Revelation 21:1-8 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.… 1. The sea, to St. John and the men of his day, was a great barrier of separation. We must remember that the art of navigation was not then what it is to-day. Think of the ships of the ancients as compared with ours; think of them probably without either chart or mariner's compass. All this is changed now. The sea, instead of being a barrier, has become the great highway of the nations. But we have to remember what the sea was to St. John. It was a type, an emblem of things that divided men. There was the sea of racial hatred, of selfish interests, of false religions, of cruel prejudice, of bitter animosities. To the Jew every Gentile was a natural enemy, an outcast, a dog of the uncircumcision. To the Greek the people of other nations were barbarians. To the Romans all but their own countrymen were hostes, towards whom enmity was the approved relation. And how much of this continues to this day! We see it in the grasping policy of chartered companies and of statesmen, in the competitions of modern commerce, in the deadly warfare between capital and labour, in the bitterness of sectarian life, in the jealousies and rivalries of social life and the domestic circle. 2. The sea, to St. John, was doubtless a source of fear and terror. The Jews seem to have had no love for the mighty deep. They invariably looked upon it with dread and awe. St. John appears to have shared the sentiment of his countrymen. From his desolate island he had gazed upon the sea in its many and ever-changing moods. His mind associated the most terrible objects with it. It was out of the sea that he saw arise the wild beast having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads the name of Blasphemy. It was on the many waters of the deep that he saw seated that purple-clad woman who had upon her forehead written, "Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." To him the sea was a type of the confederate forces of evil that were sweeping over the world, spreading ruin and desolation; of the fearful storms that were breaking in upon the infant Church. But it was only to last for a season. Gradually the wild instincts of the human heart would be subdued. The fierce billows of opposition and wickedness and unbelief would be hushed and stilled. They had their limits fixed: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." There should be "no more sea." 3. The sea was a type of the world's unrest. That AEgean Sea, laving the rocky island of Patmos, like the great ocean everywhere, was never still. Whenever he looked out upon it, its waters were heaving and tossing to and fro. A picture of the disquietude of the human spirit apart from God. He had felt it himself before he became a disciple of Jesus Christ: he had seen it in the life of his countrymen, in the life of the philosophers he had met at Ephesus, in the life of that Roman world with which, in various ways, he had been brought into contact. Unrest was the sign everywhere. The world was full of a restless life, of longings and questionings and yearnings it could not still. And the sea described that restlessness better than anything else. And John turned with relief from the troubled scene which everywhere presented itself to the rest-giving work of the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. 4. The sea was a symbol of mystery. It was specially so to the ancients with their limited knowledge of its vast confines and of the wonders and glories of its fathomless depths. Think of the mountains that lie beneath the surface of the deep; of the life with which it teems of the towns and villages it has engulfed; of its myriads of nameless graves; of the secrets it keeps; of tales it has to unfold. Oh, sea! thy name is mystery. And the mystery of which the sea speaks meets us everywhere. Find a man who is not awed with a perception of life's mysteriousness, and you have found a man who has never seriously begun to think. No sooner do I ask, "What am I? Whence came I? Why am I here? Whither am I going?" than I am conscious that I am in the presence of profound and inscrutable mysteries. Why should there be disease and pain? Why do the innocent suffer with the guilty? What was the origin of evil, and why was it permitted to enter the world? Why does a good and wise Providence allow storm and tempest to overtake men? And here is our comfort, that John foresaw a time when the mysteries of life shall be swallowed up in knowledge. No longer will the great sea of doubt or mystery roll over us; we shall know as we are known, the day shall break, and the shadows rice away, and the dark, impenetrable waters shall be no more. (J. H. Burkitt.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. |
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