And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
The remaining two chapters describe the eternal and consummated kingdom of God on the new earth. As the world of nations is pervaded by divine influence in the millennium, so that of nature shall be, not annihilated, but transfigured, in the subsequent eternal state. The earth was cursed for man, but is redeemed by the second Adam. Now is the Church; in the millennium shall be the kingdom; after that shall be the new world, wherein God shall be all in all. The "day of the Lord" and conflagration of the earth are, in 2 Peter 3:1-18 spoken of together, from which many argue against a millennial interval between His coming and the general conflagration, preparatory to the new earth; but "day" is used often of a period comprising events closely connected, as are the Lord's second advent, the millennium, and the general conflagration and judgment. Compare Genesis 2:4, "day." Man's soul is redeemed by spiritual regeneration now; man's body shall be so at the resurrection; man's dwelling-place, his inheritance, the earth, shall be so at the creation of the new heaven and earth, which shall exceed the first paradise, as much as the second Adam exceeds in glory the first Adam before the fall, and as man regenerated in body and soul shall exceed man at creation. Isaiah (Isaiah 65:17) mentions the "new heaven and new earth" in the beginning of the millennium; John, at its close: because Isaiah takes the beginning to be a pledge of the completion. God's works are progressive. The millennium, in which sin and death are much restricted, is the transition state from the old to the new earth. The millennium is the age of regeneration. The final age shall be wholly free from sin and death. The millennial earth will not be the dwelling, but the kingdom, of the transfigured saints: they shall be "the new Jerusalem" on the new earth subsequently.
The first - the former.
Passed away. In 'Aleph (') A B, 'were departed' х apeelthon (G565), not pareelthe].
Was - `is:' graphically setting it before our eyes.
No more sea - the type of perpetual unrest (Isaiah 57:20; Mark 4:39). Hence, our Lord 'rebukes' it as an unruly hostile troubler of His people. It symbolized the political tumults out of which "the beast" arose (Revelation 13:1). As the physical corresponds to the spiritual world, so the absence of sea, after the earth's metamorphosis by fire, answers to the unruffled peace which shall prevail. The sea, though severing lands, is now, by God's eliciting good from evil, made the medium of their communication, through navigation. Then man shall possess powers which shall make the sea no longer necessary, but a hindrance: a perfect state. A "river" and "water" are mentioned, Revelation 22:1-2, probably literal (i:e., with such changes of the natural properties as correspond analogically to man's own transfigured body), as well as symbolical. The sea was once the element of the world's destruction, and is still death to thousands; whence, at the general judgment, it is specially said, "the sea gave up her dead." Then it shall cease to destroy or disturb: removed on account of its past destruction.