The New Earth: A Greater Eden

The New Earth: A Greater Eden

The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.

— Isaiah 35:1, NKJV

In the truest sense, Christian pilgrims have the best of both worlds. We have joy whenever this world reminds us of the next, and we take solace whenever it does not.

— RANDY ALCORN

To catch a glimpse of Heaven, we don’t need to take a metaphysical journey. We need only to take a close look at Earth and imagine what it once was—and therefore what it will one day be again. We can also take a close look at people, including ourselves, and imagine who mankind once was—and who we will one day be.

The present Earth, with all its natural wonders, gives us a foretaste and a glimpse of what the New Earth will be like without the desecration of the Fall. People, including ourselves, give us a foretaste and a glimpse of what mankind will be like on the New Earth without the corruption of sin. Our lives, including our society and culture, give us a foretaste and a glimpse of what the next life will be without the contamination of sin.

Every earthly joy—including the joy of reunion—is an inkling, a whisper of greater joy. The Grand Canyon, the Alps, the Amazon rain forests, the Serengeti Plain—these are rough sketches of the New Earth.

All our lives we’ve been dreaming of the New Earth. Whenever we see beauty in water, wind, flower, deer, man, woman, or child, we catch a glimpse of Heaven. Like Eden, the New Earth will be a place of sensory delight, breathtaking beauty, satisfying relationships, and personal joy.

As Eden is our backward-looking reference point, the New Earth is our forward-looking reference point. We should expect the New Earth to be like Eden, only better. And that’s exactly what Scripture promises:

“Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places and her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and sound of a melody” (Isaiah 51:3, NASB).

“They will say, ‘This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited’” (Ezekiel 36:35, NASB).

“Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree” (Isaiah 55:13, NKJV). We’ve never seen men and women as they were intended to be. We’ve never seen animals in their pre-Fall existence. We see only marred remnants of what once was. Likewise, we’ve never seen nature unchained and undiminished. We’ve seen it only cursed and decaying. Yet even now we see a great deal that pleases and excites us, much that moves our hearts to worship.

If the underside of Heaven, the back of the tapestry, so to speak, can be so beautiful, what does the front side look like? If the devastated remains of a cursed Earth are still so stunning, what will Earth look like when it is restored, and even enhanced, to something far greater?

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien saw core truths in the old mythologies. In their books, they give us glimpses of people and beasts and trees that are vibrantly alive. As Lewis and Tolkien realized, “Pagan fables of paradise were dim and distorted recollections of Eden.”^a In The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis portrays young Lucy as she mourns the loss of Narnia, a cherished world that she assumed had been forever destroyed. Jewel, the Unicorn, mourns too, calling his beloved Narnia, “The only world I’ve ever known.”

Although Lucy and her family and friends are on the threshold of Aslan’s country (Heaven), they still look back at Narnia and feel a profound loss:

Suddenly Farsight the Eagle . . . alighted on the ground. . . .

“Kings and Queens,” he cried, “we have all been blind. . . .

Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia.”

“But how can it be?” said Peter.

“Yes,” said Eustace. . . . “We saw it all destroyed and the sun put out.”

“And it’s all so different,” said Lucy.

“The Eagle is right,” said the Lord Digory. “Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia, which has always been here and always will be here: just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan’s real world. You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream. . . .”

The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can’t describe it any better than that: if you ever get there, you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried:

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.”^b

Lewis captured the biblical theology of the old and New Earth, and the continuity between them, better than any theologian I’ve read. Did you catch his message? Our world is a Shadowlands, a copy of something that once was (Eden) and yet will be (the New Earth). All of the old Earth that matters will be drawn into Heaven.

Based on what Scripture tells us, I think that what Lewis envisioned is possible, even likely. On the New Earth we will see the real Earth, which includes the good things of God’s natural creation and of man’s creative expression to God’s glory. On the New Earth, no good thing will be destroyed.

What are some of the good things from this world and from your own life that God might carry over to the New Earth?

Father, we rejoice in your promise that you will restore the best of Eden to this suffering planet. Thank you that you will comfort Zion, and comfort all her waste places. Thank you that you will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the Garden of the Lord. Thank you that “joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.”^c How great it will be to hear your people say, “This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden.”^d We will rejoice to see that day. Help us to rejoice today as we anticipate it.