Rev. 21:4 - And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
We are invited into the preview of a day that is coming in which everything will be perfectly new, being restored to God’s original plan. At that time one of the first things God will do is to wipe away all tears from our eyes. What a statement of the heart of God; He is indeed the ultimate Father. How intimate and tender; how personal and affectionate; that the Almighty God is attracted to the cry of His child; His heart yearns to bring comfort. When our young ones hurt themselves or are upset about something we hold them close and gently wipe their tears from their face. We whisper comforting things to them to fill their hearts with peace. We want our children to be reassured; we never wish upon them a sense of fear or uncertainty. We received all of these good qualities, as parents, from the example and the nature of our Heavenly Father. He was, at the beginning, He is now, and He always will be, the true essence of Fatherhood; protection, provision, security, and peace.
The answer to our question of whether there will be tears in Heaven is settled here; there will indeed be tears. Tears might be shed for several different reasons; we know that there are tears of joy and gratitude, as well as tears of remorse and sorrow. Some tears come from the loss of someone special, and some come just as an emotional release from pressure. The tears mentioned in our verse seem to suggest that they are connected to the memory of death, sorrow, crying and pain. As we look back from Heaven’s perspective we will see the whole of life and how things interacted; we may see the missed opportunities, the neglect of priorities and the regret of poor choices, and tears will fall. Thankfully, though, that will be the end of our tears; they will be wiped away forever.
The highest desire and will of God for His family has always been the same and we can see it plainly stated in this verse. No more death. No more sorrow. No more crying. No more pain. That is the will of God. However, we live in this fallen and imperfect world where these things are a present reality and must be dealt with accordingly, and thank God, we have been equipped to deal with them; we are not left powerless.
Imagine a world where there was no death; where everything that was alive remained alive forever. We can hardly imagine it because we have only known death; in fact, all of humanity’s history is a story of death. They were born; they lived; they died. Death came into the world as a result of what we call the fall of man. When Adam chose to disobey the instructions of God he chose death; he chose to place distance between himself and God and take on a new, self-centred nature.
Death is not necessarily the end of life; it is separation from life. When the rose is cut from the bush it is separated from its life source; the law of death has been set in motion and it will eventually overtake it. Spiritual death likewise is a separation, not cessation; the spirit of man has been separated from God our life source, just as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, ‘We were separated from the life of God’. Physical death is a separation of the body from the spirit and one day each of us will succumb to the unavoidable moment of our last breath.
Sorrow is connected to loss and this life inevitably brings much loss in many ways. There is the loss of the innocence we once knew; there is the loss of dignity and self-worth; perhaps a loss of trust; loss of integrity; or, the loss of employment. Many of us have also experienced the loss of health; loss of relationship and the ultimate loss of a loved-one. Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost, and all the sorrow and loss associated with it.
The cry of mankind is one of instinct, not necessarily, intellect; we intuitively know that things are not as they should be. When we see the pictures of children suffering poverty and hunger, we know that could never be God’s plan for them. When we hear of disasters and calamities resulting in the loss of human life we know that God could never be the cause of it. The Book of Romans refers to the groaning that is resident throughout creation. The groan does not need to be articulated because it is a universally felt cry of the heart.
Physical pain serves as an alarm that something is wrong in our body and that is a good thing, but, emotional and psychological pain that results from the abuse or, mistreatment from another human being, is a terrible thing. Unfortunately, there is no one who hasn’t felt the sting of heartbreak and agony which, in this current time, is inevitable.
This precious verse is a word from God that fills our heart with hope. The good news is that one day everything will be okay. All wrongs will be made right. All relationships will be fully restored. All hurts will be healed. One day all these dreadful things will be a thing of the past and only a faint memory. They belong to a class of things called the former things and they will all pass away and come to an end. So why not get used to the idea of a God who wipes away the tears of His children? You are invited to come and snuggle up close in the arms of your Father and let Him be to you what he longs to be; the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort; the God who wipes away every tear.
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