Notes on Revelation 21-22

 The new Jerusalem is the gathered people of God upon the earth. It parallels the numbers assigned to the gathered people of God upon the earth in the 144,000 (12 x 12 one thousands). Hence, the numbers 12, 144, and 1000 play a role in its description. The city has 12 gates with the 12 tribes of Israel written on them, 12 angels standing at the gates, 12 stones make up its walls with the names of the 12 apostles. The city measures 12,000 stades cubed, and its wall is 144 cubits (21:9-17). This is significant because this group in the book is the group upon the earth, not the one in heaven. It is the physical church with Christ before His return. Now it is the physical group of the church, the new Jerusalem, with Christ after His return, reigning upon the earth. Hence, these numbers refer to every believer on the earth.

That this is on earth is also clear from the fact that the city comes down from heaven (a picture of the resurrection of the saints), and it is declared that ““The dwelling of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them” (21:3). As a result, all sorrow, pain, and death (i.e., effects of chaos) will be wiped away from the created order because “the former things have ceased to exist” (v. 4).

21:6-7 declare that the one who thirsts can come and be given the water of life freely/without cost, but it is the one who overcomes/conquers (an allusion back to the letters in Chapters 2-3) that will inherit these things. John wishes then to argue that those who are given the free gift of salvation are those who will not compromise with the world by being convinced of alternate religious ideas and/or practice what the Bible considers immoral. This is made clear by the contrast that those who do so will not inherit these things, but instead will be placed outside the renewed created order and into a place of chaos described as the lake of fire and the second death, i.e., the second removal from the land of the living/created order (21:8, 27; 22:15).

vv. 18-21 describe the people of God in their new creation in terms of the beauty of brilliant jewels. This imagery reflects the beauty of God Himself, and displays that the presence of God has made His people and all the created cosmos beautiful, as His glory fills both people and place. The imagery of brilliant stones harkens back to the promise that the one who conquers/overcomes will be given a brilliant stone with a new name on it. The new name likely refers to an elevation of his nature and uniqueness in God’s new creation. What was chaotic and ugly has now become perfectly ordered and beautiful in God’s salvific/relational presence.

There is no need for a temple because God and Christ are there. The joining of heaven and earth together no longer has a need for any temple, which is a place where heaven and earth meet, and yet, are separated into distinct spheres. They now have become one.

The water of life itself, i.e., that which gives life, comes from the rule of God through the Lordship of the Lamb. The beauty of order only comes from God’s rule through Christ. What this means is that hell is chosen by those who, even though they would desire the beauty and order that God’s ruling presence creates, wish to live contrary to His will. One cannot be had without the other. There is no ordered and beautiful creation that exists apart from God’s will being fully carried out there. Hence, there is nowhere for those who have lived contrary to the revealed will of God to go but to a place that is chaotic, disordered, filled with pain, sorrow, and ugliness, described as the death in contrast to the life His presence and glory bring into the renewed created order.

The world has become the garden paradise that first only existed as an isolated place in the midst of a chaotic, unfinished cosmos. The images of Eden are obvious everywhere, and God communes with His people who are described as having His name written on their foreheads. This means that only His people, who have followed His revealed will, will be with Him in this new creation.

With that, John exhorts his readers at the end of his work in the same manner he did in the beginning. These things must take place suddenly/quickly, and the reader would do well to obey the message this book teaches. Those who are predestined for salvation or reprobation will continue on according to their role to play in the divine drama, but the one who has ears to hear is blessed. They wash their robes to have access to the tree of life and the city, an allusion to receiving the gospel of Christ’s kingdom and living as kingdom people. 

The warning at the end of the book has far more to do with teaching what is contrary to the book’s message by distorting what is said through addition or subtraction more than removing from, or adding to, actual words in the book. John wants to make sure no one tampers with this important exhortation to God’s people. The one who does so evidences his condemnation.

The book ends as it begins with a proclamation of Christ’s coming and an exhortation to heed the message in the book. It also creates an inclusio between the promises of the letters and the fulfillment of those promises again in Chapters 20-21. Hence, there is a chiasm created where the entire exhortation to heed the message is placed in the context of Christ’s coming and the resulting reward for each person’s faith and works. Hence, an ABB’A’ pattern is created (Exhortation in the light of Christ’s coming, promises and warnings to live faithfully in the light of rewards, promises and warnings in light of rewards, exhortation in the light of Christ’s coming).

The book itself, of course, creates an inclusio for the entire biblical narrative. As I have argued before, creation is presented in Genesis 2 as simply beginning and continues throughout the Bible as a process that is not completed until Revelation 21-22. Hence, the garden that was once a localized area in the midst of an unfished world has now expanded to the entire world and creation has come to its completion. 

John ends the book in the light of God’s awesome work and a desire for God’s beauty to fill the earth and His people. There is no fear of Christ coming and taking away a life that is being built out of the straw of this world. There is only the desire to be complete and to see God’s creation completed by the communion and life-giving presence of Christ. It is a desire for what is ugly to be beautiful, the desire of a larva to become a butterfly. Hence, all who see God’s presence as beautiful and life itself cry out together with the Spirit of God, “Come!” The true, faithful church cries out, “Come!” The one who hears, i.e., the one who obeys the message and seeks to be faithful to Christ with the hope of the beauty to come says, “Come!” Christ confirms He is coming quickly. John, a faithful witness/martyr, cries out, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” If the book causes only fear of judgment and a hope that Christ does not immediately come, then there is something wrong with the understanding, desires, and lifestyle of the one who reads it. What Christ brings is the water of life to a thirsty people. They run to it, not away from it, and seek for it everywhere. It is this that causes the Christian to remain faithful in pressing on toward the prize of His presence and the life that flows from it.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all” (22:21).