Throughout history the Lord wages war against the forces of evil that storm against his sovereignty and threaten to engulf his people, whether demonic powers or pagan nations: You broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
Without endorsing the mythological concepts of their Ancient Near Eastern neighbors, Israel’s prophets evoked their imagery in passages such as Isaiah 27:1: “In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.” The parting of the physical waters of the Red Sea at Israel’s exodus displayed his victory over greater foes than Egypt: 57:20) and hostile resistance to the Creator’s orderly reign. It is not only Daniel 7 that presents “the sea” as a picture of the source of restless evil (see Isa.
It is important to notice that the imagery in John’s visions is drawn from the Old Testament’s rich store of symbolism. If both the dragon on the seashore and the beast from the sea are symbols, not physical monsters, why would we assume that the sea itself is a physical body of H 2O? So they agree that the beast of Revelation 13 is not a physical monster but a symbol of a human agent or agency, an individual or a state or a system, that violently opposes God and his people. Bible students of all varieties recognize the echoes of Daniel’s night visions of four beasts rising from the sea (Dan. Rising from that sea John saw a beast emerge, having ten horns and seven heads and resembling a leopard, a bear, and a lion (13:1-2). Interpreters of every eschatological school recognize that this “serpent” is not a physical reptile, actual or mythical, but a visible symbol of a corrupt, immaterial, personal creature: Satan (12:9). John has seen a dragon, an ancient serpent, standing on the sand of the sea (12:17). Speculations about the absence or presence or form of physical water in the new earth are intriguing, but we do better to take seriously the symbolic genre of John’s visions. Interpretations of the Sea Elsewhere in Revelation and Earlier in the Bible In the new earth “uge lakes could, in effect, be freshwater oceans,” teeming with sea life. There will be no more creatures swallowing up seafarers and no more poisoned salt waters.” In a cosmos purged of pollution, salt water would no longer be needed to serve as a global antiseptic, so perhaps the “sea” that is “no more” refers only to salt water oceans. He suggests that the “core meaning” of Revelation 21:1 is that “there will be no more of the cold, treacherous waters that separate nations, destroy ships, and drown our loved ones. On the other hand, Randy Alcorn, who admits to enjoying snorkeling, is troubled by the prospect that oceans and the wonder-evoking creatures that inhabit them would have no place in consummation of God’s new creation. There will be a river in heaven, not of water, but of the “water of life” (22:1, 17). Thus, the new heaven and the new earth will be based on a completely different life principle than the present universe. But believers’ glorified bodies will not require water, unlike present human bodies, whose blood is 90 percent water, and whose flesh is 65 percent water. All life on earth is dependent on water for its survival. The sea is emblematic of the present water-based environment. John Walvoord, for example, commented, “Most of the earth is now covered with water, but the new earth apparently will have no bodies of water except for the river mentioned in 22:2.” John MacArthur goes further, interpreting the absence of “the sea” as implying the absence of all physical water (H 2O) anywhere, in any form, on the new earth: So it is not surprising that Revelation 21:1 has been understood as announcing that a large body of physical water, or all large bodies of physical water, or even physical water itself will not be present in the new earth. For example, God is to be worshiped because he created “heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water” (14:7 see also 5:13 7:1-3 10:2-8 12:12). That is understandable, since in Revelation, even amid its symbolic visions, “sea” should sometimes be understood “literally”-that is, physically. My friend’s dismay assumes that the “sea” that will be “no more” in the new heaven and new earth is a vast body of physical water (all the oceans that blanket our present earth). Advertise on TGC Literal Interpretations of the Sea
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