Paradise found

by Emma Strelan

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Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city (Revelation 22:1,2a).

Read Revelation 22:1–11

Restoration – things back to the way they should be. How they were in the beginning before we ruined everything. That’s what God will do at the end of time, right? Fix everything, restore it, purge the world of things that do not glorify him. (Either that or whisk us away to heaven where we sit in the clouds playing harps ….)

Does that mean we should look forward to a Garden of Eden lifestyle: a couple of people sitting around in a garden, petting docile tigers, and bringing scanty fig leaves back into fashion? (Meanwhile, Adam and Eve grumble, ‘We wore those when we were young! Can’t believe they’re back!’)

Is God’s vision for restoration really going to include wiping out thousands of years of human culture and development? If so, what’s the point of it all?

But here in Revelation, humanity isn’t finally restored to a lost paradise. That would entail God ignoring the movement of history from a single person to two, to a whole community, and to multitudes of nations. God’s not going to wipe out eons of human history and plonk us all back in the Garden of Eden, excised of our culture and communities.

The new Jerusalem – the new ‘paradise’ – is a city. And the nations will bring to the city their cultural treasure and riches.

This means that the work we do now isn’t for naught. We can joyfully participate in the beautiful, creative, joy-filled parts of the world, with hope for its beautiful restoration to come.

While we shouldn’t go too far in setting our specific expectations for the new kingdom (it is, after all, far greater than the human mind can imagine), I encourage you to consider what brings joy in your life that you can hope God restores fully in the future – and how might he be calling you to participate in that restoration now?

Heavenly Father, we await in eager anticipation for the time when your glory will live fully among your people, and you will restore everything to its glory and perfect that which we have clumsily made. Thank you for giving us glimpses of that future glory in the world today. Amen.

Emma works as a freelance videographer in Adelaide, and she recently joined Lutheran Media as its Production Assistant. Emma also studies theology and is heavily involved in youth camping ministry around South Australia. In her free time, she eats a lot of cheese, attempts to grow vegetables (the tomatoes have been the best success so far), and has committed the majority of her ‘casual reading’ time this year to getting through War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

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