Revelation 22:1-6: All things new.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.6 The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’ NIV

At the moment I am reading a book with a friend. It is entitled, ‘The Ordinary Hero’, and is written by Tim Chester. Towards the end he has a chapter headed ‘A renewed world of life’. Here are a couple of quotes from it. The first one is by the eminent twentieth century preacher, Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones:

‘As I understand it, what is commonly described as ‘heaven’ in the Scripture is what we should regard as the intermediate state, not the final state, not the eternal state…Our eternal state is not going to be lived in the heavens, in the air, in some vague nebulous spiritual condition…Heaven in an eternal sense going to be ‘heaven on earth’. Heaven on earth-that is where we shall spend eternity, and not as disembodied spirits, for the whole man shall be redeemed, the body included. A concrete body must have a concrete world…You and I, the redeemed, will dwell in our glorified bodies on a glorified earth under the glorified heavens.’ (He was commenting on Romans 8:18-23 at the time).       Tim Chester goes on to say: ‘At the end of history, heaven will be united with earth. Christians don’t go up to heaven. John sees the heavenly Jerusalem ‘coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband’ (Revelation 21:2). The presence of God comes to earth.’

 How can we be sure this will happen? God doesn’t lie (verse 6). God is as good as His Word.