The new heaven and new earth will be the new universe as the realm of God’s ruling in eternity. Hence, it will be the realm for God to administrate His government for eternity. This divine administration is considered the eternal kingdom of God in which righteousness dwells forever with the New Jerusalem, the composition of all the redeemed of God, as the center.
The new heaven and new earth will be the issue of God’s work of the new creation in the old creation and of God’s work of restoration in the old creation. God has two kinds of work in relation to the new heaven and new earth. His first work is the work of the new creation within the old creation. This is God’s work upon His chosen ones, the believers in Christ. This work involves calling, redemption, regeneration, sanctification, transformation, conformation and glorification. We were once the old creation, but God is working on us, making us a new creation. This is God’s work of the new creation in the old creation.
God’s other kind of work related to the new heaven and new earth is His work of restoration in the old creation. This is God’s work to restore the unregenerated nations to be the people, the nations, in the new universe. Through these two kinds of work, God will have two kinds of peoples. The first kind will be the saints, the regenerated and transformed ones. The second kind will be those who are not regenerated and transformed. They will be the restored nations, that is, those who are restored to the original state of God’s creation.
God’s work of the new creation in the old creation is to produce the regenerated, transformed, and perfected saints to be the kings and priests in the center, the New Jerusalem, of the new heaven and the new earth. There is a basic difference between the new creation and the old creation. God’s life and nature are not wrought into the old creation, but the new creation possesses the divine life and the divine nature. Even though the old creation came into being through the mighty work of God, He does not reside in the old creation. For this reason, the first creation, the old creation, has no divine content. The divine nature does not dwell in the old creation. Hence, the old creation has become old.
God’s work in this age, the age of grace, is the work of producing the new creation in the old creation. Through redemption, justification, regeneration, sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification God is making the new creation out of the old creation. Hence, we are a new creation (Gal. 6:15), not according to the old nature of the flesh but according to the new nature of the divine life. As God’s new creation, we shall be the kings and priests in the new heaven and the new earth. We will serve God as priests, and we will reign as kings over the nations.
The new heaven and the new earth also involve God’s work of restoration in the old creation to produce the restored nations to be the people around the New Jerusalem on the new earth (Rev. 21:24, 26). At His coming back, the Lord will judge the living. Some of the living ones will become the people on the new earth during the millennium. At the end of the millennium, some of these people will rebel, and God will judge them (20:8-9). The remnant of the living ones will be transferred into the new earth and will be the nations, the people of God, around the New Jerusalem. These nations will be restored and even redeemed, but they will not be regenerated. Therefore, in the new heaven and new earth, God will have both the new creation and the restored part of the old creation.
The new heaven and new earth will have the New Jerusalem as its center. After the coming forth of the new heaven and the new earth, the holy city—New Jerusalem—will descend to the new earth (21:1-2). This indicates that the dwelling place of God and His redeemed will not be in heaven but on the new earth. Furthermore, the restored nations, whose rebellious nature will have been completely purged, will become the nations on the new earth, dwelling around the New Jerusalem. In the new universe, the new heaven and new earth, God’s focus will be on the new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center.