Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - The New Heaven and New Earth

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

When Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, he was called the first fruits for the dead. The first fruits are the beginning of a harvest. As great as the resurrection of Jesus Christ is—and it means everything—it’s only the first installment on something to come. On what? The new heavens and the new earth. John was not writing this for us to sit around in an abstract academic way trying to work out the symbols. He wrote it for a group of people facing terrible things, in order to give them a living hope. If you understand that when Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, he was a first installment on something to come, it enables you to face things that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to face. Because you have not just an abstract idea, but a living hope. To understand what this text is about, and even what the resurrection of Jesus Christ is about, let’s look at 1) the nature of this hope, 2) the need you have for it, and 3) how to get it. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 12, 2009. Series: Bible: The Whole Story - Redemption and Restoration. Scripture: Revelation 21:1-7. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. If someone asked you what the main story of the Bible is, what would you say? Today Tim Keller is preaching through the central storyline of the Bible. What went wrong with the human race? What God has done to rescue us through Christ? And how God means to restore the world? We're glad you're listening with us. Scripture reading comes from the Book of Revelation, chapter 21, verses 1 through 7.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. He said to me, it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning

and the end. To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God, and he will be my son." This is the word of the Lord. and he will be my son. This is the word of the Lord. You know, every time I've preached here today and there's been at least seven or eight now, I've always thought, it's what? This is one of the most wonderful fragrant,

smelling audiences I've ever encountered. And people pointed out it's just, it's really these. But it's really fragrant up here. So I'm just going to try to forget that and give you something interesting. When Jesus Christ is raised in the dead, he's called the first fruits. There's a number of places where he's called the first fruits for the dead. First fruits means a first installment. The first fruits was the beginning of the harvest, the very first gathered sheaves or fruit

from the harvest. So, first fruit means first installment, a first installment. Okay, so when Jesus was raising the dead, that was the first installment on something. What? This, the thing you just read or heard read. See that? The new heavens and the new earth. This is, is great as the resurrection of Jesus Christ

is, and it's means everything. Yet it's only the first installment on something to come, and this is it. New heavens, new Earth, City of God. Now I want you to see that John was not writing this the way we think he was writing it. You know people say, oh the book revelation, lots of weird symbols very interesting. Well it is, but he didn't write it for us to be two thousand years later sitting around in a kind of abstract economic way,

trying to work out the symbols. He wrote it for a group of people, a group of churches that were facing some terrible things. And he wrote this in order to give them a living hope. And if you understand it like that, if you understand it, Jesus Christ, when he was raised from the dead, was an installment, a first installment,

on something to come, that when you understand it and you grasp it, it enables you to face things that otherwise you wouldn't be able to face, because you have a living hope, not just an abstract idea, but a living hope. So if you want to understand what this text is about, and even what the resurrection of Jesus Christ is about, come with me and we'll look at the nature of this hope, the need you have

for it, and how to receive it, how to have it, how to get it, the nature of it, the need for it, and how to get it. Okay, first of all, this is real short. Let me tell you what the nature of this is. It's the word coming down. See that? And I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. Do you know why this is actually, this changed my life,

those two words changed my life years ago. Changed the way in which I understood Christianity in many ways. You know why? Here's John the Apostle, and he's getting a vision of the future, of the end of time, the end of history. And what does he see at the end of history? What's the climax at the end of history?

It's not individual souls rising up and escaping this material world, the earth. He doesn't have... You don't see individual souls escaping the earth and going to heaven. What do you have is heaven coming down and transforming the earth. That's the reason why I can say, we can say, that Jesus is the first fruit, the resurrected Christ of the face, the first installment on this, because what this is, this is on earth. This is the new heavens, the new earth, in which we have new bodies. See God didn't just create spirit, He also created body, and He's not just redeeming your spirit, but He's redeeming your body.

And what is out there is an absolutely re-woven, perfect, healed, material world, a world in which people hug each other. See, they don't just have little mental telepathy. They're not just, as somebody once said, in the Kingdom of God, as the Bible depicts it, you don't hover, you know, six inches above the pavement. See, you walk in the Kingdom of God, you march in the kingdom of God, you dance, you hug, you kiss, and you eat in the kingdom of God. Because Jesus ate a fish. The risen Christ said, I'm not a ghost. Look, give me a fish and he ate it. One of my favorite verses in the Bible. Okay? They gave him a fish and he ate the fish. And

he said, oh my gosh, you're not a ghost. No. Because the nature of this hope is not just pie in the sky by and by, but a feast on earth. See? Not just, though, we're going to be esoteric souls that have some sort of telepathy amongst each other, where we're sort of hovering around there and there's clouds and harps. No, this world, the world that we actually never had, you know, whenever one of the things that's so sad, of course, is that, you know, when you're a little, you remember certain times and places and as being just the greatest, just the greatest beach cottage,

the greatest, you know, mountains setting, the greatest, you know, mountain setting, the greatest, this, the greatest, when you actually go back, you always realize, hmm, this is what it was, but I remember it as being a whole lot better than it really was. And of course, this is what the, this is what's, the Gertan, the other romantic poets, I mean the European Romantic poets called Zainzookt.

And it's a German word and it has a really kind of untranslatable. And it means blissful longing, soul longing. You know, you're longing for a family you never had. Really? You're longing for a body you never had. You're longing for a home you never had. You're logging for a home you never had. You're longing for a beach you never had, a mountain you never had. You're logging for a world you never had. And John says, but it's coming. It's coming. And look, in verse 3, it says, now the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. Okay?

In other words, the relationship with God is healed. And then it says in verse 4, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. Now, if you're any of those long suffering people who've actually been coming here through this incredibly long series in which we started with, remember with Genesis, went through Romans, the Revelation, back in Genesis in Genesis 3, you remember that when we lost our relationship with God, we lost all other relationships. When our relationship with God fell apart, our relationship with God, we lost all other relationships. When our relationship with God

fell apart, our relationship with our true selves fell apart. You know, an Adam and Eve immediately began to experience fear and anxiety, and their relationships with each other fell apart. They had a hide, and their relationships with nature fell apart, with the physical world, and they began to experience aging and disease and death. When your relationship with God falls apart, all other relationships fall apart, and that's the reason why we have a longing for something in this world that this world never ever was able to fulfill because it's always been broken. But, when the relationship with God is put right, every other relationship will be put right.

There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. All that will be wiped away. Everything sad will be wiped away. And that's coming. That's on its way. Not individual souls escaping the world and going off into heaven, but heaven coming down and transforming the world. That's the nature of it.

The second, that's the nature of the hope. Now secondly, let me talk to you about the need for this hope. Let me talk to you about how practical it is. Don't just say, well, that's interesting, so that's the Christian teaching on that. No, this isn't just the Christian teaching. This is a life-transforming living hope if you understand it. Who was John writing to? He was writing, if you go back to Revelation 2 and 3, he was writing to people who were suffering terrible things, but you don't have to go back to Revelation 2 and 3. You can actually see what the people

were suffering that he was writing to in verse 4. He was writing to people who were about to experience more death and mourning and crying and pain than anybody in this room probably ever has seen or ever will see. Because at the end of the first century, the emperor demission, the Roman emperor demission, was the first emperor to do, begin widespread, large scale persecution of Christians, and Christians had their homes taken away and plundered, and Christians were sent into the arena to be torn to pieces by wild beasts as the crowds watched. And Christians were impaled on stakes,

and while still alive, covered with pitch and lit. And Christians were crucified sometimes by the hundreds or even thousands along the highways in and out of rooms so that people could see the Christians as they came and went from the city dying by inches. That's what they faced. And what did John give them so they could face it? John gave them this. John gave them the new heavens and their worth.

it. John gave them this. John gave them the new heavens and their worth. That's what he gave them to face that. And it's a simple fact of history that it worked. It did. We know that the early Christians took their suffering with such poise and with such peace. And they sang him as the beasts were tearing them apart. And they forgave the people that were killing them. They took their suffering, and they took their death, and their mourning, and their tears, with such poise and peace, that the more people killed them, the more that the Christian movement grew, and Tertullian, one of the early church fathers,

actually said the blood of the martyrs is like seed. Is the more we killed them, he said, the more they killed us, the more we are moving through. Why? Because when people watch Christians dying like that, they said, these people have got something. Well, you know what they had? They had this. It's a living hope. Human beings are absolutely hope-shaped creatures. You live now. The way you live now is completely controlled by what you believe about your future. Did you hear me?

The way you live now is completely controlled by what you believe about your future. Let me give you two illustrations. One was the old tale I was reading some years ago about two men and they were captured and thrown into a deep dark dungeon where they were going to suffer hard labor for ten years. That was their penalty. But just before they went into that deep dark dungeon, one of them had been discovered that his wife and child were dead. And the other man heard and found out that just before he went into the dungeon that his wife and child were dead. And the other man heard and found out

that just before he went into the dungeon, that his wife and child were alive and waiting for him. And you know what happened after just a couple years, the first man just wasted away, curled up and died. And the other man endured and resisted and stayed strong and walked out of free man 10 years later. And you say, that's not surprising. No, it's not, but think about it.

Same circumstances, same people, same situation, and yet they experienced their now in two completely different ways because of what they believed about their future, their then. Most Christians, even pastors, struggle to talk about their faith in a way that applies the power of the gospel to change lives, especially in our skeptical culture. Tim Keller's book of preaching, communicating faith in an age of skepticism

is a guide for anyone who wants to become more effective in communicating about their faith. Pastors and laypeople alike. Drawing on his years of experience, Dr. Keller will help you share your faith effective in communicating about their faith. Pastors and lay people alike. Drawing on his years of experience, Dr. Keller will help you share your faith in a more engaging, passionate, and compassionate way from the pulpit or in the coffee shop. Preaching is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the hope of Christ's love with people all over the world. So, request your copy today at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Tim Keller with the remainder of today's teaching.

The now is controlled by the then. Your present is controlled by what you believe about your future. Or my more favorite, my favorite, my favorite. No, that's no good either. My favorite? No, that's no good either. Another illustration I like maybe even better is you put two guys into a room at a table, a dingy room, and you say, for 10 hours a day, I want you to take a widget and I want you to screw it on the watch it. So you know what? I'm not going to go into it now, we don't have time. Okay. You don't understand well anyway. So they have to just screw a widget on a watch it. Very tedious, very boring, same room, same situation, 10 hours a day.

But you tell the one guy, and at the end of one year, you'll be paid a annual salary of $20,000. And you tell the other person, and at the end of this year, you'll be paid an annual salary of $20 million. And you know what's gonna happen. After about one month or two months, the first guy's gonna say, I can't take it, I can't take it.

So tedious and so awful. I don't need this, and he quits. And the other guy is whistling why he works, and saying, I don't find it tedious at all. And you know, they're experiencing the same circumstances in two utterly different ways because of what they believe about their future. Now, it makes all the difference.

All the difference. Do you believe that when you die, you're rot? That this world is all you got. And someday the sun is going to die and all human civilization is going to be gone and nobody will remember anything anyone's ever done. Or do you believe New Heaven's a new earth, judgment day, nobody's going to get away with anything.

And therefore, everything you do right now counts forever. Those are two utterly different futures. And depending on which one you believe, you're going to live in two utterly different ways. And let me show you. Remember, some of you would have been here, but I'm going to, I'm going to, it's just too good an illustration. As I said, this hope, the thing that John gave you early Christians, enabled them to face,

stuff that you, way worse than anything you and I will ever be facing. And they triumphed over it. Well, you know, a month ago or so, we had our open forum here on African-American spirituals. And getting ready for that open forum in my lecture, I came upon an African-American scholar named Howard Thurman. And in 1947, he gave a lecture at Harvard University on the meaning of the Negro spiritual. And he responded to one of the great, especially

back then, but even today, one of the great criticisms of the African-American spiritual is it's so otherworldly that the spirituals are filled with references to heaven and to judgment day and to the crowns and the thrones and the robe I'm going to have out there. In other words, they're just filled with references to the new heavens and new earth. And how would they have been heard? What people said and said, you know, the slaves, all that Christianity stuff and all that heaven and resurrection and judgment day and all that stuff.

That just made them docile and submissive. They would have been better off without it. And Howard Thurman in his lecture said this, he says, well, but the facts have made it clear that this faith, this song faith, served a deep in the capacity of the slaves for endurance, and their ability to absorb their suffering. And it taught a people how to ride high in life, how to look squarely in the face those facts that argue most dramatically against all hope,

and to use those facts as raw material out of which they fashioned a hope that their environment with all its cruelty could not crush. This enabled them to reject an Iolation and to affirm a terrible right to live. You hear what he's saying? He says, the slaves, because they knew about the new heavens, the new earth, because they knew about judgment day, because they knew eventually all their desires would be fulfilled, and nobody was going to get away with anything, and all wrongdoing would be put down, because they believed about judgment day, because they knew eventually all their desires would be fulfilled, and nobody was gonna get away with anything, and all wrongdoing would be put down, because they believed in that,

they lived in an environment that was horribly cruel, and in that environment, all the facts said, hopeless, despair, and they said, no, that's mine, that's why I belonged to that. And as a result, how are Thurman says, it enabled them to fashion a hope that their environment with all its cruelty could not crush. It was a hope that couldn't crush. Why? Because it couldn't reach it. The hope was out there. It's in the future. And they had

this living hope. And what it said, it enabled them to reject the annihilation and affirm a terrible right to live. And you know, later on in the chapter, in the lecture, Howard Thurmond is told by people, well, you can't take these things literally, resurrection, you know, crowns and thrones, you can't take it literally, but he says, well, if you can't take it literally, then it's not a hope.

You know? He's, imagine this, imagine that you could, imagine you could, you know, go back in time and sit down with a slave and say, well, you know, you folks need an education. And if you went to one of the better schools here, you would know that this life is all there is. And there really isn't a judgment day,

and there's not new heavens, a new earth, and heaven, and all that stuff. You know, this life is all there is. Now, get out there and live a life of hope in your misery, in your slavery. You know, and can you imagine somebody saying, okay, well, okay, I, let me get this straight. I and all my children and grandchildren are consigned to lives of endless brutality and grinding poverty. And there is no judgment day in which wrongdoing will ever be put right.

And there is no future world in life in which any of my desires will be satisfied. This life is all there is. And now that I know that I'm supposed to go out, keep my head high and have a hope that nothing crushes, well, would that hope be in? Look, none of us are probably ever going to be thrown to lions and torn limb to limb as people cheer. And probably none of us are going to ever experience a life of servitude and slavery. Thank God. We have things though are bothering us so much and are weighing us down and there's nothing like those things. I don't want you to know is that it's a simple fact of history that people taking this

living hope and taking the center of their lives triumphed over things like that. What about you and me? What's our problem? Because when the truth of this hope pierces you like a shaft clear and cold, when you realize it's true. That all the worst evil you can face here is in the end a passing thing, because there's light and high beauty forever beyond its reach, and this, light and high beauty is your destiny. It's going to change you. Don't you see you need it? Don't you see you need a living hope? Don't you see that you're affected by what you believe about the future? So that's the nature of the hope and that's the need for the hope and that leaves us to one last thing. How do we get it?

How do we take it? How do we get a hold of it? And the answer is you have to believe in both the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and actually both the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and actually both the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ are alluded to in the end of this passage. And it's easy to see the illusion if you have read all of John's writings, because see John, the apostle who wrote the book of Revelation also wrote the gospel of John and the letters of John. And here's what I want you to see. First of all, if you want this hope, you have to understand and grasp and believe in the cross. It says here, in verse six,

to him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost, free, the water of life. Now, remember back in John, well, I'll tell you, back in John chapter four, Jesus meets this woman at the well and she's had a mess of a life. And he says, but guess what, I can give you a water that if you drink it, you'll

never be thirsty again. And at first she thinks that he's talked about physical water and he's talking about eternal life. And he says, I can give you an exp- a foretaste of this river of life in the city of God. Where all, you know, what does it mean? What does it mean to drink the water of life and never thirst again? What it means is the deepest lungs of your soul, the longing for love, the longing for value, the longing to last, all the deepest longings of your soul and your heart will be satisfied in that river. And even now, you can get a foretaste of it, the grace of God, the salvation of God, the

spirit of God, the eternal life of God. And Jesus says, you can have it free without cost. Well, how could that be? Because near the end of the gospel of John, we have Jesus Christ on the cross and he says a number of significant things, but the one thing he says is, I thirst. That wasn't just physical thirst because then he said, my God, my God, why has the offer shaken me? And on the cross, Jesus Christ was experiencing the cosmic thirst that we deserve so that we could have the water

of life without price or put it this way. On the cross, Jesus Christ was experiencing cosmic hopelessness. See, our hope is that all the deepest desires of our hearts will be, all the deepest desires of our hearts will find fulfillment in the river of life that flows down the central street of the city of God in the new heavens and the new earth. That's our hope. But on the cross Jesus Christ lost everything he had. He lost the face of God. And therefore Jesus Christ, because he took our punishment upon himself, would have experienced somehow the cosmic hopelessness that belongs to us that we deserve. Have you ever understood or thought about the substitutionary hopelessness of Jesus Christ?

That he experienced the hopelessness you and I should experience as our substitute. He got the hopelessness we deserve so we could have a hope that we don't and know that that hope will never disappoint us. He got the cosmic thirst that we deserve so we could have the river of life. And when you understand that he did that for you, then you have, that's the first and most, first, maybe, first and most foundational step. You believe he did that for you,

then you can have this hope. But the second thing, the second step, is the resurrection. He didn't just die, he was raised again. And then he was raised again. And then he was seated on the throne, and said, I am making everything new. See, Jesus is the beginning.

Nune-ness of life, Jesus Christ, new body. But he's the first fruits, the first installment, and eventually everything will be in the made new, and you need to realize that the resurrection of Jesus Christ means no matter what happens to you now, it can only make you better. You know what suffering that comes into your life if you face it with hope? There's only two things that can happen.

It'll either make you a better person or it'll kill you and then it'll really make you a better person. Donald Gray Barnhouse, who is a great pastor, preacher, down at 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia for many years. And by the way, he used to take a train from Philadelphia back in the 40s and 50s. He'd take a train from Philadelphia every Tuesday and have a preaching service at Calvary Baptist Church on 57th Street. Donald Gray Barnhouse.

And one of the great tragedies of his life was he married a great woman And they were when he was still young and they only had one little girl Margaret I think her name was and before that mark was even 10 years old His wife died Margaret's mother died was a great tragedy and You know, Dr. Barnhouse was trying to help His little girl and himself process the loss of the mother and it was a horrible thing. One day he had an idea because they were crossing a street and a truck came awfully close to the market.

The market screamed, it wasn't too bad, but it scared her and her father picked her up and carried her off. It's okay, it's okay, it wasn't too bad, she was kind of scared. He had an idea. And it says, you know how sad we are about mommy? Yes, we're sad about mommy. Well, let me just ask you a question. Did the truck hit you?

No. What hit you? Just the shadow of the truck. That's okay. Well, death didn't hit your mom. Only the shadow of death hit your mother. Death hit Jesus. And because death hit Jesus.

And we believe in him now, the only thing that can hit us now is the shadow of death. And that is just the shadow of death is but my entrance into glory. Don't you see, if you believe in the resurrection, you don't just have this later. You've got hope for now. We sing that song, Christ, the Lord has risen today, and the last line of the last stanza

is, made like Him, like Him we rise, ours the cross, the grave, the skies. What does that mean? Come on, crosses. The lower you lay me, the higher, the grave, the skies. What does that mean? Come on, crosses. The lower you lay me, the higher you will raise me. Come on, grave, just try. Kill me, and all you'll do is make me better than before. If the resurrection happened, if the death of Jesus Christ happened for us,

and he took our hopelessness, so now we have hope. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ happened for us, and He took our hopelessness, and so now we have hope. And the resurrection of Jesus Christ happened, even the worst things, or only the best things, and the greatest is yet to come. Live a completely transformed life on the basis of that living hope, let us pray. Our Father, we now ask that you would help us to understand how great our hope is

and help us to begin to live in accordance with it. And we ask that you would now begin to make this hope not just an abstract belief in our head, but a living reality in our heart, so that we can have the contentment and we can have the poise and we can have the humility and we can have the joy of people who understand this, so that we can live those great lives that lots of other people have lived before us. You know, the reason why we can't too. So it helps us to be a people like that.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you were encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people access resources like this podcast. Just visit Gospel and Life.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2009 and 2016.

The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.