This vision is widely invitational: “To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.” Cooling, restoring water flowing unto everlasting life can be had by anyone. It’s just a matter of saying, “I’m thirsty” and asking for a drink. We don’t have to earn it, cajole it or try to demand it. Our money, like our résumés, our charm and our manipulative skills, are no good in the new creation. We just have to respond to the summons the LORD spoke through Isaiah long ago:

 

“Come, everyone who thirsts,

     come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

     come, buy and eat!

 

Come, buy wine and milk

     without money and without price.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

     and your labor for that which does not satisfy?

Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,

     and delight yourselves in rich food.

Incline your ear, and come to me;

     hear, that your soul may live;

and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

     my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:1-3)

 

The offer stands. The choice is open. But once again, we see how the triune God will not force us into this glorious new Eden. There will be those who remain outside. The partial list reads, “the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable . . . murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars.” These may not enter the new Jerusalem. Rather there remains a second death, a spiritual dying that goes on and on, described in frightening images of burning fire. 

 

But wait. I am guilty of several items on that list. And I’m just thinking of today! How does this work? I think this passage makes a contrast between those who are willing humbly to say, “I’m thirsty” and those who proudly persist with, “I’m fine.” All sins can be, indeed have been, forgiven by Christ’s sacrificial work. But the choice remains for me to agree that I have sinned and desire reconciliation. Perilously, I can insist that I have done nothing but what seemed good to me, and I simply won’t go into such a city where God must be my all in all. That raises the haunting possibility that the triune God may quietly reply, “Very well. Your will be done.”  

 

Revelation 21 goes on to declare that the gates of the city in the new creation will never close. Even great kings of the earth will stream in with the offering of all their earthly glory to the true God. But those who cling to their uncleanness in the pride of wanting to be self-possessed, to be one’s own god, cannot pass. This to me, is the warning in verse 27, “But nothing unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”