Sea of Galilee

An interesting thing happens on the way to the end of the book of Revelation. In chapter 21, where it describes the new heaven and new earth, there is no sea.

The sea was part of the original creation, and like everything else, it was considered good. But by Genesis 6, with the story of Noah, the rising waters of the flood posed a threat to the entire world God had made, from which Noah and his entourage are rescued. From within creation comes forces of chaos harnessed to exact God’s judgment.

There is no more sea until we find Moses and the Israelites standing in front of it, chased there by the Egyptians. God makes a way through the sea to rescue his people and to judge the pagan world.

Then we find the vision of Daniel in Daniel 7. The monsters who make war with the saints of the Most High come out of the sea. The sea has become the dark, fearsome place from which evil emerges, threatening God’s people like a giant tidal wave. For the people of ancient Israel, the sea came to represent evil and chaos, the dark power that might do to God’s people what the flood had done to the whole world, unless God rescued them as he had Noah.

Without the sea in the new heavens and new earth, there is no need for the judgment of God because evil has been destroyed.