1I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”
5He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.” 6He said to me, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. 8But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
9One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls which were loaded with the seven last plagues came, and he spoke with me, saying, “Come here. I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” 10He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 11having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal; 12having a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. 13On the east were three gates, and on the north three gates, and on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.
15He who spoke with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. 16The city is square. Its length is as great as its width. He measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand twelve stadia. Its length, width, and height are equal. 17Its wall is one hundred forty-four cubits, by the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. 18The construction of its wall was jasper. The city was pure gold, like pure glass. 19The foundations of the city’s wall were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire; the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, 20the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21The twelve gates were twelve pearls. Each one of the gates was made of one pearl. The street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
22I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23The city has no need for the sun or moon to shine, for the very glory of God illuminated it and its lamp is the Lamb. 24The nations will walk in its light. The kings of the earth bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. 25Its gates will in no way be shut by day (for there will be no night there), 26and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it so that they may enter. 27There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
In 1:3 Moses refers to God's creation of light, but not the creation of darkness. This is true also of evil. God, who created good, also did not create evil. Thus, neither darkness nor evil is a creation. Evil is the absence of Good 1 and darkness is the absence of Light. The prophet Isaiah speaks of God bringing the light into the darkness, and dispels it (See Isa 9:1, 2), and the apostle John speaks of the time when there will be no longer any darkness or of the sun and moon but God will provide the light (Rev 21:23). Interestingly, the "light" in 1:3 is followed by the creation of two great lights to rule the day and the night on the fourth day of creation. One biblical scholar who views Genesis 1 as a myth due to the mention of light on day 1, whereas the luminaries of day 4, has a conundrum because the new heavens and new earth have just the opposite issue with no sun or moon because God is the light, and yet it clearly is not a myth.
An important feature of the Mosaic account is that God evaluates His creative work and declares it good. As well, His command caused reality, and unlike the pagan mythology, demonstrated His sovereignty over the created order of Genesis 1 by naming the different days of creation. In the ancient Near East, to name was to exercise authority. The naming motif is carried over in chapter two where Adam is given the responsibility to name all of the animals of the earth, and also the naming of the woman that Yahweh made as a helper for him.
St. Augustine seems to agree with this definition, with some refinement: "Augustine further restricted evil. He said that evil, rather than existing on its own, was a 'loss of good.' Augustine was criticized (accurately) for this definition. Not every absence of good is evil. The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas helped solve this problem. He said that evil is a lack of some good that something should have. So a lack of sight is [natural] evil in a man, but not a rock. In the end, evil cannot exist without something to corrupt. So the logical argument given above fails because its second premise (evil exists) is wrongly understood." H. Wayne House, Does God Feel Your Pain? Finding Answers When Life Hurts. (Navasota, TX: Lampion House Publishing, 2022, 2nd ed.), p. 59. ↩︎