Near the end of the book of Isaiah, the Lord makes a promise to the children of Israel:
For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
Isaiah 65:17-19
But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
This new environment will be not only joyful but also permanent. “For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain” (Isaiah 66:22).
John the Revelator saw this future state in a vision:
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.
Revelation 21:1-2, 4
And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. …
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Isaiah and John both emphasize the differences between the old and the new. Isaiah speaks of the old as being entirely forgotten in the joy of the new, and John even emphasizes the elimination of oceans on the new earth.
The final author in the Book of Mormon, Moroni, recorded a similar prophecy made by the Jaredite prophet Ether. He foresaw a New Jerusalem to be built in the Americas, which he called “a holy city unto the Lord, like unto the Jerusalem of old” (Ether 13:8). After that city is established, he said:
There shall be a new heaven and a new earth; and they shall be like unto the old save the old have passed away, and all things have become new.
Ether 13:9-11
And then cometh the New Jerusalem; and blessed are they who dwell therein, for it is they whose garments are white through the blood of the Lamb; and they are they who are numbered among the remnant of the seed of Joseph, who were of the house of Israel.
And then also cometh the Jerusalem of old; and the inhabitants thereof, blessed are they, for they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb; and they are they who were scattered and gathered in from the four quarters of the earth, and from the north countries, and are partakers of the fulfilling of the covenant which God made with their father, Abraham.
In Ether’s version of this prophecy, the new heavens and earth are both similar to and different from the prior ones, just as the New Jerusalem is similar to the old one. In fact, both the new and the old Jerusalem will be characterized by purity, their inhabitants cleansed by the blood of Jesus in fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham, a blending of the accounts in the Old and New Testaments. Ether paints a picture of new things not entirely supplanting old ones but making recognizable things more holy.
Today I will be grateful that God can make old things new. Just as He renews and sanctifies heavens and cities, He can transform us into holier and more joyful versions of our current selves.
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