Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on the Return of Christ from Revelation 21:1-22:6
We come now on this last morning to the book of Revelation, chapter 21. I shall read from 21:1–22:6. If we have looked at narrative texts and tight discourse, now we come to some apocalyptic passage full of colorful symbolism, competing metaphors. Hear then, the Word of God.
“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,
‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live 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 him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in 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 man’s 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 chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, 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 pure gold, like 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 season. 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. The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’ ”
This is the Word of the Lord. Let us pray.
How shall we poor mortals, constrained as we are by both finitude and sin in a universe still under the curse, Almighty Father, find words to describe the glories yet to come? Have mercy upon us, Lord God. Give us the vision of faith, eyes with which to see, so that our horizons will not be bounded by our meager three score years and ten. But with the church in every generation, we too will cry, “Yes. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” We ask this mercy in his name. Amen.
During the days of his flesh, the Lord Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break through and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where thieves do not break in and steal, where moth and rust do not destroy.” Then he adds, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
That last line, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” is, I think, often misunderstood. It is frequently taken to mean that followers of Jesus should guard their hearts or they will be misfocused on purely transient treasures. After all, the Scripture does say in various places things like, “Guard your heart for out of it flow the wellsprings of life.”
Strictly speaking, that’s not what this passage says from the Sermon on the Mount. It does not say, “Guard your heart.” It says, “Watch where you put your treasure because your heart will follow your treasure. Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” In other words, Jesus is telling us to invest much treasure in heaven because our hearts will follow our investments.
That is one of the reasons why it is perennially dangerous to be rich. If you have a great deal of treasure here, your heart will head in that direction. Wondering how the stock market is doing or wondering if there is some sort of attack that is imminent or perhaps somebody is going to steal it or the like.
Whereas, if your greatest treasure is in heaven, then that’s what you’re thinking about. That is the direction in which your heart is drawn. In other words, what you think about the most is likely to be a reflection of what you cherish the most. Invest heavily in heaven. It is extremely important for Christians to maintain a high valuation of our destiny.
I know that there have been various times in the history of confessional Christianity when believers have focused so much energy on speculation about exactly what takes place at the end, fighting about the details of eschatology and this sort of thing, that suddenly the charge has some weight which says, “They’re so heavenly minded they’re no earthly good.”
Let’s be quite frank. In most of Europe that’s not a very great danger. We are in much more danger of being so earthly minded we’re good for neither heaven nor earth. There is a profound sense in which Christians ought so to be drawn toward heaven that by our vision and expectation and hope and direction of what is to be, that vision shapes all of what we do here and now in anticipation.
That is the biblical framework of eschatology. Such a valuation will then draw our hearts in that direction. Few passages will prove more helpful in establishing this high valuation of the new heaven and the new earth than the one before us. In apocalyptic language, it focuses on the end of history, on what is yet to be. It tells us first what is new, verses 1–8, second, what is symbolic, verses 9–21; third, what is missing, verses 22–27; and finally, what is central, at the beginning of 22.
1. What is new.
It is nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away …” The language is drawn from the Old Testament, as is so often the case in the book of Revelation. It is hard in the book of Revelation to read more than a verse or two without coming across allusions to the Old Testament. So also throughout this chapter.
Here the language is drawn from Isaiah 65:17 and 19 and Isaiah 66:22. This sort of language is picked up in 2 Peter. In other terms, the thing is described in many different ways. For example in Romans 8, Paul reminds us that the whole universe groans in travail waiting for the final adoption of sons.
The language of new heaven and new earth is not explicitly used but it’s the same sort of comprehensive vision of a renovation still to come. Exactly what this will entail is, doubtless, beyond our capacity to grasp fully. Exactly what the relationship will be between, on the one hand, the new heaven and the new earth and on the other, our old, dying universe, lies at the very periphery of our vision.
Just as (as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 15) the precise relationship between our current bodies and our resurrection bodies lies at the periphery of our vision and is best handled by somewhat obscure analogies. One small detail that John includes right away in verse 1 is that there is no more sea.
This is not talking about the hydrological principles that will prevail in the new universe. The language is symbol-laden. The sea so often functions in Jewish literature as a symbol for chaos, destruction, danger, even evil. Some of us here come from marine countries. Some of us come from countries that are land-locked. The British, for example, don’t have blood. They have salt water running through their veins. They write poetry like Masefield’s “Sea Fever.”
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.
No ancient Israelite could’ve written that. The ancient Israelites, like Isaiah, chapter 57, write, “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up muck and mire.” That’s biblical. There are different kinds of symbolisms that are tied to different kinds of cultures. God disclosed the biblical revelation within the Jewish culture. The sea does not have a lot of positive overtones in Old Testament poetry and symbolism.
It’s connected with chaos and death and danger and destruction. Thus, we discover that here in the new heaven and the new earth there is no more sea. No more death, no more chaos, no more destruction. This does not mean we’re not going to drink in the new heaven and the new earth. It’s not thinking about hydrology; it’s thinking about evil.
Then the language changes in verse 2. One of the very, very strong features of apocalyptic symbolism is that it’s prepared to mix its metaphors. One of the features of apocalyptic is mixed metaphor. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on something, the metaphor changes. It just about blows our minds. We don’t normally do that.
Apocalyptic does it all the time. “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride …” There’s a double switch here. This does not mean there’s a new heaven and a new earth and then Jerusalem is some small part of it. No, first the whole thing is cast as the new heaven and the new earth.
Second, the whole thing is cast as New Jerusalem, or the people of God somehow being the very essence of the thing. It’s not geography now. It is symbolism. Then the city becomes a bride. If on your wedding night, you said to your dearly beloved, “Oh, you glorious city, you!” I doubt she would be impressed. Because that sort of mixed symbolism does not exactly resonate with romance.
On the other hand, this connection between the city and the bride is found again and again and again in apocalyptic. Look at the city, first of all. The concept of a new Jerusalem unveiled at the Messiah’s coming finds its roots in the return to Jerusalem after the exile. Likewise, the literature of second temple Judaism in Jesus’ day, Paul’s day, and John’s day was full of this sort of thing.
In one document we read (it’s called the Testament of Dan), “The new Jerusalem is a place in which the saints rejoice and enjoy the glory of God forever.” Or in 4 Ezra, “The new Jerusalem is not just the old city rebuilt, but a new one built on a new heavenly pattern.” In other words, that symbolism is everywhere.
The New Testament likewise picks it up. You find it Galatians, perhaps one of the earliest New Testament epistles. There we are told of the Jerusalem that is above in Galatians 4. Or Hebrews speaks of the city whose builder and maker is God. Revelation 3:12, before we get to the end of the book, “Those who remain faithful in Philadelphia are inscribed with the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God.”
The vision of a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven embraces several intrinsic elements. It’s clearly the antitype to the Old Testament Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the great meeting place between God and his people. It was the place of the temple. It was the city of the king. This was the place that all the tribes were to gather toward at all of the high feasts.
This was as close as you got on this earth to the glories of heaven. If, in fact, that historical city was corrupted by all kinds of gross sin and was destroyed, that was merely a reflection of what should not have been. That was, nevertheless, the historical city. Now the New Jerusalem is the antitype, the fulfillment of that old Jerusalem. It comes down now out of heaven.
It is a way of saying that this is an act of God. It is not something that we gradually bring in by a superior brand of utopian politics. Rather, this is something that God himself finally brings about at the end. The city is also necessarily, intrinsically, a social vision. This is not a picture of isolated blessings for isolated Christians. A city is a place where people live together.
In many strands of European thought there remains, partly in the heritage of Rousseau, a kind of residue of thinking that the city is intrinsically bad, a cesspool of iniquity. More people means more sin. What we really ought to do is return to nature where everything is green and lovely and the birds flitter along and there are butterflies. You hear the sweet tweeting in the morning as your window is open. There’s some truth to that. More people do mean more sin.
On the other hand, this does not foster a kind of return to nature in Scripture, for the book of Revelation tells us about two cities: Babylon and the New Jerusalem. It tells us about two women: the great harlot sitting on Babylon and the bride of the Lamb. That is why someone has said that Revelation as a whole may be characterized as A Tale of Two Cities with a subtitle: The Harlot and the Bride.
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” Isn’t that what Paul says to the Corinthians? “I have betrothed you to Christ.” Now comes the marriage of the Lamb. What does all this mean? How shall we unpack it? The large-scale symbolism is pretty clear. What does it mean in more concrete terms?
“I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live 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.’ ”
It’s very important to understand that this language is already found in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 26:11–13 God says, now in reference to the tabernacle, “I will put my dwelling place among you, 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 that 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.”
Already God is saying that he will establish his dwelling place amongst his people. Then in promises of the new covenant that look forward to what comes in with the Messiah, Jeremiah 31 says, “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.”
Same sort of language again. “I will be their God. They will be my people.” Or Ezekiel 37, “My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Do you see what is going on? In the midst of all that sin and degradation and rebellion of the human race, God calls out a people for himself and establishes his presence, his manifest glory in the midst of the people.
He is their God. He makes his dwelling place with them in the tabernacle, in the temple. Then the whole thing in ratcheted up again in terms of the new covenant. God taking up residence within his people by his Spirit this side of the cross with the anticipation further of the glories yet to come. God’s whole purpose in the plan of redemption is to be at the center of the living, the abode, of his people.
The final ratcheting up is the new heaven and the new earth itself. Until he can say this without restraint, without caveat, without footnote, “I will be their God, and they will be my people. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Now there are no, “Yes, yes, yes but …” Now there are not a whole lot of exculpatory excuses.
Now that vision of what has been in small part is brought to culmination. Without restraint, without caveat, without footnote, without excuse, without exception, God makes his dwelling place with us and we will be his people. So perfect now is this dwelling of God with his people, so consummate is this relationship that no sin or evil nor any result of sin or evil could possibly tarnish it.
Hence, 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.” The whole thing has been ratcheted up to perfection itself. Eternal blessedness is here couched in negation. That is, what eternal blessedness is not like.
The new and glorious order is in some ways more easily pictured in terms of what it is not, in terms of what it replaces because our experience is of all the old stuff that it must replace. All the old stuff that we don’t like, that we fear, that we live under, by which we are oppressed, all of that is what it is not like.
There is no more death, no more decay, no more tears, no more pain. The old order is passed away when God visits his people in the perfection of the glory still to come. This too draws from the language of the Prophets. For example, Isaiah 35: “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.”
Already that’s been described in the book of Revelation, in Revelation 7:16: “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water.”
Especially important is the abolition of death. There will be no more death. Isaiah 25 had already predicted, “God will swallow up death forevermore.” Now in verse 5, God himself speaks. “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ ” That language, likewise, is drawn from Isaiah 65: “I will create new heavens and a new earth.” “It is done,” he says, verse 6. It is already accomplished.
In the vision, the New Jerusalem has descended. Now the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the only one who can bring about the promised end, precisely because he is the absolute beginning and not only the one who brings about the end, but the goal itself. The Alpha and the Omega speaks, the Beginning and the End.
He pronounces, “It is done,” for he is the only whose pronouncement can make that stick, bring it to pass. In the light of that then, hear the Word of the Lord. “To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost …” That is, without cost to the one who wishes to drink. There was another cost. This book has already made that clear. We’ll come to that in a moment.
“I will give to drink without cost.” Here the language is drawn from Isaiah 55, “Drink without cost and without price from the spring of the water of life.” For whom is this? For the overcomer. In the book of Revelation the overcomer is simply the one who perseveres in faith and obedience. “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.”
It is worth thinking about this son language again. One of the sessions I mentioned this a little earlier. We need to revisit it. Most of us, as I’ve indicated, find jobs in vocations away from our parents, do we not? Most of us are not trapped into the heritage of our family. In the ancient world, sonship was more than genetics. It was bound up with self-identity.
For God here to say, “He will be my son.” This now is ratcheted up as well. For in the Old Testament, Israel, as early as Exodus 4, is considered God’s son. That’s why Moses quotes God to Pharaoh as saying, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I say, ‘Let my son go that he may worship me.’ ” Because in certain respects, Israel was supposed to reflect something of the character of God to the nations.
Eventually the king was supposed to be God’s son par excellence, exercising God’s rule, God’s authority, God’s justice to the son who is his people. Hence, the enthronement of the king in Psalm 2 can be pictured as the elevation of the son or the engendering of the son. But the son par excellence is Jesus. He’s the Son of God in a unique sense. Why a unique sense?
The most powerful description of this in the New Testament is in another Johannine writing, John 5:16–30. There we’re told of this Son, the Lord Jesus, everything the Father does, the Son also does. That’s remarkable. Jesus may say to us, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.”
Insofar as God is the supreme peacemaker, if we make peace then we’re acting like God and so far also are we sons of God, but no one would say of Don Carson, “He’s the son of God because he does all that God does.” You or I might make peace but as far as I know, none of us has made a universe recently. Of this Son it is said, “Everything the Father does, the Son also does.”
As the book begins, the Father creates everything. He does it by the agency of the Son. In John, chapter 5, the Father has the right of life and death and he brings about resurrection. So does the Son. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. To us he says, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
He does not say, “Be omniscient, for I am omniscient,” for there are incommunicable attributes of God. That is, attributes of God that cannot be shared with non-God. But the Son, par excellence … everything the Father does, the Son also does. He is the perfect reflection of the Father. Now the church, the church that is in Christ, is the son comprehensively, corporately.
We are not God, but now insofar as finite beings can ever reflect God, now without footnote, without excuses, without exceptions, we reflect God. We are the son. That is what’s going on here. This is not merely an expression of relationship. It’s an expression of identity and, thus, of character and of morals and of integrity and of orientation and of value.
That is why there is such a strong contrast between verse 7 and verse 8. “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” There’s a sense in which we’re already son, but then we will be the son without the footnotes, without the residue of sin, without the corruption that still traps us now. No, there we will reflect God.
All that does not reflect God, all that is still corroded with sin cannot be there. So we read, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” They have become as detestable as the things they loved, to use the language of Hosea. Here then is what is new. A new heaven and a new earth, with death and sorrow and all the effects of the curse gone.
2. What is symbolic.
Verses 9–21. At one level, much of the language already used has been steeped in symbolism. New Jerusalem is symbolic language. In what follows, the interpreting angel in the vision goes to great lengths to make John reflect on particular elements of the symbolism. We don’t have time to deal with all of them. I want to direct your attention to just a few.
First, in verses 9 and 10. The wife, the bride, otherwise known as the New Jerusalem, is described again, but a new element is introduced. “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues …” Already introduced earlier. I don’t have time to unpack that. “… 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 …”
This does not indicate some other part of geography. It’s merely part of the apocalyptic vision that gives the seer a vantage point to be able to see things. That’s all. Don’t try and construct a geography of the Holy Land at the time of the new heaven and the new earth. “… and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”
The new element that is introduced here is who is explicitly the groom. The groom is the Lamb. Anyone who has followed the book of Revelation all the way through knows that this must now be a climactic session. The Lamb is introduced most powerfully in chapters 4 and 5. There are earlier references, but in chapter 4 and 5 in the drama of the book, the Lamb comes to the fore.
Chapter 4 is to chapter 5 what a setting is to a drama. Chapter 4 sets the stage. Chapter 5 introduces the drama. Chapter 4 pictures God transcendent, magnificently glorious, described in spectacular imagery, itself drawn primarily from Ezekiel, from Daniel, and from Isaiah. God is transcendent, fearsome. Even the most holy angels, even the highest order of angels, the cherubim, the seraphim around their throne, they cover their faces with their wings.
They cannot gaze on the glory of God. They cry day and night in the language of Isaiah 6, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Then the drama begins in chapter 5. In the right hand of him who sits on the throne is a scroll. That scroll holds all of God’s purposes for judgment and blessing.
In the symbolism of the vision that scroll is sealed with seven seals and the breaking of the seals brings God’s purposes to pass. So a voice of a loud angel with mighty lungs cries to the entire universe, “Who is able to approach this God and open the scroll?” He’s a mighty angel with a loud voice, because in those days they didn’t have PA systems.
If I want to be heard I just get a little closer to the microphone or else somebody somewhere turns up the volume. In those days they didn’t have such things, so they had to have powerful angels with big voices. His voice must be heard by the entire universe. “Who is able to effect God’s purposes? To bring God’s purposes to pass in judgment and blessing?”
No one is found. No angel. Even if the highest order of angels cannot even look at this God, how can they go and approach his presence and walk up to him and take the scroll out of his hand and say, “Thank you. I’ll do that for you,” and open the seals? It can’t be done! No one is found who is able.
As a result, John the seer weeps and weeps because no one is found who is able to bring God’s purposes to pass. In the symbolism of the vision this means that God’s purposes will not be effected in both judgment and blessing. The whole thing becomes a farce. There is no meaning to life. Bultmann is right. Meaning and history is dead.
Then as he weeps the interpreting elder touches him on the shoulder, as it were, and says, “Stop. Look, look. Someone has arisen. The Lion of the tribe of Judah. He has prevailed to open the scroll.” “So I looked,” John says, “and I saw a Lamb.” We are not to think of two animals parked side by side, a lion and a lamb. The point is again in apocalyptic you have mixed metaphor.
The lion is the lamb. The lion of the tribe of Judah is nothing other than the lamb. What a lamb! A slaughtered lamb but with seven horns. That is, a symbol of perfect kingly authority. Slaughtered and dead but with perfect kingly authority. The royal lion of the tribe of Judah but the sacrificial lamb. Where does he come from? He comes from the throne.
For the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and is announced as the Lamb of God. From then on throughout the entire book, there is scarcely a mention of God without mention also of the Lamb. Again and again we read of him who sits on the throne and the Lamb. We read of praises offered to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. All the way through.
So also now that the Lamb reappears in this final vision, he reappears again and again and again, as we shall see. It is remarkable that not only in Scripture is Yahweh presented as the groom of Israel and Christ is presented as the groom of the church, but the consummation is presented as the marriage of the Lamb.
The idea is that we human beings in our smallness and fallenness, in an ideal marriage experience no other moments of greater joy and ecstasy and intimacy and connectedness and oneness … two becoming one … than in the most intimate moments of marriage. So the consummation is presented as the marriage of the Lamb.
Conversely, when the bride of Christ, when the bride of Yahweh in the old covenant, prostitutes herself, God … God himself, as in Hosea … becomes the almighty cuckold, the almighty betrayed husband. Now we come to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Then having made this introduction, we revert to the city. Let me just draw your attention to a few details.
The city shines with the glory of God, we’re told. The language is drawn from Isaiah 60. “Arise, shine …” This is addressed to Zion. “… for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine upon you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory.”
The presence of the glory of the Lord means the presence of the Lord himself, as in Ezekiel 43. “Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court and the glory of God filled the temple.” This language of jasper, clear as crystal. The word rendered clear several times in the book of Revelation does not mean clear.
Usually it doesn’t anyway in the ancient world, and it never does, as far as I can see, in Revelation. Because crystal, diamonds, jasper (which is either a diamond or an opal) is never clear. They didn’t know how to cut diamonds in those days. They didn’t learn that until the nineteenth century.
As a result, the diamonds that were cut were not cut evenly. As a result, they were never clear. They were always translucent. The word lampros means it’s glittering, it’s bright, it’s shining. It’s full of glory in that sense. Not that it’s transparent but that it is bright and shining and glittering and lovely.
Then there are 12 gates and 12 foundations, 12 tribes and 12 apostles, indicating the fullness of all the people from both covenants all belonging to this city, all bound up with it. Then in verses 15–17, an angel measures the city using a golden measuring rod. The reed was just over 10 feet long, about 3 meters. It has enormous size. When you measure it all up, it’s about 2,100 kilometers. That’s a big city … 2,100 kilometers cubed, if you please.
That’s a strange city. Why is this city built as a cube? I’ve seen some big cities that are roughly squares and they go up a few thousand feet, a couple of thousand meters in the case of skyscrapers, but that’s it. When you start talking about a city that’s built as a cube with about 2,100 kilometers on the cube, this is a strange city.
You realize you’re not talking about geography again. The point is that in the Old Testament, there’s only one cube. It’s the Most Holy Place. This is a spectacular way of saying that the New Jerusalem is the Most Holy Place. The old temple, the old tabernacle, only the high priest could enter there, only once a year, and then only with the blood of bull and goats.
Now all the people of God are there in the presence of God forever, in the glory of God forever, in the social structure of the city, in the intimacy of marriage, in the very presence of God in this cube of the Most Holy Place. It is as if John is struggling to express by symbols the vastness, the perfect symmetry, the splendor, the spiritual intimacy, the divineness of everything here.
The 144 cubits. Why 144? Twelve times twelve, which reminds us again of the old covenant people and the new covenant people. The foundation stones decorated with all kinds of precious stones. There may be an allusion here to the selection of stones somewhat akin to the stones on the breastplate of the high priest in the Old Testament. There is another possibility here that is very interesting too.
There are a lot of elements in the book of Revelation that distinguish biblical Christianity from ancient paganism. So also here. Notice the order of the polarities of the compass in verse 13. East, north, south, west? That’s very strange. That’s not the way it was done in the ancient world. It’s not the way it’s done today.
We usually say, “North, south, east, and west” or something like that. But east, north, south, west? It has been pointed out that if you take these stones and distribute them around a square in the order given in verse 13 and compare them with the 12 signs of the zodiac, the order is the exact reverse of the path of the sun through the 12 signs.
It’s a way of saying, “Listen, don’t confuse any of this with astrology or magic or paganism. This is the undoing of all of that. It is the opposite of that. This is God himself.” Then the gates made of great pearl. Possible allusion even to the glorious parable of the Lord Jesus in this regard. To walk on streets of gold? This is a reminder of 1 Kings 6:30, where inside the temple of Solomon there was a covering of gold in both the inner and the outer chamber. The idea is not only of wealth and of spectacular beauty but of being in the very temple of God. Important also to the symbolism is …
3. What is missing.
Verses 22–27. There is no temple there. Isn’t that wonderful? It’s a way of saying that there’s no mediation. There is no mediation because we no longer need that kind of mediation. There is no sun or moon. This is not talking about the principles of lighting in the new heaven and the new earth anymore than the absence of the sea is talking about the principles of hydrology.
Again it’s another way of saying the ultimate source of light is God himself and we live in the blaze of his unshielded glory. In most of our modern cities today we have so much electric light, we have so much artificial light, that we are not accustomed to real darkness anymore, those of us who are city dwellers. Night is a symbolism so often for evil, for what goes on in sleazy circumstances.
There the Lord God Almighty is the light, and there is no more night, no more danger, we’re told. Hence, Isaiah 60:11: “Your gates will be open continuously.” Zechariah 14: “It will be a unique day, without day without daytime or nighttime—a day known to the Lord. When evening comes, there will be light.” We’re told there is no impurity.
Have you ever thought what it would be like to be really, really, really clean? Let us be quite frank. Even at a conference like this with many strong Christians from different cultures, we’re trying our best to get on with one another, to look at things from another’s point of view, to come to terms with Scripture.
It is so easy to score points or to nurture resentments or even in good ministries to start playing power politics. To be at least as concerned for what people will think of us as with what God thinks of us. We manage to get through a week without one greedy thought, one lustful thought, one bitter thought. Do we not even now far too often look at the whole universe from our perspective? Not simply because we’re finite, but because we’re fallen.
What will it be like when we are so transformed that we will always look at things so far as it is possible for a transformed, finite person to do, from God’s perspective and delight in it and be really, really clean. Let me tell you what’s missing from heaven. There’s no temple, there’s no artificial light, there’s no night, and there’s no impurity.
4. What is central?
Chapter 22, verses 1–5. What is central is the great throne of God and of the Lamb (verses 1–3), and from it flowing the water of life, which brings its healing for all whom it touches. This is not only Eden regained. It is Eden transcended. Then above all what is central is what has been called the beatific vision, the vision of God himself.
Again and again we’re told in the Old Testament no one can see God and live. When some exception is made, immediately it is circumscribed by various parenthetical explanations. Thus in Isaiah 6, the prophet says, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.” It sounds very bold, doesn’t it? Then he describes what he really did see.
He saw him who is on the throne, high and lifted up. Actually, it was only the hem of his garment, what our versions often say as the train of his garment. Just the hem of his garment filled the entire temple. In every vision in the Old Testament of God, it is circumscribed immediately because, after all, even the angels of God cannot gaze upon him and live. That’s all changed.
Now what do we read in verses 4 and 5? Now there is no more shielding. We are transformed. We are made in the image of God and we may gaze on God himself. “They will see his face. His name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night.” Oh, Jacob could wrestle with the Angel of the Lord, but it had to be in the 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.”
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 a darkling veil between,
But a blessed day is coming,
When His glory will be seen.
Where I teach, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, the seminary is a national seminary, in many ways an international seminary. About a quarter of our students are internationals. As a result, some of us who teach there spend quite a bit of time traveling to various places to speak at conferences, churches, or the like connected with the seminary.
Because it’s such a big country, that often involves air travel. Sometimes it is fairly local and we drive somewhere. In my car, which begins to rack up some miles, I have a place to play music. My musical tastes, I confess, are horribly eclectic. I’m sure that this is a sign of lack of culture. I may be playing opera or classical music, but I may be playing jazz or country music.
My tastes are all over the map. One day not long ago, I was playing some Roger Whittaker. Roger Whittaker is from Down Under, but he sings a whole lot of ballads from many countries. He sings a lot of folk and ballads from many, many countries. He was singing a song of Cape Breton which, of course as a Canadian I appreciate. He came to the third verse as he was describing Cape Breton, and he sang,
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 Whittaker, you’ve just described hell.” Because what he would do is breed with his woman on Cape Breton and produce a whole new generation of sinners! Think of what we have learned from this chapter. The heart of this chapter is not that we go and see our loved ones, though doubtless that is something that is true. The heart is not the glories of Cape Breton, no matter how wonderful that place is.
The heart of this chapter is the beatific vision: God, so spectacularly, transcendentally glorious that we will never exhaust his spectacular glory. Our words fail us. Our vision is too small. We cannot see clearly, but we see Christ and the Christ who died on the cross, the roaring lion and the slaughtered lamb is now the Lamb who sits with the Father on the throne. Father and Son constitute the light of that place.
We will see him face to face. There is no more night there. There is no more temple there. We will be with him forever. That, brothers and sisters in Christ, changes how we live. It changes what we perceive our treasure to be. It changes our direction. It changes our goals. We cry with the church in every generation, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Let us pray.
We confess, Lord God, how often our vision is circumscribed by self-interest, by shortsightedness, by unbelief. We think in terms of strategy and not in terms of eternity. We think in terms of two years and five years and not in terms of eternity. O Lord, make us responsible here by drawing our hearts homeward so that we see ourselves to be not only citizens of France or Bulgaria or Hungary or Germany or Great Britain but citizens of heaven, homeward bound. Here citizens in a sense, yes, but also pilgrims. This world is not my home.
O Lord God, make us useful, faithful Christians here precisely because we wish to lay up treasure there. Work in us already by your Spirit, we beseech you, to live with eternity’s values in view and to hunger already in some small measure so to walk with you, to know you, to see you with the eyes of faith that when we see you face to face on the last day it will be the culmination of all our hopes and expectations and desires. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen.
