The Lamb, the New Jerusalem, and the Glory to Come (Rev. 21–22)

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my people.

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.’ One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates.

On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls.

The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone.

The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

I began by saying my mandate was to talk about what the gospel is and how it works. I hope what we have seen so far is the gospel is the good news about what God has done, supremely in Christ Jesus, most focally bound up with the cross and the resurrection, but then you begin to see there are axes of its outworking.

In Romans 3 it’s bound up with justification. That is, what changes our status so we who are sinners are acceptable before God? On what ground does God declare us to be just even though we’re not? It turns out to be the ground of the sacrifice Jesus himself has provided for us, that God has presented by giving us Christ Jesus. This is a judicial thing. It’s a justice thing. How can we have the right status before God?

Then in John 3 we saw, although there is mention of the cross in all of that, the focus there is a bit different. There the focus is instead on new birth, transformation, the work of cleaning us up and so transforming us by the Spirit of God our lives head in a different direction. We may not understand all the mechanics, but like the wind whose effects you cannot deny, you cannot deny the powerful effect of the new birth in the lives of genuine believers.

If I had time, I would mention one or two other axes as well. One of them is bound up with the personal knowledge of this personal God. That’s why Paul can say things like, “Oh, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering.” There is a personal element.

I don’t like to call it mystical because that word is so abused, but there is a personal axis of relationship that is already prefigured by the picture of people walking with the Lord in the coolness of the day in the garden of Eden. I haven’t even begun to explore that one. It’s hinted at in this chapter before us, but it’s another whole dimension that would be usefully explored.

The one that is pictured here we might simply label consummation. That is to say, what God provides us with in Christ is not merely, if I dare speak of anything God does as merely, reconciliation to him on the basis of his declaration we are just granted through what Christ has done. It’s not merely, though I hesitate to use the word merely, new birth.

It ultimately is a comprehensive transformation so spectacularly comprehensive, in fact, the only adequate term is the consummation of all things, the restoration of all things, a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness, resurrection existence. All of that is secured by Christ on the cross. It’s all secured by the gospel. It’s all what God has done for his people in Christ Jesus.

In the Sermon on the Mount at one point, Jesus says, Matthew, chapter 6, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves dig through and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, where thieves do not dig through and steal.”

Then he says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Think about that last line. He does not say, “Guard your heart.” What he says, rather, is, “Choose your treasure, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” There are parts of the Bible that do say, “Guard your heart, for out of it are the issues of life.” Yes, there are passages that say that, but that’s not what Jesus says in Matthew 6.

He says, “Choose your treasure. Lay up real, important, eternal treasures in heaven, because where your treasures are, that’s where your heart will be also.” Your heart will follow what you value the most. If you fall in love, you know that to be the case. Your heart follows what you currently value the most.

If, in fact, you are a spectacular consumer, whose self-identity is bound up with wanting more and more things, better and more expensive and bigger things all the time, then you know it to be the case. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

If, instead, your self-identity is bound up with your family and their well-being and their education and their growth and their prosperity and how they are doing in their relationships, their family, and their children, then you know it to be the case. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Once you’ve established that axiom clearly in your mind, then that’s the framework in which Jesus says, “So therefore, choose eternal treasure. Lay up treasure in heaven.” It can never, ever be wiped out by a declining stock market. It can’t be stolen, can’t be embezzled. Identity theft is impossible. It’s secure.

If you really do treasure that, Jesus says, that’s where your heart will go, which is a pretty powerful way of saying on the long haul Christians cannot finally be stable, spiritual, persevering, moral, and mature without having hearts that are pursuing eternal goals. It cannot be done.

As long as what you treasure the most is, “A happy life here. And, oh yes, I do have eternal life because Jesus died for my sins. Isn’t that nice? But what I really, really value is the way I’m putting away my 401(k) and the really excellent retirement I’m planning for myself. That’s what I really value the most. That’s where my imagination goes. That’s where my heart goes, because where my treasure is, that’s where my heart is,” then you cannot think like Jesus. You don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

That means spiritually speaking it behooves us, we are under a moral constraint from the Bible, to fan into flame our appreciation for eternal treasures, because if we fan into flame our appreciation of eternal treasures, that’s where our heart will go, and that shapes absolutely everything.

What I want to show you in these chapters is Revelation 21 and 22 are superbly designed using, admittedly, apocalyptic metaphorical language to make us so homesick for the new heaven and the new earth, to make us so appreciate what’s held out in front of us that’s where our heart will go, that’s what we will want, and then we are best equipped to live here if we are well equipped and hungry to live there.

We can’t possibly pick up every piece of symbolism in the hour I have, but let me draw a broad picture at least. Let’s begin with chapter 21, verses 1 to 8. what is new, what is symbol-laden, what is missing, and what is central. That’s where we’re heading.

1. What is new?

In verse 1, what’s new is nothing less than the heaven and the earth, that is, the universe. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” The language, of course, is drawn from the Old Testament, from Isaiah 65:17–19 and Isaiah 66. Similar language is found in 2 Peter 3.

Sometimes even without the new heaven and new earth language, the same idea is found in a passage like Romans 8. In Romans 8, this whole old created order is in travail. It’s waiting for the adoption of sons, waiting for the final transformation that will take place. The assumption is this is not the final world order. The final say will not be our sun fizzling out. The final say will be such a transformation what will result will be nothing other than, whatever the connection between this world and the next one, a new order of things, a new heaven and a new earth.

Exactly what this will entail is doubtless beyond our capacity to imagine. Exactly what the relationship is between the new heaven and the new earth and our dying universe lies at the very periphery of our vision. On the other hand, there are some bits and pieces here that are quite interesting. “There was no longer any sea.” What does that mean? We must not think this is making a comment on the hydrographical characteristics of the new heaven and the new earth. It’s symbol-laden language.

Although I was born in French Canada, my parents were both born in the British Isles. The Brits, partly because they’re an island nation at the end of the day, are seafarers. They built their empire on the basis on the British Navy. Their poetry, their literature is loaded for bear with romance about the sea. When I was a boy growing up …

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

I could cite this stuff by the page. It was part of the heritage of the sort of British seafaring adventure living, which only goes to show they weren’t Israelites, because the Israelites had a quite different view of the sea. When they did finally get around to building a navy, they didn’t have any seafaring people to staff it, so they had to actually hire some people from up the coast at Tyre. They don’t have a heritage of it.

As the result, the sea symbolism in the Old Testament is, instead of being bound up with adventure and excitement and empire, bound up instead with danger and chaos. In Isaiah 57, for example, “The wicked are like the sea, churning up its mud and mire.” That’s not exactly the British Isles, is it? That’s the symbolism. So the sea is bound up with chaos and instability and disaster and death and muck.

Now in the new heaven and the new earth, there is no more sea. What it’s saying is there’s such transformation now there’s no more death and destruction and decay and chaos. What the exact relationship with water will be, I have no idea, but the symbolism is pretty clear. Moreover, when you read on a little bit, there is then another metaphor that’s immediately introduced.

“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” One of the things apocalyptic literature likes to do is mix its metaphors. This is not saying, “First, there’s a new heaven and the new earth, and then in this new heaven and this new earth, there’s a New Jerusalem that comes down in it.” Rather, this is another way of referring to the whole.

One way of referring to the whole is the new heaven and the new earth. Another way of referring to the whole is it’s a New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. If you think that’s mistaken, wait till you see the next leap. “… the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.”

You men, if you’re about to get married, on your honeymoon I strongly suggest you refrain from referring to your wife, your bride, as a city. It will not go down well. “You remind me of a city, my dear.” I don’t think so. This is what apocalyptic can do. It can mix its metaphors, and if you think it’s gotten bad yet, it’s going to take another leap in a few moments.

“Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” Does a lamb have a wife? I think usually lambs just sort of go out in the field and do it. They don’t have marriage ceremonies. In fact, this is picking up language that has been introduced all the way back, as we’ll see in a moment, in Revelation 4 and 5.

“ ‘And then I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to the mountain great and high and showed me the Holy City.” So the wife married to the Lamb is now identified as the Holy City. These mixed metaphors can drive you nuts unless you realize this is what apocalyptic literature does. This is why it is impossible to draw pictures out of the book of Revelation, because each of individual symbols has its own symbol freight. You need to understand what it is, and we’ll pick up some of them in a moment or two.

You can’t try to put them together into a coherent picture. That isn’t what apocalyptic literature does. Let me mention the most spectacular example of this, and I hope it’ll become clear. It’s very important. It’s the most spectacular example of mixed metaphor in the entire book of Revelation, and you really can’t understand the book of Revelation unless you understand this particular mixed metaphor.

Revelation 4 is to Revelation 5 what a setting is to a drama. So Revelation 4 and 5 have to be read together, but Revelation 4 establishes the setting of the drama that takes place in chapter 5. In Revelation 4, what you have is a highly symbol-laden depiction of the throne room of God. There are thunders, there’s lightning, there are mysterious beasts, the four elders, their thrones, and so on.

The whole thrust of the entire chapter is to emphasize the transcendence of God. Even the highest order of angels in that chapter cover their faces with their wings and dare not look on God. Using language drawn from Isaiah 6, they cry incessantly around the throne, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty.” The entire setting is of transcendence. The praise at the end of the chapter is to the God of creation, for he made everything. By his own will he established what would be. Sovereign, transcendent, distant. That’s the setting.

Then in chapter 5 the drama begins. We’re told, “In the right hand of him who sits on the throne …” That is, in the right hand of God as he has been depicted in symbol-laden ways in the fourth chapter. “… sits a scroll, sealed with seven seals.” In those days serious books were normally written in scrolls.

You would make a piece of papyrus paper, then another piece of papyrus paper, then another piece of papyrus paper, and you either sewed them or glued them together until you had a scroll of about 34 feet in length. You attached it to two sticks and tweedled them in. Then you’d write on the inside.

You normally didn’t write on the outside because the papyrus sheets were made up of strips of the papyrus plant. It’s a bit like celery or rhubarb. You can nick it at the top and pull off a strip. In cross-section, it’s triangular. So you’d lop off the top, you have a triangular face, you nick one of the faces and pull it down, and you have a strip.

You put it down, then you nick it again, you have another strip, and you put it down until you made roughly a square. Then you put the horizontal strips on and mash it together with some sort of organic glue. That’s how you made a sheet of papyrus paper in the ancient world. That’s why it was expensive.

That meant if you were writing Greek, which is written from left to right, or Hebrew, which is written from right to left, you wanted to write on the inside where all the strips are going left to right. You didn’t want to write on the outside, because then your quill pen was bumping over all of the connections. You didn’t want to write on the outside.

This book, we’re told, is written on the inside and the outside. There were two reasons in the ancient world why you might write on the outside. One was you were just too poor to buy another scroll, so you wrote on both sides. To imagine the One who sits on the throne is too poor to buy another scroll is probably not the most likely explanation.

The other reason was you wanted the entire document, the entire word assembly, to fit into one document. You wanted all the things in one place. You didn’t want part one and part two. Luke and Acts are part one and part two. If they could’ve made bigger scrolls, they might have put that together in one book. The reason you have part one and part two, Luke and Acts, is precisely because scroll-wise each is about 32 or 34 feet, and that’s about as long as the scrolls got.

To say in this right hand of God is a scroll, written on the inside and the outside, it’s actually talking about the fullness, the completeness of all of God’s purposes for judgment and blessing as the book unfolds. Then the two sticks are tweedled in together, and then one more papyrus sheet is wrapped around the outside.

Blobs of wax are put on it with a stamp, a seal, seven seals to indicate this is now officially sealed up. That was done for very important documents. The documents, for example, of the will of the emperors were often sealed with seven seals. When it was a legal document, that will, for example, in the ancient world, was probated, to use modern terms, when the person died, and the seals were slit.

Even if you knew what was in the will, the will came into force once the seals were slit. The breaking of the seals, the opening of the document, meant the document went into legal force and its terms were effected. We’re told, then, in chapter 5, in the right hand of him who sits in the throne, the hand of God, is this book, this scroll, sealed with seven seals, holding all of the fullness of God’s purposes for judgment and blessing for the entire universe, and it’s sealed with seven seals.

Already, you know in principle for all of God’s purposes to come to pass, someone must break those seals. Now a powerful angel appears, and he offers a challenge to the entire universe: “Who is worthy to approach this God and take the book and open the seals?” The God who has just been introduced in the previous chapter, who is so transcendently glorious even the highest order of angels dare not look on him, will any angel come forth, any human being, anybody from under the earth, a biblical way of speaking of the abodes of the dead, any necromancer …?

He’s a powerful angel because he doesn’t have a PA system and his voice has to be heard to the ends of the universe. Here, of course, I just get a little closer to the microphone or someone in the back ratchets up the amplifier, but in the ancient world you had to have somebody with powerful lungs who could speak to the entire universe.

No one is found who is worthy to approach the kind of terrifying God who has been on display in the setting in chapter 4. No one is found who is worthy or even to look inside, and John, the seer, weeps. The reason he weeps is not because he’s a nosey parker who’s frustrated because he can’t get his questions on eschatology sorted out.

The reason why he weeps is under the symbolism of this book what it means is God’s purposes for redemption and judgment will not take place. If the church is suffering, it’s suffering for no reason. There was no guarantee a moral order will prevail at the end. There’s chaos and confusion everywhere.

Who knows whether or not God’s purposes, God’s will, God’s righteousness, God’s integrity, God’s plans, God’s salvation, will finally be consummated or not? All of them are bound up in this scroll. Unless someone comes along and can break the seals of this scroll, then God’s purposes will not be put into effect, and John weeps. History suddenly has no more meaning. Suffering has no more meaning. Right and wrong have no more meaning. It’s all a game.

One of the interpreting elders comes up behind him, taps him on the shoulder, as it were, and says, “John, stop your weeping. Look! The lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the scroll.” Of course, that language is drawn from the Old Testament. It means the Davidic king, the Davidic monarch. “The lion,” king of the beasts, “from the tribe of Judah,” the Davidic line, the promised messianic King. “He has prevailed to open the scroll.”

“So I looked,” John says, “and I saw a lamb.” So do we have two animals now parked side by side, a lion and a lamb? The point is, this is apocalyptic literature. You mix your metaphors. The lion is the lamb. That’s why you can’t draw it. It would look so stupid as to be unbelievable. In fact, the text says, “I saw a lamb looking as though it had been slaughtered …” It was a sacrificial lamb with some sort of gaping wound. “… but with seven horns on its head.”

That’s a symbol-laden way.… A horn in apocalyptic literature regularly refers to kingdom or kingly authority or kingly power. Seven horns means it has a perfection of kingly authority. So even though it is a slaughtered sacrificial animal, even as a lamb, it has all kingly authority. It is a lion after all. It’s a lion; it’s a lamb.

Then we’re told it actually emerges from the center of the throne. It doesn’t have to come in from the outside through the thunderstorms and the sea of glass and all the other things that stand in the way. It actually emerges from the throne. It’s a way of saying he himself is one with God. He doesn’t have to earn his way into God’s presence. He is one with God in the first place.

From then on throughout the rest of the book, there is a sea of exclamatory praise, a new song that is sung because the lamb has prevailed to open the scroll. As a result, there are men and women converted from every tongue and tribe and people and nation, heading toward the consummation of all things.

Again and again, at this point on to the end of the book, we read of “him who sits on the throne and the Lamb” in phrases like, “Praise to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb,” and “The voice of one who sits on the throne and from the Lamb,” because Christ himself, when you take away the apocalyptic imagery, who is himself the lion of the tribe of Judah and who is the sacrificial lamb who is, nevertheless, the conquering King. He has prevailed to bring all of God’s purposes to pass for judgment and blessing, all the way to the consummation.

That background comes through, as we’ll see in a few moments in the text before us, but part of the reason I’ve cited it is because it demonstrates as clearly as any passage in the book of Revelation the fact apocalyptic literature loves this sort of mixed metaphor. You can’t draw a believable lion and lamb. It just looks like a grotesque bungling of both, but Jesus is both … the lion and the lamb.

Here this final consummated order of things can be construed as a new heaven and a new earth, can be construed as a city. It can be construed as the bride. It can be construed as the bride of the Lamb, who after all, has already been introduced as the lion. The various contributions have already been made to lay out the groundwork for what’s going on. We need to pick up more and more of this language.

Look at verses 3 and 4. “I heard a loud voice from the throne say, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people. He will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them, and he will be their God.’ ” It’s important to remember the language of, “I will dwell with them. They will be my people. I will be their God,” is already used in the Old Testament.

It’s used, for example, in connection with the giving of the law. When God ordained the tabernacle be built amongst the people with 12 tribes in the north, 12 in the south, 12 in the east, 12 in the west, at the time of Moses about a millennium and a half before the coming of Jesus, God says at that time, Leviticus 26, “I will put my dwelling among you …” What he means is the tabernacle.

“… and I will not abhor you. I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt so you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.” Did you hear that? “I will walk among you. I will be your God. You will be my people.”

Then a little later on, six centuries before Christ, in the prophecies of Jeremiah that are looking forward to the new covenant that comes with Jesus, the same language is used. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Again, Ezekiel 37: “My dwelling place will be with you. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Now here it shows up again. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. So what’s new about this? Isn’t it just the same old thing? God said this again and again. He said it at the time of Moses. He said it in connection with the new covenant. He says it again here. No, that misunderstands entirely.

The way God manifests himself as their God, such that he is their God and they are his people at the time of Moses and the law, is precisely through the tabernacle, the whole priestly system, the sacrificial structures, the high priestly roles, and so on. That was the way God manifested himself to them, the way he was their God and they would be his people.

By the time you get to the promise of the new covenant, then you have, “I will put my law in their hearts, in their minds. They will all know me from the least to the greatest. I will be their God. They will be my people.” Now it’s ratcheted up again. It’s the same pattern of things but ratcheted up in intensity until you get to the spectacular conclusion you get here.

Yes, he will be their God. They will be his people. As a result, verse 4, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things has passed away.” In other words, the pattern of God being their God and they being his people has been ratcheted up and ratcheted up in the progressive unfolding of God’s purposes across redemptive history through the gospel, centering on the gospel, the coming of Christ, until the consummation itself.

It is now so intense that God is their God and they are his people it can only mean the destruction of everything negative. No more sin, no more mourning, no more death, no more dying, no more decay. That’s what it’s all pointing to, and that is what has finally been achieved. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

In fact, there are many, many hints along the line about the way this works. Already, in Isaiah 35 the return to Jerusalem, the city of God is figured in these words: “The ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with thanksgiving, and everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sighing and sorrow will flee away.” Yes, there was some fleeing away of the sighing and the sorrowing when the people returned after the exile, but the ultimate joy comes in the New Jerusalem, the home of righteousness.

Now God says, “I am making everything new,” and he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. It is done. The new Jerusalem has descended. Death has been overcome, and now for the overcomer, the one who’s victorious, the one who has persevered to the end, he will inherit all this. I will be his God, and he will be my son.” That’s a literal translation, because sonship is more than just a question of genetics and DNA.

If you watch CSI or CSI: Nevada or CSI: Pago Pago, or whatever all the CSIs they have nowadays are, sooner or later there’s going to be a program on there in which you have to figure out paternity by a lawsuit that depends on DNA down to a chance per 10 billion or whatever it is this has to be the right father or the right son or whatever, because sonship is bound up with DNA today, isn’t it?

In the ancient world that’s not the way it was. Will you allow me to try a small experiment? Just the guys now for a moment. I’ll come to the gals in just a moment. Just the guys, how many of you are doing vocationally what your father did at the same age? Let me see your hands. I see four or five. That’s it? Maybe six. You gals now, how many of you are doing vocationally at your age what your mother did at the same age? Let me see your hands. Two. I might be missing one. That’s about it.

Do you realize the freedom we simply presuppose to be creative in what we do is a fruit of a great deal of prosperity and the Industrial Revolution? In a handcraft, agrarian society before the Industrial Revolution, if your father was a baker and you were the boy, you became a baker. If your father was a candlestick maker, you became a candlestick maker. If your father’s name was Stradivarius, you would end up making violins. If your father was a farmer, you were a farmer.

Your identity was bound up with the father, or if you were a girl, then your identity was bound up with the mother. That’s why Jesus in the days of his flesh could be referred to as “the carpenter’s son.” That was enough to identify him. He was the carpenter’s son as far as the onlookers were concerned. Once in Mark’s gospel, apparently after Joseph has died, he himself is called the carpenter, because apparently he has taken over the family business until he enters into his public ministry.

Out of this identity of job with family, with sonship, comes a variety of sonship metaphors you find pretty often in the Bible. For example, there is “son of Belial.” Belial is an old Hebrew word that means worthlessness. This is not actually ascribing blame to your father. It’s saying, “You’re so disgustingly worthless you must belong to the worthless family. It’s the only explanation.”

It can work positively as well. In the Beatitudes Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.” The idea is God is the supreme peacemaker. So insofar as you’re making peace, you’re acting like God. That far at least you show yourself to belong to the God family. You’re a son of God. It’s not saying how you become a Christian or anything like that. It’s saying, “Since God is the supreme peacemaker. If you make peace, then you’re acting like God.”

The same thing can happen in the apostle Paul, if you recall. “Who are the real sons of Abraham? The real sons of Abraham are not those who have Abraham’s genes,” he says, “but they’re the ones who display Abraham’s faith.” Jesus has another conversation along these lines in John, chapter 8. “ ‘Abraham is our father.’ ‘Oh, no he’s not,’ Jesus says. ‘Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. You can’t possibly be the children of Abraham.’ ” Jesus is not denying they’re Jews. He’s after behavioral things.

So they up the ante, and they say, “ ‘Actually, we’re sons of God.’ ‘Oh, no you’re not. I come from God. God knows me, and I know him. Since you don’t know me, you can’t be sons of God. Let me tell you who your daddy is. You are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father you will do. He was a liar from the beginning. You’re not telling the truth about me. He was a murderer from the beginning, and you’re trying to bump me off. That shows your father is the Devil himself.’ ”

These are not ontological categories. They’re functional categories. You’re identified by the family and behavior you belong to. Likewise, here when the seer says God himself declares boldly, “The one who is victorious, the one who overcomes, will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son,” what it’s saying is, “Now he is so much like me he is as much like me as any creature can be. Be holy, for I am holy. Tell the truth; I speak the truth. Love one another, for I am love.”

Obviously, there are some ways in which we can’t be God. Never are we told, “Be omnipotent, for I am omnipotent,” because Christian thinkers have always distinguished between what are called the communicable attributes of God, the attributes of God that can be shared, and the non-communicable attributes of God, the attributes of God that cannot be shared.

God never says to us, “Be omniscient, for I am omniscient.” He does say, “Be holy, for I am holy.” Now we are so much the sons of God that in all the communicable ways, in all the ways we can imitate God, we are showing ourselves now to be his son. Pure, holy, without idolatry, free from sin. God’s son.

“Over against that are the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters, all liars. They will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” Here’s the consummation in which everything is ratcheted up.

2. What is symbol-laden?

Much more quickly, I just do not have time to go through the whole chapter. What is symbolic? In some sense everything has been symbolic so far, but in verses 9 to 21, there are a lot of connections bound up with this New Jerusalem, this bride who is the bride of the Lamb that is also the city. The notion of the bride comes from the fact in the Old Testament God presents himself as the husband of Israel. In the New Testament Jesus is presented as the groom of the church.

Paul can write to the Corinthians and say, “I have betrothed you as a pure virgin to Christ, your groom-to-be, and I want you to maintain your purity until the marriage supper of the Lamb, until the consummation.” In some ways this bride language is saying, in effect, the great consummation, the end, is akin to marriage itself. As there is joy and intimacy and union in marriage, so also now the consummation of the bride with the Lamb takes place in spectacular unity and consummation and joy and pleasure and oneness.

The city language.… “The city shines with the glory of God.” The city is essentially a social vision. Three or four years ago, I was lecturing in Korea, and one of my students there was actually from India. He found out at some point I came from Canada. He said to me, “You come from Canada.” I said, “Yes.”

“That is quite a big country, isn’t it?”

“Yes, in land mass it’s considerably bigger than the continental US.”

“Oh, do you have many people in your country?” At the time, I said, “Just under 30 million.”

“Thirty million? That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“You must be very lonely.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Well, I just come from one very, very small state in India, but already we have 147 million there. It’s very good. We love each other.”

I’m thinking to myself, “A Canadian’s notion of retirement is 40 acres about 60 miles from the nearest town. You know, ‘Just leave me alone,’ and his idea of happiness is having half the population of my country in his living room.” You realize there are different social visions here. Part of our expectation of happiness is often sort of being free on the frontier and doing things our own way. “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play, and there aren’t too many cotton-pickin’ people in the way.”

That’s not the vision in the Bible. It’s a social vision. Yes, cities can be bad. In this book there’s the city of Babylon, but there’s also the city of the New Jerusalem. It’s a social vision. More important, it’s the city of Jerusalem, which means it’s the city of the great King. It’s the city where God is manifested in place. It’s the city of the covenant. It’s the city from which the law goes out to all the nations of the earth.

Now the city comes in all of its perfections with symbolism, 12 foundations, the 12 apostles, representing all the new covenant people of God; 12 gates, representing the 12 tribes … that is, all the old covenant people of God. They’re all bound together in this new vision, all of God’s people together.

There’s one piece of the symbolism I especially like. I don’t have time to go through all of the individual stones and the like, but I note the city is built like a perfect cube. It’s as long and wide as it is high. Isn’t that bizarre? Even cities with spectacular skyscrapers aren’t built like cubes, are they? So where does this come from?

It’s like just about everything else in the book of Revelation. Almost all the symbolism comes right from the Old Testament. If you know where to look, it comes from the Old Testament. There is only one cube in the Old Testament, just one. What is it? It’s the Most Holy Place in the temple.

The Most Holy Place was behind the veil. The veil sealed off the Most Holy Place from the two-thirds of the rest of the temple. The Most Holy Place, the sanctum sanctorum, the Holy of Holies into which the high priest could go only once a year and carrying the blood of bull and goat on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, to pay both for his own sins and the sins of his people. He sprinkled it on the top of the ark of the covenant as a way of atoning for his own sins and for the sins of the people once a year on the Day of Atonement under the glory of God.

When Jesus died, according to Matthew, the veil of the temple in the resulting earthquake was torn apart. It symbolized the way into the very presence of God no longer depended on the cultic system of the Old Testament. Now we’re told the entire city of Jerusalem is built like a cube. Do you see what this is saying?

It means all of God’s people are always and forever in the immediate presence of God without any need for mediating priests or any mediating sacrificial system. It’s all paid for. It’s done. We’re forever and always in the presence of God. To put exactly the same lesson in a slightly different way, verse 22, now we’ve come to the third point.

3. What is missing?

“I did not see a temple in the city.” It’s hard to imagine a temple if you’re already in the Most Holy Place. The lesson can be spun out a slightly different way. “I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb …” That takes you all the way back to Revelation 4 and 5.

“The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” That is, you don’t need a temple with a kind of mediating structure or the like. Wherever God is there is the temple, wherever God manifests himself, and he manifests himself in the New Jerusalem, this perfect cube, this perfect Most Holy Place where all of God’s people are forever.

Then, it doesn’t need a sun or moon. This is not talking about the astronomical features of the new heaven and the new earth. It’s symbol-laden. Like the abolition of the sea, so there’s an abolition of the sun and the moon. Not because they’re bad. It’s just that they’ve been outclassed. They’ve been outstripped.

That is to say, the light of God and the Lamb.… Again, God gives it light. The Lamb is its lamp. It guarantees a perpetual light so there’s no cycle of day and night. This is not talking about whether there will be nocturnal sequences or the like. It’s saying there is no darkness. There is no sin. There is no decay. There’s no bleakness anymore. There’s life. There’s light. There’s joy, and God’s very presence guarantees it.

4. What is central?

Chapter 22, verses 1 to 5: “The angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life …” Symbolism drawn right from Genesis 1, 2, and 3. “… the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.”

What you have is the water of life from the throne of God and of the Lamb providing perpetual eternal life and healing and wholeness for the entire reconstructed order, world without end. Then verses 4 and 5, what some Christian theologians have called the beatific vision; that is, the vision of absolute blessedness, to be able to see God himself. “They will see his face.” We sometimes sing that, don’t we?

Face to face with Christ, my Savior,

Face to face—what will it be,

When with rapture I behold him,

Jesus Christ who died for me?

Only faintly now, I see him,

With the darkling veil between,

But a blessed day is coming,

When his glory shall be seen.

We sometimes comfort ourselves at the passing of our believing loved ones by saying, “Christians never say their last goodbye. We will see them again,” and that’s right. So we should speak. The final vision of the Bible is not centered primarily on my seeing my mother again. It’s primarily being absolutely intoxicated with the bliss of seeing God face to face.

I mentioned earlier in passing my musical tastes are disturbingly eclectic. A little while ago, I was driving somewhere to speak at something or other. I had my usual eclectic music CDs with me, and I stuffed one in. It was Roger Whittaker. He’s passÈ for most of the younger generation. I still like his gravelly voice. He’s a Kenyan by birth.

He sings folk songs from all around the world of various sorts. On this particular CD he was singing a folk song from Canada, a song of Cape Breton. It’s from Canada. I was bound to listen attentively. Then he sang the third verse, this wonderful folk song, talking about the glories of Cape Breton.

If my time could end perfectly,

I know how I’d want it to be.

God’s gift of heaven would be made up of three:

My love, Cape Breton, and me.

I thought to myself, “My dear Roger, you’ve just described hell, because you and your beloved, when you get to Cape Breton, are going to breed like rabbits and produce a whole new generation of sinners who will eventually have thermonuclear warfare. You want a heaven divorced from God. ‘God’s gift of heaven would be made up of three. Keep God out, thank you. Just give me my love, Cape Breton, and me.’ ”

The whole thing is bound up with the most horrible idolatry, and this is heaven. Far better the vision of God in Revelation 21 and 22, where at the center of absolutely everything, all the symbolism is moving all the time to the glory of God and of the Lamb, to the very presence of God in this city build like a cube, to a place with no temple, for no mediation is necessary. We’re all forever with him.

The final consummated glory is the beatific vision. We shall see his face. “No one can see my face and live,” God declares in Exodus, chapter 33, but now such transformation has taken place. Maybe the angels of heaven cannot master it, but Christ’s redeemed can. They shall see his face, and their bliss will be absolutely perfect. This is all secured by the lamb back in chapter 5.

It’s chapters 4 and 5 that set the scale for the rest of the book, for as he breaks the seven seals, various things happen. The seven seals lead into seven trumpets and seven bowls and so forth. The whole book of Revelation turns on the lamb breaking the seals, bringing God’s purposes to pass.

The final consummating vision is bound up finally with what Christ did on a little hill outside Jerusalem and springing out from a nearby hole in the ground 2,000 years ago. That’s the gospel. Its outworking finally is in the transformation of all human existence, all created order existence into the new heaven and the new earth, the very home of righteousness. This is the gospel of God. Let us pray.

In comparison with the spectacular glories that will one day be, my poor words are so anemic. Open our eyes, we beg of you, to see wonderful things in your most Holy Word, and so fasten our vision on eternal things that that’s the direction in which our hearts will go. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So give us, we pray, such an understanding of what will one day be that our hearts will chase after it all through this life and into eternity and forever.

Give us deeper understanding as to how all of this was secured from before the foundation of the earth in your mind by the giving of your own dear Son and how it was secured in historic space-time events on a little cross outside Jerusalem and in an empty tomb and in the bestowal of the Spirit at Pentecost, things you have done, this glorious good news we proclaim afresh today.

We bless you, merciful God, that this gospel is still the power of God unto salvation to those who believe. Lord God, we do believe. Help our unbelief. For Jesus’ sake, and for the good of the people for whom he shed his life’s blood, amen.