Sunday, the Seahawks are in it, let’s keep easy going, right?

We’ll just look at questions like…Why does God allow suffering and evil? And wasn’t Jesus victorious over sin and death at the cross?

Nothing too weighty, right?

Um, yeah, no, we are going to try to tackle some BIG ones today.

Alright, are you ready!? let’s do this!

Will you all stand as we read the scripture we are going to focus on today?

From Revelation 21:

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. 2And I saw the holy city, 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^a of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,^b and God himself will be with them as their God.^c 4He 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.”

5And 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.” 6And 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. 7The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 

Revelation 21:1-7

This is the Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God

 

“Behold, I am making ALL THINGS NEW!”

REALLY?!!!

It sure doesn’t seem that way sometimes, does it?

“And he said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”

How is it, done?!

When we look at the world, at violence, addiction, war, and loss, it is very hard to hear the words, “It is done,” and believe them.

How is He making ALL THINGS NEW. How is it DONE!?

Clearly OUR idea of NEW and DONE is something quite different than God’s idea.

It must be, because I don’t know about you, but when I look at the world, I see all kinds of things that bring me to my knees. Brings me to my knees praying to God saying, “What is going on?!”

This is the big question, right?

There are a lot of big questions, but when I talk to friends who don’t yet believe the gospel, don’t yet believe in the “God is Salvation”

Invariably, they mostly struggle with this question…

How can a good God allow such suffering?

And my daughter a few years ago said to me what I think is an even deeper question…

She said, “The thing I don’t really understand is how Jesus died on the cross to save us from sin and death, but there is still so much sin and death. How come He didn’t or wasn’t able to fix everything right then and there?”

It was a fairly profound question from a then 16-year-old I thought. I don’t know that I had a great answer for her at the time.

I’ve wrestled with that ever since she posed that question to me.

While I expect I will wrestle with this question until I am finally with Jesus in that New Heaven and New Earth, I have been able to come to a better understanding through reading Scripture and studying theology and reading books by people a heck of a lot smarter than me.

You see there is a tension between what a lot of theologians would describe as the “Already, but Not Yet.”

Christ already won the victory of over sin and death by dying on cross with our sin, and He was victorious over death through His resurrection from the grave.

But that was not the end of history.

It was a decisive turning point of history.

Christ’s victory is real, it is complete. It is finished in principle, even though it is not yet complete in experience.

We are living in this “already, but not yet” reality

·         “but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”” Romans 8:15

·         “but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” Romans 8:23

We are adopted, and then 6 sentences later, Paul says we are awaiting adoption

Paul says we are redeemed by Christ’s blood, and yet also sealed for a redemption still to come.

 

Scripture keeps doing this to us. Already saved, not yet saved. Already raised, not yet raised.

It’s weird right?

We might think that the timeline of history would look like this:

 

 

And that is a very Old Testament prophet way of seeing it.

This age of darkness and suffering…

then the arrival of the Messiah…

which would coincide with a General Resurrection of those that had previously died,

then God sets everything right.

Isaiah captures that expectation when he says in Isaiah 9,

 

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

 

Isaiah goes on to describe that light bringing joy, justice, peace, and an everlasting kingdom, ruled by a child born to sit on David’s throne forever.

 

That was the hope.

Darkness, then light.

Suffering, then restoration.

And that was the view that Paul would have had before encountering Jesus on the road to Damascus.

The child is born, the son is given, and from that time and forevermore - the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end

But, Paul’s mindset was radically altered when he saw the glorious light of the gospel on that road.

Paul realized on that road

that it wasn’t “General” Resurrection of the Dead that was the decisive turning point –

which was the hope shaped by prophets like Isaiah and Daniel

but it was Jesus’ resurrection that was the great turning point.

Paul’s understanding changed to Jesus’ resurrection being the “hope of Israel”.

Jesus’ resurrection moved us into an age where we experience The Age to Come – In the present!

So, we are living in something that looks like this:

 

We are living in “This age” where sin and death have reigned since Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden. But with Jesus’ sacrifice on cross, He ushered us into the “Age to Come”, into His kingdom.

And His kingdom came near to us, tangibly, at the cross.

But while those of us who believe, are firmly placed in His coming age kingdom now,

we all still sin and fall short of His glory

and are firmly still in the “this age”.

So we are living in this dual reality of the Already, but not yet Kingdom.

And “the age to Come” will be ultimately fulfilled with Christ’s return, where there will be that general resurrection, but in the meantime Jesus’ death and resurrection inaugurated the age to come where we already have new life in Christ.

It’s a bit hard to wrap our mind’s around, isn’t it?

How can we already have something, but not yet have it?

A few years ago, we took a family trip over to Barcelona, Spain. It’s such a great city…great architecture, great museums, shopping, and the food!!! Incredible.

So probably the biggest, most major site to visit there is a church called La Sagrada Familia…Has anyone been there?

It’s stunning, right?

You walk up to it and your brain almost does not know where to look first. Towers reaching up toward the sky. Stone carved with incredible detail. Light pouring through stained glass in every color you can imagine.

It is beautiful, but It is not finished.

It’s absolutely amazing, but at the same time, it’s a total construction zone.

And it has been under construction for a long time; construction actually started back in 1882. Over 140 years ago.

The architect most people associate with it, Antoni Gaudí, took on the project in the late 1800s. He knew from the beginning he would never see it completed in his lifetime.

There is a line often attributed to Gaudí, whether he said it exactly this way or not, it captures how he approached the project: that his client was not in a hurry.

I think what Gaudi was saying was, God isn’t rushed by human timelines. He wasn’t saying that God is slow, but rather that God works in deep, long time. Time that is outside of our worldly understanding.

Even unfinished, La Sagrada is fully functioning.

 

People worship there every week. People gather. God is worshipped. Beauty is experienced. Meaning is present.

 

It is already what it was meant to be.

 

And yet, it is not what it will be one day.

 

When you stand inside La Sagrada Familia, you are standing inside something that is real, usable, alive, and unfinished all at the same time. You can see scaffolding. You can hear construction.

 

And YET, I’ve never heard of anyone walking out of there saying, “Well, I guess it does not count yet because it is not totally perfect and done.”

 

Everyone understands. This is a masterpiece in progress.

That is what Scripture is saying about the world we live in.

God is not standing back saying, “Someday I will start fixing this.”

He has already begun.

The foundation has been laid.

The decisive work has been done.

“Behold, I am making ALL THINGS NEW.”

 

The world is a mess with rampant sin and death and suffering, and yet He is making All Things New

 

We seem to have a problem with this, it’s what folks call “the problem of pain”, isn’t it?

It causes many to question the veracity of Jesus and His victory on the cross.

What’s interesting is that the early Church did not seem to struggle with this.

Imagine it, they were in the moment, days months or just a few years removed from Jesus’ ministry, and then death and resurrection, yet people came to know Christ in those days in droves.

I find that really interesting.

Because the people who were closest to these events would have likely expected the kingdom to arrive in a much more immediate way.

They heard Jesus talk about thrones, restoration, and the renewal of all things. It would have been natural for them to assume that once He rose from the dead and ascended, the world would finally look healed.

But instead, Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and ascended to heaven, and the world remained a mess.

In fact, it got harder.

Christ’s followers were persecuted. They were imprisoned. They were killed. The promised kingdom did not look anything like what they might have imagined.

And yet, the church exploded.

The suffering did not disprove Jesus to them. It confirmed what He had told them.
The kingdom had arrived, but not yet in its final form.

And…The suffering that they experienced was not just a general suffering, but actually as of a result of coming to know Jesus,

that did not deter the exponential growth of the Church.

In fact, it would seem that as suffering increased, the amount of faith in Christ increased even more.

But when I talk to friends about faith in Christ, this “problem of pain” is the #1 issue they have with trusting in the Lord,

but the very people who were right there for it all didn’t shrink in the face of this dilemma.

Quite the opposite, the church exploded.

The fact as Jesus preached that “The Kingdom of God is at hand”, but the world was very much not looking like The Kingdom of God,

it seems that was a feature, not a bug.

The early church did not expect the world to look healed immediately

because they understood that Christ’s victory was inaugurated, not consummated.

 

In other words, the cross did not erase history. It redirected it.

 

The resurrection did not end the battle. It guaranteed the outcome.

 

The kingdom did not arrive as a takeover. It arrived as a seed.

 

This is why suffering did not disprove Jesus to them.

It actually confirmed what he said.

 

Jesus never promised a pain-free world before the end.

He promised a conquered enemy whose defeat would unfold over time.

 

So when persecution increased, they did not say, “Something went wrong.”

They said, “This is what he told us would happen.”

 

That is the logic shift we modern listeners maybe need some help making.

 

God is forming His children, before He fixes the world

 

I have been doing a little light reading of a book by Geerhardus Vos called “The Pauline Eschatology”,

Eschatology is a part of theology that is concerned with the last things, the 2^nd coming of Jesus, resurrection, judgement, heaven, Hades, Lake of Fire, new heaven and new Earth, etc.

Eschatology focuses on this culmination of God’s plan for humanity.

So Vos’ work is really a study in what the Apostle Paul taught about this “Behold, I am making All things new” reality

And if there is one thing I have been able to grasp from Vos, Paul emphasizes that Christ’s redemption is not just about immediate outcomes, but much more important, it is about formation.

God is not just making a new world.

He is making Us, His beloved children.

God is interested in making His kingdom in our hearts, in our lives. He is way more interested in the formation of His kingdom in us personally so we can realize our chief end:

To glorify God and enjoy Him forever!

God is not delaying because He cannot finish the work.

He is delaying because He is not finished with us.

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

Revelation 21:2

This is such interesting and intentional imagery

A bride is not someone waiting to be loved.

A bride is already chosen.

Already claimed.

Already promised.

Already secure.

 

But she is also not yet at the wedding.

 

Engagement is a season of certainty and waiting at the same time.

The relationship is real.

The future is guaranteed.

The commitment is settled.

 

But the fullness of the joy is still coming.

 

That is the image God uses for the new creation.

 

We are not abandoned.

We are not forgotten.

We are not uncertain.

 

We are promised.

We are claimed.

We are secured.

 

And we are still waiting.

 

Already His.

Not yet home.

 

And you see…If God ended all suffering immediately, there would be no patience to learn, no faith to grow, no love to practice, no enemies to forgive.

God is not just preparing a place for His people.

He is preparing His people for the place.

The “not yet” is not wasted time.

It is forming time.

We fallen, deeply flawed humans really like immediate gratification, don’t we?

But like La Sagrada, engagement to be married, and any number of other great examples of joy that culminate with the fullness of time.

That time is essential to prepare for the great joy that is to come.

So, YES, He is MAKING all things new and thank God for that!

 

 

But wait…what does Jesus mean when he says, ALL THINGS NEW?

 

Revelation 21 does not say, “I am making some things new.”

It does not say, “I am making spiritual things new.”

It does not say, “I am making church things new.”

 

It says, “ALL things.”

 

That means creation.

That means bodies.

That means relationships.

That means injustice.

That means trauma.

That means history.

That means what was broken at the fall in Genesis is healed in Revelation.

 

When Scripture says God is making all things new, it does not mean He is starting over from scratch.

It means He is bringing creation back into alignment with His aboriginal intention — the intention He had when He first spoke the world into being and called it “very good.”

 

“All Things New” is not escape from the world.

It’s the renewal of the world.

 

He is making ALL things new

When Scripture says “ALL,” it is inviting us to see how BIG Christ’s saving work on the cross truly is, not to answer every mystery of judgment into a calculus of… this thing, but not that thing.

And that BIG, AMAZING work of Christ on the cross…what an incredible gift!

And there are dozens and dozens of examples in scripture of not only the Apostle John emphatically recounting Christ’s words that ALL are being made new, but similarly Paul stated this fact very clearly.

And Paul seems to have meant exactly what he says. In fact in his letter to the Christians in Rome he clearly calls out the distinction between what he means by “all” (or panta in the Greek) and what he means by “many” (or polloi)

The language is intentionally expansive.

Now…let’s be clear…When he speaks of Christ’s act bringing life to “all,”

he is not minimizing sin or judgment.

He is magnifying the scope and sufficiency of Christ’s righteousness.

Now, I don’t know what to do with all of that, but I do firmly believe in the authority of Scripture and that the Bible is truly God-breathed.

And I don’t believe there are mistakes in Scripture.

So, when Paul says, “as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”

It’s not a mistake

And yet…for as many scriptures that seem to indicate ALL really means ALL,

there are as many scriptures that indicate there are sheep and goats,

and vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

and what is on his left will NOT be made new.

And I believe those scriptures are not a mistakes either.

And I don’t know how to reconcile that,

and it is one of those mysteries that I cannot wait to understand in the consummated, age to come.

But we do know that Jesus is the true light of the world, and that those that are in Christ are children of light.

The theologian Karl Barth said something in his work — Church Dogmatics — that sticks with me.

I will paraphrase, but He essentially said that evil is real, but it is not a “thing” in the same way goodness is a thing.

Light has substance. Light has energy. Light fills space.

Darkness does not. Darkness is what happens when light is absent.

Darkness and Evil are not something God created and then lost control of. Evil is what God does not will. It is a shadow that exists only because creation is not yet fully healed.

It might be fair to call darkness a NO-THING.

So…Light is a thing…

in fact, I would argue that light is THE THING.

The one, true thing.

I’m not going to sit here and say I know what is going to happen when we are all resurrected upon Christ’s return,

and whether some things are things and others are nothings,

but here is what I know based on Scripture.

God is making ALL things new — so nothing we encounter should be judged as finally finished or beyond redemption by Him.

Whatever God’s ultimate plan is, He desires—in fact He commands—that we love one another as He loved us.

And whatever the final shape God’s righteous judgement looks like, Scripture does not let us draw small circles around grace.

And I know this—If you believe NOW, you are justified and part of God’s Kingdom now.

I hope and pray that anyone and everyone will come to believe in Jesus’ name— NOW!

Not just because I want them to be saved in the “yet to come”, but because there is immeasurable joy to be in Christ NOW.

I hope that all of us will experience what Jesus said about the woman who wet His feet with her tears, and anointed them with ointment:

Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” 48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Luke 7:47-48

I hope and pray that all of us will experience that forgiveness of sins NOW,

because I hope that all of us will love much…NOW!

I hope and pray that He is making ALL things new!

  

We have reason to HOPE in the fact that He is Making All Things New

 

Earlier I talked about the difference between Jesus’ resurrection and the general resurrection still to come.

Jesus did not come and immediately raise everyone from the dead.

But His resurrection changed everything.

His resurrection enabled our SPIRITUAL resurrection

which guarantees our physical resurrection that is to come.

 

Our future is certain because the risen Jesus, the hope of Israel, is our hope.

 

If Christ died with our sins, as our goat, our scapegoat.

And just like a goat who had been given as a sacrifice, as required by the Mosaic law,

He died as an atonement for all sins.

If Jesus had acted in that capacity, as that atonement,

If Jesus had died with our sin and stayed in the grave,

His death might have been symbolic, but it would not have been victorious.

The astonishing truth is that Jesus was crucified bearing the sin of the world, and yet God raised Him from the dead.

That resurrection is God’s verdict on Jesus.

You see, A JUSTIFIED Christ means that we as believers are JUSTIFIED.

It means His sacrifice was accepted.

It means death did not have the final word.

And that brings me tremendous HOPE

If Christ was justified, then those who are in Christ are justified too.

We are raised in him and justified in him.

That verdict cannot be reversed.

It does not fade with time.

It does not depend on how strong your faith feels this week.

It is the same verdict rendered to Christ, which is his forever.

Through our union with the Beloved Son of God Jesus Christ, what is his, is ours,

and we are. who the Apostles John and Paul explicitly said we are,

Beloved children of God, just as Jesus is.

Paul said in his letter to the Roman church:

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God”

Romans 5:9

Later in Romans 8:1-2 he says:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.^[a] 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you^[b] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 

 

What an incredible hope that is.

For those who trust Jesus, Scripture says you are justified.

Not someday.

Now.

There is not now, and not ever, condemnation for you.

For those that believe in Him,

those that are justified through Christ’s blood on the cross and resurrection from the dead,

Scripture assures us that NOTHING,

NOTHING will be able separate us from the love of God.

NOTHING.

 

That does not mean life suddenly stops hurting.

It does not mean the world is no longer a mess.

But it does mean the final verdict has already been rendered.

 

You are not waiting to see how your story turns out.

Your story is already anchored in Christ.

And that changes how we live right now.

 

It means when you suffer, your suffering is not meaningless.

It means when you grieve, your grief is not permanent.

It means when you feel broken, stuck in the pit, lonely, or afraid,

those things do not get the final word.

 

We do not deny the pain of this present age.

We name it.

We lament it.

We feel it deeply.

 

But we face it as people who already know the verdict.

 

Paul says creation itself is groaning, waiting for redemption.

And we groan too.

But we groan as those who know what is coming.

 

Hope does not mean pretending things are fine.

Hope means trusting that God is not finished.

 

And truly the most faithful thing we can do in the “not yet” is simply to keep hoping in Christ.

To keep praying.

To keep loving.

To keep knowing that God is at work even when we cannot see it.

 

Because the same power that raised Jesus from sin and death is already at work in us.

The Holy Spirit is faithfully and graciously at work in us.

 

So when the Revelation says, “Behold, I am making all things new,”

that includes you.

He has made you new.

And He is still making you new.

 

We live in the middle.

The work has begun.

The outcome is secure.

And Christ who promised… is faithful.

 

The world is a mess.

And yet… God IS making all things new.

      

 

My friends, as you go today…

Go in peace.

Live in hope.

Let God’s great Love for you shape how you see others.

And go trusting that God is making all things new.

Go in grace.