The Holy City

Revelation 21:9-14, 21-27 The holy Christian church includes from people every nation, language, and tribe.  It includes people who lived before the time of Christ and those who have lived since his ascension.  It includes men and women, adults and children, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, famous and obscure.  The holy Christian church spans the reaches of space and time.

But for all its height and depth and breadth—despite the countless multitudes who confess Jesus as Lord and Savior--no matter how diverse our backgrounds—we are all headed to one and the same heavenly home.

Before Jesus went to the cross, he promised that he was going to prepare a place for us so that where he is—we would also one day live.  That is God’s purpose for us—that we would live with him forever—that is what God created in the Garden of Eden.

But sin destroyed our home with God and man was driven from the garden and from that moment on we became a pilgrim people—strangers and aliens in this world.  That is why Jesus came to earth as a man—to bring us back to God--make a new home for us with God.  Today in Revelation we have a picture of that holy city. 

All of us have ideas in our mind of what our eternal dwelling place with God will be like.  Some of those pictures come from movies or paintings or descriptions in books.  Some of them come from our own imagination or from the culture around us.  But today we have a description of what our eternal home will be like from an eyewitness who saw it.  John writes:

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 

            When the apostle Paul talked about marriage he said that the husband and wife become one flesh and that this one-flesh union is a profound mystery because it actually gives us a picture of the relationship that exists between Christ and the church.  And here in these verses we see the same picture:  Jesus Christ and his bride, the church.

This picture of God as “husband” and his people as “wife” is found throughout the Bible and it portrays the closeness and care and love and intimacy that exists between God and his people—so close that we are members of Christ’s body. 

It is utterly false to think of God as disinterested in our struggles and detached from our lives.  Nothing could be further from the truth!  He loves and cares for us and wants us to be his people and live with him forever.

When John saw heaven—he saw us—the people of God, safe and sound in the glorious home that Jesus has prepared for us, a city filled with the glory of God.  John said that the angel:

carried [him] away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed [him] the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

            That our heavenly home is described as the “holy city of Jerusalem” and “having the glory of God” and “radiant and beautiful” is a powerful testimony to the saving work of Jesus Christ-- for the earthly Jerusalem was anything but holy and glorious and radiant! 

Now, it was meant to be that way—but sin destroyed its purpose to the extent that during that same last week of our Lord’s life before the cross when he promised to prepare a place for us-- he mourned over the city where he would die and said:  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem how I longed to gather you to myself but you were not willing!”  God’s judgment would fall on Jerusalem, the temple would be destroyed, and to this day it is a place of hatred and conflict.

But the saving work of Jesus in his death and resurrection will extend even there and the place that is called the “city of peace” will truly become that once again as the Prince of Peace gathers us to himself in a new Jerusalem that is more beautiful than we can even begin to imagine—a home for those who trust in him.  John says of that place that is has:

A great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed— on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates.  And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 

            One of the special features of Revelation is the symbolic use of numbers and we see that here.  There are twelve gates and twelve angels and twelve tribes and twelve apostles.  The number twelve is the product of the number for God—three—and the number for man—four-- and so twelve stands for the church throughout Revelation—how God has multiplied his kingdom among men in every time and place.   

In every age there have been those who have believed in and trusted in God and his promised salvation. 

In the days before Christ believers trusted in the promises of God that came through the prophets and priests and patriarchs.  In the days since Christ believers have taken their place in God’s kingdom through faith in the words of the apostles concerning Jesus. 

The important point to remember is this:  there is no gate there for Buddhists—there is no gate there for Muslims—there is no gate there for the atheist or agnostic or anyone who will not come into that beautiful place by believing the message of God’s prophets and apostles.  And it is a beautiful place!  John says that:

The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

Our home with God is described by John in these verses and the verses that follow in terms of gold and pearls and precious stones and there is a reason for that beautiful picture.

God has given each of us a love for beautiful things and there is no shame in that for a love of beauty comes from God who created all things beautiful and good. 

We love to travel to beautiful places like the hill country of Texas.  We “ooh and ahh” over some magnificent piece of jewelry.  We are awestruck by great works of art and music.  These are gifts from God.

It is only when beautiful things are seen as an end unto themselves that our love for beauty become dis-ordered and sinful because our God-given love of beauty is intended to make us yearn for our beautiful home in heaven with the Giver of all that is beautiful and good and tue.

God wants us to desire a beauty that is beyond this life—a beauty that cannot be marred or tarnished by the passing of time—a beauty that is eternal.  That is the kind of beautiful home we have in heaven where we will live forever in the presence of the One who made all things beautiful and we will worship him face to face.  John writes:

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

            The temple in Jerusalem was dedicated so that people could come into the presence of God.  Now, it’s not as if God was somehow contained in that place—that is a pagan idea and the LORD specifically refuted it for he fills heaven and earth.  But the temple was set aside so that the people could hear God’s Word and see in the sacrifices that their sins were forgiven.  It was a beautiful place and one of the wonders of the ancient world.

Our place of worship is dedicated for the same purpose—so that we can hear God’s word and receive the sacrifice of the cross under bread and wine for the forgiveness of our sins.  And this place is also a beautiful worship space filled with color and light.

But man-made places of worship will not be needed in heaven for God himself will be there.  No longer mediated by words on a page or bread and wine, we will worship God face-to-face and we will live in his glorious presence forever in that place where there is no darkness because the One who is the light of the world fills it with his light.  John says that:

By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

            When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, the devil took him to a very mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and he said to Jesus:  All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.  Jesus refused and responded by telling him that worship is due to God alone. 

Here we have John, taken by the Spirit to a very high mountain and what does he see but the glory and honor of the nations and their kings (all of those things the devil tempted Jesus with) streaming into heaven and casting it all before Jesus as that which is rightfully his. 

What a comfort there is in this scene for us!  What a lesson!  Nothing of real and lasting value is EVER lost by trusting in God and doing his will.  The way to glory, the way to honor, the way to life with God in heaven goes through the cross and the sacrificial Lamb who died there.  It did for Jesus and it does for us too.  John writes that in our heavenly home:

Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

            Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  He was sent by his heavenly Father to give us a rich, abundant life that death cannot end.  God intends that we would live with him forever in the beautiful home that the resurrected Christ has prepared for us—a holy city where evil has been defeated by Jesus.

            But we should be very, very clear that it is ONLY those whose sins have been washed away in the blood of the Lamb—only those who have trusted in Jesus as their Savior-- who have their names are written in the Lamb’s book of life and a home in heaven. 

Life with God here on earth- and life with God in eternity- is found in only one place and that is in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  May God the Holy Spirit keep us in faith until that day that God calls us to our heavenly home prepared for us by the resurrected Christ!  Amen.