Jeanie C. Crain http://crain.english.missouriwestern.edu

Revelation 19–20

Coming of Christ, the millennium, and the last judgment (Matthew 24.27–31)

Revelation 21

Descent of the bride, New Jerusalem, in counterpoint with the fall of Babylon (Revelation 17.1 and Revelation 21.9)

22 River of water of life flowing from the throne of God; on either side of river is tree of life with twelve kinds of fruit.  Servants of God will see Lamb's face and have His name written on their foreheads.  God is light (5)

Finally, in Revelation 21, the reader hears, "It is done!"  Just prior to this utterance, a loud voice from the throne in heaven has proclaimed, "See, the home of God is among mortals...See, I am making all things new" (3, 6). This is the consummation, the renewal of creation.  John sees "a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away" (1).  Where exactly is John when he sees "the holy city, the new Jerusalem" (2).  He seems to be somewhere between the old and new creation; he still observes as a human, for he describes new Jerusalem as "coming down out of heaven, adorned for her husband" (2).  That is, he is still thinking in similes and spatial orientation.  The One who speaks with the loud voice from the throne reveals Himself to be "the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end" (6).  The primary motif of Revelation is restated: "Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children" (7). The godless, however, face the second death: "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death" (8). This opening introduces one of the seven angels which had the seven bowls full of the last seven plagues, but the invitation this time is "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb" (9).  John in the spirit is carried away to a great, high mountain where he sees the holy Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God (10). Of course, he had already begun to see in the second verse of the chapter.  The rest of chapter twenty-one describes the city.  In this celestial city, no temple is needed "for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (22).  The glory of  God provides its light (23). Nations and kings of the earth will bring in glory as will people bring in the glory and honor of nations (24, 26).  The reader will note, too, that this new Jerusalem is measured by the angel who has talked to John (15-21), a measuring which corresponds with the measuring of the earthly temple in chapter eleven (1-13). One recalls that the temple and those who worshipped there were measured with the intent to preserve.

Barbara Nathanson in The Oxford Companion to the Bible summarizes the importance of the New Jerusalem in light of the Old Jerusalem:

But after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 587/586 bce, the exilic prophets envisioned a new Jerusalem, which was simultaneously a rebuilding and restoration of the old and also an idealized city, both grander and more enduring than its predecessor, offering its inhabitants a relationship with God and concomitant peace and prosperity. For Jeremiah, the rebuilt Jerusalem was well grounded in the old, even in its physical contours (Jeremiah 30.18; Jeremiah 31.38–40). Ezekiel, who understood Jerusalem as "in the center of the nations, with countries all around her" (Ezekiel 5.5), celebrates a new city and a new Temple, areas of radiating holiness, fruitfulness, and well-being (Ezekiel 40–48), where God’s glory will again reside: "And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord is There" (Ezekiel 48.35). Second Isaiah is consoling in its assertion that Jerusalem "has served her term, that her penalty is paid" (Isaiah 40.2). The gates of the new city will always be open (Isaiah 60.11), and the Lord will be its everlasting light (Isaiah 60.19–20). "No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime" (Isaiah 65.20).

The hopes and expectations of the exilic prophets were realized in part with the rebuilding of the city and Temple during the latter half of the sixth century bce, the first generation of Persian rule. Both, however, would be destroyed by the Roman army in 70 ce. The Temple was never rebuilt. In the generation before its destruction, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher and statesman Philo wrote that the Jews "hold the Holy City where stands the sacred Temple of the most high God to be their mother city" (Flaccum 46). The destruction of the Temple and "mother city" was both a great blow and a great challenge to Jews, inside and outside of Israel. Some Jewish apocalyptic texts from this period envisioned that at the end time, the heavenly Jerusalem, fashioned by God, would descend to earth; others envisioned a heavenly Jerusalem that awaited the righteous above. In either case, the renewal of Jerusalem was integral to the vision of the end time, a role already suggested in the eschatological visions of the exilic and postexilic prophets.

When John tries to describe heaven, he "ransacks the resources of language and metaphor" (F.F. Bruce, The International Bible Commentary) for very good reasons.  Genesis assumes the existence of God: "In the beginning, God" (Genesis 1.1).  This is an appeal to faith, not reason; the Hebrew mind did not think in terms of dualism: in Hebrew thought, "God's breath animates the dust and it becomes a living being or psychological-physical self" (NRSV Oxford Annotation). "The Bible assumes the existence of the one and only Lord God, and chronicles the covenant of faith between God and the Jewish People.. through God's direct communication and revelation, the personal relationship between God and humankind is demonstrated" (Rabbi Wayne Dosick, Living Judaism: The Complete Guide to Jewish Belief, Tradition, and Practice, 11). Rabbi Dosick explains that ca. 200-6000 B.C.E., sages responded to the challenges of rationalism.  As a result, arguments for God's existence included design: the earth needed a builder; God is mind (Philo 20 B.C.E.-50 C.E); cosmological reasoning: God is the unmoved mover (Maimonides1135-1204 C.E.) ; God is limitless, infinite, and unknowable (Kabbalists, thirteenth century); and God, the universe, and nature are one (Spinoza 1632-1677).  All such reasoning patterns affect what  individuals can say about God, the infinite, and the eternal.  Martin Buber called God the "Eternal Now," invoking a Presence that he believed could not be proved, defined, or described.  I personally have been very much affected by Western rationalism, enough so to understand that any Tower of Babel built ambitiously to reach God will topple.  Any rational structure will find itself confined to the limitations imposed by finite conditions.  Language soars, as it does in John and other great poetry, but metaphor and simile relate what can be known to what ultimately is greater than its description.  John can only tell us what the New Jerusalem is like: a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal... the city is pure gold, clear as  glass..." (10-21). It is not without irony that life becomes a wrestling with words to move beyond and escape their limitations.  In fact, the yearning is itself an expression of messianic hope. Still, one needs to be careful in choosing words: to "escape" limitations, for example, commits one to a "caged soul" dualism rather than the Hebrew  body animated by spirit. :The Gospel of John states, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1.1). Effectively, John uses metaphor to express what might otherwise be inexpressible: God and Word are One.

John remains consistently universalist:  "on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites" (12) while on the twelve foundations "are the twelve names of the twelve apostles" (14). In the city itself, "nations will walk by its light" (23).  "The true Israel is the new Israel, as indeed Jesus implied when 'he appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out...' (Mark 3.14; cf. the implications of Mt. 19:28; Lk 22:30); it comprises all of the faithful of Old and New Testament times alike" (F.F. Bruce, The International Bible Commentary).

John quite clearly points out the limitations imposed upon the angel's measurement of the New Jerusalem: "The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold... by human measurement which the angel was using" (15, 17).  John's city would seem to be a cube: "foursquare, its length the same as its width... its length, width, and height the same" (16). The Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple would, also, seem to be a cube: "The interior of the inner sanctuary was  twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high" (I Kings 6.20).

Humankind, not just the martyrs (7.1) are now consoled: "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning, and crying, and pain will be no more..." (4). The exception, of course, will be the godless: cowardly, faithless, polluted, murders, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and liars (8).  These are to experience spiritual or "second death" (8). In Revelation 20. 6, those who share in the first resurrection will escape second death. Earlier (2.1) "Whoever conquers will not be harmed by the second death." By chapter twenty-one, "It is done" (6) concludes the need to endure. The Lamb's book of life is complete (27). Only by omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence is this closing of the book of life deterministic; in lieu of such absolute closure, choice remains Revelation does not close absolutely: "Surely I am coming soon" (22.20). John can only reply to grace: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (22.20); that grace he extends: "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen" (22.21).

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Copyright © 2000 Jeanie C. Crain
Last modified: October 27, 2005