And The Seas Were No More

“...and the sea was no more.” -Revelation 21:1

People quote this a good deal and the question regularly comes up. It is best policy to take Scripture at face value as often as possible. Sometimes, however, this requires more reading than the text we are in. This is the other side of the same coin. The technical term is "Synthesis." It simply means all Scripture is by the same Author and will hang together. If it does not, guess where the error is.

This passage is a classic example and I still hear it today, even from the pulpit. For the sea life lovers and divers among us it can be a source of some little distress. Let's narrow the meaning down and see if this is in fact the case.

Let's also gain some perspective: If the Fall is Paradise Lost, is not the Kingdom Jesus will establish Paradise Found? Jesus will renew the earth and set things right. God created the seas as Genesis says, "9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good."

So what has changed? He thought Seas were good back in Genesis, so what has changed? Seas are no longer good?

Seas could be literal or figurative. Perhaps John was describing from his perspective at old and New Jerusalem. The changes already upon the earth by this time as a result of the calamities caused by God's wrath upon the world are remarkable. Massive geologic upheavals caused by the quakes that sank islands and leveled mountains, all waters turned to blood...John is describing a massive shift he sees in population and geography. A vast change in structure is in order by the time Jesus returns to establish his kingdom on earth. Is John really saying “no more massive bodies of water” or “no more oceans” or is he saying the Mediterranean, Sea of Galilee or both are altered or gone? Well, we do know that a river of living waters will be flowing toward somewhere. It would seem that the geography has changed so that what John sees in unrecognizable.

SEAS in the Kingdom

Ezekiel 34:13, 14 − "I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.”

Ez 47:8-10 − Then he said to me, "These waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the Arabah; then they go toward the sea, being made to flow into the sea, and the waters of the sea become fresh. 9 "It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. 10 "And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it; from Engedi to Eneglaim there will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea, very many.

THIS IS KEY:

**And again from Isaiah 11:15, 16

The LORD will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with a scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River. He will break it up into seven streams so that men can cross over in sandals. There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up from Egypt.**

Zechariah 14 reads

8 And in that day it shall be That living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, Half of them toward the eastern sea And half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. 9 And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be— “The Lord is one,” And His name one.

And again, a Kingdom prophecy in Zechariah 9:10 is:

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations; His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.’

Which we again must consider as a restating of what John was referring to in Revelation 21:1 “and the sea was no more.” This both or either as a perspective from his locality in his vision (or future experience) and/or hyperbole describing poetically the changes occurring in an earth whose seas represented danger and death, recently swollen with the dead and turned to blood.

So, using synthesis we find that God thought Seas were good. We find there will be rivers flowing into them. We find them mentioned in Kingdom references. So from John's perspective, what was he seeing? My favorite view is not the figurative (people) although that could be it. But as he is speaking about physical differences, he is likely noticing the once familiar sea (he was living on Patmos) was gone! Dramatically altered with a new land bridge. The King's Highway is in its place.

Whatever your perspective, there will be Seas, unless you believe their are contradictions in Scripture.