I remember Brenda reading the book “ What to expect when you are expecting.” As she anticipated the birth of Nathaniel and got closer to 9 months we read that Nathaniel by now hears echoes, faint sounds and rumblings of a brand new world that he will soon be born into. As we think about the world to come, the new Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new earth, we find ourselves in the same place. We wonder what the world is like on the other side. Like John we hear echoes and rumblings and we lean-in to get a better understanding of what to expect when we are expecting. How is everything going to end? Is it the end of the world or the end of evil?
How does John explain the unexplainable and express the inexpressible? What is surprising and almost takes your breath away, is that it is not an ending, but a fresh beginning. We read in Gen 1 “In the beginning God created the heaves and the earth,” but when you get to Revelation 21:1 it says, “Then I saw a new Heaven and a new earth.” It seems like God’s story has creation for its first word and creation for its last word!
As John begins to describe that which is eternal, he decides that the best way to do it is to explain the unexplainable by negation, by saying what it is not.
- No more sea, meaning “no more chaos.”
- No more death, no more tears, no more pain, no more illness... he is going to put funeral homes out of business!
- No more misusing of things and others. In the new Jerusalem there is no space to be misused or mistreated
- No longer any curse... no covering myself with fig leaves and blaming others and God. John is saying, no more playing the blame game. The curse is no more.
- No temple in the New Jerusalem. John didn’t see a temple in the Holy City... In the OT, people of God believed the presence of God was in the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Place where heaven and Earth kissed. But in John’s vision, the holy of Holies is not just a small box, but the Holy of Holies is the whole City. And God and the lamb is the temple. VS. 3... God himself will be with them. And He himself will wipe every tear from their eyes. Get this... we get to meet God face to face!
As if that is not enough, hear what John says in vs. 2 “I saw the Holy City the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God... and I heard a loud voice saying “ Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.” This is critical. Notice the direction that the new Jerusalem comes. It is not us going to the new Jerusalem, but the New Jerusalem is coming to us. The New Jerusalem is descending. John is writing to the Jewish Christians in the 7 churches to come out of Babylon and in so doing he gives them a vision of the new Jerusalem that is already forming, but still in the future. It is God’s alternative city!
As a place, the New Jerusalem is a paradise and a holy city. In the beginning God had planted a garden for humanity to live in (Gen. 2: 8). In the end he will give them an urban city. What John is saying is that...
- Paradise is the natural world in its ideal state filled with the presence of God and reconciled with humanity. In other words, the vision of a “new heaven and new earth” does not mean the destruction and replacement of the material world but its transformation!! Paradise, the original creation depicted in Genesis, has been restored, not abandoned or destroyed. It is the marriage of heaven and earth!
So what do we make of the Holy City? John says this is the place where heaven and earth meets at the centre of the earth, from which God rules his land and his people. This is not pie in the sky, but very real. What is important to note is that John is writing this to the churches 2000 years ago. He is saying that the new Jerusalem is already forming, but will come to its full expression when Jesus comes again. What John is saying is that the new creation is already under way (2 Cor. 5:17) and his kingdom is already present. Jesus as the slaughtered Lamb is already on the throne and in charge and we who are washed and marked by the blood of the Lamb are already priests in His Kingdom:
- This city stands in stark contrast to the idolatrous, oppressive city of Babylon portrayed in Rev. 17–18, the city that is fallen and judged. The New Jerusalem is God’s alternative to Rome’s empire and every empire since.
- One way Revelation portrays the New Jerusalem as God’s alternative to Babylon is by its very size: 12,000 stadia (1,500 miles) in length, width, and height means that the city “has a footprint approximately equal in size to the entire land mass of the Roman empire”; it is “large enough to encompass . . . the world as John knew it.”
- It is depicted as a square because the ancient ideal of perfection, especially for a city, was a square; Babylon was remembered as a square (Herodotus, History 1.178), but Revelation goes a dimension further and portrays the city as a cube, because the Holy of Holies was a cube.
So when you read the symbolic description of the city, pay attention especially to vs. 25. It says: “The twelve gates of the city is always open.” This is not Peter standing at the pearly gates asking you questions to see if you can get in. There are twelve gates and they are always open. As the new Jerusalem is already forming, the gates are open for whosoever wants to come in. The new Jerusalem is already descending and when Jesus becomes visible from his space (the second coming), we will witness the full manifestation of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem.
It will fill the whole earth, and the glory of Christ will light up the whole world. All I know is... it is going to be good. It also tells me that what I do now matters. When you think about, as followers of Christ, we are from the future! We are called to already live as if the end has come. To live as resurrected people. The old has gone and the new has come! Can you hear the echoes and the rumblings of the world that is already and not yet?
Thank you for joining us on our journey through the book of Revelation!
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