A New Eden

In the beginning, God created a perfect universe.  When He had completed His work, God declared the universe and all its features and creatures to be “very good” (Gn 1:31).  Life prevailed.  Animals lived in peace.  Mankind lived in peace.  Mankind and animals walked together without fear of one another.  There was no sickness.  There was no death.
The universe was perfect in every way.  God had given mankind everything they needed.  In fact, God had given them all that was good and had withheld no good thing.

But mankind wanted more.  They wanted what God had not given them, and they took what God had withheld for their good.  With this act of defiance came death – not only death to mankind but also death to the entire universe.  Disease, death, and decay replaced the life, concord, and order God had created.

But God knew this before He began His work of creation.  God knew people would destroy His perfect universe.  God knew they would bring death upon themselves.  So God prepared a plan, a way to rescue people from the situation they had created for themselves.  God, the Creator of all, would become man and die the death people had brought upon themselves, in order that they could once again live.  God sent His Son into the world in human flesh to bring about this new creation.

When Jesus’ work was completed on the sixth day of the week, He cried out, “It is finished,” and then rested in His tomb on the Sabbath.  On Easter Sunday, the first day of the new creation, the God-man who had died arose victorious over death and the grave to usher in the new creation, in which those who die shall live and those who live shall never die (John 11:25-26).  God provided Isaiah a glimpse of this new creation more than 700 years before God became flesh in Christ.

Isaiah recorded God’s plan of creating new heavens and a new earth so unique, so beautiful, so wondrous, that the “former things shall not be remembered” (Isaiah 65:17). In this new creation, neither the sound of weeping nor cries of distress would be heard (v 19).  The glorious new life in Christ would never be cut short by death.  Predator and prey would dwell together in harmony: “the wolf and the lamb shall graze together” (v 25).  Carnivores would once again be herbivores: “the lion shall eat straw like the ox” (v 25).  Once again, animals would live together in peace.  People would live in peace.  People and animals would once again walk together without fear of the other.  Just as God had created the original creation, so there would be no destruction or violence in this new world.  There would be no crime or terrorism.  “’They shall no hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain,’ says the Lord (v 25).  In this creation, God would preserve mankind and angels from falling into sin.  Never again would sin, Satan, or death stalk God’s creatures [Study Bible p. 1198].