and the first earth passed away, and there was no longer any
sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out
Of heaven from God, preoared as a bride beautifully dressed
for her husband." Revelation 21: 1-2
The first time I read these verse, I whined, "oh no you mean in the new heaven and new earth there won't be any sea? Heaven's centerpiece will be a city? I've always preferred country landscape, not cities. It doesn't sound very appealing!"
C.S. Lewis long ago addressed my fears when he wrotes:
our notion of heaven involves perpetual negations: no food, no
Drink, no sex, no time. . . Against all these, to be sure, we set
One positive: the vision and enjoyment of God. . .The negatives
have an unfair advantage. We feel that the vision of God will
come not to fulfill but to destroy our nsture. We must not allow
this to happen. We must believe that every negation will be only
the reverse side of agulfilling."
I agree with Lewis. My desire for the new earth to include oceans and country landscape is so limited by my human perceptions. Heaven Won't be less than my natural experience here on earth, it will be more. And it will be far better!
How? Lewis sheds more light on this. "Our natural experience are like pencilled lines on flat paper. If our natural experiences vanish in the risen life, they will vanish only as pencil lines vanish from the real landscape; not as a candle flame that is put out but as a candle flame which becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the blind, thrown open the shutters, and let in the blaze of the risen sun."
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