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I took a glance at three writers that have consistently strained Revelation by literal explanations for obvious symbolism. I wanted to see what they had to say about this text. One skipped it—yes, the New Jerusalem, the eternal holy city set forth by John—skipped! Not a detail considered worth pondering. Another asserted the literalism of the passage in terms of the city’s dimensions but offered no explanation or investigation. He then, while ignoring details that John unpacks, launched into a highly speculative attempt to give spiritualized meanings to each of the precious stones that serve as the city wall’s foundation. The other had a nice, alliterated outline that strained literalism while missing the substance of John’s teaching. Three shots at the New Jerusalem floundered while attempting to maintain literalism where the biblical writer wrote with symbolism.
Now, my concern is not to criticize those gentlemen for their attempts at interpreting Revelation. I’ve often identified with their floundering! Rather, it is to juxtapose two reasons that we might have missed out on the rich teaching concerning the eternal dwelling place of the redeemed. First, we all have likely struggled with trying to understand this passage literally. I know that I have. That’s understandable because we want some kind of tangible, concrete description of what the new heaven and the new earth will be like. So we attempt to understand how a city can be a perfect cube 1500 miles long, wide, and high. How does it fit within Israel’s borders when those kinds of dimensions would encompass the entire Hellenistic world [Greg Beale, NIGTC: Revelation, 1074]? How do we grasp a city that is 1500 miles high? That’s over 2500 times the height of the Burj Dubai Skyscraper that will be the world’s tallest building upon completion. That’s 7.9 million feet compared to 3,111 feet. How do you process that literally? Or how do we explain the 12 gates, each a single pearl extending above the wall of the city, that itself, stood 216 feet tall, if viewed literally? Those would be some mighty big oysters to produce that sized pearls! How do you have a street made of pure gold and yet the gold was transparent?
“Well, God can do anything that He wants!” some might assert. I agree. But does it not seem more likely in this passage that the wonder of what He has prepared for the redeemed defies human understanding? Does it not seem that John uses concepts and language understandable to his audience to implant an unforgettable image of majesty, glory, beauty, and security in the mind?
A second reason for bringing up these issues is that the difficulty of grasping John’s portrayal of the holy city literally might discourage us from giving it any kind of extended meditation or thought. It’s just so hard to imagine that we give up and decide that we’ll just have to wait and see for ourselves! I can understand that; but I would urge you to not give up so quickly. Much awaits us in this passage that gives us hope and encouragement to press on in faithfulness to Christ. Christ has indeed prepared a wondrous eternity for the Church. That’s the point that John makes so that the church on earth does not lose sight of the church in eternity, and thereby grow despondent in this world. How does he describe the future of the church in the new heaven and new earth?
One of the ways that John teaches us in the Apocalypse is through contrasts. He contrasts the beast and the Lamb, the false prophet and the Spirit, the great harlot and the church. Through contrasts we better grasp the distinctions intended to instruct the church. In 17:1-5, John heard a strikingly similar call from one of the angels of the seven bowls as he does in our text. “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters”…” Compare that to, “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb”…” In the first text, John focuses on the harlot, also known as Babylon the Great. We saw that his use of that concept explained the whole spirit of the world in opposition to the Lord; it is the worldly view of life without acknowledging God as Sovereign Lord. Babylon represents the community of unredeemed men. But in sharp contrast, 21:9-10 reveals the holy city, Jerusalem, as the dwelling of the redeemed for eternity. Here we see sharp contrasts: one pictures judgment; the other pictures eternal life; one portrays the intoxication of the world while the other shows the glory of Christ in His church; one ends in judgment while the other knows unending glory in God’s presence.
In this passage, John explains the church in eternity. Rather than being carried in the Spirit into the desert where he saw Babylon the great, he is “carried in the Spirit to a great and high mountain,” because it takes a lofty view to understand the church of the Lord Jesus Christ as the object of God’s redeeming love. Let’s back up just a bit to fill in the context lest we misrepresent this text. John “saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away.” Then he “saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.” Here is the redemption of the world completed. Every vestige of sin’s destructive work is wiped away forever as Christ’s redeeming work is fully applied to the cosmos. A new heaven and new earth merge while the New Jerusalem comes out of heaven from God—that is, God’s work. Next, John emphasizes the permanency of God dwelling with His people, wiping every tear from their eyes, and ending the reign of death. At this point, we’re left wondering about the New Jerusalem. Is this a literal city that will replace the old Jerusalem? Now to our text!
“Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” We get our eyes ready and primed to see the beautiful bride of Christ entering the picture. But what does the angel show John? “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” There’s no doubt that he is recapitulating and telling us more about what he introduced in 21:2. The language bears this out quite clearly. Yet the angel promised to show him the Lamb’s bride but instead shows him “the holy city, Jerusalem.” So, was he showing the Lamb’s bride or the holy city? Yes! For the bride is the church, the wife of the Lamb, and the holy city, new Jerusalem that has come down out of heaven from God is the church in eternity as well. It may be best to see “the holy city” as the community of the redeemed in eternity—the church—which is also “the wife of the Lamb.” It is the community of the redeemed in that the church involves many people from every age and from among every people group on earth all redeemed through the death of Christ on their behalf. They exist together for eternity as one body of believers, undivided by sectarianism, nationalism, racism, class, economic factors, or gender. Here is the community elected before the world began, each one’s name “written in the Lamb’s book of life,” and redeemed by the substitutionary death of Christ at the cross. The entire community unites around worship and service to “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” So quite appropriately, this community of the redeemed is called “the bride, the wife of the Lamb,” which foreshadows the intimate communion and eternal love of Jesus Christ with His people forever. This is the bride that Christ has secured through His own bloody death and sanctified through His Word and by His Spirit, so that He might present her “in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:25-27). Now, John explains what Paul meant by presenting the church “in all her glory.”
If there is one word that captures the picture that John has in mind, it is “glory.” This city came down from heaven “having the glory of God.” How do you describe glory? In one sense, it is indefinable because it is the very essence of God Himself. Throughout both testaments, we find that word used to describe God. The Hebrew term for which the New Testament Greek has its roots means “heavy, weighty.” It is the heaviness of God in all of His essence and being. John qualifies glory lest we misunderstand and think that the church has glory apart from God: “having the glory of God.” He also helps us to understand something of what is implied. “Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.” When the glory of God filled the tabernacle, even the priests had to get out because of the radiance of glory. The term conveys something of an outshining radiance, or as John puts it, “brilliance…like a very costly stone…of crystal-clear jasper.” Jasper is a quartz-type stone that can come in different colors, at least as we know it. But it seems, according to many scholars, that John’s description of this type of jasper is closer to what we know as diamonds. John can only compare what he sees to those things common to his audience. So he sees startling brilliance, radiant purity, so amazingly bright and lustrous that it seemed to be as though light radiated out of a diamond, yet it was the church. Here “God’s glory illumines the church, which in turn diffuses the light,” as Simon Kistemaker explains [NTC: Revelation, 564].
God is preparing the church for future glory through the sufferings, trials, tribulations and obedience that work God-glorifying character in her. Rather than the ugly, darkened traits of the great harlot, the church must magnify its focus on living as the redeemed of the Lord. In contrast to the old Jerusalem destroyed because of her sin and rebellion, the church, as the future New Jerusalem, must devote itself to the beauty of holiness in this life in preparation for the next.
An ancient city’s security depended upon the size and strength of its wall. Cities without walls lay open to the ravages of their enemies. Ancient Jericho seemed impenetrable because of its great wall. Yet that kind of wall served as no security against the might of our God.
Now, if you’re running ahead of me, you are quickly thinking, “But why do we need walls in the new earth? All enemies of our God have been cast into the lake of fire.” Good observation! Some that view this passage with strict literalism have gone so far as to deny that it even refers to the new heaven and new earth; instead they consider it an explanation of life in the millennium. But John uses a device that his audience understood. The key to security in the ancient world was the city’s wall. “It had a great and high wall.” Later he says that it measured 144 cubits and was made of jasper. The cubit was from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, about 18 inches long. 144 cubits implied a wall 216 feet high! No one had a wall of that height in John’s day. If it was made of jasper or a diamond type of stone, then it was impenetrable as well as lustrous. The “twelve angels” at each gate reinforces the picture of security.
What John sought to do with this picture was not to give specific dimensions but rather to use exaggerated language to help us understand the security of the church in eternity. The world battered the early church, just as it does in so many places in our own day. But when we enter the new earth, there will never be any security problems. The church will forever live in Christ’s presence without assault or threat or fear.
John’s description of the wall of the city serves to demonstrate the comprehensiveness of the church in God’s eternal purpose and plan through every age. The “great and high wall” had “twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” Here is the church pictured by John, made up of Jews and Gentiles, those under the Old Testament era and those under the New Testament era. He does not view the church—“the wife of the Lamb”—as only the people of God that existed from the first advent of Christ until His second advent. Just as he has earlier shown the redeemed community by using the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, he does so again (7:4-8). The redeemed include all of those elected by God before the foundation of the world—Jews and Gentiles, whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life—Jews and Gentiles, and are consequently, saved through the death of Christ—Jews and Gentiles, since “there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). God did not have one way to save Jews and another to save Gentiles. So John uses the names of the twelve tribes and the names of the twelve apostles in the same way that he used the representation of the redeemed community in chapters 4-5 with the twenty-four elders.
Further, our text identifies only one redeemed community—“the holy city, Jerusalem.” The object of God’s redemptive work in both the Old and New Testament periods is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. God elected a people out of Israel as His own. He sent His Son to redeem them because the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin (Heb. 10:4). They were not saved because of their lineage but only when circumcised in their hearts by the regenerating work of the Spirit (Rom. 2:25-29) so that they believed God’s promise of the Messiah. That was the church—the called out people of God even before Christ used the term (Matt. 16:18). John drives this home by the inclusiveness of the church with Jews and Gentiles as the New Jerusalem. The gates with names of the twelve tribes on them may portend the way to the eternal city that was opened by the patriarchs as the early witness to God’s saving mercies. But the foundation being the twelve apostles follows the language we find in Ephesians 2:11-22, where Paul clearly shows that there is no dividing wall between the Jewish and Gentile believers but rather we’re all reconciled “in one body to God through the cross.” Then Paul adds, “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building [Jews and Gentiles], being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” His whole point is that whether Jewish or Gentile, if you are in Christ, there is no distinction in the eyes of God; you are part of the same building, a holy temple, a dwelling of God in the Spirit, and John would add, “the holy city, Jerusalem.” That’s the church in eternity!
John doesn’t just pull his language out of thin air. He breathes the air of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, clarifying their visions, sharpening them into the explanation of the redeemed of God in the new heaven and new earth. Isaiah spoke of a future Jerusalem that would be “a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God” (62:3). Then he pictures her, quite appropriately, as married to the Lord (62:4-5). Chapter 60 gives a detailed picture of the New Jerusalem as a place of radiance and beauty in which the nations would stream with their gifts. Ezekiel 40-48 pictures a man with a measuring rod making precise measurements of the future temple, showing its grandeur, symmetry, and magnificence with the glory of God filling it. The land is also apportioned for the priests of God. Zechariah 14 points to the day when even the cooking pots in the holy city would be as holy as the sacred vessels. Each prophetic glimpse serves to lay groundwork for the fuller revelation that John offers in chapters 21-22.
Similar to Ezekiel, John’s angelic host had a “gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall.” Unfortunately, the NASB translates the measurements into American measurements rather than letting the original language’s symbolism speak its message. Notice how he describes the city’s layout. “The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, 12,000 stadia; its length and width and height are equal” (italicized follows Greek in substitution of the NASB). The city is a perfect cube of enormous size. All twelve edges are perfectly 12,000 stadia, with each stadion being about 600 feet. Most scholars believe that this cube reflects the Holy of Holies in the temple, which was twenty cubits by width, length, and height (1 Kings 6:20). The one place where God dwelled most particularly with His people in the glory of His presence was the Holy of Holies. It seems that John tells us that the entirety of the eternal city will be filled with the presence of our God! John has consistently used the number 12 as a number of divine completion, specifically related to God’s people. Multiplying it by the number of completion, ten to the third power, emphasizes the completed number of the city as the dwelling place of all the redeemed. None that belong will be missing!
“And he measured its wall, 144 cubits, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements” (italicized follows Greek in substitution of the NASB). The number 144 is the square of 12. As we’ve already noted in 7:4, that number represents the full complement of the people of God. Kistemaker adds, “It is the multiplication of the representative twelve tribes on the gates and the representative twelve apostles on the foundation of the city. Therefore, this number should be understood as a symbolic figure” [569]. It symbolizes the totality of the redeemed through all ages, securely positioned in the Lord’s presence.
Various precious materials are identified for the wall, the city, the wall’s foundation stones, the city’s gates, and the street in the city. The emphasis seems to be upon the great value that the Lord places upon the redeemed church since the whole picture of the holy city personifies the church in eternity. “The material of the wall was jasper.” That material, like diamonds, dazzles when light is shined on it. It does not produce the light itself but reflects the light’s brilliance. The implication is that the church in eternity will reflect the light of God’s glory with dazzling brilliance—still dependent upon Him. “The city was pure gold, like clear glass.” The clarity of the gold—“like clear glass”—emphasizes the transparent purity and brilliance of the church. The stress on the purity of the material highlights the glorified state of the redeemed church in God’s presence.
“The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone.” Then follows a list of various colorful, brilliantly dazzling stones serving as the wall’s foundation. I don’t think that each one is to be analyzed and some meaning adopted accordingly. Like the ancient high priest’s breastpiece that contained twelve similar stones (at least eight are the same stones, though various terms were applied to precious stones in that era that might differ from one age to another), the twelve foundation stones might represent the holiness of the eternal priesthood of the church in God’s presence. With there being twelve, each with an apostle’s name, indicates the totality of the church; none whom Christ has redeemed will be missing; none will lack radiating Christ’s glory through the ages; the whole church is founded on the apostolic gospel proclaimed throughout the ages. Added to the materials are “the twelve gates” as “twelve pearls,” and “the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.” The pearl was considered of enormous value in the ancient world which is the reason that Jesus used the parable of the pearl of great price to represent pursuing Him as our greatest value and desire (Matt. 13:45-46). The transparent golden street emphasizes the purity, beauty, and brilliance of dwelling in God’s presence forever. The contrast with chapter 11:7-8 is quite clear. There the two witnesses, representing the church under persecution through the ages, lay dead “in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.” But now, the church will forever enjoy the freedom and beauty of life in Christ without reproach.
John’s description of the holy city as a cube picks up on the cubed shape holy of holies, emphasizing, that it continually manifests the presence of the Lord. Richard Bauckham explains, “Since the whole of the New Jerusalem is a holy of holies, God’s immediate presence fills it. In place of a temple, it has the unrestricted presence of God and the Lamb (21:22)” [New Testament Theology: The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 140].
Ancient Israel needed a temple as a solitary place where God revealed Himself, where they could offer bloody sacrifices as atonement for their sins, and where they could find mercy from God. The New Jerusalem changes all of that! “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” With the Lord always dwelling in their midst (21:3), there’s no need for a temple as a place to journey to meet God. The Lord God is ever present in all of His glory. As vast as the new heaven and new earth may be, there is no place removed from the conscious, manifested presence of the Lord. “For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea,” just as the prophet Isaiah foretold (11:9).
What does it mean for the infinite holiness of our God to be displayed without measure or restriction? “And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumed it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” God’s glory outshines the brilliance of the sun for all eternity. His glory does not fade or dim or diminish, nor can it be exhausted. When a cloud covers the light of the sun on a fall day, you can immediately recognize that something has come between you and the sun; something has diminished its light and warmth. But no clouds cover the glory of God illumining His people for eternity. The figure of a “lamp” representing the Lamb points to the particular way that Christ shines His eternal knowledge and power into our lives. A lamp served to illumine one’s way; Christ, throughout the eternal ages, will illumine His people. We shall live in the light of God’s glory!
John identifies the nations walking “by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.” In some contexts, John uses nations and kings as representing the unregenerate world. But in 5:9 and 7:9, we find that the nations also represent those Christ has redeemed. Here we find yet another emphasis on the power and expansiveness of the gospel to penetrate the nations of the world—or more literally, the “peoples” of the world with transforming power. Those from lowly positions and exalted positions, redeemed by Christ, will walk by the light of the Lamb. He tells us that “they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it,” i.e. into the New Jerusalem. This reinforces what we saw in the previous study, that the new earth will bring forth the very best, God-honoring works of mankind into eternity. The effects of the fall will be eliminated in the new earth but, according to this verse, the contributions of peoples throughout the ages will be part of what is enjoyed to the glory of God forever. This suggests that the new earth will involve great activity day after day, because “there will be no night there…its gates will never be closed” because of danger or enemies or threats. All that is good and noble from every culture will be brought into the city.
With warning for the present, John reminds us “nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it.” The New Jerusalem is not for the unbelieving and profane but “only [for] those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Once again, he reminds us of both electing grace and the sacrificial death of the Lamb of God on behalf of sinners. The reminder calls all of us to consider eternity; to make sure by the grace of God that we’re part of the holy city.
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