Reading… and Thinking

   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.”

— Revelation 21:3-7 (NIV)

God dwelling with men! What an astonishing, overwhelming thought. That He would once again move among us, as He did in the garden of Eden before Adam and Eve sinned. (Notice, it’s not men dwelling with God. God comes to us, not we to Him. This makes it that much more amazing!)

Two sentences in this marvelous promise take our minds back to Genesis, and God’s everlasting covenant with Abraham and his seed. Near the beginning of the passage: “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” And at the end: “I will be his God and he will be my son.”

Turn back to Genesis 17, when God changed Abram’s name to Abraham. The Almighty says, “I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” (Gen 17:7)

God goes on to once again promise the land to Abraham and his seed. But the everlasting covenant itself is this: Yahweh would be Abraham’s God, and also the God of Abraham’s offspring.

Beginning in Genesis and running through to Revelation, the terms of this everlasting covenant come up again and again. “I am your God, and you are my people,” God says to Israel, over and over.

The New Testament makes it clear that it is people of faith who are the children of Abraham. By baptism into Christ, we become Abraham’s offspring, and heirs of the promises. (See Galatians chapter 3.) The promises include possession of the land, and eternal life. But the heart of coming into this family of faith is that we are no longer “without God”. Now we have a God, a living God, and we are His people.

The land, and eternal life, are tremendous tangible rewards. But what makes them precious is the intangible fact of being God’s own people. What is land if you are without God? Would eternal life without God be a blessing?

We are God’s people already, when we are in Christ. But this passage in Revelation teaches us that this relationship will blossom into something even greater. When all tears and death and pain are eliminated, when all that’s left is what is eternal, we will be brought into intimate fellowship with the Almighty. No barriers between us, enjoying fellowship together, forever.

I bow my head in awe at the wonder of this promise!