The Seer naturally touches on these before he describes it. And the fact that they come into view here as supplying the field for it makes the literal interpretation of their meaning the more probable. If a new heaven and a new earth' means a renovated condition of humanity, what difference is there between it and the new Jerusalem planted in it? We have to remember the whole stream of Old and New Testament representation, according to which the whole material creation is subject to vanity,' and destined for a deliverance. Modern astronomy has seen worlds in flames in the sky, and passing by a fiery change into new forms; and the possibility of the heavens being dissolved, the elements melted with fervent heat, and a new heavens and new earth emerging, cannot be disputed. In what sense are they new'? New' here, as the application of it to Jerusalem may show, does not mean just brought into existence, but renovated, made fresh, and implies, rather than denies, the fact of previous existence. So, throughout Scripture, the re-constitution of the material world, by which it passes from the bondage of corruption into' the liberty of the glory of the children of God' is taught, and the final seat of the city of God is set forth as being, not some far-off, misty heaven in space, but that new world which is the old.' And the sea is no more' probably is to be taken in a symbolic sense, as shadowing forth the absence of unruly power, of mysterious and hostile forces, of estranging gulfs of separation. Into this renovated world the renovated city floats down from God. It has been present with Him, before its manifestation on earth, as all things that are to be manifested in time dwell eternally in the Divine mind, and as it had been realised in the person of the ascended Christ. When He comes down from heaven again, the city comes with Him. It is the new Jerusalem,' inasmuch as the ideas which were partially embodied in the old Jerusalem find complete and ennobled expression in it. The perfect state of perfect humanity is represented by that society of God's servants, of which the ancient Zion was a symbol. In it all the glowing stream of prophecy dealing with the' bridal of the earth and of the sky,' the marriage of perfect manhood with the perfect King, is fulfilled.
