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New Defender's Study Bible Notes
21:4 all tears. Note Isaiah 25:8-9 and Revelation 7:17. Our tears of sorrow will in that day be turned into tears of joy and thanksgiving.
21:4 any more pain. The four aspects of the primeval curse of Genesis 3:17-19 (sweat, sorrow, pain and death) are specifically removed when God wipes away our tears. This is possible only because the Lord Jesus Christ was made the curse for us (Galatians 3:13). He “in an agony…sweat as it were great drops of blood” as He “carried our sorrows,” then was painfully “wounded for our transgressions” and “bruised for our iniquities.” Finally, He “poured out His soul unto death” (Luke 22:44; Isaiah 53:4-5,12). As the physical aspects of the curse had already been purged (II Peter 3:10), so also will its entire profound spiritual aspects, and “there shall be no more curse” (Revelation 22:3).
21:5 all things new. Compare Acts 3:21. The “times of restitution (literally, ‘of restoration’) of all things” is finally at hand. There is a “new heaven,” a “new earth” and a “new Jerusalem,” as well as a “new name” and a “new song” (Revelation 2:17; 3:12; 5:9). Everything will be new, fresh, and perfect, just as in creation week, and they will stay that way. The entropy law (aging, decay, death, etc.) will have been “repealed,” for the curse will be gone.
