“All Things New,” not “All New Things”

If you read 2 Peter 3:7, in which the world burns and the heavens melt, you may think that the end of the world is a kind of cosmic reset, but that’s not actually what’s going on. Like the Flood before it, the end that awaits the present world is not only judgment and destruction, but renewal and restoration. What does Jesus mean when he says he “will make all things new” (Rev. 21:5)? He does not mean that he will make all new things.

The “newness” of the New World is not a reboot or a blank slate. It does not begin in the same way as Genesis 1, with Adam and Eve in the garden, new and naked and ignorant, in a wilderness world wild and ready for cultivation. It does not erase what came before; it is not a re-spawn or reset. I think we understand this from a relational perspective; that is, that there’s no “severance.” We know that we will recognize our former spouse, our loved ones, that we will be reunited with the church catholic. The old stories will be remembered and shared and everything we did will matter.

But what is true of us as human personalities is also true of the world as a whole. “The kings of the earth will bring their glory” into the New City of God (Rev. 21:24). Will there be wonders from the ancient world in the age to come? Will we walk on worn paths? Drive the Blue Ridge Parkway (now without potholes or car-sickness)?

“Righteousness will dwell” then and there (2 Pet. 3:13); but righteousness also abounds here and now. People are kind; the righteous and the unrighteous build beautiful things; we care for our people, beautify our spaces, love our pets, and share our lives with one another. All of this creates little stories, stories that shape the world around us, that leave imprints not only in souls, but in the soil of the earth. Does all that end at the end? That’s not how the Bible encourages us to think about our stories. The end is not a fade-to-black, but a climactic resolution that opens into a new chapter. It’s a Cinderella story—everything really will work out in the end, and there is a story that will follow, as yet untold. Cinderella lives—dwells—happily ever after, which means she gets married, has a quiver of beautiful children, forgives all who wronged her, “watches over the affairs of the household…her children arise and call her blessed; and her husband also, and he praises her” (Prov. 31:27-8).

That’s the kind of newness that the Bible describes; it is the next chapter after the stories of this age are resolved fittingly and in glory. Once every tear has been wiped from our face, the old order will pass away and the new will begin; but we begin where the old ended. New and perfect, but continuing a story that is dramatic and ancient. Jesus still had his scars.