In the Disney movie, Aladdin sings to Princess Jasmin: “I can show you the world Shining, shimmering, splendid Tell me, princess, now when did You last let your heart decide? I can open your eyes Take you wonder by wonder Over, sideways and under On a magic carpet ride A whole new world A new fantastic point of view No one to tell us no or where to go Or say we’re only dreaming.” (Lyrics by Alan Irwin Menken, Timothy Miles, and Lindon Rice)
Aladdin did not mean by the phrase a “whole new world,” to take Jasmin to a completely different planet or universe. As the song goes on to explain, it is a “new fantastic point of view.” It’s “indescribable feelings” experienced with someone who loves you.
It is my conviction that that is exactly what we have pictured in the last two chapters of Isaiah – a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view, indescribable feelings portrayed through a figure of speech (the merism) in the “new heavens and new earth” (65:17; 66:22). This figure of speech uses two opposites in order to portray the entirety, as in “black and white.”
This phrase suggests that Israel will have a whole new relationship with God when they return to Him and have their sins forgiven through the blood of Christ, a whole new relationship, a whole new experience, a whole new world.
This new heaven and new earth is fulfilled spiritually in Jesus Christ but it will be fulfilled eternally in heaven such that Peter uses this expression to refer to heaven in 2 Peter 3:13. Nothing in Isaiah leads us to believe that God is most interested in the physical city of Jerusalem nor the physical land of Palestine. They mean nothing to God in the overall theology of the Bible. Are you righteous before Him through the blood of Christ, Jew or Gentile? That is the preeminent question of Isaiah.
Isaiah 65:17-19: “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem for rejoicing And her people for gladness. I will also rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in My people; And there will no longer be heard in her The voice of weeping and the sound of crying.”
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Again, in verse 19, God will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad (please observe the synonym) in “My people.” In this new relationship with God, there will not be weeping and crying for sins or because of punishment for sins.
Commenting on verse 17, Protestant scholar E. J. Young writes (514): “With the advent of the Messiah the blessing to be revealed will in every sense be so great that it can be described only as the creation of a new heaven and a new earth… but includes the entire reign of Christ, including the second advent and the eternal state.”
So, “new heavens and new earth” is a phrase parallel with “Jerusalem,” which is parallel (observe verse 19) with “My people.” Spiritually, we (Christians) are the “new Jerusalem,” the “new city,” in Jesus Christ (Galatians 4:26-27). But eternally, this “new Jerusalem” will be completed, consummated in heaven. In Revelation 3:12, Jesus promises Christians who do not compromise but stay faithful until the end, “I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.”
When you obey the Gospel of Christ, in Him, you are made a member of spiritual Jerusalem (viewing the church as a city), a spiritual kingdom (viewing the church as a monarchy), a spiritual temple (viewing the church’s worship), and spiritual Israelites (viewing the church as descendants of Abraham, by faith).
–Paul Holland
