Contents

Chapter One: Good God—Who is He really?
Chapter Two: Words Have Meaning—Grammar Matters
Chapter Three: Behold, I make All Things New
Chapter Four: Eternal Mortal Life
Chapter Five: Second Death Mercy

Chapter Three: 
Behold, I make All Things New

Revelation 21:1-2 — Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

We turn now to the new creation. But as we do, we can see that our current creation has passed away. It will pass away. In fact, the lifetime of this Earth is but a mere 7,000 years in all. Why do I assert this? It is a belief based on the creation account of it. Why did the Lord take six days to create and one day to rest? Many (and I) believe it is to show the duration of the existence of this earth and its cosmos. 6,000 years of man’s rule, followed by 1,000 years of God’s rule. That thousand years is called the Millennium. It is when Jesus sits on His throne on Mount Zion and rules the Earth (this earth) with an iron rod, along with His saints. 

As I write this in 2026, the year of Earth’s age is approximately 5,990 years. If true, that would give us about 10 years before the King of all kings and Lord of all lords returns to take His place above us. He will build a new temple on Zion that is shown in Ezekiel 40 – 48. Then, at the end of the thousand years this earth (the physical realm) and heaven (the spirit realm) will cease to exist and He will judge the living and the dead from His great white throne of judgment. And that is where our passage above sits. We are seeing what will happen at that time of final judgment. 

The New Jerusalem

“I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (21:2)

Everything about the New Jerusalem is given here that we need to know. It is just a glimpse of the wondrous and magnificent holy city of God. This is the true eternal heaven. Gone is the one in existence now. This New Jerusalem is heaven. It sits on New Earth, but it is distinct from the new planet. 

I am about to show you this marvel of creation. I will share my own understanding of it through the gift of knowledge that my Lord gives to me. I am not claiming any authority in saying that. I am just an ordinary believer with the same gift that many others have. And cross check all I tell you with the Word of God. I claim no authority with my insights. They are only for you to ponder. But ponder them. For they are wondrous to tell and imagine. 

Revelation 21:3-5 — And 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. ‘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.”

And 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.”

Of first importance about this passage is the statement about no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. I have several things to say about this important word.

First, all of these things will actually continue on the New Earth, but not in the New Jerusalem. Why do I boldly claim this? It is seen by keeping everything in its proper place. We use the plain meaning way of reading scripture, which says take it as it comes. And in context of this passage, we just saw that we are looking at the holy city first. So the statement of none of those things—death included—being present is for the holy city, not the planet upon which it sits. 

Why the high walls of the city, shown in this 21^st chapter of Revelation? Why the angelic guards at the gates (likely imposing figures on a massive scale)? Why the gates? What are we keeping out? The answer is given, and we’ll look at that in a bit. 

But for now, just remember that all death, sorrow and pain is kept from the interior of the holy city and NOT withheld from the planet it sits on.  

Second, the city is the dwelling place of Christ, the Almighty. He is showing His full glory that lights up the cosmos, like our Sun does in this universe. But with a big distinction: glory passes through solid matter. No shadows of broken light. This will light up the entire planet and beyond into the new universe. That is the new heavens beyond the New Earth. By the way, I see other earths orbiting the New Earth like our own solar system of today. Not uninhabited — inhabited. But I’ll not get into that in this study. You can read Sheep To Nations for more on that.

We see in this account a bit later that the city is a giant cube. It is a whopping 12,000 stadia (1,380 miles) to a side. That is about the distance from Albuquerque to Chicago in the US. And it is as tall as it is long and wide! So, if placed on our current planet, Earth would likely wobble from the sheer weight of it — it is made of gold, gemstone, and crystal. And if we consider a person being the same height (for illustration), the International Space Station would hit him below the knees (about 250 miles). That would be another 1,130 miles of wall above that! 

Since it is a cube, it reminds us of the Holy of Holies in the previous temples of God. From the Tabernacle to the Millennial Temple that throne room is always a cube. Do you think that those temples were pointing forward to this structure? The final throne room of God? His place of tabernacling with His people? 

The walls are a clear crystal, making it visible from without. The foundation stones are pure gemstones of various colors that are placed in the arrangement of a literal rainbow of color. I do not see rock or concrete adorned with precious stones. I see solid slabs of precious stone. Each layer a complete gemstone that is translucent and thick. Is each stone a mile thick? 10 miles thick? Or a mere 100 meters thin? Remember, John said it looked like “a most precious jewel”. 

Inside are buildings and roads made of gold. Some commentators foolishly call it clear gold. That is silly. Gold is gold. But the Greek tells us that the gold is as pure as clear glass. We are reading of purity, not clarity. 

Now the vision of the city is seen well enough to imagine walls that stretch out of sight to the left and right and upward, sitting on a foundation that radiates a rainbow of color onto the surface of the planet. Remember, the city is lighted from within by the glory of God—Jesus on the throne. And since He is elevated above the foundation stones His radiance bursts through them in a rainbow. 

Spread out, perhaps about every 350 miles, is a gate. The gates are likely round, with a single pearl being the gate. Now, are these pearl gates slabs of cut pearl? Or are they spherical and suspended just out from the holes in the walls through which we pass? Since the walls are 144 cubits thick (maybe 216 feet, depending on the cubit), are the pearls that same diameter? I like to imagine that they are hovering just outside the walls, suspended in mid-air, with enough room to walk between them and the wall to enter the city. And a massive angel standing by the opening, spear in hand. What a vision!

Is your concept of heaven boring, or alive? Do you have an idea of some vague, ethereal void in mind? Or something much more alive, vivid and real? If you are an artist, I’d love to see your rendition of this vision of heaven. Make the foundation slightly wider than the walls above for a ledge to travel on between gates (perhaps a hundred meters wide?). Show something like ramps, stairs, or better yet a tram car to take visitors up the high grade to the gates. 

That is the New Jerusalem I see in my mind. I base it only on the Word of God and His descriptions, taken at face value. 

The New Earth

The planet this holy city is perched upon, like a radiant jewel, must be much larger than this one we are on now. I see it the size of Jupiter, or perhaps our Sun. 

But, who is living on this new planet?

We go to Isaiah to learn about life on the New Earth. Many think that he was describing this earth in the Millennium. While I would agree that there are many similarities, I must decline to agree with that assessment. Why? He plainly tells us his vision is of the new creation. 

Isaiah 65:17-19 —For behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and take delight in My people. The sounds of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her.

Notice the opening: I will create new heavens and a new earth. Notice too that this current world falls from memory. And also (importantly) notice that he reinforces the idea that it is the New Jerusalem where the sounds of weeping are no longer heard. He made that distinction, so we should mark it and remember it. Especially when we later get to that part where he describes an important feature of the new planet. We save that discussion for the Lake of Fire. 

Let us quickly jump back to Revelation 21:1 where John says he saw no sea on the New Earth. 

Why is there no sea? Does he mean no oceans at all, or is he making a distinction between that world and this? In our present, broken planet, we have abyssal (deep) oceans between continents. But did you know that the current earth was actually not created this way? No, it’s true. If you read my books on the Flood (This Broken Planet and The Broken Planet Model), you’d know that God showed me in a vision what the pre-Flood world looked like as to its layers within. 

The earth we are on had no deep oceans like now. It had surficial seas of sometimes great width but not great depth. So if the New Earth is made like the first one, but grander in scale, it would not have the appearance of ours now. It would be a lush, green planet. Yes, there would be seas and rivers, just not in the volume we have now. You should read The Broken Planet Model from my website for free or just read the quicker study in a tract series there called Noah’s Flood Made Easy. For the series, look for “Books by Gary” in the menu and see the sub-menu for the series off of the book, This Broken Planet.

I truly believe that the New Earth will have the same architecture of our pre-Flood Earth of today. 

The Two Made One

I’m going to have to speculate here, since it is not clearly enunciated in scripture. But I see the new creation as being a merger of our current realms of spirit and physical matter. This is what makes the most sense to me the further we dive into these details. 

The Cosmos

First, in my mind the very universe is a combination of the two realms of today. The new heavens would not be like ours now. And what is meant in the scriptures of “heavens” anyway? Well, we know that in context the word for heaven or heavens can be one of three things:

• Earth’s atmosphere (1^st heaven)
• Outer space (2^nd heaven)
• The Spirit Realm (3^rd heaven)

I’ll not show examples. You can look them up on your own. But we can see the same word used for all three. 

Paul said that he was taken up into the “third heaven”, which I call the spirit realm. That is what most people generically call “heaven”. But the spirit realm is also where hell is now. And the Lake of Fire is there now too, to be carried over to the new creation just as we are to be carried over.  

With that put out there, since the current “heaven” is to be no more, and since wherever Jesus is enthroned is heaven, and His throne is on the New Earth, we can surmise that the New Earth is where the new heaven will be. And the new heaven is the New Jerusalem. 

And notice that such an arrangement has no separation between realms like now. Heaven is on a planet in a cosmos. That tells me that there is only one realm in the new creation. And this fits with my view of humanity as well. 

Resurrection

I’ll not go too deep into this, because it is covered more in Chapter Four. But for right now, I’ll just say that humans will continue to be the three-part beings we are now. You’re a soul, with a spirit, living in a body.

You see, now when we die, our soul and spirit continue to live-on apart from our physical body. They go to the spirit realm, where we are called “disembodied” souls. The body remains here, while the soul departs with the spirit accompanying it. In this notion, the spirit is the senses for the soul. Where the soul goes, the spirit goes to provide input to the soul. It’s just like our physical five senses for our body’s brain. Any conflation of spirit and soul is forgivable since they are inseparable. 

The resurrection can then be seen as a reunion of the physical with the spiritual. New bodies for the old souls. And since souls don’t age, we become young again forever. 

For those saved by faith—called saints, this new body is on a whole new level of capacity. I call it “Humanity 2.0”. We will be very much like Jesus in those bodies. Indestructible. Perfect. Sinless. Capable of great things that seem miraculous now. That body is like a “mansion” compared to our current “tent”. See Paul’s 2^nd letter to the Corinthians for that analogy (chapter 5).

And since I’m not getting into the other people yet (those not saved by faith in Christ), I’ll just say that they will be reintegrated as well. Just not on the same level. 

But what I will share about them is this. They are mortals, living long lives and raising children on a utopian world, where their God is visible with His Spirit upon them. He is known to them and answers their prayers as they speak. There are no invisible demonic enemies to torment them and no marauding hordes to invade. But they do have the ability to sin. Although everything in that life is counterproductive to anything evil. (See Isaiah 65:17-25 for a more complete description.)

Conclusion

While much of what I just shared is not easily caught while reading the Bible, it is assembled from the scriptures. I just take what the Bible says, believe it, and change nothing to fit any preconceptions I might have. I do not follow any outside teaching at all. 

Our “heaven” is not some ethereal void in some unknowable cosmos. It is a real earth in a real universe. And it is no longer a place of separate realms. It is perfect, with perfect people leading not-so-perfect people through life. Beautiful, serene, and joyful. God and man together forever. Amen.

Group Discussion and Reflection

Questions

1. What is the new heaven called?
2. Where is the new heaven located?
3. What is the shape of heaven’s holy city?
4. What is the city and foundation made of?
5. Are there two kinds of people on the New Earth?

Answers

1. New Jerusalem
2. On New Earth
3. A perfect cube
4. Crystal walls, golden buildings and streets, gemstone foundation. 
5. Yes. Immortal saints and mortal nations. 

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