1. 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--21:1. The new conditions of the earth and of the sea did not signify abolition of the old order of governments, nor the formation of new secular and political powers. The earth throughout the apocalypse referred to the place of the nations, with particular reference to Palestine; and the placid or tossed sea referred to the state of society; and the word heaven denoted the existing authorities of government. The new heaven and earth, and the trouble sea, having passed away and represented as being no more, indicated the changed conditions within the existing governments and society to make them favorable for the prosperity of the cause of Christ and his church throughout the empire. The old system of Judaism had been removed and the opposition of heathenism had been overcome ; and the vision represented new conditions to surround the church in the changed world. The word new has various connotations. It may refer to that which has never been used; or to a thing of late date and recent origin; or to something novel and strange; or simply to something else, another possession, relation or state. In this context the evident meaning of the new earth was that the surroundings were prepared and made favorable for the expansion of the kingdom of Christ, made possible by the removal of Judaism, the Jewish theocracy and the Jewish state. The literal Jerusalem was no more. The armies of Nero and Vespasian had laid waste the old Jerusalem and Judea; and on the rocks of the Aegean sea John envisioned the forward march of the church, the expansion of the kingdom of Christ, and the spread of the gospel to “ the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” This phrase, new heaven and new earth, was not new in scripture terminology. The Old Testament prophets referred to Israel’ s return from Babylon and their restoration to their own land of Judea as to them a “ new heaven and new earth.” (Isaiah 65: 17--66:22; Ezekiel 11: 19--36:26-36). To the Corinthians the apostle Paul described the new state in Christ as the old things having passed away--referring to the new spiritual relation to Christ in the new covenant versus the old fleshly Israelism of the old covenant. (2 Corinthians 5:17) To the scattered Jerusalem church the apostle Peter adapted that phrase in his exhortation to look for the heavenly reward in the eternal world. (2 Peter 3:13) In the apocalypse the apostle John applied the same phrase to the emergence of the church from the tribulation period. The figurative use of the sea has a natural connection. The creator has secured and fortified the natural world by the divisions of the earth, with the interposition of vast expanses of water as barriers to conquest. This barrier in society was figuratively removed for the conquest of Christ through the expansion of the gospel--there would no longer exist separating barriers between the people of the earth. Christianity without the restraint of heathen government would become universal, as the prophet declared: “ for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as waters cover the sea.” It is significant that this prophecy of Isaiah was uttered in the context of the eleventh chapter dealing with the prevalence of the gospel under the rule and reign of Christ; and it was quoted by Paul in his epistle to the Romans (chapter 15:12) as being fulfilled in that time. The heavenly city, new Jerusalem, symbolic of the victorious church was visualized as having been withdrawn from the scene of the removal and destruction of the old Jerusalem; but now that the old order had passed away with the disappearance of its city and sanctuary; the church having survived annihilation, the new Jerusalem was seen as descending from heaven. The new earth represented the renovation of old conditions; and the vision that thereafter there should be no more sea meant no more such sea as that from which the beast had emerged. The vision meant that a new state had been wrought by the truth, by the word of the Conqueror whose name was The Word, by which sword all foes had been vanquished; and there was no more the tossed and troubled sea of tribulation.