A remedy for every calamity

 806. NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH.

It was proper and natural, considering the nature and end of Christ's redemption, to represent that new state of things that the saints shall enjoy by Christ's redemption as a new heaven and a new earth: for Christ came to restore all things, and that in him there might be a remedy for every calamity that came by the fall. 

One calamity that was the consequence of the fall was the dissolution of the body. There is in Christ a remedy for this calamity; the body is through him restored, and comfort is administered to the saints against the apprehensions of it, by the promises of the resurrection. 

Another calamity that comes by the fall is the dissolution of heaven and earth, our dwelling place. The remedy that is promised in Christ is a new heaven and a new earth, a new and much better habitation and state of things, instead of it; and this is the comfort we have by Christ against this sorrow. 

This restoration is equivalent to a resurrection of heaven and earth, and is more than a mere restoration: for it shall be a far more glorious state of things, not only than is immediately before the dissolution or conflagration, but more glorious than the state of the world was before the fall, as the resurrection of the bodies of the saints is more than a mere restitution. 

For the body shall [not] only return to life, but to a much more glorious state than it was in before its dissolution, yea, a much more glorious state than the body of man was in before the fall; for it shall not be conformed to the body of the first Adam, which was a natural body, but to the body of Christ, which is a spiritual body (see 1 Corinthians 15:44–49). 

Hence this new state of things is called a new heaven and a new earth. 

Christ came to restore all things with respect to the elect that, whatever there is of the ruinous effects of the fall through the whole universe, all might be fully and perfectly healed in Christ; that old things might pass away and all things become new; that man himself might be a new creature, both in his soul by conversion and sanctification, and in his body by the resurrection, and the world as to him might become a new creation; and so not only himself created anew in Christ Jesus, but everything created anew as to him fully and perfectly. Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I make all things new." 

Hence the end of the world, when this shall be perfected, is called the "times of refreshing" and the "times of restitution of all things" (Acts 3:19–21).

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Christ came to restore all things only with respect to the elect. 

The bodies of the wicked will not be restored from the calamity and ruin it fell under by the fall. 

And so the world, as to the wicked, which are far the greater number, will not be restored; but with respect to the elect, it will be restored, for they shall receive a new heaven and a new earth, instead of it. 

If this individual world belonged to the elect as much as their bodies, then would it be requisite that this individual world should be restored, as well as their bodies. But this is not the world that properly belongs to them. This is not their native world. 'Tis not the land of the church. They are not of the world. They ben't the men of this world, but heaven is their country. 

The world as to them is to be restored: for they are to be delivered from all the evil of it, all the calamity that came by the evil state and course of it, and are to be more than restored to all the comfort and benefit they had by its first perfect state. 

Everything in the whole universe is to be new as to them, and to be as well, and better, than if there never had been any sin.