A weeping God did not despise
Every Tear Wiped Away
Every weeping in Scripture has been reaching toward one promise. In the last book of the Bible, John sees a new heaven and a new earth, and hears that God Himself will wipe away every tear. This is where the whole story of the tears of the Bible is going.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”Revelation 21:4
The tears
The heading is: The tears. This entry is not a single scene of weeping but the answer to all of them. John, exiled on the island of Patmos, was given a vision of the end of the story, and at its heart is a promise addressed to every tear ever cried. He heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God (Revelation 21:3). And then the promise that gathers up Hagar's desert weeping and Hannah's bitter soul, David's grief and the exiles' homesickness, Peter's bitter tears and Mary's tears at the tomb, and every unnamed sorrow of every unnamed sufferer: And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away (Revelation 21:4). Notice how personal it is. Not merely that tears will cease, but that God Himself will wipe them away, as a parent stoops to a child's wet face. Every tear that this whole cluster has traced is named and known and finally answered here.
What God did with them
The heading is: What God did with them. Here is what God does, at last, with all the tears of the Bible and all of ours. He does not merely stop them; He wipes them away with His own hand, and He removes forever the things that caused them. There shall be no more death, the thing Mary wept over and Jesus wept at. No more sorrow, the thing Hannah poured out and Jeremiah drowned in. No more crying, the thing the exiles did by the rivers of Babylon. No more pain. And note what remains true along the way: God does not promise this for now. Many tears in this life are not wiped away yet, and Scripture never pretends otherwise. The honesty of the whole cluster, that Esau's loss stood, that the exiles' psalm ended unresolved, that Jeremiah wept over a people who did not turn, is held together by this final word. Not every tear is answered in this life, but no tear is forgotten, and every one is kept, for the psalmist said God puts our tears into his bottle (Psalm 56:8). What is stored up now will be wiped away then, by God Himself.
How it points to Christ
The heading is: How it points to Christ. This whole promise is possible only because of Christ. The One who wipes away the tears is the same One who first shed them; the man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3) is the Lamb at the center of the throne. He can wipe away all tears because He entered them all: He wept at a tomb (John 11:35), He wept over a city, and He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15) to the very end. The tears are not wiped away by pretending grief did not matter, but by a Savior who bore it in His own body on the cross and rose to break the power of death. That is why the last word of the whole story is not sorrow but this: God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (Revelation 21:4). Every weeping in Scripture, and every one of yours, is held on the way to that day, in the hands of the One who wept first and will wipe the last tear away.
Questions people ask
Does Revelation 21:4 promise that God removes all our tears now?
No. The promise is for the new heaven and new earth, when the former things are passed away. Many tears in this life are not yet wiped away, and Scripture is honest about that. The comfort is that no tear is forgotten and every one will finally be answered by God Himself.
Why does it say God Himself will wipe them away?
To show how personal and tender the promise is. It is not merely that tears will cease, but that God will do it with His own hand, as a parent wipes a child's face. The God who counts our tears now (Psalm 56:8) will one day wipe them away Himself.
How is this the end of the whole story of the Bible's tears?
Because every weeping in Scripture, from Hagar's desert to Mary's tomb, points toward this promise. Christ, who wept first and bore our griefs, makes it possible. The tears of the Bible are all reaching toward the day when there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.