Question:

Why does God do away with the oceans?  In Rev. 21:1, we are told there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and there will be no more sea.  As much as I trust God’s judgment, I have to admit it kills me to think I will never stand by the wild, free, beautiful ocean ever again—for all eternity.  I grew up by the ocean, and it is my favorite place on earth.  To know I’ll never hear a seagull cry as it soars over the open water makes me feel positively claustrophobic!  I know I am not alone in this since so many people visit and live by the sea.  Why does a loving Father take away something that so many of His children hold so dear?

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Dear friend,

Excellent question! And it’s one that I used to wonder about quite a bit too—since I have also lived near the ocean most of my life.

I think you have begun this question rightly—that is, by affirming that you trust God’s judgment. I think that, when we read something like this in the Bible that we don’t fully understand, or that doesn’t fit-in with the way we think things ought to be, the best way to begin is by trusting God’s greater love and wisdom. He is God, and we are not; and there’s most likely aspects to the things He is preparing for us that we—in our limited understanding or narrow focus—can’t understand or see. I take a lot of comfort in the fact that the heavenly Father, who is fitting me to live eternally in this glorious new heavens and new earth, is the same One who created the heavens and earth we now occupy.  The Lord Jesus—through whom the Father made the vast beauty we enjoy now in just six days (Colossians 1:16)—is the same One who has been preparing our future home for us since He left us (John 14:2-3), and who has given His own life to make it possible for us to be there.  If His word says that there will be “no sea”, then—even though I love the beauty of the sea in this present, fallen creation—I can trust that what He has in store is far more wonderful than I can imagine.

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In seeking to understand this, we need to keep in mind what else the Bible tells us about the new heavens and the new earth.  Though it says that there will be no sea, it also affirms to us that there will be lots of water.  In fact, Revelation 22:1-2 says, “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.  In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month.  The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”  How there could be a continually flowing river with no sea is as much a mystery as how the source of the river could be the throne of God and of the Lamb in the midst of the city.  We can’t measure what we read of the new heavens and the new earth by what we know of the earth we now dwell in.  The differences will be beyond our understanding.  But we need to keep in mind, in any case, that though there will be no sea, there will be water—even a great river of water!

The verse you’re referring to says, “Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.  Also there was no more sea” (Revelation 21:1).  One explanation that some commentators have given for this is that the sea—as we now know it—will no longer be needed in terms of its provision to the earth of water.  This present earth’s ecological system is water-based; and the oceans of the earth are essential to its hydrologic cycle—providing the earth’s surface with water through the processes of evaporation, cloud-covering, and rainfall.  In the original language of that verse, it says, “and the sea is no longer”—with a definite article before the word “sea”.  It doesn’t say that there will be no more “seas” or “oceans”; but specifically that THE sea will no longer exist.  And perhaps this is meant to specify that “the sea” as a property of the ecological system will no longer be needed in the new created order, because the river of water of life provides all that is needed.

Some commentators have argued that “the sea” is meant to be understood symbolically.  They understand “the sea” as another way of describing the multitudes of people on the earth in this present, ungodly world system—the people of the Gentile nations who are in continual turmoil with one another.  And there’s some biblical support for this idea in the book of Revelation itself.  After all, we’re told that ‘the beast’ (that is, the antichrist) is said to rise up “out of the sea” (Rev. 13:1)—the clear implication being that he rises up from out of the midst of the turmoil of the nations.  What’s more, the vision of “the great harlot who sits on many waters” is given to us in Rev. 17:1; and we’re told in verse 15 that “The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues.”  Others have pointed out that “the sea”—in the minds of ancient peoples—was not viewed as favorably as we view it today.  It was, to them, a place of great mystery and danger.  It was sometimes associated with death and judgment (see Jonah 2:3-6 as a possible example of this.)  But the problem with this view is that, if we symbolize “the sea” in this way in Revelation 21:1, then we’d have to symbolize much of what else the passage tells us about the new heavens and new earth.  John doesn’t seem to me to be speaking symbolically in this passage.

One possibility—a view that takes into account both the literal feel of this passage, but also recognizes that “the sea” is connected to the multitudes of people on the earth—is that the absence of the sea suggests the gathering together of all people under one great King.  Just think of how, in this present world in which we live, the nations and peoples of earth are divided from one another by the fact that a “sea” separates them.  The sea delineates nations and separates cultures and people from one another.  Perhaps the fact that, in the new heavens and new earth, ‘the sea is no longer’ means that the redeemed people of all the nations of the earth will finally be one great people ruled by one King: Jesus. Perhaps it’s meant to show that that the glorified people who dwell on the new earth will no longer be divided one from another as they have been in centuries past on the old earth.

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Now; I know that all of that doesn’t perhaps take away the frustration you and I might feel right now over the idea of our beautiful ocean not being in the new heavens and the new earth.  But something I read once by C.S. Lewis comes to mind.  He once wrote, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.  We are far to easily pleased” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory [New York: Collier Books, 1980], pp. 3-4).

Could it be that we’re too eager to hang on to the idea of the beauty of the ocean of this present creation, because we’re “half-witted creatures” who cannot imagine what is meant by God’s glorious offer a new heavens and a new earth?  That puts us back into the position of trusting God’s greater love and wisdom; doesn’t it?

Blessings,
Pastor Greg

(All Scripture quotes are taken from the New King James Version.)