Revelation 21:5 NASB
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
Because I am a sacramentalist, and a charismatic, I believe in mystical and miraculous things. I believe that when I celebrate the saving acts of God in Christ , that I am actually experiencing them in the present tense. God is an eternal being, and his saving acts in the past, though unrepeatable, are always living in the Kairos sense of time. A Jewish, and biblical understanding of worship is that in celebrating an act of God in the past, that past event which has always been in the plans of God, are made present, and reexperienced. Now notice I did not say “re-– accomplished,” but I said “reexperienced.” To make sure you understand what I’m saying, I’m not saying “re-– remembered,” but is much bigger than that. An example would be these next three days that we are walking through when we celebrate the Cross event; the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Revelation 13:8 says that Jesus was slain before the foundation of the world, and therefore even though his crucifixion 2000 years ago can never be repeated, it was actually already true in the eternal sense of the word, before Adam and Eve ever fell, but it is made present dipping out of the eternal Kairos time, into our present time space reality. God had already provided the solution for the fall of man before there was ever a problem. The Cross existed in his heart, not as a backup plan, but that which existed in the ages past. It was revealed in Christ. The Cross was the mystery and wisdom of God concerning the solution for the fall of man, that existed before the fall ever happened, but was manifest at Calvary 2000 years ago. The solution to making all things new in Christ through death and resurrection has always been the plan. Every time I walk out the drama of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter morning the reality of being a new creation in Christ is not a philosophy, or simply a historical event that I remember and celebrate, but is instead, it is an eternal event that is present to me, and therefore renewed in me each time. At the cross Jesus made all things new, and in each celebration of that grace accomplished 2000 years ago, I experience the wonders of that event crashing into my time space reality as I in a literal, mystical, sacramental, and charismatic way, stand at the cross, and before the open tomb as the recipient of the Newness of life. It’s not like celebrating a birthday once a year, instead, it’s like experiencing the birth again each good Friday, and resurrection Sunday.