Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle | Part 3: The Look of the Big City | Part 4: Life in the Big City

John, the last apostle living, is writing the book of Revelation while exiled on the island of Patmos, imprisoned for preaching the gospel (Re 1.9). He has seen visions of wonderful things, including the glorious end of history and the ultimate triumph of God for the benefit of his people. We get the impression that John is often unable to put into words what he is seeing; there is nothing on earth with which to compare it. So he speaks of jasper and gold that are as clear as crystal.

He has no words.

These things are unimaginably delightful.

But John is not in the heavenly city. He’s on Patmos, which, while a very nice island, as islands go, is most certainly not paradise. And according to well-established legend, he is occupying his time with slave labor in the salt mines, at the age of 90 or so.

The nasty now and now.

We look forward to the glorious consummation of all things, but we’re not there yet. We look for the mark at the finish line, but we’re very much still in the race, on the track, still running, exerting ourselves, exhausted, just trying to make it to the end.

What do we do now?

John addresses that for his readers.

Confident Trust

After describing the glories of the heavenly city (Re 22.3-5), John turns to his readers, as it were, and says simply, “These things are faithful and true” (Re 22.6)—an assertion that he immediately documents by identifying the source, a messenger from God himself.

This is not pie in the sky. It’s not merely a psychological mind game, a crutch that enables us to hobble along through a frustrating and meaningless world.

It’s the real deal. It’s coming. And you can take that to the bank.

Obedience

And since it’s certainly coming, we can and should live in anticipation of it. Christ is coming (Re 22.7, 12), and there will be an accounting (Re 22.11-12). When you know you’re going to give an account of yourself, what do you do? You live in such a way that you can explain yourself without embarrassment. That’s just common sense.

But what about the embarrassing things you’ve already done? And the things you know from experience that you’re going to do, despite all your effort to resist?

Ah, my friend, there’s a solution for that. You clean up (Re 22.14); you “wash your robes.” In what? John has already told us: “in the blood of the lamb” (Re 7.14). You’re not righteous, but you can be made righteous by faith in the Lamb who died for you.

The Lamb invites all who are thirsty, all who wish to drink, to come and drink the water of life abundantly, at no cost (Re 22.17). That was true long before Jesus came (Is 55.1-13), and it is true today.

All you have to do is come to him.

Anticipation

And so, ready and confident, we watch, and we wait.

Warren Wiersbe observes that the book ends with a plea (“Come!” Re 22.17), a prayer (“Come, Lord Jesus!” Re 22.20), and a promise (“I am coming quickly!” Re 22.20). That promise—“I am coming quickly”—occurs 3 times in this last chapter of God’s Word to us (Re 22.7, 12, 20). The word translated “quickly” speaks of the nature rather than the timing of the event; it’s not so much that the coming will be “soon”—it was more than 2000 years away when Jesus spoke those words—as that it will unfold rapidly when it comes, “like a thief in the night” (1Th 5.2), “in the twinkling of an eye” (1Co 15.52).

And so we need to be ready. Just as there’s no time to put on your seat belt when the car gets T-boned, so you need to be ready for his certain coming.

Come to the waters, and drink.

And as we watch and wait, enjoy the race.

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle | Part 3: The Look of the Big City

John has described the entrance of the Bride, the New Jerusalem, and has told us something of what the city looks like. Now he begins to describe life, culture, in this unprecedented city.

His opening observation (Re 21.22) is the most obvious feature, the one that drives all the rest:

God is there.

The Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb—John speaks of them as distinct persons, but also in the same breath, as if they are equals—have taken up residence in this city; John says, perhaps unexpectedly, that they are “its temple,” or “its holy place.”

Now, that’s odd. How can God, who is infinite (unconfined by space) and thus omnipresent, be said to be a “place”?

Welcome to theology, where we spend our time seeking to comprehend the incomprehensible, where things are indisputably true but deeply puzzling, where God invites us to know him but in significant ways remains beyond all knowing—and so where we are constantly reminded that we are not the smartest people in the room.

At any rate, as we’ve noted before, the Scripture portrays God as seeking, throughout history, to dwell with his people, to live in their midst. And now the partial, the anticipatory, has come to fruition. Now he dwells with us, visibly, physically(?), notably.

For the rest of the paragraph, John describes life in the city in a series of characteristics that flow directly from the fact that God Is There.

First, God’s presence illuminates the entire city and all life in it. The sun and moon are no longer needed (Re 21.23). How could one glorious presence light every corner of a city 1500 miles across? I suppose it’s reductionistic to suggest that since all the building materials are clear as crystal, there’s nothing to impede the light; this is God’s light, after all, and everything about the place is supernatural. It’s not as though a brick wall could keep the light from getting through.

It’s often been noted that this last section of the Bible often parallels the first; the entire Scripture is marked by what literary critics call an inclusio. In Genesis 1, God begins by creating light (Ge 1.3). Since he creates the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day (Ge 1.14-19), skeptics have questioned how there could be light on Day 1—and how there could be 24-hour days without a sun. The Bible doesn’t answer that question, but this passage makes it clear that there can be light—and more than sufficient light for life—without any sun at all. Does life at the beginning of Scripture resemble life at the end—light provided directly by the glory of God itself? That would certainly make sense.

It’s worth noting as well that the Lamb, who humbled himself and died in darkness, is now glorious enough to be the light of the city. The Father has indeed exalted him (Php 2.9).

There’s more to this city. Because God is there,

• It’s safe (Re 21.25); those big imposing gates have no protective function. Omnipotence will bring that result.
• It’s prosperous (Re 21.26). With the freedom that safety brings, there’s activity among the citizenry; there’s commerce; stuff gets done. Basically, it’s the opposite of life in a pandemic.
• It’s clean (Re 21.27). It’s not “gritty,” the way life in most big cities usually is.
• And finally, because God is there, the city is characterized by life rather than death (Re 22.1-2). There’s water of life, and consequently a tree of life (there’s Genesis again), whose fruits bring healing—life—to all peoples, without distinction and without discrimination. Remember what God said after Adam sinned? He moved to stop him from eating from the tree of life (Ge 3.22), perhaps because he would then be irredeemably sinful. But now, here, in the City, the time is right. The tree of life is here, and all can eat of it without fear.

The consequence of all this will be worship (Re 22.3-5). But we don’t need to wait for that. Next time, we’ll finish this series by reflecting on what we should be doing while we’re waiting for all this to happen.

Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash

Part 1: Looking Ahead | Part 2: Down the Aisle

In the first 8 verses of Revelation 21, the bride, the New Jerusalem, is presented. Now we turn for a closer look at the heavenly city and what life will be like for those who live there.

To begin with, John is informed by his heavenly guide that the city doesn’t just act like a bride (Re 21.2)—she actually is one. And her groom, it turns out, is the Lamb Himself, the one who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll (Re 5.1-12), the one who by being sacrificed—by laying down his life—has redeemed to God a people from every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation (Re 5.9).

And this bride is bedecked as befits her station. The city appears like no other.

• The walls are constructed with stone—not just concrete, or even marble—but precious stone (Re 21.11), the kind you wouldn’t use for massive construction work, because it’s just too expensive. Pretty much all the English translations render this word “jasper,” which is the best they can do to name an unearthly material. But it’s not much like jasper, which is quartz of various colors, and opaque. We read that this stone is “clear as crystal.” And the Greek word rendered “jasper” apparently carries a reference to being cut, more than being a particular species (is that the right word?) of gem. Imagine walls made of faceted diamond! Just that aspect of the city’s beauty boggles the mind.
• It has high walls, with 12 gates and solid foundations (Re 21.12-14). In biblical times, walls were indications of strength; the city was protected from invaders and well positioned to repel them, since defenders could stand atop the walls—on the “high ground”—and make life miserable for any foolish enough to attack. The gates, too, are defensive, specially designed to make entry difficult in multiple ways. But here’s the thing: there are no invaders. All evil has previously been destroyed in the lake of fire (Re 20.11-15; 21.8). There’s no need for defense. This is one astonishingly safe city.
• John’s guide goes to the trouble of measuring the city (Re 21.15-16). Oddly, it’s a cube—square on the ground but as high as its length and width. What that’s going to look like architecturally—lots of stories? spires?—we’re not told, but it reminds us of something ancient. In Solomon’s Temple, the Holiest Place, where God’s personal glory hovered between the cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant, was a cube as well (1K 6.20), of 30 feet, covered with pure gold. This city too is pure gold “like clear glass” (Re 21.18). If we had been able to stand inside the Holiest Place, we would have been astonished. This is exponentially more than that. It isn’t ordinary gold, and it isn’t ordinary construction.
• The foundations are various gemstones; jasper shows up again, as just the first of a dozen materials (Re 21.19-20). The gates are pearl (Re 21.21)—there must be some very large oysters somewhere—which is odd, since there’s no more sea. :-) And the streets are gold, again “like transparent glass” (Re 21.21).

Often in my academic reading, I’ll finish a page and think, “I know what every word on this page means, but I have no idea what this writer is talking about.” (That happens a lot with certain unnamed twentieth-century German theologians.) When that happens, I often suspect that it’s a flaw in the writer. The purpose of writing, after all, is to communicate.

But here the problem is not with the writer. The problem here is with me. I can read the words, but the content of this passage is simply beyond my ability to visualize and comprehend. It is beyond earthly experience.

We can only imagine.

And John’s description of the heavenly city is far from finished. So far he has described just the physical things. The spiritual nature of this city—if you will, the culture, the lifestyle, the vibrant life of this city—he’ll get to next.

We’ll talk about that next time.

Part 4: Life in the Big City | Part 5: On Track

Photo by Béatrice Natale on Unsplash