God being with
his people (three times in Revelation 21:3!) indicates progress over how things were in Paradise. Though all God’s world, including the Garden, was very good
(Genesis 1:31), God’s dwelling place was in heaven and man’s home on earth (Psalm 115:16); here was harmony yet distance (though God came to visit, Genesis 3:8). He who is the Alpha and the Omega had an end
in mind right from the beginning,
that God and his people should live together in blissful harmony, and that should be on the earth he fashioned for people! All of history (say, the letters between A and Z) is God’s plan and initiative to bring the alphabet of history to its goal of fullest Immanuel. This also explains the present-progressive formulation of the passage’s key words, “I am making all things new.” God’s Omega is today a work in progress.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.