John's words that God will "wipe away every tear" can be understood to mean that now, when the world has been completely transformed...
John's words that God will "wipe away every tear" can be understood to mean that now, when the world has been completely transformed and there is no place for evil in it, the faithful have nothing left to cry about: now, in the fullness of the Kingdom, they are no longer threatened by any loss or any separation from those who are close and dear to them. Yet this is probably not the whole truth. After all, any utopia, even the most radiant and shining one, any project of the most wonderful and most just society, has never answered the question of what is to become of those who did not live, and will not live, to see the triumph of that very utopia.
In practice, fighters for a "bright future" quite often proved to be selfless enthusiasts, often ready to give not only all their strength but even their lives to accomplish something they themselves would never have any chance of seeing during their lifetime. But such enthusiasm itself testifies that the people who had it drew strength and inspiration not from that "bright future," which did not yet exist, but from some other source.
When it comes to the Kingdom, the problem, at first glance, is solved by the universal resurrection: through it everyone receives the opportunity to share in the Kingdom to which he was faithful in life. And yet: tears that have been shed cannot be taken back; what happened, happened, and past evil remains real to the same extent that our past is real to us at all. What, then, can be done about this? The answer here, strangely enough at first glance, may be the forgiveness and liberation of a repentant sinner from every sin, including sin committed consciously, which is given to everyone in the Kingdom.
Earlier, before Christ came into the world, it was possible to repent of any sin, but to be cleansed from it, to be freed from the consequences of what had been done, was possible only if the sin was not voluntary, if the will of the one who sinned had not spiritually fed the sinful act. In any other case the consequences of the sin weighed on the person who committed it throughout his life, and even after death the evil he had done did not disappear, sometimes affecting the people connected with the sinner, or the descendants both of the one who sinned and of the people connected with him.
This situation could be changed only by recreating the world anew. Or by bringing into it the Kingdom, which by its breath is able to transform it. But such transformation, which fully frees from the power of any sin, also means that Christ has the power to change not only the future, but the past as well. This is not surprising: in the Kingdom, it appears, past, present, and future relate to one another in a way that is not as linear as in the untransformed world.
But if that is so, then on the day of the Kingdom's triumph evil will remain neither in its eternal present nor in that past where evil still had a place before the Kingdom was revealed in all its fullness. It will not remain because the past itself will not remain: there will remain only that underside of the new world, where the evil that once possessed the world is driven out, that outer darkness of which the Savior speaks, which in John's vision is revealed as the "pit filled with fire," and the eternal present of the Kingdom, where there will be no place for any evil, whatever time it belonged to by the measures of the former world.
21
21:1 And I saw - So it runs, Rev 19:11, Rev 20:1, Rev 20:4, Rev 20:11, in a succession. All these several representations follow one another in order: so the vision reaches into eternity. A new heaven and a new earth - After the resurrection and general judgment. St. John is not now describing a flourishing state of the church, but a new and eternal state of all things.For the first heaven and the first earth - Not only the lowest part of heaven, not only the solar system, but the whole ethereal heaven, with all its host, whether of planets or fixed stars, Isa 34:4 Rev 21, Mat 24:29. All the former things will be done away, that all may become new, verses Rev 21:4-5, Pe2 3:10, Pe2 3:12. Are passed away - But in the fourth verse it is said, "are gone away." There the stronger word is used; for death, mourning, and sorrow go away all together: the former heaven and earth only pass away, giving place to the new heaven and the new earth.
21:2 And I saw the holy city - The new heaven, the new earth, and the new Jerusalem, are closely connected. This city is wholly new, belonging not to this world, not to the millennium, but to eternity. This appears from the series of the vision, the magnificence of the description, and the opposition of this city to the second death, Rev 20:11-12; Rev 21:1, Rev 21:2, Rev 21:5, Rev 21:8, Rev 21:9; Rev 22:5. Coming down - In the very act of descending.
21:3 They shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God - So shall the covenant between God and his people be executed in the most glorious manner.
21:4 And death shall be no more - This is a full proof that this whole description belongs not to time, but eternity.Neither shall sorrow, or crying, or pain, be any more: for the former things are gone away - Under the former heaven, and upon the former earth, there was death and sorrow, crying and pain; all which occasioned many tears: but now pain and sorrow are fled away, and the saints have everlasting life and joy.
21:5 And he that sat upon the throne said - Not to St. John only. From the first mention of "him that sat upon the throne," Rev 4:2, this is the first speech which is expressly ascribed to him. And he - The angel. Saith to me Write - As follows.These sayings are faithful and true - This includes all that went before. The apostle seems again to have ceased writing, being overcome with ecstasy at the voice of him that spake.
21:6 And he - That sat upon the throne. Said to me, It is done - All that the prophets had spoken; all that was spoken, Rev 4:1. We read this expression twice in this prophecy: first, Rev 16:17, at the fulfilling of the wrath of God; and here, at the making all things new. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end - The latter explains the former: the Everlasting. I will give to him that thirsteth - The Lamb saith the same, Rev 22:17.
21:7 He that overcometh - Which is more than, "he that thirsteth." Shall inherit these things - Which I have made new.I will be his God, and he shall be my son - Both in the Hebrew and Greek language, in which the scriptures were written, what we translate shall and will are one and the same word. The only difference consists in an English translation, or in the want of knowledge in him that interprets what he does not understand.
21:8 But the fearful and unbelieving - Who, through want of courage and faith, do not overcome. And abominable - That is, sodomites. And whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters - These three sins generally went together; their part is in the lake.