Revelation 21:5

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

THE SECOND VOICE.—The voice of Him who sitteth on the Throne (Revelation 21:5-8).

(5) And he that sat upon the throne . . .—Better, And he who sitteth on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. And he saith (the words “unto me” should be omitted) write; because these words are faithful and true. It is the Throned one, the One who rules over all things from the beginning, and who has presided over all the changing scenes of earth’s history, who speaks; it is He who makes even the wrath of man to praise Him, and who causes all things to work together for good to them that love Him, who gives this heart-helping assurance. “I am making all things new.” In spite of the moral disorder, the pain and grief, the dark shadows of life and history, the new creation is being prepared, and will rise, like the early creation, out of chaos. The analogy between the old and new creation is the reason why the first chapter of Genesis and the earlier verses of this chapter are appointed as the morning lessons for Septuagesima Sunday; as out of an earth without form and void rose the world of order and beauty, which God pronounced very good, so out of the world, so full of distress and tears, and overshadowed by so many clouds of sin, will emerge the glad new world, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The closing words of the verse, perhaps an instruction from the angel, but more probably still the voice of Him that sits on the throne, adds the further assurance, “These words are true and faithful.”

MacLaren's Expositions

Revelation

AN IMPOSSIBILITY MADE POSSIBLE

Jeremiah 13:23. - 2 Corinthians 5:17. - Revelation 21:5.

Put these three texts together. The first is a despairing question to which experience gives only too sad and decisive a negative answer. It is the answer of many people who tell us that character must be eternal, and of many a baffled man who says, ‘It is of no use-I have tried and can do nothing.’ The second text is the grand Christian answer, full of confidence. It was spoken by one who had no superficial estimate of the evil, but who had known in himself the power of Christ to revolutionise a life, and make a man love all he had hated, and hate all he had loved, and fling away all he had treasured. The last text predicts the completion of the renovating process lying far ahead, but as certain as sunrise.

I. The unchangeableness of character, especially of faults.

We note the picturesque rhetorical question here. They were occasionally accustomed to see the dark-skinned, Ethiopian, whether we suppose that these were true from Southern Egypt or dark Arabs, and now and then leopards came up from the thickets on the Jordan, or from the hills of the southern wilderness about the Dead Sea. The black hue of the man, the dark spots that starred the skin of the fierce beast, are fitting emblems of the evil that dyes and speckles the soul. Whether it wraps the whole character in black, or whether it only spots it here and there with tawny yellow, it is ineradicable; and a man can no more change his character once formed than a can cast his skin, or a leopard whiten out the spots on his hide.

Now we do not need to assert that a man has no power of self-improvement or reformation. The exhortations of the prophet to repentance and to cleansing imply that he has. If he has not, then it is no blame to him that he does not mend. Experience shows that we have a very considerable power of such a kind. It is a pity that some Christian teachers speak in exaggerated terms about the impossibility of such self-improvement.

But it is very difficult.

Note the great antagonist as set forth here-Habit, that solemn and mystical power. We do not know all the ways in which it operates, but one chief way is through physical cravings set up. It is strange how much easier a second time is than a first, especially in regard to evil acts. The hedge once broken down, it is very easy to get through it again. If one drop of water has percolated through the dyke, there will be a roaring torrent soon. There is all the difference between once and never; there is small difference between once and twice. By habit we come to do things mechanically and without effort, and we all like that. One solitary footfall across the snow soon becomes a beaten way. As in the banyan-tree, each branch becomes a root. All life is held together by cords of custom which enable us to reserve conscious effort and intelligence for greater moments. Habit tends to weigh upon us with a pressure ‘heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.’ But also it is the ally of good.

The change to good is further made difficult because liking too often goes with evil, and good is only won by effort. It is a proof of man’s corruption that if left alone, evil in some form or other springs spontaneously, and that the opposite good is hard to win. Uncultivated soil bears thistles and weeds. Anything can roll downhill. It is always the least trouble to go on as we have been going.

Further, the change is made difficult because custom blinds judgment and conscience. People accustomed to a vitiated atmosphere are not aware of its foulness.

How long it takes a nation, for instance, to awake to consciousness of some national crime, even when the nation is ‘Christian’! And how men get perfectly sophisticated as to their own sins, and have all manner of euphemisms for them!

Further, how hard it is to put energy into a will that has been enfeebled by long compliance. Like prisoners brought out of the Bastille.

So if we put all these reasons together, no wonder that such reformation is rare.

I do not dwell on the point that it must necessarily be confined within very narrow limits. I appeal to experience. You have tried to cure some trivial habit. You know what a task that has been-how often you thought that you had conquered, and then found that all had to be done over again. How much more is this the case in this greater work! Often the efforts to break off evil habits have the same effect as the struggles of cattle mired in a bog, who sink the deeper for plunging. The sad cry of many a foiled wrestler with his own evil is, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ We do not wish to exaggerate, but simply to put it that experience shows that for men in general, custom and inclination and indolence and the lack of adequate motive weigh so heavily that a thorough abandonment of evil, much more a hearty practice of good, are not to be looked for when once a character has been formed. So you young people, take care. And all of us listen to-

II. The great hope for individual renewal.

The second text sets forth a possibility of entire individual renewal, and does so by a strong metaphor.

‘If any man be in Christ he is a new creature,’ or as the words might be rendered, ‘there is a new creation,’ and not only is he renewed, but all things are become new. He is a new Adam in a new world.

Now {a} let us beware of exaggeration about this matter. There are often things said about the effects of conversion which are very far in advance of reality, and give a handle to caricature. The great law of continuity runs on through the change of conversion. Take a man who has been the slave of some sin. The evil will not cease to tempt, nor will the effects of the past on character be annihilated. ‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,’ remains true. In many ways there will be permanent consequences. There will remain the scars of old wounds; old sores will be ready to burst forth afresh. The great outlines of character do remain.

{b} What is the condition of renewal?

‘If any man be in Christ’-how distinctly that implies something more than human in Paul’s conception of Christ. It implies personal union with Him, so that He is the very element or atmosphere in which we live. And that union is brought about by faith in Him.

{c} How does such a state of union with Christ make a man over again?

It gives a new aim and centre for our lives. Then we live not unto ourselves; then everything is different and looks so, for the centre is shifted. That union introduces a constant reference to Him and contemplation of His death for us, it leads to self-abnegation.

It puts all life under the influence of a new love. ‘The love of Christ constraineth.’ As is a man’s love, so is his life. The mightiest devolution is to excite a new love, by which old loves and tastes are expelled. ‘A new affection’ has ‘expulsive power,’ as the new sap rising in the springtime pushes off the lingering withered leaves. So union with Him meets the difficulty arising from inclination still hankering after evil. It lifts life into a higher level where the noxious creatures that were proper to the swamps cannot live. The new love gives a new and mighty motive for obedience.

That union breaks the terrible chain that binds us to the past. ‘All died.’ The past is broken as much as if we were dead. It is broken by the great act of forgiveness. Sin holds men by making them feel as if what has been must be-an awful entail of evil. In Christ we die to former self.

That union brings a new divine power to work in us. ‘I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’

It sets us in a new world which yet is the old. All things are changed if we are changed. They are the same old things, but seen in a new light, used for new purposes, disclosing new relations and powers. Earth becomes a school and discipline for heaven. The world is different to a blind man when cured, or to a deaf one,-there are new sights for the one, new sounds for the other.

All this is true in the measure in which we live in union with Christ.

So no man need despair, nor think, ‘I cannot mend now.’ You may have tried and been defeated a thousand times. But still victory is possible, not without effort and sore conflict, but still possible. There is hope for all, and hope for ME.

III. The completion in a perfectly renewed creation.

The renovation here is only partial. Its very incompleteness is prophetic. If there be this new life in us, it obviously has not reached its fulness here, and it is obviously not manifested here for all that even here it is.

It is like some exotic that does not show its true beauty in our greenhouses. The life of a Christian on earth is a prophecy by both its greatness and its smallness, by both its glory and its shame, by both its brightness and its spots. It cannot be that there is always to be this disproportion between aspiration and performance, between willing and doing. Here the most perfect career is like a half-lighted street, with long gaps between the lamps.

The surroundings here are uncongenial to the new creatures. ‘Foxes have holes’-all creatures are fitted for their environment; only man, and eminently renewed man, wanders as a pilgrim, not in his home. The present frame of things is for discipline. The schooling over, we burn the rod. So we look for an external order in full correspondence with the new nature.

And Christ throned ‘makes all things new.’ How far the old is renewed we cannot tell, and we need not ask. Enough that there shall be a universe in perfect harmony with the completely renewed nature, that we shall find a home where all things will serve and help and gladden and further us, where the outward will no more distract and clog the spirit.

Brethren, let that mighty love constrain you; and look to Christ to renew you. Whatever your old self may have been, you may bury it deep in His grave, and rise with Him to newness of life. Then you may walk in this old world, new creatures in Christ Jesus, looking for the blessed hope of entire renewal into the perfect likeness of Him, the perfect man, in a perfect world, where all old sorrows and sins have passed away and He has made all things new. Through eternity, new joys, new knowledge, new progress, new likeness, new service will be ours- and not one leaf shall ever wither in the amaranthine crown, nor ‘the cup of blessing’ ever become empty or flat and stale. Eternity will be but a continual renewal and a progressive increase of ever fresh and ever familiar treasures. The new and the old will be one.

Begin with trusting to Him to help you to change a deeper blackness than that of the Ethiopian’s skin, and to erase firier spots than stain the tawny leopard’s hide, and He will make you a new man, and set you in His own time in a ‘new heaven and earth, where dwelleth righteousness.’

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:1-8 The new heaven and the new earth will not be separate from each other; the earth of the saints, their glorified, bodies, will be heavenly. The old world, with all its troubles and tumults, will have passed away. There will be no sea; this aptly represents freedom from conflicting passions, temptations, troubles, changes, and alarms; from whatever can divide or interrupt the communion of saints. This new Jerusalem is the church of God in its new and perfect state, the church triumphant. Its blessedness came wholly from God, and depends on him. The presence of God with his people in heaven, will not be interrupt as it is on earth, he will dwell with them continually. All effects of former trouble shall be done away. They have often been in tears, by reason of sin, of affliction, of the calamities of the church; but no signs, no remembrance of former sorrows shall remain. Christ makes all things new. If we are willing and desirous that the gracious Redeemer should make all things new in order hearts and nature, he will make all things new in respect of our situation, till he has brought us to enjoy complete happiness. See the certainty of the promise. God gives his titles, Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, as a pledge for the full performance. Sensual and sinful pleasures are muddy and poisoned waters; and the best earthly comforts are like the scanty supplies of a cistern; when idolized, they become broken cisterns, and yield only vexation. But the joys which Christ imparts are like waters springing from a fountain, pure, refreshing, abundant, and eternal. The sanctifying consolations of the Holy Spirit prepare for heavenly happiness; they are streams which flow for us in the wilderness. The fearful durst not meet the difficulties of religion, their slavish fear came from their unbelief; but those who were so dastardly as not to dare to take up the cross of Christ, were yet so desperate as to run into abominable wickedness. The agonies and terrors of the first death will lead to the far greater terrors and agonies of eternal death.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And he that sat upon the throne said - Probably the Messiah, the dispenser of the rewards of heaven. See the notes on Revelation 20:11.

Behold, I make all things new - A new heaven and new earth Revelation 21:1, and an order of things to correspond with that new creation. The former state of things when sin and death reigned will be changed, and the change consequent on this must extend to everything.

And he said unto me, Write - Make a record of these things, for they are founded in truth, and they are adapted to bless a suffering world. Compare the notes on Revelation 14:13. See also Revelation 1:19.

For these words are true and faithful - They are founded in truth, and they are worthy to be believed. See the notes on Revelation 19:9. Compare also notes on Daniel 12:4.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. sat—Greek, "sitteth."

all things new—not recent, but changed from the old (Greek, "kaina," not "nea"). An earnest of this regeneration and transfiguration of nature is given already in the regenerate soul.

unto me—so Coptic and Andreas. But A, B, Vulgate, and Syriac omit.

true and faithful—so Andreas. But A, B, Vulgate, Syriac, and Coptic transpose, "faithful and true" (literally, "genuine").

Matthew Poole's Commentary

And he that sat upon the throne, that is, Christ,

said, Behold, I make all things new; behold, I will put a new face upon all things; the state of my people shall not for ever be a troubled and afflicted state.

And he said unto me, Write: because the vision is to be for an appointed time, and what I now tell thee will not be accomplished of many years, and yet the knowledge and prospect of it, and meditations upon it, are of highest importance to keep up the spirits of my people under all their sufferings, during that time of the dragon (the Romish heathen emperors) not yet run out, and the twelve hundred and sixty years of antichrist, &c., therefore write it, that all my people in all ages may know it, believe it, and suffer patiently in the hopes of it.

For these words are true and faithful; for, what I tell time is what comes from the true and faithful Witness, and shall have a certain being in its time.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he that sat upon the throne said,.... By whom is meant, either God the Father, who is often represented in this book as sitting on the throne, and as distinguished from Christ the Lamb; see Revelation 4:2 Revelation 5:13 and who may seem the more to be intended, since he is by adopting grace the God and Father of his people, and they are his sons and daughters; or rather Christ, who not only is set down on the same throne with his Father, but has a throne of his own, called the throne of the Lamb, and was seen upon one by John in the preceding vision, Revelation 20:11 which though in order of time will be after this, yet in the order of the visions was seen before; and especially since the person on the throne speaking, calls himself the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, as Christ does in Revelation 1:8 and seeing he it is that gives to thirsty souls of the water of life, John 7:37 and makes promises to the overcomer so largely and frequently in Revelation 2:7. He addresses John, and delivers the following things to him,

behold, I make all things new; which is to be understood not of the renovation of persons at conversion, when a new heart and spirit are given, and men are made wholly new creatures; for this is the work of the Spirit, and which is done daily, and is not peculiar to any particular period of time; nor of the renewing of the church state at the beginning of the Gospel, when the Jewish church state and ordinances waxed old, and vanished away, and a new covenant took place, a new and living way was opened, and new ordinances appointed, since all this was before John had this vision; nor was there any need of it to represent it to him; but of the making of the new heaven, and the new earth, which Christ ascribes to himself and of his forming his church anew, making it a new Jerusalem, bestowing new glories upon his people, both in soul and body, and so presenting them to himself a glorious church; and of the new administration of his kingdom in a very singular and glorious manner; so that it respects a new people, a new habitation, and a new manner of ruling over them; all which is his own doing, and is marvellous; and because it is a matter of great importance, and is wonderful and certain, therefore a "behold" is prefixed to it; see Isaiah 43:19. The Jews say (z), that the holy blessed God will make ten things new in the future state, or world to come; the first is, he will enlighten the world; (See Revelation 21:11) the second is, he will bring living water out of Jerusalem; (see Revelation 21:6) the third is, he will make trees to bring forth their fruit every month; (see Revelation 22:2) and the fourth is, all the waste places shall be built, even Sodom and Gomorrha; the fifth is, Jerusalem shall be built with sapphire stone; (see Revelation 21:19) the sixth is, the cow and the bear shall feed; the seventh is, a covenant shall be made between Israel, and the beasts, fowls, and creeping things; the eighth is, there shall be no more weeping and howling in the world; the ninth is, there shall be no more death in the world; the tenth is, there shall no more be sighing, and groaning, and sorrow in the world; see Revelation 21:4.

And he said unto me, write; what John had seen, and Christ had said, and was about to say; and particularly what concerned the renewing of all things, the whole being a matter of moment, and worth noting and taking down in writing, that it might be on record for saints to read, and receive comfort and advantage from; and to denote the certainty of it, as well as to show that it was a clear point, and to be known, whereas, when it was otherwise, he was bid not to write; see Revelation 1:11.

for these words are true and faithful; both what he had said, and was about to say; they were "true", because they came from God, who cannot lie, and "faithful", because they would be punctually and exactly fulfilled; see Revelation 19:9. The Syriac version adds, they are God's, and so the Arabic version.

(z) Shemot Rabba, sect. 15. fol. 101. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

{4} And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

(4) In the speech of God himself describing the Church, is first an introduction, or entrance. Then follows a magnificent description of the Church, by the present and future good things of the same, in three verses following Re 21:6-8. In the introduction God challenges to himself the restoring of all the creatures, Re 21:1 and witnesses the calling of John to the writing of these things, in this verse.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

The first and only time that God addresses the seer, or indeed (apart from Revelation 1:8) speaks at all. The almost unbroken silence assigned to God in the Apocalypse corresponds to the Egyptian idea of the divine Reason needing no tongue but noiselessly directing mortal things by righteousness (Plut. de Iside, 75; hence the deity is symbolised by the ciocodile, which was believed to be the only animal without a tongue).

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. And he that sat upon the throne said] The first time that He speaks. The reference is rather to the eternal throne of Revelation 4:2 than to the judgement-throne of Revelation 20:11, so far as the two can be distinguished.

Behold, I make all things new] Some O. T. parallels are alleged, e.g. Isaiah 43:19; Jeremiah 31:22; but really the only close parallel is 2 Corinthians 5:17; and the meaning of this passage is, of course, even fuller than of that.

he said unto me] Read only, he saith. It is doubtful whether the speaker is still “He that sat on the throne;” for a similar command to “write” has been given already,—Revelation 14:13, Revelation 19:9; cf. Revelation 10:4—either by an impersonal “voice from heaven” or by the revealing angel. The question is best left open. The repetition of the words “He said unto me” in the next verse is a reason against ascribing all three speeches to Him that sat on the throne; the fresh mention of a revealing angel in Revelation 21:9 is perhaps a stronger one against supposing an angel to be speaking here; and the form of the words themselves against their referring to an impersonal voice.

Write: for] Or perhaps, “Write, ‘These words are’ ” &c.: lit. that these words are”.…

true and faithful] Read, faithful and true, as at Revelation 3:14, Revelation 19:11, and still more exactly Revelation 22:6.

Bengel's Gnomen

Revelation 21:5. Καινὰ πάντα ποιῶ[226]) A more ancient reading is, καινὰ ποιῶ πάντα; and καινὰ ποιῶ answers to the single word חַדֵּשׁ, and ought not to be separated. This is a word implying publication, and not command.

[226] Ah Vulg. Iren. read καινὰ ποιῶ πάντα: B and Syr. πάντα καινὰ ποιῶ: Rec. Text, καινὰ πάντα ποιῶ, without good authority.—E.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5 - And he that sat upon the throne said; that sitteth (cf. Revelation 20:11 and Matthew 25:31). Behold, I make all things new. As in ver. 1. So in Matthew 19:28, "Ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory," etc. And he said unto me, Write; and he saith, Write. Probably the angel (cf. Revelation 19:9; Revelation 14:13). The change from ε1FC0;πεν to λέγει, and the immediate return to εῖπεν, appear to indicate a change of speaker. For these words are true and faithful; faithful and true. So also in Revelation 19:9; Revelation 3:14, etc. Revelation 21:5

Vincent's Word Studies

True and faithful (ἀληθινοὶ καὶ πιστοί)

The proper order of the Greek is the reverse, as Rev., faithful and true.