“Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed—on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

The Promise of our Eternal Home

What is heaven? This in many regards should be a fairly easy question to answer, and yet, it’s not for many people. The Christian has their definition provided, what is pointed to throughout Scripture, from the promises of the Psalms and the prophets, to the earthly teachings of Jesus Himself – but the world has their definition as well, and as with other things that the world has defined on its own terms, it’s an inaccurate caricature of what heaven truly is. Consider the other things that mortal man in his abounding sin has watered down, twisted, or outright lied about. God is either painted as a maniacal tyrant or delusion fueled genie instead of the one righteous and holy Living God. Jesus is branded as an “all roads lead to heaven,” type of hippie, instead of the Mighty King, Great High Priest, and Chief Shepherd that He is. Angels are strange variations of cupid, floating around and playing harps on clouds, instead of being seen as devoted servants of God. And the Church itself, the Bride of Christ has been watered down, perverted, blasphemed – it is accused of the greatest wickedness and hypocrisy despite being guilty of none of these things, taking the blame for the work that false churches have done in its name. For all these things the world will either attempt to reduce their significance, treating them as cute, intellectually inferior concepts, outright vilify them, or co-opt them to make them into something that they’re not – oftentimes a combination of the three. Bearing all this in mind, it should come as no surprise that the image the world has created for heaven, our eternal home, is so profoundly wrong. To many, assuming they believe in an afterlife at all, heaven is a vague and generic “good place.” Your family is there, and you’re happy, and things are right, and you’re just there forever, and things are good… It’s like someone read Revelation 21, forgot 99% of it, and was then asked to give a description of eternity. It’s based on nothing but a general assumption that if you’re “good” then things will be good after you die, and if you’re “bad” then things will be bad after you die. There are no qualifiers for what is good and what is bad – it’s theology based on feels. This is such a problem, partly just because it’s so wrong, and in its inaccuracy, it’s dangerous. In its vaguery it suggests that there’s a heaven that is possible without the Door of Christ, that there’s an eternal peace possible that’s not centered around God, and these are lies that (like all lies) lead to damnation and separation from God, not an eternity spent in the vague and generic “good place.” But the other (main) problem is that this just isn’t what we’re told. We’re not handed every specific detail concerning the new heaven and earth, but we’re given everything we need to know, and we’re certainly given more than some vague, self-indulgent “good place” interpretation. Last week we saw a more general (but still highly informative) view of what God has prepared for us in eternity – a place of perfect peace where we are directly in God’s presence and there is no wickedness, as all of that and everything that has contributed to it has been eternally sentenced to the second death that is the lake of fire. This on its own is enough information to dispel the world’s watered down version of heaven, but as we read on into today’s passage we’re greeted with far more detail. While heaven still holds mysteries that a mortal mind stained by sin can’t comprehend, we’re given details that help us see the fixed assurance of the place that God has prepared for us to be with Him. It’s a place of profound unity, of unimaginable glory, and of a purity the likes of which we cannot quite fathom on this side of eternity. We are not left to hazy descriptions or worldly superstitions, but are told of the great hope and amazing joy that awaits us in the place that we will forever call our home.

1. The Unity of our Eternal Home

“Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed—on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”

“Unity” can be one of those buzzwords that kind of makes my skin crawl. It’s not that I’m opposed to unity in any and all forms – that would just be insane – but it’s a word that requires some discernment, because you have to ask yourself what exactly you’re unifying with. When the Catholic church says that we should seek “church unity,” there can be an ecumenical emphasis on finding common ground, or they could mean that you should give up this silly Protestantism and just be Catholic. A progressive or charismatic church may similarly call for brotherly unity on the shared common ground we have with them, but again, the subtext is that their broad teachings are right, ours are wrong, and we should surrender our beliefs in favor of theirs. Perhaps the darkest and most pervasive call for unity comes, not from a self-professing church, but rather from the world itself. The world would love nothing more than for the church to unify itself with it – for us to surrender our faith, obedience, and love of God, to turn our backs on the Light of the world that has come to be with us, and unify ourselves with its uniform darkness, so that we might have “peace” in our lack of differences. “Unity” on its own is neither good nor bad – its ethical and moral standing is entirely determined by what you’re being encouraged toward unity with, and this is an important distinction to understand, because the perfect unity we are given in heaven is not something stained or corrupted as the unity we are offered on this earth so often is. Last week we read of the arrival of the new heaven and new earth, and the holy city of new Jerusalem descending from heaven. It’s important to understand that this new heaven and new earth is not a state of separation as we know now, where the spiritual, heavenly realms are hidden from our eyes, and the holy, shining glory of God remains unseen by our sin-stained, mortal eyes. The promise that we’re given from the throne is,

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Our Father in heaven, who we are joined to now by the Spirit but still remain at a distance face to face, will no longer be separate from us, His heavenly holiness will shine, glorious before us, because heaven and earth are unified. Earth is no longer stained by sin, and the spiritual realm no longer obscures the dark and twisted aims of the enemy – both heaven and earth have been made new, and this is seen manifested in the city of new Jerusalem. The sea is gone, that vast expanse of death and mystery that dominates the majority of our planet, the thing that dictates our entire climate and atmosphere is no more – and with it God has removed death itself. Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire – tears, and mourning, pain, and sin itself have passed away, and in their absence, we who are His children, who have been made righteous through Him are welcomed into eternity in His presence, where the wicked are barred from forever. We read last week that new Jerusalem appears as a bride adorned for her husband, and as we move into this week’s passage, we’re given far more detail as to what this looks like, and what this adornment means – and if we’re to take anything from the overwhelming glory of this place that God has made, let it be an understanding (or at least an attempt to understand) the all-encompassing, unified peace that exists here. We read as an angel comes to John – not just any angel, but one of the seven who took part in pouring the bowls of wrath out upon the old earth. It’s interesting that we’re given this distinction, because often with angels it seems that we either read too much or too little into what we’re told. I remain convinced that the primary reason we’re not given more information on these figures who are our fellow servants before God, is because if we were told too much we would just worship them, just as there are those who have twisted Scripture and now essentially worship Mary, the Apostles, and many others who are our fellow saints in Christ. But on the other end of the spectrum, there are those who will almost regard angels like they don’t matter at all, like they’re one dimensional robots who don’t merit any regard. This ignores the fact that what we see demonstrated from angels (and I’m not referring to Satan and “his angels,” as all these have failed to be true angels in that an angel is a messenger of God), is unfailing obedience and devotion. The fact that the angel who comes to John is one of the same who poured out the bowls of wrath helps us to see that, while there are many things we don’t know (and don’t need to know) about our angelic allies, they’re not one dimensional, single use objects – they’re the heavenly servants of the Living God, and this fleshes out just a little more of what we see of them. Backtracking a little, the angel takes John and shows him what we’ve just read mention of, the descent of new Jerusalem from heaven, but in greater detail. Ezekiel 40:1–2 says,

“In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on that very day, the hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me to the city. In visions of God he brought me to the land of Israel, and set me down on a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city to the south.”

Much like Ezekiel, John too is taken to the top of a high mountain and given a vision – though there are some key differences between what the two men are shown. There can be some confusion, people at a glance will sometimes think that the temple that Ezekiel sees and the vision of new Jerusalem that John is given are the same thing, however a little reading shows that this is not at all the case. There are certainly eternal implications to what Ezekiel is shown – God says to him in Ezekiel 43:7,

“… Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever…”

But ultimately the new temple is still just that – a temple. It is a place where God’s presence is extremely close, yet still separated, even if by a single wall. It is still a place in which the sacrificial system is practiced, in which despite His proximity, God’s holiness is still unapproachable. There are many who hold the description of the temple that Ezekiel is shown to be entirely symbolic – this is partly because a temple of this magnitude is never built, and also because of the miraculous and spiritual imagery that is used. Consider Ezekiel 47:8–12 concerning the water that flows from the temple,

“And he said to me, ‘This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.’”

In a practical sense, if you head east from Jerusalem, the body of water you encounter is the Dead Sea, which is supported here by mention of “Engedi and Eneglaim.” Consider that the Dead Sea is the lowest accessible point on earth, that it’s a dead zone for water, fed by the Jordan river but with its only outlet being evaporation, and that it’s roughly ten times saltier than the ocean. But in a symbolic sense we’re reading about the world – the thing that is dead, which fosters death, but that can be transformed by the living water that flows from the heart of God. The language is also reminiscent of the river of life and its surrounding trees that we’ll read of in Revelation 22. It is these things, again coupled with the fact that no temple of these massive proportions was ever built that leads people to deem the temple described at the end of Ezekiel to be entirely symbolic. While there is certainly a wealth of symbolism, I personally have a hard time relegating it to being only a symbolic description, mainly for two reasons. One, is because of Genesis 15:18–21, which says,

“On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.’”

For simplicity’s sake, we can set aside the listed people groups, and just look at the rivers, the space between the Nile and the Euphrates – an expanse (depending on how you measure) that is over 800 miles across. The promised land that Israel would eventually inhabit was nowhere near this large. Knowing that God didn’t lie to Abraham, why did the reality not look the same as the promise? Because the promise was made for the offspring of Abraham, those who walked with him as their father, who followed God, who were actually obedient to the spirit of the covenant that was made – and that is not what the nation of Israel showed themselves to be. The Israelites, because of their greed, short-sightedness, and all around disobedience, never successfully conquered all of the promised land they were initially delivered into after their forty years of exile in the wilderness, much less expand into this vast, river to river nation that spanned two continents. It was their sin that held them back from knowing the fullness of God’s promise, and it seems perfectly reasonable to consider that had the Jewish people been fully obedient before God after being returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile, that they may have in time been blessed to literally construct the massive temple that is described in Ezekiel. Consider that the spiritual condition of the religious leaders in Jesus’ time was such that when their Messiah came to offer them salvation, they not only rejected Him, but sought to kill Him. This was not a people who held full obedience before the Lord, but one who held on to the pitfalls and trappings of their old transgressions, and I think it reasonable, if not likely, that they missed out on a largely literal version of this grand temple, once again because of their sin. The second reason I would encourage a hybrid, literal/ symbolic view, is because certainty that the temple that Ezekiel sees is entirely symbolic immediately encourages seeing John’s vision of new Jerusalem as entirely symbolic, and to do this would be a great mistake. We have to remember that God does literal things that have great symbolic weight. The construction of the tabernacle is symbolic layer upon symbolic layer, as is the sacrificial system, the commandments of the Law, essentially every miracle I can think of, and creation itself – but that doesn’t mean that any of these aren’t literal as well. We don’t have to force a literal read on everything in Scripture (Song of Solomon is my favorite example of this, because it’s pointedly poetic and if everything there is literal… Then I have some questions), but neither do we have to force an entirely symbolic view on things that are not clearly so. I make a point to clarify this because as we first look into the unity that is revealed here, it is the symbol of what we’re seeing in the new Jerusalem that can take center stage, but in the case of both the walls, as well as the foundations, we’ll discuss what we can understand literally as well. What we have to see in new Jerusalem, and why the theme of true, holy unity is so prevalent, is because what we’re seeing is Israel and the Church fully melded into one nation before God. Isaiah 54:5–8, which we looked at last week, says,

“For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called. For the LORD has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit, like a wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I deserted you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you…”

Revisiting another passage we looked at last week, Ephesians 5:25–27 tells us,

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”

Israel as an ideal is the perfect nation, a people called to God, one who had no need of any human ruler, as God was their King. But they failed to be this, they abandoned their King and they fell short of being what they were called to be. The Church is only the Church, can only be the Church, called, purified, and redeemed by the blood of Christ. There are many churches, there’s only one Church, and when an individual group, be it small or large, adopts unity with the world instead of God, they’re no longer part of the body, but are cut off, an apostate abomination. But the Spirit of the nation that was established in the twelve tribes, and the Spirit of the one true Church, first testified to and spread through the ministry of the twelve Apostles, is the same. Israel, the true, obedient ideal that was established by God is what grew into the Church, and so the Bride of God and the Bride of the Lamb is the same, much the same as God and Christ are One. John’s vantage point upon the great high mountain gives us an appreciation for the scope of his insight, and what he beholds is unimaginably glorious. There is no division caused by space and time, or geography and culture – God’s people are God’s people, His Bride is His Bride, and the place He has prepared is the true home of all His children. The wall is high and secure, but the gates are many and always open – all who are righteous, all who are the children of God are forever welcome in this place. It may seem curious that the gates are named for the twelve tribes, while the foundations are names for the Apostles, as a foundation must be laid before a wall or gate is raised, and chronologically of course the tribes were before the Apostles. But we have to consider that all of the Old Testament points to Christ – we have to think of the opening of John’s gospel, verses 1–3 saying,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

And what Jesus declares in John 8:58,

“… Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

The work of Christ was pre-existent work, and so the work that the Apostles were blessed to take part in, the Spirit that delivered the good news of Christ through them, was foundational work that, despite our understanding through the lens of time, was what spiritually gave rise to Israel as a nation. And we can see in our eternal home, this shining beacon of new Jerusalem, the unity that transcends all we know of sin-stained creation, where we are in the presence of our God, and we worship Him alongside all who belong in His presence – not by works that any in the kingdom may boast, but through the mercy, grace, and abounding provision of our Father in heaven who has come to eternally dwell among us.

2. The Glory of our Eternal Home

“And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement.”

This is a point where things grow more specific, and we can begin to appreciate the enormity of what the Lord has prepared for us. The measurements of stadia and cubits don’t mean much to us in modern times, but in consulting the footnotes in my Bible, one stadion was about 607 feet, or, for our European friends, 185 meters. 12,000 stadia is approximately 1,380 miles. To give some context, the entire United States is roughly 2,500 miles, East to West across its middle, and almost 1,600 miles from the southernmost tip of Texas, to the Canadian border. That being said, there’s literally not enough space in the entire country to draw off a 1,380 by 1,380 mile square – actually (and the internet has been remarkably unhelpful in resolving my research on this), it appears based on everything that I can find and measure for myself that there’s no nation on earth that can actually fit a square of these dimensions inside its borders. While there are nations with a larger total square miles within their bounds, there is nothing of these proportions – and bear in mind, new Jerusalem isn’t a nation, it’s a city. This on its own is mind boggling enough, but then we have to consider the height, because it’s also 1,380 miles high. Bear in mind, our current earth’s atmosphere gives way at around 62 miles, meaning that by the only standard we have to go off of, the holy city would reach well over a thousand miles into space. This is the point where, if they haven’t already, many people will assign this to being purely symbolic – and to be fair, there is a lot of symbolism in what we’re reading. Twelve is a number we see associated in Scripture with order, structure, and stability – it is from the twelve sons of Jacob that the tribes of Israel are formed, from the twelve Apostles that the gospel was shared and the Church spread, the 144,000 from Revelation 7 are made up of 12,000 men from each of the twelve tribes, and now in the measurements of new Jerusalem we see twelve repeated again and again. The gates, the foundations, the 144 cubit high wall, and the 12,000 stadia cube of the holy city – this is something that God has measured and planned to perfection, and this is emphasized by the symbol of the repeating twelves. People will look at the scope of the city, compare it to the scale and structure of our own world, deem it impossibly large and count it as entirely symbolic, the height of the city being the most inconceivable element. I understand where they’re coming from, and this doesn’t necessarily have to be literal to be miraculous and amazing, but it’s also a mistake to assume it’s symbolic just because it’s impossible by our earthly standards. By our own power, nothing is possible, but the Lord is without limits in His glory and greatness. Do not forget that what we are reading of is not of our world, the old has passed away, we see a world without a sea, with an entirely different atmosphere and climate, a world where earth and heaven are joined rather than distinctly separated. To write off the dimensions of the city as symbolic simply because we think it impossible or impractical is foolishness. I have also read the comments of those who think the city is symbolic because they imagine that an eternal city prepared by the hand of God would be greater than what is described. This is even less compelling, as it fails to appreciate just how vast, intricate, and overwhelmingly glorious what we’re seeing is. If we look upon Scripture and discount whatever we deem impossible by our own reckoning then we might as well dispense with the entire thing, because the Word of God is nothing but miracle upon miracle. If it were not for His intervening hand we would have never had a beginning, no hope past the fall, no deliverance in Christ – we’d all be rightly doomed to eternal separation, and that’s if we were ever brought into being at all. So as we read of these incomprehensibly grand things, it’s okay to process them through a symbolic lens, but don’t diminish the glory of what God has made simply because it’s too vast to fully wrap your mind around. Rather delight and wonder at the glory of what He has prepared for His children.

“The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.”

There’s a lot that we could unpack here – we could look into the symbolic relevance of each stone and what it implies about the city and the foundations of its wall. But the simplest thing to do is to look back to the passage that this design seems to pull influence from. In Exodus 28:15–21, 30, concerning the priest’s garments, God says,

“You shall make a breastpiece of judgment, in skilled work. In the style of the ephod you shall make it—of gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen shall you make it. It shall be square and doubled, a span its length and a span its breadth. You shall set in it four rows of stones. A row of sardius, topaz, and carbuncle shall be the first row; and the second row an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond; and the third row a jacinth, an agate, and an amethyst; and the fourth row a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper. They shall be set in gold filigree. There shall be twelve stones with their names according to the names of the sons of Israel. They shall be like signets, each engraved with its name, for the twelve tribes.” … “And in the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron’s heart, when he goes in before the LORD. Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel on his heart before the LORD regularly.”

While some translations will use varied names for certain stones, you’ll notice there’s quite a bit of overlap between the foundations of the wall of new Jerusalem and the stones of the breastpiece of judgment that bore the names of the twelve tribes, again emphasizing seamless connection between Israel and the Church in eternity. Jasper, sapphire, agate, emerald, onyx, beryl, topaz, jacinth, and amethyst are all present in both, and carnelian and sardius are actually two names for the same stone, so there are only two differences – chrysolite and chrysoprase found in the wall’s foundation, carbuncle (or garnet) and diamond found on the breastpiece of judgment. I can’t tell you exactly what the unmatched stones mean, but I can tell you why I think it’s relevant that despite the similarities between the foundations and the breastpiece, they don’t quite match. In many respects the breastpiece of judgment is an outer sign of the glory of God – His righteous judgment being a part of His glory. Aaron, being the high priest, bears the judgment of God upon his own heart on behalf of the people, and this is signified through the breastpiece. But also, the breastpiece and the ephod that it’s attached to hold the Urim and Thummim, these mysterious gems through which the Lord would communicate through the high priest, usually in what seem to be “yes/ no” scenarios. Similarly, the twelve foundations of the wall of new Jerusalem stand to show the outward glory of that which they support and contain, and the wall and gates of the city do carry a connotation of judgment, as nothing unclean may enter the city – though in this it seems there is nothing to pass this judgment on. Concerning the communication though, this is vastly different – no more does God communicate at a distance, no longer does His word require interpretation and dissemination through a priest. The Lord is in the presence of His people, His Word is written upon their hearts, and so while there are similarities, the breastpiece and the foundations are two distinctly different things. Besides this, taking in the grandeur of the foundation stones, we can see the radiance of the walls and the streets. The jasper and gold of our world do not appear as they’re described here – pure and clear like glass. In this as well we can see and begin to understand how the perfect righteousness of God defines and shapes this new and sinless world, and we can marvel and wonder at the enormity of His holiness on display through His new creation.

3. The Purity of our Eternal Home

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

All of Scripture begins in Genesis 1:1–5, which says,

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

Since the beginning, since before man was first made and blessed to walk the earth, there was day and there was night. Charles Spurgeon likens the physical cadence of light and dark to the spiritual joy and trial that we will know throughout our lives, saying in the morning entry for June 1^st in his devotional, “Morning and Evening,”

“It is one of the arrangements of Divine providence that day and night shall not cease either in the spiritual or natural creation till we reach the land of which it is written, ‘there is no night there.’ What our heavenly Father ordains is wise and good.”

In the new heaven and earth is the beacon of new Jerusalem, and from there, giving the city its brilliance is the shining glory of God. No longer do we live in a cycle of bright exposure and dark obscurity, no longer do we rely upon a light source that, regardless of how many lifetimes it may endure, is temporary and destined to end as with all things. Jesus says in John 8:12,

“… I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

And He states in John 9:4–5,

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

The old has passed away, the new has come, and the new heaven and earth is where Christ will stand forever, where the glory of God will be a Light unto His people, His Spirit not just indwelling their hearts and living within them as His temple, but shining radiant before us all. We are eternally freed from darkness, sin, doubt, and shame, we are forever home in the Light and glory of our Father.

“By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”

As amazing as what we’ve read so far has been, this is where things turn particularly interesting. Because what we’ve seen up to this point has pertained to the holy city of new Jerusalem, but here the passage takes a turn because it shows the implications and influence that the glory and purity of God has upon the entire world. If you look at Ezekiel chapters 25-32 you see prophecies against various nations and their rulers. The Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Philistines, Tyre and its king, the city of Sidon, Egypt and its Pharaoh, are all condemned for their various transgressions and destruction is pronounced against them. This shows us the measure of the kings of our world, of the spirit of the nations. This is something that was revealed to great extent throughout Revelation as we watched the world curse God, kill His children, worship the beast, and idolize the harlot of Babylon. We’ve seen as this was all washed away, as the enemies of God were judged and consigned to the lake of fire for eternity, as the old heaven and earth, all that we now know of creation was burned up and dissolved. But what we read now sets the tone and establishes the standard for the form and function of what the new heaven and earth look like. If Satan was the presiding spirit, the driving force behind the flourishing of sin and wickedness that we witnessed on the old earth, then it is the Spirit of God, the Light of the world that governs, not just the holy city, but what has been made new as a holy world. Because there is such a geographical emphasis on the structure and design of new Jerusalem it can be easy to slip into a way of thinking where new Jerusalem is heaven, the presence of God residing only here, and all outside of that is something else – not hell, not the outer darkness, but also not quite perfect eternity. But what this affirms is that the presence of God that we see manifested in the holy city is not just isolated there, but covers the world over. It is His glory, goodness, and purity that shines continually from horizon to horizon, that pours out upon the world – and the world continually gives its glory back to God. We’re witnessing the beginning of an eternal, reciprocal cycle where God blesses and glorifies His children through His abounding love and unfailing glory, and His children in turn bless and glorify their Father as is only right, surrendering to God what is duly His. It is a beautiful, amazing thing, a promise of eternal peace, and right balance of the world where we are forever filled with the joy of honoring and praising our God with every action, and God is forever given the honor and praise that He is so rightly due.

“But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

We are reminded once more – the final time in the book of Revelation, that there is a criteria for eternity before God, a standard that He Himself established and upholds. In the midst of so much political controversy over immigration, I saw a picture of a church sign recently that said, “Heaven has a strict immigration policy, hell has open borders.” It bothers me when grand theology is tamped down to fit within the margins of political discourse, and this, quite frankly, annoyed me. It’s not that Scripture doesn’t provide us with all the needed information and insight to have a correct Biblical stance on something like immigration – we’re given a clear standard that if abided by, protects from either political extreme. But this church sign managed to mischaracterize both heaven and hell in one sentence. Hell doesn’t have open borders – prisons don’t have those. Hell is a place of eternal consignment, if you’re there, it’s because you belong there, because you’ve been judged and sentenced there – no one is coming and no one is going, if the lake of fire is your home, then it’s yours for eternity as due payment for hating holy and righteous God. Heaven – or rather the holy city and the new heaven and earth, have no “immigration policy” – there are no sojourners in the kingdom of God, only citizens. If you are there, then you belong there, just as those who burn in exile are where they belong. Paul writes in Philippians 3:17–21,

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

There is one family in the eternal kingdom of God, one body of believers, purified and joined forever in worship of our Father. There are none there who have not been washed in the blood of the Lamb, none who did not die to sin and their flesh, that they might be made new, atoned for by the sacrifice of Jesus, and have their name recorded in His book of life. There is, unsurprisingly, a standard of purity required to belong in the kingdom of God – a standard that we did not achieve for ourselves, but that was done for us through Jesus’ work on the cross. The eternal kingdom is a place prepared, and there are none who will stand in the presence of God who do not belong, none who will be admitted whose names have not been recorded in His book of life.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJznTjGhgbU