No More Sea?

Does Revelation 21:1 teach that the new earth will not have large bodies of water (θαλάσσας)—no more lakes, seas, or oceans? Most think so.

The “sea” . . . must disappear before the eternity of joy can begin.¹

The first hint of what the new heaven and new earth will be like comes in John’s observation that there will no longer be any sea. That will be a startling change from the present earth, nearly three-fourths of which is covered by water.²

Why would this be? Most argue that the sea symbolizes evil (or death or disorder), and thus the eradication of evil necessitates the removal of the sea.

From a metaphorical perspective, commentators have seen the absence of the sea as symbolic of the absence of evil.³

His perception that there was no longer any sea is simply another way of saying that in the new creation there is no more death (v. 4).⁴

Most justifiably see this void as representing an archetypical connotation in the sea (cf. 13:1; 20:13), a principle of disorder, violence, or unrest that marks the old creation (cf. Isa. 57:20; Ps. 107:25-28; Ezek. 28:8). . . . It is not that the sea is evil in itself, but that its aspect is one of hostility to mankind. For instance, the sea was what stood guard over John in his prison on Patmos and separated him from the churches of Asia. . . . The sea is the first of seven evils that John says will no longer exist, the other six being death, mourning, weeping, pain (21:4), the curse (22:3), and night (21:25; 22:5).⁵

This may be because the sea was a negative symbol for chaos and even for the abyss.⁶

John MacArthur argues (uniquely?) that there will not only be no large bodies of water, but no water at all. His reason for arguing this is that

all life on earth is dependent on water for its survival, and the earth is the only known place in the universe where there is sufficient water to sustain life. 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. Thus, the new heaven and the new earth will be based on a completely different life principle than the present universe. There will be a river in heaven, not of water, but of the “water of life” (22:1, 17).⁷

I’m not so sure. Perhaps there is another option. Apart from the theological questions that it raises in my mind—like whether the absence of large bodies of water, which presumably existed prior to the fall, fully demonstrates the conquering of evil and the reversing of the curse⁸—there are, I think, grammatical reasons for questioning this conclusion—or at least being open to another.

Let’s look at the text and notice the differences in punctuation.

Here is the text in a few Greek editions:

NA27: Καὶ εἶδον οὐρανὸν καινὸν καὶ γῆν καινήν. ὁ γὰρ πρῶτος οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ πρώτη γῆ ἀπῆλθαν καὶ ἡ θάλασσα οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι.

WH: Καὶ εἶδον οὐρανὸν καινὸν καὶ γῆν καινήν· ὁ γὰρ πρῶτος οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ πρώτη γῆ ἀπῆλθαν, καὶ ἡ θάλασσα οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι.

MT: Καὶ εἶδον οὐρανὸν καινὸν καὶ γῆν καινήν, ὁ γὰρ πρῶτος οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ πρώτη γῆ ἀπῆλθον. Καὶ ἡ θάλασσα οὐκ ἔστιν ἔτι.

Here is the text in a few English translations:

ESV: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

NAS: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.

NET: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more.

NIV: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

The punctuation differences are minor, but have bearing on the issue at hand. First, is there a hard or soft break after the first clause? Second, is there a hard or soft break after the second clause. The reason this matters is that it has direct bearing on whether the third clause is logically if not grammatically connected to the first clause or the second.

In other words, is John saying, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for (1) the first heaven and the first earth passed way and (2) the sea no longer existed. Or is he saying, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth (for the first heaven and the first earth passed away), and the sea no longer existed.

These differences could be diagrammed this way:

To state the issue another way: is John referring to the old sea that was part of the old created order (option 1), or does he have in view the nonexistence of large bodies of water in the new (options 2)? This question is closely related to that of the temporal deixis of ἔστιν.

It seems to me at least possible that in the third clause John is not describing the absence of large bodies of water in the new earth, but rather the destruction of large bodies of water in the old.⁹

What about the parallel with “the sea was no more” (v. 1) and “death will be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (v. 4)? To be sure, the similarity is not to be missed. But it is also worth noting that John switches tenses from the present to the future, suggesting perhaps that the present tense refers to the former state of things and the future to the new.¹⁰

This reading of the text is tentative since I haven’t found anyone else who suggests it even as a possibility. Am I missing anything that would make this grammatically or theologically unfeasible?

1. Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 743. [↩ Back]
2. John MacArthur, Revelation 12–22 (Chicago: Moody, 2000), 263. [↩ Back]
3. Ibid., 264. [↩ Back]
4. J. Ramsey Michaels, Revelation, vol. 20, IVPNTC (Downers Grove: IVP, 1997), Re 21:1. [↩ Back]
5. Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 8–22: An Exegetical Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1995), 440. [↩ Back]
6. David E. Aune, Revelation 17–22, vol. 52C, WBC (Dallas: Word, 2002), 1119. Cf. Osborne, 743. [↩ Back]
7. MacArthur, 263. [↩ Back]
8. This, however, is not conclusive since not all will be as it once was—the absence of marriage being a prime example. [↩ Back]
9. This is how Aune seems to take it: “Though the destruction of the sea is mentioned in Rev 21:1, it is noteworthy that the sea is not mentioned in connection with the new heaven and the new earth” (1119). Though Aune doesn’t draw the conclusion I am suggesting, he does see 21:1 as a reference to the removal of the sea in the old earth rather than the nonexistence of the sea in the new. [↩ Back]
10. The present of εἰμί is past-referring elsewhere in the NT. E.g., see Köstenberger, “John 5:2 and the Date of John’s Gospel: A Response to Dan Wallace.” [↩ Back]