16.5.11. New Jerusalem

At the close of the Millennial Kingdom, after the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. Rev. 20:11-14+), all things are made new and the holy city, the New Jerusalem, comes down out of heaven from God (Rev. Rev. 21:1-2+). Perhaps the greatest blessing attending the New Jerusalem is the nearness of the redeemed to The Abiding Presence of God:

But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God [the Shekinah] illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. (Rev. Rev. 21:22-23+)

In the eternal state, the purpose of every Temple through history is finally achieved: God and the Lamb are the temple. The age-long separation between man and God which has taken numerous forms is now done away with and full communion is restored. Man will once again walk with God in full fellowship as in the Garden of Eden , but now in a glorified state and in a city. Access to the tree of life, lost at The Fall, will now be restored (Rev. Rev. 22:2+, Rev. 22:14+) for man may now live eternally without the threat of sin (Gen. Gen. 3:22).

In one sense there shall be “no temple” in the heavenly city because there shall be no distinction of things into sacred and secular, for all things and persons shall be holy to the Lord. The city shall be all one great temple, in which the saints shall be not merely stones, as in the spiritual temple now on earth, but all eminent as pillars: immovably firm (unlike Philadelphia, the city which was so often shaken by earthquakes, Strabo [12 and 13]), like the colossal pillars before Solomon’s temple, Boaz (that is, “In it is strength”) and Jachin (“It shall be established”): only that those pillars were outside, these shall be within the temple.¹

Here is a city said to be 1,500 miles in measurement, yet with all the measurements equal (Rev. Rev. 21:16+, Rev. 21:22+). Since the Holy of Holies in the earthly Temples were built according to this design (cf. 1K. 1K. 6:19-20), it has been well recognized that what this depicts is that the entire city is a Sanctuary, or rather, an immense Holy of Holies. See Millennial Kingdom. See Genesis and Revelation as Bookends. See commentary on Revelation 21:2 and Revelation 21:9.

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Notes

¹ A. R. Fausset, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” in Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, 1877), Rev. 3:12.