I can hardly rejoice at the thought of losing the glorious ocean! The new heavens and new earth are none the fairer to my imagination if there's literally no great and wide sea, with its gleaming waves and shelly shores. Surely this must be a metaphor, colored by the way ancient Eastern minds viewed the sea with suspicion and fear. A physical world without the ocean? The thought is mournful to imagine—it would be like an iron ring without the sapphire that made it precious.

There must be a spiritual meaning here.

In the new dispensation, there will be no more division. Think about it: the sea separates nations, sunders peoples from one another. To John on Patmos, those deep waters were like prison walls, shutting him out from his brethren and his work. But in the world to come? No such barriers! Tonight, leagues of rolling billows lie between us and many a loved one we prayerfully remember. But in that bright world ahead, there shall be unbroken fellowship for all the redeemed family. In this sense, there shall be no more sea.

The sea is also the emblem of change. With its ebbs and flows, its glassy smoothness and mountainous billows, its gentle murmurs and tumultuous roarings—it is never long the same. Slave of the fickle winds and the changeful moon, its instability is proverbial. And don't we have too much of this already? Earth is constant only in her inconstancy. But in the heavenly state, all mournful change shall be unknown—and with it, all fear of storms to wreck our hopes and drown our joys.

The sea of glass glows with a glory unbroken by a wave. No tempest howls along the peaceful shores of paradise. Soon shall we reach that happy land where partings, and changes, and storms shall be ended!

Jesus will waft us there. Are you in Him or not? This is the grand question.