The first eight verses of this chapter refer entirely to the eternal state. The first earth had run its prescribed course of seven thousand years of human habitation and had vanished to make way for the new earth in the eighth or new creation day. There is no more “troubled sea . . . whose waters cast up mire and dirt” (Isa. 57:20). This is “the day of God”—eternity—and the introduction of “new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness”—the fulfillment of His promise as revealed in 2 Peter 3:13.
“The holy city, NEW Jerusalem, comes down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” A thousand years of having lived and reigned with Christ, has not dimmed the luster and beauty of His bride, which is also the church of the living God. It is, and forever, the tabernacle of God with men. God’s rest has now been reached, and His thought of dwelling with men at last fulfilled. “God Himself shall be with them—their God.” Noticeably the Name only of God, appears here. Dispensational names have disappeared that God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—may be “all in all” (read 1 Cor. 15:24-28).
“Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord” (Psa. 144:15). Happy indeed, and forever, when “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.” No more death, grief, cry, or distress—“the former things are passed away.” The Alpha and the Omega makes all things new.
“I saw the flock of God, a goodly throng
Of happy people spread in peace abroad
O’er that fair earth in love’s eternal light:
Nor sun or candle do they need; no night
Is there, but endless day, the day of God;
And every heart pours forth eternal song.
A trace of sorrow, death, or curse, shall ne’er
In that fair land be found; no sculptured stone,
Symbol of crushed and broken hearts, no tears,
No disappointments, no foreboding fears.
No tree with fruit forbidden standing lone,
Nor can the serpent ever enter there.
The hand of God hath wiped all tears away;
No more a visitor, as innocence
Might into Eden’s bowers have welcomed Him;
Here shall He dwell unveiled, no distance dim
Between Him and His creature, but from thence
Sons with the Father for eternity.
Jesus is there, well known in His deep love,
To walk with His redeemed thru fields of light
There shall their hearts with holy joy recall His cross,
His travail sore, sorrows all,
For them endured in love’s eternal might
That He might have them with Himself above.”
Who are they who will inherit this scene of glory but they who drank of the water of life which Jesus now gives to every thirsty soul. They took up His path of rejection and His cross in this world and now are seen as those who, having overcome, have inherited eternal bliss in the everlasting relationship of sons of the living God.
If any of the sons of men do not inherit these blessings, it is because the preaching of the cross was foolishness to them. They were unbelieving, and so perished. Their evil works followed with them. They “shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Let us commence our review of verse nine to the end of the chapter with the following beautiful stanza of a hymn:
“One spirit with the Lord
Jesus, the glorified,
Esteems the church for which He bled,
His body and His Bride.”
Yes, “Christ also loved the church, and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). Who can tell the unbounded delight and joy which our precious Savior will have in the possession of His blood-redeemed bride. Surely our cup too will run over.
“Thine eye in that bright cloudless day
Shall, with supreme delight,
Thy fair and glorious bride survey,
Unblemished in Thy sight.”
It must have been music to the ear of John “the beloved disciple” to hear the words “come hither, I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” The messenger was one of the angels “which had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues.” A similar angel had previously carried John into the wilderness to see the spurious bride. Now he is carried in the Spirit, not to a barren wilderness, but to “a great and high mountain” far removed from earth altogether. There he sees “the Holy City Jerusalem”—the heavenly metropolis, the church, coming down out of the heaven from God.
What we have in this part is a retrospective look at what the church, “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife” was, when as kings and priests she reigned with Christ over the earth for a thousand years. The City had the reflected glory of God. Christ had said in that marvelous prayer to His Father—“and the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them” (John 17:22). Here we have the wondrous fulfillment of these words.
Brief comments on the various features exhibited in the Holy City—the church—are appropriate at this point.
She Possesses the Glory of God—“Her shining was like a most precious stone, as a crystal like jasper stone.” While on earth the saints were “all the children of light” (1 Thess. 5:5). Jasper speaks of the reflected glory of God which enhances the brilliance emanating from the wondrous light-bearing body of the glorified Christ in heaven.
The City has a Great and High Wall—In the eighteenth verse we read “the building of the wall of it was jasper.” The glory of God was the security of the wall, hence the City was divinely protected from the inroads of evil. The wall had twelve gates each made from the same piece—“the pearl of great price.” In olden time, the gate was the seat of the judge of the people. Here we have therefore the heavenly seats for the administration of judgment on earth. The angels are willing doorkeepers as it is written—“for unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come” (Heb. 2:5). The names however, of the twelve tribes of Israel are written on the gates, showing the close association in that day of the church in heaven with Israel on the earth. Light on the position is surely given in the Lord’s words to His disciples in Matthew 19:28—“and Jesus said unto them—verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Another honor for the twelve Apostles of the Lamb is to be seen in their names being found in the twelve foundations of the wall of the City. Paul tells us that the household of God is “built upon the foundation of the Apostles and [New Testament] prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the corner stone” (Eph. 2:20).
God’s Measure of the City—The City of pure gold, like unto clear glass, was a cube—“the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.” Measured by God’s standard—the golden reed—it fully answered to his mind and good pleasure in every respect. Christ’s estimate of it too is suitably expressed in the words—“thou art all fair my love, there is no spot in thee” (Song of Sol. 4:7). The measure of the city was twelve thousand furlongs. When we go back to Revelation 14:20 and understand that the one thousand and six hundred furlongs mentioned there represents the length of the land of Israel, we can gather some little idea of the immensity of the Holy City—twelve thousand furlongs—a cube. “What a gathering of the ransomed that will be.”
The Foundations of the City’s Wall—Twelve precious stones, each one having its own peculiar beauty, were found in the foundations of the wall. Surely we can say—“what hath God wrought” (Num. 23:23). The precious stones speak of God’s workmanship in the soul of each believer. It only needs the light of God to shine on the stones to develop their brilliance and beauty, as it is written “let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us” (Psa. 90:17). Many of the precious stones named here were also in the breastplate of Aaron, the High Priest of Israel (Ex. 28:17-20). He only wore them once, in His garments of glory and beauty on the day of his consecration—the same day on which failure in the priesthood was manifested, and brought death on his two sons in judgment from God. But God never gives up His purposes, and in the Holy City we find the precious stones again.
Before leaving this subject, let us look at Ezekiel 28:12-17. Here we have an undoubted reference to the fall of Satan. “Every precious stone was thy covering.” Ten are named—some of them the same as in the High Priest’s breastplate, and the Holy City. Ten brings in the responsibility of the creature, and Satan was but a creature, but saying “I am a God” (Ezek. 28:2)—he was cast out “as profane out of the mountain of God” (Ezekiel 28:16)—far removed from the light of God. Satan will be found in the abyss, while the radiant light of the glory of God will light up His precious stones in glory—those who, let us never forget it, were sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord.
“Stones wrought in secret
In the earth’s still bosom
By God’s Almighty finger;
Fashioned fair,
With light of many
A glorious shaded prism
Of rainbow gleamings,
Caught, and treasured there.”
There is no Temple in the City—In Acts 3:1 we read—“Peter and John went up into the temple at the hour of prayer.” They left their occupations and, desirous of prayer, sought God in his temple. But in the Holy City there is no temple. The saints are in the immediate presence of “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” “The Lamb enthroned shall there engage each raptured heart,” and as Jesus said to Philip “he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). “God is light” (1 John 1:5)—and the lamp thereof is the Lamb.
“God and the Lamb shall there,
The light and temple be,
And radiant hosts forever share
The unveiled mystery.”
Its Connection with the Nations of the Earth—The light of the heavenly metropolis will shed its beams to earth’s remotest bound. The nations, no longer in darkness, “will walk by its light.” The kings of earth in that day unfeignedly acknowledge God’s heavenly seat of government and blessing, bringing their glory to it. The darkness of night which now unfolds men in sleep will not be there, nor shutting of the gates at the end of the day—symbols surely we are given, yet simple, and their meaning evident. As before mentioned, Israel will be linked up with the heavenly City, the kings of the nations, and the nations themselves will subscribe to her glory. No lie or defilement will enter that bright and blessed abode—”but those only who [are] written in the book of life of the Lamb.” “They have now the inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 1:4).
Those who are Shut out of the Holy City—Noticeably at the beginning of our chapter, we see who will enjoy the blessedness of the eternal state, and who will be excluded. Here also in the Holy City we have the same thing. The Scriptures consistently warn the wicked of what their end will be if they persist unrepentant in their sins. Yet God’s attitude towards them is—”Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” (Ezek. 18:23).