Revelation 21

Though personal desert is closed at death, no man is then ready for final award in respect to the outcome of time. Though he has passed off the stage of life, and character has taken its final shape, he is still a factor in the forces of this world. The evil and the good men do, live after them; and what is seen to flow from their lives after death may far exceed all for which they were held responsible before death. In life they were just able to set the ball of influence in motion, and nothing has been able to arrest its progress. When will such a man as Paul be ready for the judgment? He is only more widely potential now than ever before, and the last trump will break upon his undiminished influence for good. So of all marked men and women, Christian and infidel, who in life throw the weight of their character for or against the Lord and his truth, and possibly commit to the stream of time a book which will live after them, a name which posterity will reverence or detest, and deeds which will be celebrated and have their influence upon coming generations.

Obviously, there is well-nigh no limit to the illustration of a fact which bears in upon us with an awful solemnity, and assures us that a hundred or a thousand years away our influence may be found incarnated in some noble or some vagabond life. We are not done with our influence till the story is all told, and its bearings upon the present economy are all registered in the Books, and the opening tells the story of our desert, and fixes our final place.

A general judgment has, also, a deep significance as the conclusion of an economy; the grand finale of a dispensation. Time was, and time shall be no longer, and what is the outcome of God’s government over men? For scores of centuries men have been swarming upon this earth. It has been the scene of the rise and fall of nations; of warring armies and bitter feuds; of religious faiths clashing at every point; of sweeping visitations of judgment and glorious dispensations of mercy! Clouds murky with the blackness of unbelief, and bright above the brightness of the sun with the radiance of a martyr-faith, have swept over it. And it is a fit and an august conclusion of a world-economy like this, that God should make apparent before all kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, the excellency and righteousness of his ways.

As the centuries shall pass in review, each life, each deed, exposed before all, to the searching light of that day, setting them in fairest view and in hidden springs, with all qualifying circumstances; the ways of providence no longer obscure; no sophistry any more allowed to dim the escutcheon of truth; no love of sin or blinding selfishness warping the judgment—as on and on the scroll of time unrolls, the antediluvian world, the patriarchal age, Israel’s kingly period, the new dispensation of gospel light, and the final act of history is reached, bringing out, as it certainly will, the unsullied glory of the government of God over men, angels, and devils—one can almost hear, from the depths of that future, the acclaim, in which even the condemned must acquiesce, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing!” Haydn.

21:1 AND I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth 2 were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with 4 them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto 6 me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am 7 Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the 7 fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will 8 be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

9. And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the 10 Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and 11 shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, hav- ing the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper 12 stone, clear as crystal; and had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

13. On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the 14 west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names 15 of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he that talked with me had a golden reed to mea- 16 sure the city, and the gates thereof, and the walls thereof. And the city fleth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve 17 thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, a hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure 18 of a man, that is, of the angels. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and 19 the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city 20 were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl; and the 22 street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. And I saw no temple therein: 23 for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the 24 Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the 25 light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the 26 gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they 27 shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it. And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

22: 1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of 2 the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her 3 fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and 4 his servants shall serve him: and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their 5 foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

THE Lamb who on earth was declared to be “the light of the world,” is in heaven equally declared to be “the light thereof.” In the infinite progression of holiness that belongs to an infinite existence of glory, we shall be but drawing more and more freely from an infinite source; the Holy One that “in- habiteth eternity” is inexhaustible as the eternity he inhabits. Christ is as necessary to the heavenliness of heaven as he is to the holiness of earth. The abiding sanctity of his nature is the condition of ours. In the eternal laws of the divine reason it is decreed that Christ shall be the authorized dispenser of spiritual blessedness to his redeemed; that every grace shall flow through his channel, or cease to flow, and to this law, universal in the world of time and sense, eternity can bring no termination, heaven pre- sent no exception. W. A. B.—God designs that we shall expect and desire the heaven he has prepared, not because we know what is there, but because we trust him, and believe that it is a world where the law of Christ has unobstructed and perfect sway. To kindle and sustain in us that faith, his word represents heaven under images which, in their natural sense, are quite incompatible with each other. It is a city of gems and gold, it is an open country with trees and running water, it is a world with no more sea, and it is a sea of glass, it is a house, and it is an innumerable multitude of worshipers on a mountain top before the throne. These are the helps applied to our feeble spiritual sense through the imagination. But underneath the uncertainties of imagination there is a fixed and solid substance of revealed truth. To this truth every separate image points, exhibiting some one or another of its attractive faces. The truth itself is, that of that society of redeemed souls, glad in their infinite joy, Jesus Christ is the center, the light, and the life. There is no discord or division there, because he is love, and there—as it is not here—every spirit and the whole place take their law and temper from him. Nothing that is defiled or that maketh a lie enters there, because he is pure and true. If the memory of the miseries of this life remains at all, such recollections will not be painful; the knotted problems will all be loosened and dissolved in the celestial chemistry of some strange, new light; for he has pledged himself that there shall be no pain there: no sick-beds; no broken friendships; no lost love; no aching heart; they shall hunger no more. There will be no wretchedness of unfulfilled desire, of failure to do right, of unanswered affection, of baffled aspiration and poor performance, because, having chosen him before all, and got clear of all the earthly competitions and shortcomings, we shall have enough in having him, and shall be satisfied with his likeness. F. D. H.

WE have seen that the events of a thousand years—the invasion by Gog and Magog, with their defeat; the ultimate confinement and punishment of Satan; and, lastly, the general judgment—are all crowded into the space of teelee verses (20 : 4-15). This shows that the very distant future is designed to be merely glanced at by the writer. So it is with our Hebrew prophets. But here there is special reason for brevity. The main object of writing the book is already accomplished in substance. Christians have been consoled by assurances that all the enemies with whom the Church was in conflict would surely be overthrown. That the writer should enlarge so much as he has done in the last two chapters, in the description of the new Jerusalem and the final and glorified state of the Church, falls entirely within his general plan. He set out to cheer desponding Christians, and animate them in the great contest that was going on to fidelity, fortitude, and perseverance, by assurances of certain victory here and of eternal crowns of glory hereafter. Often, in the course of the work, he opens heaven to the eye of faith, and makes it to see the glories there enjoyed. Often he repeats the most solemn assurances of future happiness. Why should he not close with a description of this which would cause every heart to beat high with hope and joy, and make the faithful followers of Christ regardless of persecution and distress? M. S.

The coming of the Lord is not the last thing which we know. After that event has closed the present age, after the victory has been won and the judgment has dealt with things that are past, the final results appear and the true life of man begins. The doctrine of the book is ultimately and pre-eminently one of restoration. The drama of the world must be finished and its dispensation closed.

The Lord must have come, the dead have been raised, the judgment have sat, the heavens and the earth which are now have passed away, and the new creation have appeared, before the chosen people shall see the city of their habitation. Here, at the last step, we have a definite and satisfactory completion of the former doctrine of the future. There is to be a perfect humanity; not only perfect individually, but perfect in society. There is to be a city of God. “The Holy City!”—there is the realization of the true tendencies of man. “New Jerusalem!”—there is the fulfillment of the ancient promises of God. Dwell for a moment on the word “city,” under the remembrance of what it was to those in whose language the book is written. The city is a constitution of society complete in its own local habitation, the visible collection of buildings being a symbol of the organized life within. It is the most perfect realization and the most convenient representation of society in its maturity, in which the various relations of men are so combined as to promote the welfare of the several members and secure the unity of a common life to the whole. “It is” (as has been said) “the perfecting of the self-provisions of Nature, and the condition of the highest well-being of man.”

The Bible is one long account of the preparation of the city of God. We are accustomed in the present day to read it too exclusively from the individual point of view, as the record for each man of that will of God and that way of salvation with which he is personally concerned. This it is, but it is more than this. It places before us the restoration, not only of the personal, but of the social life; the creation, not only of the man of God, but of the city of God; and it presents the society or city, not as a mere name for the congregation of individuals, but as having a being and life of its own, in which the Lord finds his satisfaction and man his perfection. The “Jerusalem which is above” is, in relation to the Lord, “the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife,” and, in relation to man, it is “the Mother of us all.” In its appearance the revealed course of redemption culminates, and the history of man is closed; and thus the last chapters of the Bible declare the unity of the whole book, by completing the design which has been developed in its pages, and disclosing the result to which all preceding steps have tended. Take from the Bible the final vision of the heavenly Jerusalem, and what will have been lost? Not merely a single passage, a sublime description, an important revelation; but a conclusion by which all that went before is interpreted and justified. We should have an unfinished plan, in which human capacities have not found their full realization, or divine preparations their adequate result. To the mind that looks beyond individual life, or that understands what is needful to the perfection of individual life, a Bible that did not end by building for us a city of God would appear to leave much in man unprovided for, and much in itself unaccounted for. But, as it is, neither of these deficiencies arises. Revelation decrees not only the individual happiness, but the corporate perfection of man; and closes the book of its prophecy by assuring the children of the living God that he hath prepared for them a city. T. D. B.

The vision of holy Jerusalem recalls a similar one in the Book of Ezekiel. When that prophet was in exile, and the city of Jerusalem was desolate, he was “brought in the visions of God into the land of Israel,” and set upon “a very high mountain by which was the frame of a city on the south.” He proceeds to describe that ideal city and its temple. Now was John in exile, and Jerusalem lay desolate; and he was taken “in the spirit,” or in the visions of God, “to a great and high mountain,” where he saw Jerusalem in splendor “descending out of heaven from God” (v. 2). The city described has within it the glory of God; a brightness as of jasper, or rather of what we call the diamond, clear as crystal. A city gate in the East was the seat and symbol of justice and power. This city has twelve magnificent gates, each one “a several pearl.” The gate-keepers are holy angels. The names inscribed on the gates are those of the twelve tribes of Israel, God’s covenant people, in contrast with the “names of blasphemy” seen on the mystic Babylon (vs. 11, 12). The foundations of the walls are twelve precious stones; and on them are inscribed “the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” This indeed is noble fame. Where are the names of those who treated the apostles with contumely as the offscouring of all things? The high priests and elders who imprisoned them, the emperors and governors who sat in judgment on them, where will their names be found? In oblivion or in infamy. But the very foundations of the city of God must crumble away, before the names of the twelve apostles can be lost (v. 14). The wall is great and high: and the city itself a cube of unparalleled size. That which Ezekiel saw was very vast, as measured by an angel. But we are not to literalize the measurements in one case or the other. In Hebrew symbolism, all consideration of symmetrical form is subordinated to that of religious significance. And it is as absurd to materialize the holy Jerusalem as it is to literalize the cherubic figures (v. 16). The city is of pure gold, a symbol of entire sacredness. In Scripture, silver is the metal of commerce; gold of royal dignity and of sacred value. It is especially mentioned that “the street” is of pure gold; not the streets, but the broadway or place of civic concourse. It is implied that daily intercourse, public opinion, and social life will all be pure and holy to the Lord (v. 18). Externalism in divine worship is superseded. No more need of temples made with hands, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of the holy city. Nay, the very sun and moon shall be needless in the blaze of divine glory, shining on the city of the saints (vs. 22, 23). There are kings and nations, not dwelling in the city, who bring offerings and homage to its gates. This, too, is in contrast with what has been said of great Babylon, which weakened the kings of the earth who supported it, and hurt the prosperity of nations (v. 24). The crowning glory of Jerusalem in this vision is its purity. The earth itself will not be purged of all impurity, till it is renewed by fire; the nations, even in millennial times, shall not be free of plagues, for they require “healing”; but the city, symbolic of the Church, will admit no unclean persons, idolaters, or liars, but those only “who are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (v. 27). O blessed Civitas Dei! The ransomed shall see it with still greater joy than filled the way-worn and war-worn crusaders, when at last they looked on the city which had drawn them from afar, and shouted Jerusalem! Jerusalem! The vision is prolonged (22 : 1-5) so as to show us Paradise restored. The waters of Eden and the tree of life reappear. The former flow in one shining river from the throne of God and the Lamb which is within the city. [This also is a reproduction of the river which Ezekiel saw issuing from the sanctuary and giving life whithersoever it flowed, ch 47.] The tree of life stands “in midst of the street,” or chief place of concourse, open to all the citizens; and such trees line both banks of the river, yielding fresh fruit every month. The curse which fell on man for disobedience in Eden is now removed. It is a paradise of obedience. The servants of God openly honor and serve him; therefore they shine in his light, and reign for ever and ever. D. F.

Every beautiful and precious object on earth is a type and a shadow of heaven. The whole visible universe, with its manifold works of divine wisdom and power, is but a volume of illustrations, leading us by easy steps to the knowledge of that world of infinite love above and beyond the stars. The Spirit of all truth has interpreted these pictures with exquisite clearness and grace. The Book of Revelation, especially in its closing chapters, is illuminated with a wealth of imagery beside which all the poet’s dreams of the golden age and all man’s uninspired aspirations of the good time coming are poor and mean. Here is the perfection of all beauty, a light ineffable, to which the sun can add no brightness; a celestial paradise, infinitely surpassing the garden which the Creator’s own hand planted eastward in Eden; an eternal city, of which God is the builder, the temple, and the light. And the inhabitants of the heavenly world are in harmony with their dwelling-place, for “the nations of them that are saved walk in the light of it.” From the feet that tread those golden streets, or wander in the sweet fields of everlasting spring, all defilement is removed and all weariness has departed; from the eyes that behold those heaven-built walls and fountains of living water God has wiped all tears away; and the voices that flow together in the anthems of celestial rapture know no note of sadness for evermore. O blessed vision of unfading glory! O sweet, seraphic vision of perfect purity and peace, of eternal rest, of joy unspeakable! V. D.

1. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth”—the same, yet not the same, because gloriously renewed in symmetry and beauty by the Almighty power, and adapted to the residence of beings of a higher physical, intellectual, and moral order than the children of Adam—viz., the children of the resurrection; a world as far superior to this as this excels the dismal earth that existed before the Creator fitted up Adam’s dwelling-place, a scene of vast thickets and marshy flats, where, through the gloom, huge saurians sought their prey, and “dragons tare each other in the slime.” In the arrangement of heaven and earth described in Genesis, the sea has prominent mention: but in the new home of the blessed, John saw “no more sea”; no separating waste of briny waters; sweet fountains and rivers of pleasures, but no cruel, restless, stormy sea. D. F.—Life is a voyage over a turbulent sea; changing circumstances come rolling after each other, like the undistinguishable billows of the great ocean. Tempests and storms rise. There is wearisome sailing, no peace, but “ever climbing up the climbing wave.” That is life! But for all that, there is an end to it some day; and it is worth while for us to think about our “island home, far, far beyond the sea.” Surely some of us have learned the weariness of the work and voyage of this world. Surely some of us are longing to find anchorage while the storm lasts, and a haven at the end. There is one, if only you will believe it, and set yourselves toward it. On the shore stands the Christ; and there is rest there. There is no more sea, but unbroken rest, unchanging blessedness, perpetual stability of joy, and love in the Father’s house. Are we going there? Are we living for Christ? Then, “he brings us to the desired haven.” A. M.

2. This grand conception—a vast city let down from the highest heaven—should be thought of as a thing of symbol rather than of reality. Jerusalem—a name dear above all other names to the ancient saints—dear because it was the city where God dwelt with his people and where all the hallowed associations of his presence and worship clustered together—became the fitting symbol for the new heavenly state. Remarkably it appears here in forms of perfect beauty; even as the bride adorned for her husband in the holy scenes of marriage. This comparison appears again (vs. 9, 10)—the city in its virgin attire, arrayed for that one hour most eventful of her life, where taste, adornment, and beauty are more in place than ever elsewhere. The reader will notice that this conception is essentially the same which we have in the Song of Solomon and which appears in various forms throughout the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament writers—the Church washed from her sins, clothed in white, her loving heart given in virgin simplicity and purity to her glorious husband, her Jesus—at once both lover, lord, and king. This symbol fitly gives us the grand consummation of the heavenly state. H. C.

3. With men . . . his people. Personality is the crowning fact of history. It thrills the life of to-day; it will make the society of heaven resplendent. What would be the significance of heavenly fellowships if Abraham is not to be recognized as the man who was called from Ur of the Chaldees to be the father of the faithful! What if David is not to be recognized as the shepherd king, author of a psalmody that will never grow old; a great sinner profoundly penitent, washing his hands in innocency and humbly trusting in the mercy of God! What if Paul, “the greatest purely human power in history,” is not to be known as the man whose writings we have read, loved, and cherished, and whose flaming life kindled our souls in the warfare we were called to wage! In this fact of personality, never to be weakened, making life, here and for ever, a continuous chain without a missing link, lies the possibility of a social, intellectual, loving, serving, worshipful existence in the eternal home of the redeemed, such as we but faintly imagine. Heaven will be a commonwealth of living personalities, numberless, peerless, sinless; gathered out of every people, and tongue, and kindred, and nation of the earth; coming up from the moral battle-fields of this world to the Mount of God; the powers that made them shine, that made them useful and beloved, that made them immortal upon earth, only enhanced in brilliancy; and their deeds only set in bolder relief, as justifying the honor put upon them by the righteous judge. Haydn.

God himself with them. The best intercourse of the most favored men with their Maker, in the transfigurations of devotion, is imperfect. It is unsatisfactory, and provokes hungering and thirstings after some manifestation of God more direct and sensible. Meanwhile this process of spiritual reconciliation and recovery is going on, and the promise of redemption is that man again shall see the face of his God. Now, partially restored, man sees through a glass darkly, but ultimately his intercourse with his Maker shall be immediate, uninterrupted, direct, and joyful. Through the mighty power of him who assumed our nature, we shall be as truly reconciled to God, harmonized with him, and associated with him, as if the shadow of sin, and fear, and repulsion, had never passed upon the soul. W. A.

4. Could language well be more exhaustive of the ills of life which are thus for ever excluded from the paradise of God? Death, pain, sorrow, crying, tears, all manner of curse! Each word tells a tale which every human life has helped to make tragic and awful. They have all displayed their worst as the fruit of sin and been made the instruments of discipline against sin, and now, with it left out, their mission is ended. God be praised! We shall see the last of these. A single glance through this open window reveals a consummation of the kingdom of life and glory which fitly concludes and sublimely crowns the history of this world’s conflicts and trials. Haydn.—We are not told what heaven is, nor of what its joys consist; but nothing that has here caused evil or suffering shall be there. The apostle pictures before him all the woe of this world; and he takes his pencil, dipped in the incandescent light of heaven, and draws it across the scene, and every vestige of sorrow vanishes, and the golden city of God fills the whole vision. This wondrous blessedness shall be given to every one who trusts lovingly in Christ. J. P. T.—None too soon can we give up expecting to have our weary questionings answered here, and begin to look for the bright appearing of our Lord and Saviour to clear away all the clouds and turn our night into day. It is to be accepted with a sublime faith in the power and faithfulness of God, that this is a sphere of broken households, of wedlocks and partings, of hopes and disappointments, of welcomes and adieux, and nothing else is to be expected till he who is the resurrection and the life makes all things new, and the gathering together of his people is into a kingdom which death shall not invade. Haydn.

The former things are passed away. How all that is loftiest in human conception—its learning, its philosophy, and its poetry—pale before one glance at such a scene! Sorrow passed away, and the unclouded dawn begun! All that humanity groans for, all that man asks of nature and that nature can not give, all that love (the essential spirit of the universe) outpoured upon its chosen objects could bestow, all seen to be the bright lot of these blessed ones, and all for eternity! The love of knowledge satisfied in the perpetual contemplation of the substantial truth; the love of beauty in the unveiled source of all that is beautiful; the love of happiness in the enjoyment of secure and perpetual bliss; the love of the fellow-creatures in the society of holy and responding brother-spirits: and this to be for ever! W. A. B.—This life, so full of conscious power, so bright with immortal love, so divine in its glorious fellowships, so grand with tuneful harmonies and holy blessedness of inward rapture and perfect knowledge, is æonian. It is life eternal. Heaven will never cease to be a holy temple. The tabernacle of God will never be withdrawn from men. The Song of Moses and the Lamb will never die away into forgetful silence. Darkness will never shroud the glory of God in awful eclipse. Sin will never enter; the unclean thing will never defile the city of God, the inheritance of those who hear his—‘Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ It is life æonian—life eternal! Haydn.

6. In this shadowy state of mortal life, unbelief is for ever crowding redemption into a corner—conceiving it to be the faith of a few people, the concern of Sabbath days, the mere comfort of the sick and dying; but in the illumination of eternity, redemption will be seen as the great end and unity of all things human, the key of history, the harmony of events, the beginning and the ending of this world’s life. Then shall we attach new meaning to the august titles of our Lord—the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the King of kings and Lord of lords—for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever! W. A.

8. The ’lake of fire and brimstone, the blackness of darkness for ever,’ are words of a terrible signification. But no words can fully express the terrible ingredients of their misery; the punishment will be in proportion to the glory of God’s majesty that is provoked, and the extent of his power. And as the soul was the principal, and the body but an accessory, in the works of sin, so its capacious faculties shall be far more tormented than the limited faculties of the outward senses. Bates.

We do not expect to find the New Jerusalem a city whose walls are four hundred and fifty leagues in length, breadth, and height. The figure is that of a perfect cube, like the holy of holies in the temple, and indicates its perfectness, as the dwelling-place of God. We are not actually looking for a city of gold, “as it were transparent glass,” the foundations of whose walls are garnished with all manner of precious stones, and whose twelve gates are as many resplendent pearls. Ideas of its perfectness and its glory must be given us, if at all, through some sort of imagery. And how better than by putting for commonest uses, such as walls, gates, and streets, the rarest, costliest, most coveted things of earth; by making the glory of God like a jasper stone, clear as crystal, the light of a city which is being let down from heaven, and all so holy, so divine, as to be one grand and solemn temple! We do not empty this imagery of its content; we seize it as embodying an unspeakable fact which language, under the breath of the Divine Spirit, labors to express. We are bound to do the same thing by the “bottomless pit,” “the lake of fire and brimstone,” “the smoke of torment,” “the Gehenna of fire.” These, like the others, are material symbols of solemn and awful facts in the life beyond death. We have no right to empty them of their content any more than we have to insist upon their literal interpretation. The one symbolizes the abode of holiness and righteousness, which may well be glorious as language can paint it; its river, water of life, straight from the throne of God; its tree, a tree of life yielding perennial fruit. The other symbolizes the place where “the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars,” shall congregate. There is a place there that corresponds to their true character. It is described under the awful imagery of a “lake of fire,” and the torment of a guilty conscience is a “worm that never dies,” and a “fire that is never quenched.” We are not at liberty to make the Christian heaven a Mohammedan paradise of sensual delights. We are no more at liberty to make the Gehenna of lost men a mediæval hell of physical torments. Haydn.

14. Names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.** The builders of cities are celebrated in history, but here are men whose names are associated with the very foundations of that heavenly city, the “new Jerusalem,” “which is above all.” They had the Saviour’s constant instructions. They enjoyed his daily care and love. They received the

Holy Ghost and the gift of tongues. They spread the knowledge of his name to the ends of the earth. Their names are symbolically represented to us as inscribed in the foundation stones of heaven, because they were honored with the work of building up the kingdom of Christ from its foundations; and all who are saved are said to be built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. N. A.

22,23. That no temple is there shows that it rises high above the earthly Jerusalem in which the temple was the preëminent glory. That it needs not the sun or the moon for its light testifies in like manner that its glory far transcends the glory of earth. It is everything to that world that God and the Lamb are there! are there in such revelations of their glory and in such relations to their redeemed sons and daughters as language and symbols strive in vain to set forth. H. C.—God is the source of the light and the Lamb is the medium through which it shines. He is “the image of the invisible God”—“the Word” by which the whole mind of God is expressed. By the works of creation produced “by him and for him”; by his providence which develops God’s designs (for the Lamb was appointed to open all the seals); by his great mediatorial work; by the instructions which he has imparted in person and through his prophets and apostles; and by the Spirit which acts under him; he has brought forth all the light which has been shed on the character, government, and designs of God. Add to this, that the splendor surrounding his human body, and which he will impart to the bodies of his saints as the royal robes in which the sons of God are to be set forth, will pour immortal day upon the senses. Griffin.—Then we shall behold him, who is the sun from whom our light comes, the King from whom our royalty comes, the Priest who gives us our priesthood, the Lamb who has bought us our salvation; and the more we gaze the more we shall love. A. W. T.

The light thereof. There are two ideas generally connected with the word “light” in Scripture, when used in a spiritual sense—one primary idea, knowledge, because light shows us things as they are; and then a secondary idea, joy, because a right knowledge of spiritual things imparts joy. When, therefore, we are told that there is light in heaven, that God dwells in light there, that the inheritance of the saints there is an inheritance in light, we are to understand that heaven is a world of knowledge, and such knowledge as gives rise to pleasure and joy; that we shall not lose our character as intellectual beings there; that our minds and understandings will go with us to heaven, and be called into exercise in heaven, and have everything brought before them, that can expand, and elevate, and delight them. C. B.—Unto God eternal light was ever: created light was for the creation, not himself, and as he saw before the sun, may still also see without it. In the city of the new Jerusalem there is neither sun nor moon; where glorified eyes must see by the archetypal sun, or the light of God, able to illuminate intellectual eyes, and make unknown visions. Intuitive perceptions in spiritual beings may perhaps hold some analogy unto vision; but yet how they see us, or one another, what eye, what light, or what perception is required unto their intuition, is yet dark unto our apprehension; and even how they see God, or how unto our glorified eyes the beatifical vision will be celebrated, another world must tell us, when perceptions will be new and we may hope to behold invisibles. Browne.

26. Vast, and beyond all comprehension, is the temple of eternity; but it is still growing. All they who, before Christ, confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth, and died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off—all these are in the kingdom and temple of Christ. All the redeemed, the fruit of all the centuries since the Lord was received up into heaven, are in his kingdom. Imagine the mighty gathering! Imagine one God, one Christ, one Spirit, and one temple! Imagine the number of glorified human forms which will compose that living temple! Imagine every heart full of the vehemence of love, and every tongue burdened with praise! Pulsford.

24. Walk in the light of it.** It has been observed by Cudworth that divine wisdom hath so ordered the frame of the whole universe that everything should have its own appropriate receptacle, to which it shall be drawn by all the mighty force of an irresistible affinity; and, as all heavenly bodies press toward the common center of gravity, so is all sin, by a kind of strong sympathy and magnetic influence, drawn toward hell; while, on the other hand, all holiness is continually drawn upward to heaven, to embosom itself in glory. Heaven is not merely a thing to come; it is in one sense a present possession; for “he that believeth in the Son hath everlasting life.” It is rather a state than a place—a state within us, rather than a thing without us; it is the likeness, and the enjoyment, and the service of God; that which every true Christian carries in his bosom now, and to which he will fully enter hereafter, when he shall be made perfect in love. To this state all true religion is ever tending; the spirit of love is the motion and progress of the soul toward its eternal rest in the presence of God. No man can be prepared for the celestial felicity while his heart is destitute of this; and whosoever has most of it knows most of the unseen and ineffable joys of the righteous. He lives in the vestibule of the heavenly temple, and is ready, whenever its doors shall be opened, to enter into the dwelling-place of God. The image of God is upon him, and the likeness of Deity is always attended with something of the happiness of the Deity. Oh, the bliss of that state, where the faculties of the mind, inconceivably expanded, shall let in the full streams of the divine beneficence, and open themselves to the uttermost to comprehend the breadth and length, the depth and height, of that love which passeth knowledge; where divine goodness will so act directly upon the soul as to raise it to a state of holy enjoyment surpassing all our present imaginations. J. A. J.

27. There is no figure of speech to be evaded or explained away in the words which affirm that “there shall in nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither worketh abomination, nor maketh a lie.” Were it otherwise, what would the story of redemption mean? What empty rhetoric the invitations and warnings of Jesus become! But now, from a world that sin has cursed, from hells on earth where the worm now gnaws and the fire is already kindled; from eyes blear with sin, and hearts livid with blackness; from far-off, strange lands of prodigal wanderings; from haunts lurid with evil thinking, evil speaking, evil doing, and ghastly with near proximity to the pit; from heights where pride looks coldly down in self-righteousness—men are bidden to look away to the Mount of God; to flee from the wrath to come; to lay hold of eternal life; and in their impotence, uncleanness, their pride, their madness, their despair, to look to him, who in love and might comes forth to save that which is lost, and bring the wanderer home! Laying hold of him, following him, the defiling thing is left behind; the defiling haunts are forsaken; the true and upright life is entered upon; the righteous character is in process of formation. Think not to enter heaven but through Christ, the door. Haydn.

22:1. Since this river of water of life proceeds from the throne, it intimates that in grace and mercy there is great majesty; for grace, as it proceeds, has a voice from the throne. And indeed there is nothing in heaven or earth that has such majesty and commanding greatness in and upon the hearts of the sons of men, as has the grace of God. There is nothing overmastereth the heart like grace, and so obligeth to sincere and unfeigned obedience as that. Bun.—However profound the knowledge to which they have attained, however pure the white robes in which they are arrayed, however exquisite the felicity which they enjoy, however boundless and magnificent the prospects that are stretched out before them—they are indebted for them all solely and exclusively to the sovereign grace of God, manifested through Jesus Christ his Son. Every stream, every spring, every drop of the water of life proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and the glory, the stability, the security, the everlasting blessedness of every saint or angel that belongs to the glorified hosts is resting upon that fact. And as it is just as impossible for that river to be dried up, or despoiled of its virtues, or diverted from its course, as it is for God’s throne to be demolished, or the regal crown torn from the great Redeemer’s head, we conclude that there shall be the bursting forth everlastingly, and through all the ages of an interminable eternity, of the river of the water of life, of which the saints drink, and which maketh glad the city of our God, and that, therefore, the glory of the saints shall be contemporaneous with the throne of Jehovah, and durable as the government of eternity. J. A. W.

2. The harmonious unity of Scripture is herein exhibited. The fathers compared it to a ring, an unbroken circle, returning into itself. Between the events of Genesis and those at the close of the Apocalypse, at least six thousand or seven thousand years intervene; and between Moses the first writer, and John the last, about fifteen hundred years. How striking it is that, as in the beginning we found Adam and Eve, his bride, in innocence in Paradise, then tempted by the serpent, and driven from the tree of life, and from the pleasant waters of Eden, yet not without a promise of a Redeemer who should crush the serpent, so at the close, the old serpent cast out for ever by the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, who appears with his bride, the Church, in a better Paradise, and amid better waters (v. 1); the tree of life also is there with all its healing properties, not guarded with a flaming sword, but open to all who overcome (2 : 7), and there is no more curse. Fausset.—While in this New Jerusalem there is no more “sea”—that being a symbol of whatever is agitating, uncertain, tempestuous; there is a river, a precious oriental symbol of blessings, for ever flowing, naturally insuring perennial verdure, trees and shade unfailing, and exemption from thirst and barrenness—the sore evils of oriental tropical regions. This tree of life and its various fruits come also from Ezek. 47 (see v. 12), where obviously we have the plural, “trees.” So also here, there must be trees. The meaning seems to be that these trees lined either bank of the river between it and the streets which also ran parallel on each side—a scene of superlative beauty. H. C.

In that he saith this city hath a tree of life in it, he alludes to the garden of Eden, the pleasant paradise that God began the world withal; whereby he signifies, that as the world began with a paradise, so also it shall end with a paradise, when sin and Satan have done their worst. This new Jerusalem shall be the wind-up of the world; and in it shall stand the tree of life, as there stood one in the goodly garden which was the beginning thereof. Now, this tree of life being in the midst of this city, it signifies that the inhabitants of it shall be sweetly shadowed, refreshed, and defended with its coolness, and also sweetly nourished and comforted with its dainties. Bun.

3. Shall serve him.** It is perfectly clear that heaven is a state of vigorous employment. The worlds which God has made are the theatre where labor is to be performed, where the designs of Jehovah are to be accomplished by human and by angelic agency. Those new heavens and that new earth will be filled with means and instruments for diffusing happiness, for doing good. They shall follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. They shall serve God day and night in his temple. They shall rest only from sin and from its effects, from calamity, pain, sickness, pollution, and death. B. B. E.—Next to the removal of every curse, the perfection of body, soul, and spirit, and the actual vision of God, is the joyful activity of man’s renovated nature. Occupation was the pleasure of innocence. Man was made for action, as streams are made to flow. He was God’s image and likeness, and God is life and action, motion and power. Sin entered, and retribution changed work into labor. The curse doomed man to earn and eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. Christianity has immensely modified and changed man’s condition already; the curse has been mitigated and lightened; and we have only to anticipate the promised time when there shall be no more curse, to satisfy ourselves what enjoyment will spring from the unwearied exercise of our immortal powers. What forms of service await restored humanity—what occupations shall furnish occasion for its renovated activity—to what labor of love, what ministrations of mercy, what vigorous work, or sweet grace, the redeemed shall be invited—we may not conjecture; but surely he who gives us so much to do on earth, and so much pleasure in doing it, will not fail, amid the relations of all worlds and all beings, in furnishing to man restored to his loyalty abundant occupation. W. A.—Sleepless, unfatigued, needing neither food nor rest, subject to no wants, weaknesses, or wearinesses, how may the redeemed be ever plying the glad and busy task of acting out the impulses of their own spiritual nature, and doing the pleasure of the Lord that bought them! And when all is spiritual, and all immortal, what an opening is there for the spiritual and immortal soul—possessed of a kindred body, and ushered into a congenial world; to express itself in communion with all holy intelligence, unembarrassed and unclogged by any

perishable claims; to receive pure light from the light that shines all around in “the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness”; and to go forth, with strength proportioned to its own untiring aspirations, on the errands of God’s holy righteousness and love over all the realms of creation. Candlish.