Page 243 - Through New Eyes

The Worlds of Exile and Restoration 243

The New Heavens and Earth in Prophecy
God announced His intention to bring judgment on His
wayward people, and on the nations, repeatedly through His
prophets. One famous passage in Jeremiah uses the cosmic lan-
guage of “heaven and earth” to describe the fall of Judah’s body
politic:

I looked on the earth, and behold!
formless and void;
And to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains,
and behold, they were quaking,
And all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and behold, there was no man,
And all the birds of the heavens had fled.
I looked, and behold, the fruitful land
was a wilderness,
and all its cities were pulled down
Before the Lord,
Before His fierce anger.

For thus says the Lord,
“The whole land shall be a desolation,
“Yet I will not execute a complete destruction.
“For this the earth shall mourn,
‘And the heavens above be dark,
“Because I have spoken,
“1 have purposed,
“And I will not change My mind,
“Nor will I turn from it” (Jeremiah 4:23-28).

These announcements of judgment were always accompan-
ied by announcements of a restoration, a new covenant, a new
heavens and earth to come. The new covenant and the new
heavens and earth ultimately point to the coming of Christ, but
their first fulfillment is to be found in the restoration of Israel
from exile.3 That restoration was a downpayment, a pledge of
God’s faithfulness. After all, each new covenant, being a resur-
rection in more glorious form of the previous one, pointed to the
New Covenant.