Day 42: Revelation 21:9-22:5
Passage for the Day
9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. 16 The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. 17 He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by human measurement, which the angel was using. 18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 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. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 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.
1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.
Points of interest:
· ‘the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues’—just to remind you, I did say that repeated, symbolic numbers is a key feature of Revelation. Once again, we don’t really know why it’s the number seven here, but there was probably a widely known code. What we can get from this is that things are coming very close to an end.
· ‘I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb’—the Lamb is Jesus. We’d been promised a ‘feast of rich food for all the nations (Isaiah 25, March 17th). It turns out that the Bible ends with a wedding feast.
· ‘the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God’—interestingly, the bride isn’t a person, but an entire city: a new, heavenly Jerusalem. Jerusalem has been an interesting source of tension throughout our study. At times, for those of us who aren’t Jews, God’s purposes for the nations have seemed oddly or uncomfortably Jerusalem-centric. For instance, Isaiah 2 (March 15th) said,
In the last days
the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
Then—unsettlingly, given how prominently it had been featured up until then—Jesus dismissively speaks of throwing Jerusalem into the ocean, because in light of what he’s doing the temple is strictly speaking, unnecessary. How exactly does Jerusalem fit into God’s ultimate plans? And how can both Jesus and Isaiah be right? Well, now we get our answer. God has been preparing a new, improved, and expanded Jerusalem. It turns out that the Israelites’ Jerusalem was like a toy version or an architects’ model for this new Jerusalem—a Jerusalem for everyone.
· ‘like a jasper, clear as crystal’—words fail to describe the wonder of this city. It’s beautiful, well-proportioned, and opulent.
· ‘by human measurement, which the angel was using’—I had no idea that the angels have their own standard of measurement, and I’m amused that John makes sure to tell us that he’s giving us human cubits, not angelic ones.
· ‘I did not see a temple in the city’—in the old Jerusalem, there was a temple to represent God’s presence. In the new one, God represents himself.
· ‘The nations will walk by its light’—this is a fulfillment of Isaiah 49:6 (March 19th). In the light of God’s presence, the nations can finally see clearly.
· ‘On no day will its gates ever be shut’—it’s so safe that you never need to lock the doors.
· ‘The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it’—this new Jerusalem reflects some features of the old one’s association with Israel—gates named after each tribe, for example. But it also contains contributions from all other nations of the world.
· ‘the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations’—I think this is John’s version of Isaiah’s picture of the peaceful and prosperous end God has in mind for the nations:
On this mountain he will destroy
the shroud that enfolds all peoples,
the sheet that covers all nations;
8 he will swallow up death forever.
The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears
from all faces;
he will remove his people’s disgrace
from all the earth.
The LORD has spoken.
9 In that day they will say,
“Surely this is our God;
we trusted in him, and he saved us.
This is the LORD, we trusted in him;
let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation (Isaiah 25, March 17th)
Taking it home:
· For you: In this vision of the world to come, the Lamb—Jesus—serves as a lamp that lights up the entire city. How has Jesus been a light to you during these past 40 days? Reflect on the ways that Jesus has personally been good to you and what he has shown you.
· For your six: In this passage, we get the picture of God planning all along a grand, perfect and complete city that eventually does in fact come to be. Pray that God’s purposes for your six would come to pass in the same way.
· For America: The Holy City pictured here seems almost too good to be true—a picture of perfect beauty and all things being made right. Pray for God to work in America in way that seems too good to be true. Pray that America would take its right place among the nations that are lighted by and bring their best to this heavenly city.