Tag: shekinah

Touring the New Jerusalem

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. (Revelation 21:2)

John was given quite a vision.  He saw Heaven.  He the future of the Earth.  He saw Judgment Day.  All of it was either exciting or terrifying.  It was something from which he could not look away.  But few things in the vision of the Book of Revelation match the arrival of the New Jerusalem.  It is toward the top of the “Wow!” list.  Like, “Wow, what is it?”

First let me tell you what it is not.  It is not some metaphor for the Church.  Many commentators on Revelation say that Revelation 21 is somehow about the church because the word “bride” is used in the passage above, and God’s people, the Church, are collectively described as the bride of Christ elsewhere is scripture.  But this passage doesn’t say that the New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ.  It says it is beautiful, like a bride.  So what John is witnessing is the future arrival of the New Jerusalem on the New Earth.

Why does it have walls?  Cities of the past had walls for defensive purposes.  Now that modern weaponry have rendered walls useless, why build them?  The New Jerusalem will not need to be defended from attack.  All enemies are securely and permanently stuck in Hell by this point.  These walls are part of the packaging.  This city moves.

So it this a spaceship of some sort?  Yes, Star Wars fans.  The New Jerusalem could very well be God’s throne room, described in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, now moving to its new location on mankind’s new home base, the New Earth.  It’s big (essentially a cube 1400 miles on a side), it’s stunningly beautiful, and it constructed with the kind of symbolic symmetry that God loves to use.

Will we live inside of it?  No.  No doubt being in the New Jerusalem will be an exciting part of our lives, but our new living space will be far more than that.  If the structure of the New Earth is a spinning globe, then it would have to be massively larger that the current planet to accommodate the New Jerusalem.  We can’t assume it will be a spinning globe, however.  Revelation announces that the old order of things has passed away, so who knows if a globe that spins is part of the new order.  The sun doesn’t seem to be a part of the equation, so spinning might not be necessary.  (Revelation 21:23,25)

The lighting of at least the New Jerusalem seems to be unique.  Without the sun and moon, the city is still aglow, day and night.  This isn’t artificial lighting.  This is the glory (shekinah) of God and we are in the midst of it.

What will there be to see in 2.7 billion cubic miles of the New Jerusalem?  Much more than the Bible has to tell us.  But there are more details that we will go over in my next blog entry (September 25).

No Eclipse in This City

This week was the long anticipated solar eclipse in the United States.  My city was very near the region of totality.  We experienced a 99% eclipse, which oddly barely dimmed the light.  As we continue to look at the New Earth, specifically the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 (this is the sixth entry), we find a wrinkle to the “new order of things” that relates to the celestial bodies.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.  The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

In the new Jerusalem you don’t need to go to a temple because you encounter God, the Father and Jesus, everywhere.  The presence of God is an interesting study in the Bible.  God is everywhere and somewhere at the same time.  He occupies a throne in Heaven and He also dwells in His people and fills all things.  You get the sense that His presence is different in each place, but very real.  Still, God’s presence isn’t something you can always sense in every place.  Not so in the New Jerusalem.  How we will encounter God in this city, I cannot say.  But I do believe it will be exhilarating, joyful and always desirable.

God’s presence in the New Jerusalem is so palpable that the city literally glows with God’s glory.  The physical radiation that accompanies God, His shekinah, makes the directional lighting of the sun, moon or any lamp irrelevant.  There is no darkness of any sort in the New Jerusalem.

On no day will its gates ever be shut, or there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.  Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

As mentioned before, the walls of the city are not for a protective purpose.  Once the city has arrived on the New Earth, there is no need to shut the gates; not just because there isn’t any night, but because there isn’t any danger.  Evil is excluded.  The evil that affects us all is gone.  The human inhabitants and visitors to the city have left their sinful nature behind.  They are what we are meant to be–loving, truthful, good.

That part is more exciting than a new planet.  We will be literally new people.  You won’t have enemies or people you can’t trust.  You won’t be in competition but rather you will be in love, with everyone. We won’t need armies, police or really even laws. We will be with God, each other and a restored nature.

Is anything the same?  Will there be anything carried over from the current Earth to the New Earth?  “The glory and honor of the nations” is mentioned.  This could be simply a reference to the fact that there will be redeemed people from every nation, but it could also speak to pure elements of human culture–the very best of what we are today.

It is hard to imagine, but it isn’t hard to know that this is where you want to be.  Who will make it?  Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.  Jesus, the Lamb, has always known who will be His.  Their names are recorded in a book.  His people will know that He died for them and they will be bonded to Him through baptism.  Some will be His almost all their life.  Others will be late arrivers, coming to faith in old age.  Praise God if you belong to Jesus.  If not, it’s better late than never, as the saying goes.

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