Revelation 14

Chapter 14. The New Heaven and Earth and the New Jerusalem"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." (Revelation 21:1-4)First of all, let us fully understand that the sublime picture of these closing chapters of the Apocalypse is not a description of the heavens into which our beloved ones enter when they pass from us through the gates of what we call death. There is a heaven into which Christ has passed and where, like Stephen, our parted ones who sleep in Jesus are welcomed home. There is a Father’s house where they rest in peace and blessedness and doubtless it has in it in embryo the elements of the glorious city and the eternal rapture which this vision describes; but the full glory has not yet come. They are waiting for their crowns and for their everlasting home until we will be gathered with them in the great consummation. Let us also remember that this is not a description of the millennial earth and the glorious state which Christ’s reign for 1,000 years will bring. That is briefly described in the 20th chapter. The scenes in this chapter come after the millennium and the dissolution of all things which it is to lead. This is the eternal state, a new heaven and a new earth. May the Spirit of inspiration give us a vision to see and a heart to understand this glorious Apocalypse of the future.

A New Heaven and Earth

A New Heaven and EarthThe scenes of this chapter follow earth’s final tragedy. There has been a crisis, a catastrophe, a fearful cataclysm. Before the face of Him upon the Great White Throne the earth and the heavens fled away and there was found no place for them. Just as man had to pass from the earthly to the heavenly, from the natural to the supernatural, from the mortal to the resurrection life through the gates of death, so now the material universe itself has to pass through the resurrection by way of death. The old planet is consumed with flame, the firmament and the heavenly bodies pass through a similar convulsion or dissolution, and from the wreck there emerged a new heaven and a new earth. This did not occur at the commencement of the millennial age. Then undoubtedly great changes in earth’s climate and surface took place, but they were only partial. Now it would seem the whole fabric of the universe must pass through the great transition and have its resurrection too. It would seem as if the taint of sin and the touch of Satan had left defilement and pollution upon the very atmosphere of the universe and God must have a great house-cleaning and wash out with flames of fire every vestige, every memory of the awful crisis through which nature and the universe have passed. And so by some mighty process the existing universe is dissolved and out of it emerges a new creation. Now this is not the first time this doctrine has been revealed in the Holy Scriptures. Back in Isaiah we read, Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. (Isaiah 65:17-19) And again in 2 Peter 3:7-13, we are told that as the earth was once destroyed by a flood of water it is to be once more destroyed by a sea of fire. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. (2 Peter 3:7) Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. (2 Peter 3:11-13) This is precisely the teaching of the Revelation, and it looks forward not to the millennial reign of Christ but to the great crisis that is to follow it. The apostle’s eye is looking on to the end of the panorama and taking it all in the light of final consummation. In the change which is to come upon the earth it is added that “There was no longer any sea” (Revelation 21:1). Today the ocean covers and renders waste three-quarters of the surface of this planet. The world without an ocean could contain four times as great a population as the present surface of the planet. The ocean is a place of danger and of death. There will be a river of delight and, doubtless, a sea of glass in the terrestrial geography of the coming age, but all that is terrific and scourging in the old ocean will have passed away.

The New Earth, God’s Abode

The New Earth, God’s AbodeIt will be the personal residence of God. “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” (Revelation 21:3). This is a most significant statement. At the present time this earth is not the residence of God in any primary sense. For a little while it was the residence of Jesus Christ, but He was far from home and His Father’s throne. At present it is the residence of the Holy Spirit but He is here as a visitor calling out a people to be gathered home. It is a far outlying world. It is a distant sphere that rolls in its orbit of darkness around the central throne; somewhere else today is the personal seat of God and the metropolis of the universe. When Jesus Christ ascended He went home to His Father’s throne. He left the realms of earth; He passed through the heavens, He ascended far above all heavens and somewhere yonder in space He rested and sat down at the right hand of God. The eye of the telescope has not discovered the metropolis of God’s empire. The light of inspiration has not told us where; but somewhere, locally and actually, God has His capital where Christ in human form is residing, and where angels and the spirits of glorified men and the bodies of Enoch and Elijah and those that rose from their graves after Christ’s resurrection and ascended with Him, are living today in actual physical presence. It is not so far away that we cannot reach it by the telephone of prayer, but that may be farther than the farthest star that rolls in dark immensity. Science tells us that somewhere in this universe there is a central star around which all the stars and constellations are revolving. Just as the moon moves around the earth, and the moon and earth around the sun, so the sun and all its planets are revolving around some other center and this system round a yet greater. And yonder in the far Pleiades they tell us a mighty sun, Alcyone, far vaster than ours, seems to be at present the center of all the stellar motion. Is it there perhaps that God has His abode? We cannot tell, but this we know that the center of the universe some day will be this little world of ours. God will come down with His retinue and His throne; from earth will go forth the authority and the power that will govern all the material worlds and all the myriad beings that people immensity. What a glorious prospect! What a stupendous honor! What a majestic hope! It would seem as if God were at last to be avenged for the curse of sin by turning the curse into a blessing and making the very place that had been associated with the bitterest hate of Satan and the cruelest sorrow of Jesus, His own dear Son, the very jewel of the universe, the paragon of creation and the capital of the heavens.

No Death or Sorrow

No Death or SorrowIt will be a world without death, disease or sorrow. There will be no more crying. There will be no more pain. There will be no death; and God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. This does not only mean that there will be no tears shed in that happy world, but that all the tears that were ever shed will be turned into joy, that they will be more than healed and there will be no single memory or shadow of pain or grief to gall the perfect felicity of eternal years. Oh, sorrowing one, be patient. Lift up your heart. Rejoice! “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalms 30:5). Oh, mourner, some day earth’s fairest scenes will not be its cemeteries, and earth’s sweetest affections will not be merely the means of making death beds sadder and breaking loving hearts.

No Sin

No SinThe other feature of the renovated earth will be that there will be no sin, and nothing that defiles will enter into the holy city and the happy life of the coming ages. Satan will never tempt again. There will be no more curse or cursed one. Never again will God have to cloud His face and perform the strange work of judgment which He so little loves, but the universe will set-tie down to everlasting love and uninterrupted joy. We will be established and will know that we will never fall again. Angels will be confirmed in their high and holy state and the very shadow of evil will at last be forgotten. Heaven will be so pure that evil will not be thought, remembered or conceived. The curse of time is to know both good and evil. In the innocence of those happy years man will not know evil but only good. Oh, for that day to come when the crushing, defiling shadow of sin and doubt and fear will never fall again!

The New Jerusalem

The New JerusalemSpeedily the vision of the apostle is absorbed with one spectacle. It is the picture of the New Jerusalem, the holy city which he now beholds descending from God out of heaven and which is to be the chief attraction of the heavenly age. Let us notice that this city is not created for the first time. It is recognized as having been there before, and John sees it descending from God out of heaven and resting finally upon the earth where it becomes the capital of the earth just as earth is the capital of the universe. This encourages us to believe that the New Jerusalem had already been a part of the glorious economy of the millennial age. As we have already suggested it seems probable that this glorious city, with its blessed inhabitants constituting the Bride of the Lamb, was formed at Christ’s coming in the air and became the residence of Christ and His saints during the millennial age. During that period it is not located on earth but seems to be suspended in the air where Christ will come to gather His risen and translated ones. It would seem as if during the millennial age it would be the heavenly home of the saints and so near to earth that they can pass from its gates constantly and instantly on their ministries of service and government over all the earth, but representing a higher life than that which the tribes of earth will live in their terrestrial sphere. Now, however, the glorious city descends to earth and becomes its metropolis. The description of this city of light and glory is not a mere figure or symbol. God is not playing with words when He gives us the dimensions, the structure, the very colors of the heavenly city. He means that it is an actual fact and not a mere figure of speech. There will be a real world, a real body of physical beings, a real Christ in His risen state and real city with all the glory and splendor of which these vivid descriptions give us but a faint approximation.

1. Its Form Let us note the form and structure of this glorious city. “The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide” (Revelation 21:16). It is a perfect cube like the Holy of Holies in the ancient Tabernacle which was a figure of heaven. The most remarkable feature of this description is that the height was equal to the breadth and length. In so vast a city as this it would either require that the towers should rise to a prodigious elevation or else that the streets should run vertically as well as laterally. There seems no reason why the latter should not be the case because to us up and down are terms entirely dependent upon the center of gravity. The reason it is difficult for us to ascend is because of the attraction of the earth; but in that city earth’s attraction will be broken and God will be the center of gravitation, and in the supernatural life we, like Christ, will be invested with a power that will enable us to rise and soar in the heavens as freely as to pass from place to place on earth. Therefore it would seem to be true that the streets of this city will run up and down as well as backwards and forwards and that our material conceptions of space and substance will be transcended by higher laws.
2. The Dimensions of the City They are colossal and at first we are staggered by its vastness. The entire measurement Isaiah 12,000 stadig, that Isaiah 1,400 miles. If this is the circuit of the city it would make it 370 miles long, the same width and the same height. Think of a city one side of which would reach from New York to Buffalo, the next from Buffalo to North Carolina, the whole space including the states of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. And then when we attempt to realize the height we are staggered by the conception of a city whose towers would reach nearly 400 miles into the air, that is almost 100 times as high as earth’s most lofty peaks. This is the Father’s house with its many mansions which Christ has been so long preparing. This is the eternal home of all the families of the redeemed. Here are to be the palaces and homes of all the holy that have ever lived on earth. Surely in this mighty city of the skies there will be room for all. Oh, you who are poor and often tried with pinching poverty, lift up your heads, your fortune is coming by and by, your city has foundations and its Builder and Maker is God, your home is prepared where decay and parting will never come. Take in the grandeur of your Master’s thought, the beneficence of His resources, the transcendent glory of the hope laid up for you, and remember Him who said, “Everyone who has left houses or… fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).
3. The Walls of the City It is surrounded with a jeweled wall of solid and crystalline jasper. The walls are not so high as the city, being only a little over 200 feet in height. But even this would present a magnificent effect with the turrets of the city rising high above. The foundations of this wall are described apart from the wall. They consist of various precious stones representing all the tints of the rainbow and the most precious crystals of the mine. They seem to represent the steps that rise to the entrance of the city. There are 12 gates to the city and to each of these gates it would seem there is a grand approach by means of 12 lofty steps. These steps are of all the colors of the rainbow blending in perfect harmony. There is the ruby, the sapphire and the diamond, the emerald, the topaz and the amethyst, all that crystal radiance and tinted beauty can combine to produce the most dazzling effects. All this will be blended by God’s infinite taste, and the city will look like a rainbow of glory even in its very foundations.
4. The Gates of the City It is entered by 12 gates. Each of these is a single pearl. God will know how to make the materials for this splendid architectural monument if He has to gather all the pearls of the universe and blend them into one of these massive gates of crystalline beauty. And doubtless from these gates there will open broad highways and magnificent avenues into every part of the glorious city.
5. The Streets of the City They are solid gold and its pavement is described as like transparent glass. This does not represent so much its transparency as its translucency. It is finely polished like a mirror. Glancing up these splendid avenues and these golden palaces shining in the light of God, each reflecting back the glory of the golden pavement and the glorious sky, one can scarcely imagine what a spectacle of dazzling splendor it must be.
6. The River of the Water of Life This flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, circling, doubtless, through the city, running down its innumerable avenues and carrying freshness and life to every part. Doubtless it will be in some sense the channel of physical and spiritual life and convey to those who drink of its waters and bathe in its depths the quickening fullness of the blessed Spirit and the living Christ.
7. The Trees Upon Its Banks Upon the banks of the river grows the tree of life. It is not a single tree but a single kind of tree with innumerable trees bearing their fruit anew each month while its leaves are for the healing of the nations who people the earth abroad.
8. The Light of the City There is no light and there is no sun. If our sun has been renewed in yonder heavens, it is but as a taper compared with the glory of Him who is the Light of heaven. “For the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23). God Himself sheds His effulgence through the eternal day and He who is the “light, in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5) fills the heaven with the glory and brightness of His supernal presence. There is no need for rest. There is no cessation of the song or service. There is no yesterday and no tomorrow. There is no chronology and there is no time, but it is one glad, eternal now, and the happy beings know that their joy can never end, their day can never have a period.
9. The Temple of Heaven There is no temple there for God is the temple. No outward forms of worship are necessary in our conventional sense, for it is all worship, all love, all fellowship. Perhaps no language will be needed, but knowing as we are known, communing with God in the silent eloquence of the Spirit and undoubtedly knowing each other’s hearts as perfectly as God knows ours, heart to heart and soul to soul will flow together like kindred drops of water or globules of air and all will ever breathe out and send forth their adoration unto Him, who is the Source of Life and the Supreme Object of their worship and love. Yes, this is the city for which Abraham looked, the “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). This is “the heavenly Jerusalem” of which the apostle wrote where dwell the “thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly… the church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:22-23). This is the goal of ancient hope, the dream of ancient prophecy and the eternal reward of the sacrifices of the saint, the sufferings of the martyr and the love of those who counted all but loss for Christ. This is the vision that came to the seraphic soul of him who sang with almost inspired cadences, Oh, mother, dear Jerusalem When shall I come to thee? Then shall my sorrows have an end, When I thy joys shall see.
10. The Inhabitants of the City Three Classes Are Described:a. Those that are written in the Lamb’s book of life, Christ’s redeemed ones (Revelation 21:27). b. Those who wash their robes. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:14). This describes not only the saved ones but the sanctified also. c. Those that overcome. This is for the conqueror. After we have taken Christ as Savior and as Sanctifier we will be tested and we must withstand in the evil day and having done all, stand. While the Lord has said, “To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Revelation 21:6), He also adds immediately afterwards, “He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son” (Revelation 21:7). The palaces and thrones of the New Jerusalem are only for the conquerors.
11. The Outcasts On the other hand there is a very explicit account of those who are excluded. a. The cowardly (Revelation 21:8). This is the Greek translation of the word “fearful” there. The cowardly man is placed in contrast with the conqueror, the man who does not dare to overcome self and sin, but yields with cowardly selfishness and fear to the public opinion of the world and the clamor of his own heart. He cannot stand the tests that are necessary for this glorious prize and is disqualified and excluded. b. The unbelieving. The very organ and sense by which we will be able to know and understand that heavenly world, is a spirit of faith. A man without faith would be lost in heaven, blind to its life, deaf to its sounds, insensible to its sweetness and delight. c. The vile. That is those that sin against nature and the very instincts which God has put within us for our purity and protection against sin. d. The murderers, including all who are controlled by violent passions and the spirit of hate which is essentially murder. e. The sexually immoral, including all the forms of sensual and gross indulgence in impurity and licentiousness. f. Those who practice magic arts. Those who play with spiritualism, clairvoyance and all the various forms by which the devil in the present day is getting men to worship him, including Christian Science, theosophy and all kindred forms of spiritism. g. Idolaters, and this includes not only the worshipers of wood and stone but “greed, which is idolatry,” (Colossians 3:5) and “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). h. All liars are excluded. i. Everything that defiles. There will be no sin or possibility of sin in that holy place. j. All that are not written in the Lamb’s book of life, all the unsaved ones. Where do we stand? Looking up at that city of light, gazing down into that yawning abyss of fiery woe, once more let us hear Him say, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17).