One of the most popular verses in the Bible that warms the hearts of believers around the world can be found in Revelation 21:4 where we read:
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
To whom these verse is referring to, to all people who have suffered the consequences of death through out history or someone else?
Watchtower's library offers the following explanation
What has caused more unwanted tears than the enemy death? Jehovah will release obedient humans from the grip of death. How? By eliminating the real cause of death: sin inherited from Adam. (Romans 5:12) Jehovah will lift obedient humans to perfection on the basis of Jesus’ ransom sacrifice. * Then the last enemy, death, will be “brought to nothing.” (1 Corinthians 15:26) Faithful humans will be able to live as God purposed for them to live—forever in perfect health.
But is explanation taken from the context or from wishful interpretation and is there something more going on here than just sorrow caused by Adamic death?
We read in the parallel account of Revelation 7:13-17:
13 In response one of the elders said to me: “These who are dressed in the white robes, who are they and where did they come from?” 14 So right away I said to him: “My lord, you are the one who knows.” And he said to me: “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 That is why they are before the throne of God, and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple; and the One seated on the throne will spread his tent over them. 16 They will hunger no more nor thirst anymore, neither will the sun beat down on them nor any scorching heat, 17 because the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and will guide them to springs of waters of life. And God will wipe out every tear from their eyes.
So let's isolate the most important parts of this text. Who is God wipping the tears from their eyes? The ones that come out of the great Tribulation, that is the great crowd, not every person that ever lived on this planet. Why is God wipping the tears from their eyes? Because they had to endure hunger and thirst and the scorching heat of the sun, and not just the results of inherited death.
In actual fact the parallel account in Isaiah 49:10 describes the same thing in a more condensed fashion, in just one verse:
They will not go hungry, nor will they thirst, Nor will scorching heat or the sun beat down on them. For the One who has mercy on them will lead them, And he will guide them by the springs of water.
So what exactly is the "scorching of the heat of the sun" that both accounts in the book of Revelation and the book of Isaiah are referring to? Well this is a very specific plague that befalls manking during the time of the End and is described in Revelation 16:8,9, where we read:
The fourth one(=an angel of God) poured out his bowl on the sun, and to the sun it was granted to scorch the people with fire. 9 And the people were scorched by the great heat, but they blasphemed the name of God, who has the authority over these plagues, and they did not repent and give glory to him.
The fourth angel pours his bowl onto the sun with the result that the sun's temperature becomes so high that the sun's rays scorch people. There is an area in California in the United States with such high temperatures that it is called Death Valley. It's not uncommon for sunlit rocks and paved surfaces around the world to become hot enough to cause serious burns. But when the fourth angel delivers his bowl judgment, striking the sun, temperatures everywhere on earth may far exceed those of Death Valley.
This verse uses the Greek root word didōmi, which implies something that is "allowed" or "granted." This might mean that the sun, itself, is not going to be changed so much as earth will be more susceptible to it. In other words, this bowl judgment might mean something previously restraining the sun's potency—such as the ozone layer—will be crippled, "allowing" the sun to scorch the earth.
Looking at all these environmental judgments together, one can see how they could combine to create extreme conditions. Death and decay from earlier judgments can interfere with earth's natural defenses against solar radiation and temperature change. In this judgment, life-threatening sunburn and perhaps skin cancer may become common. What's described here might be thought of as an extreme form of global warming. Glaciers may melt and become raging floods. Drought and heat may contribute to crop loss, causing further famine and starvation. Grasslands would become deserts, wildfires would rage out of control. Pushed too hard, air conditioners and other machines would break down, causing massive deaths from heat exhaustion and sun stroke.
As a worldwide problem, even believers will suffer from the furnace-like heat of the sun. Revelation 7:16 holds God's promise that the believers that come out of the great tribulation will never experience the sun's scorching heat again.
So in conclusion the "wiping of the tears" are not related to the disappearance of Adami death but with the plague of the scorching of the sun that will befall mankind during the time of the End.
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