Revelation 21:4-5
…for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.
There is a wonderful finality in that phrase, “the former things are passed away.” Not improved. Not managed. Not slowly fading. Passed away.
That means heaven will not be this present life with a brighter sky and better scenery. It will be life untouched by the old order altogether. No sin. No flesh. No inner war. No wounded pride. No jealousy. No resentment. No pettiness. No habits that embarrass us. No tendencies that keep tripping us up. All of that belongs to the former things, and the former things are passing away.
Sometimes we look around and think, I love the Lord, but I do not know how I could spend forever with some of these people. Maybe they rub you the wrong way. Maybe they exhaust you. Maybe their personality grates on yours. Maybe even in your own home there are little things that wear on you day after day. But heaven will not be populated by half fixed people still dragging around the flesh. When we see Jesus, we shall be like Him. That changes everything.
1 John 3:2
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
Think about that. The very things that make relationships hard now will be gone there. The sharp edge in one person. The insecurity in another. The stubbornness, the selfishness, the vanity, the impatience, the touchiness. Gone. Entirely gone. You are not going to spend eternity next door to somebody’s flesh. Neither will they have to live next door to yours.
That is part of the joy of heaven we do not think about enough. We talk about golden streets and gates of pearl, and rightly so. But one of the sweetest parts of glory will be this deep, clean holiness that fills every redeemed person. No masks. No mixed motives. No misunderstandings rising from fallen hearts. The former things are passed away.
Paul said something along these lines when he wrote that he knew no man after the flesh.
2 Corinthians 5:16-17
Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
We taste that even now in part. In Christ, the new creation has already begun. But in heaven it will be complete. What grace started, glory will finish.
Then comes that great declaration from the throne: “Behold, I make all things new.”
Not some things.
Not most things.
All things.
That is the voice of the One who never fails to finish what He begins. He does not merely rescue us from judgment. He remakes everything touched by the curse. He restores what sin ruined. He overturns what death stole. He brings in a world where nothing is bent, nothing is stained, nothing is fragile, and nothing is fading.
And then John is told, “Write: for these words are true and faithful.”
That line almost makes you smile because it is as if heaven pauses to say, “John, make sure you get this down exactly.” Why? Because it sounds beyond belief. It sounds too wonderful for people who live in cemeteries and hospitals and broken homes and weary bodies. It sounds too wonderful for people who know disappointment and betrayal and the long drag of ordinary sorrow.
So the Lord says, in effect, “Write it down. This is not poetry only. This is not religious wishful thinking. These words are true and faithful.”
I love that. God knows our tendency to hear promises like this and quietly wonder if they are really as good as they sound. So He settles the matter Himself. True and faithful. You can build your hope on that. You can bury your dead on that. You can face another hard week on that. You can keep walking through an aching world on that.
One day, every saint will be fully what grace intended.
One day, every relationship in glory will be unshadowed by sin.
One day, the old order will be gone for good.
One day, the One on the throne will have the last word over everything that hurt, irritated, corrupted, weakened, or grieved.
And His last word will not be ruin.
It will be new.
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