Inside the New Jerusalem: Heaven's Diamond City Revealed

Revelation chapter 21 tonight is where we are.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

We're picking up in verse 9 tonight, and we're going through chapter 22, verse 5.

Now, granted, we're probably not going to get through this whole message tonight,

but we're going to start.

And as you know, we start with that high-level view, that bird's-eye view,

and then we'll dive in specifically to certain areas tonight.

But I talked about this morning, we're talking about the capital city of heaven,

the capital city of heaven.

One of my favorite passages, but we'll start Revelation 21, verse 9.

Revelation 21:9

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last

plagues came and spoke with me saying, come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed

me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal clear jasper.

It had a great and high wall with 12 gates, and at the gates 12 angels,

and names were written on them,

which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel, there were three

gates on the east, three gates on the north.

Three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.

And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, and on them were the 12 names

of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

The one who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its wall.

The city is laid out as a square.

And its length is as great as the width. You can kind of think of it as a cube.

And he measured the city with the rod 1,500 miles. Its length and width and height are equal.

And he measured its wall 72 yards, according to human measurements,

which are also angelic measurements.

The material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold,

like clear glass. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone.

The first foundation stone was jasper, the second, sapphire, the third.

Chalstony, the fourth, emerald, the fifth, sardonyx, the sixth,

sardius, the seventh, chrysolite, the eighth, beryl, the ninth, topaz, the tenth,

chrysoprase, the eleventh, jacent, and the twelfth, amethyst.

And the 12 gates were 12 pearls, and each one of the gates was a single pearl.

Now, I'm going to pause there just a second. You know how big that pearl is?

You're measuring the city if it's a single pearl.

We'll talk about that more. And the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass.

I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its

temple. and the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it,

for the glory of God has illumined it.

And its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light,

and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it in the daytime,

for there will be no night there.

Its gates will never be closed, and they will bring the glory and honor of the

nations into it, and nothing unclean.

And no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come into it,

but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal coming from

the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street.

On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing 12 kinds of fruit,

yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

There will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and of the lamb will

be in it and his bond servants will serve him.

They will see his face and his

name will be on their foreheads and there will

no longer be any night and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor

the light of the sun because the Lord God will illumine them and they will reign forever and ever.

Wow. On the night before his death, if you remember, the Lord Jesus Christ made

a wonderful promise to all who believe in him.

You know what he said? He said, do not let your heart be troubled.

Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places.

If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.

If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself,

that where I am, there you will be also.

That's in John 14, by the way, verses 1 through 3. The Father's house,

y'all, it reminds me of that old Audio A song, come and go with me to my Father's house, right?

Jesus referred to here is what we're talking about tonight is the new Jerusalem.

The new Jerusalem, where God will live with his people forever.

It's the present heaven where God dwells with the holy angels and where the

redeemed actually go when they die.

And as we noted earlier, a few weeks back, the place that the Lord has prepared

for them will descend into the eternal state.

Where it will be the capital city of the new heaven and the new earth. Wow.

Just as a person preparing to travel to a foreign country desires information

about that country, right?

So believers long for a glimpse of that glorious place, right?

Where they'll live eternally.

We're getting a little snapshot, y'all, of our eternal home.

Knowing their eager sense of anticipation, God has provided us believers with

a description of heaven.

And though only a select few details are given, granted, we don't know everything

and we can't comprehend probably what we do know.

These are all staggering, mind-blowing things and overwhelming when you stop and think about it.

As the vision of the new Jerusalem unfolds here in this chapter.

History has ended.

Time is no more, y'all. John and his readers here are transported to the eternal state.

That's where we're at. That's where he's looking at. Having described that fearful,

eternal destination of the dam that we looked at not long ago,

the lake of fire, remember that?

The vision takes the beloved, the apostle here, the exiled apostle, to this blissful,

eternal resting place of the redeemed, because it is the capital city of heaven

and the link between the new heaven and the new earth.

The new Jerusalem, y'all, is central to the vision, and it's described in far

more detail, by the way, than the rest of the eternal state.

I think back to our study. I don't know how many of you were here at this time.

It was early on in our ministry here.

And by the way, the end of this month, it's hard to believe.

We're going to have been here for four years in ministry. That's hard to believe.

But we studied the book of Hebrews pretty early on.

And the book of Hebrews also mentions the glorious capital city of heaven.

And actually describing Abraham's faith, the writer of Hebrews actually said this.

Let me remind you. He said, By faith, Abraham, when he was called,

obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance,

and he went out not knowing where he was going.

By faith, he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land

dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. We've been studying them in Sunday school.

Fellow heirs of the same promise, for he was looking for the city which has foundations.

Whose architect and builder is God. That's the city he's talking about here, y'all. This is it.

In fact, in the next chapter in Hebrews there, the writer penned the following

description of the new Jerusalem.

Listen to what he said. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the

living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,

and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn

who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all,

and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus,

the mediator of a new covenant,

and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

That's in Hebrews 12, verses 22 through 24.

Hebrews 12:22–24

And as he closed out that epistle, he reminded his readers that here we do not

have a lasting city. This is in Hebrews 13.

But we are seeking the city, which is to come.

That's what we're looking at today. what Abraham, the writer of Hebrews as well,

and the rest of the redeemed have anticipated by faith.

Was revealed to here and described by John.

His view of heaven's capital includes several features, and I won't get through

all tonight. I think there's four that I looked at, okay?

Maybe we'll get two. I don't know, but there's four.

And in general appearance is one. It's general appearance, exterior design.

Internal character of the city, and the privileges of its inhabitants, Okay.

So we're going to, this is where we break it down and take a closer look. Are you ready?

All right. Let's talk about its general appearance.

Listen again. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the

seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, come here.

I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

And he carried me away in the spirit to a

great and high mountain and showed me

the holy city Jerusalem coming down

out of heaven from God having the

glory of God her brilliance was like a very costly stone as a stone of crystal

clear Jasper let's focus in on verses 9 through 11 that I just read okay as

the vision opened And an angel appeared to call John's attention to the city.

The last appearance of an angel, think about it, where we're at in Revelation,

was 1,000 years earlier.

At the beginning of the millennium, right? You know where we're at,

the time map, right? And that was all the way back in chapter 20, verse 1.

And by the way, y'all know this by now, but angels play a significant role in

Revelation. And this particular angel was involved in the tribulation judgments, it tells us.

Those judgments unfolded, if you remember, in three telescoping series.

It was the seal, the trumpet, and then climactically the bowl judgments, right?

And this angel was actually one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls

full of the seven plagues it talks about.

And either he or another of those seven angels also introduced the impending

judgment of the harlot city of Babylon that we studied about,

making the contrast there between the two cities,

very apparent between Babylon and this new Jerusalem, right?

And you stop and think about this and look at the text, inaugurating John's

personal tour of heaven's capital city, the angel, what did it say in the text?

Came and spoke with the apostle saying, come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

And we talked about this in verse 2 of chapter 21 when we were there a couple weeks ago.

The new Jerusalem is described as a bride because it draws its character from its occupants.

Those occupants of this city consist of the bride of the lamb, right?

That's a title that was originally given to who?

The church, right? The church. But now it is enlarged to encompass all the redeemed

of all the ages who live in this city forever, right?

The new Jerusalem is linked to a bride because the redeemed are forever united to God and the Lamb.

And it's further defined as the wife of the lamb because the marriage has taken place already.

Remember, that was back in chapter 19, verse 7.

John's incredible vision here began when the angel, it says,

carried him away in the spirit.

When he received the visions that comprise the book of Revelation,

the angel, or I should say the apostle in this case, the aged apostle,

by the way, was a prisoner.

If you remember, of the Romans on the island of what?

Patmos, right? We learned that all the way back in chapter one,

verse nine, but he was transported from there in an amazing spiritual journey, right?

To what unaided human eyes could never see.

John's vision, let me just say this, his visions were not dreams.

They were not dreams, but they were spiritual realities. like those that Paul

saw, for example, if you remember when he was also caught up to what scripture calls the third heaven.

That was in 2 Corinthians 12.

The first stop, according to this passage, was a great and high mountain.

From that vantage point, y'all, the angel showed John the holy city, Jerusalem.

The apostle, he actually repeats his observation from verse two,

that the new Jerusalem, how does he say, came down out of heaven from who? From God.

So that just emphasizes this divine origin. In other words, we really see here

in the text that it is the city whose architect and builder is God that Hebrews 11 was talking about.

And also, y'all, it should be noted that what's described here is not the creation of heaven.

It's merely the descent of what already existed from eternity past and is now

situated in the center of the new heaven and the new earth come down from God.

Wow. Wow. And the most distinguishable and characteristic of the capital city

of eternity is that it is the throne of who?

The eternal almighty one, y'all.

And it's therefore it had the glory of God in it, it says.

The glory will reach its fullest expression there.

We even read that in the gospel of John chapter 17, verse 24.

John 17:24

It'll be unlimited and unconfined. Flashing from that city throughout the recreated

universe will be the glory of God.

The glory of God, y'all, is the sum total of his attributes.

And it's manifested in blazing light all throughout scripture in his son.

It's manifested in his son, Jesus.

But sadly, though, God revealed his glory.

Disobedient, rebellious people rejected him, right?

Even the Lord Jesus Christ, the embodiment of God's glory in human form, it tells us in John 1.

According to Isaiah 53, he was despised and forsaken of men.

Radiating from the new Jerusalem.

Don't miss this in the text. Will be the brilliance of the full manifestation of God's glory.

So much so that the city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine on it. Why?

Because the glory of God has illumined it and its lamp is the lamb, it says in verse 23.

Come on, talk about the light of the world, right?

Isaiah, y'all, foresaw this same reality. Listen to this.

He said, no longer will you have the sun for light by day,

nor for full brightness will the moon give you light, but you will have the

Lord for an everlasting light and your God for your glory.

That's Isaiah 60, verse 19, all pointing to this new Jerusalem.

Isaiah 60:19

So describing the effect of God's glory here, radiating from the new Jerusalem.

John notes, look at some things he says here in the text, that her brilliance

was like a very costly stone as a stone of crystal clear jasper.

Now, the Greek word there really says brilliance.

And it refers to something from which light radiates, right?

In fact, the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament,

uses it in Genesis chapter 1, verse 14 and 16 to actually describe heavenly

Genesis 1:14

light-bearing objects.

And to John here, we see in this passage, the heavenly city appeared like a giant light bulb.

And it's brilliant, right? It was so bright. with the brilliant light of God's

glory that's just streaming out of it.

But that light did not shine through the thin glass of a light bulb, did it?

But through what looked like to John, according to this passage,

a very costly stone as a stone of crystal clear jasper.

The city appeared to the apostle like one gigantic precious stone.

Jasper, it doesn't refer to the modern stone of the same name,

that we just think of probably in our head tonight, which is opaque, by the way.

But it's actually a transliteration of the Greek word eosipes.

And it describes this translucent stone. And the word jasper in this passage

is best understood as referring to a diamond, if you will,

a very costly one because it's crystal clear and it's unblemished.

Heaven's capital city is pictured like this as a huge flawless diamond refracting

the brilliant blazing glory of god throughout the new heaven and the new earth

isn't that something it's like wow.

Glory of God, the light, the brilliance. Well, let's talk a little bit about

its exterior design, and we'll stop here tonight when we get through with this.

Listen, it says, It had a great and high wall with 12 gates,

and at the gates 12 angels, and names were written on them, which are the names

of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north,

three gates on the south and three gates on the west.

And the wall of the city had 12 foundation stones, And all of them were the

12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city,

and its gates and its wall, the city is laid out as a square,

and its length is as great as the width.

And he measured the city with the rod. Listen to these again.

1,500 miles, its length and width and height are equal.

And he measured his wall 72 yards according to human measurements,

which are also angelic measurements.

The material of the wall was jasper and the city was pure gold like clear glass.

The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone.

The first foundation stone was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcene,

the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl,

the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, and the eleventh jesuth, the twelfth amethyst.

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls.

Each one of the gates was a single pearl.

If y'all will hang with me tonight, my voice holds out.

You're going to get excited before we go out of here, if you're not already.

Let me just say, human language is inadequate to fully describe the unimaginable

magnificence of the believers. That's us, by the way.

Indescribable eternal home, y'all. I mean, we get a glimpse here,

but man, and it blows us away just a glimpse.

But we are talking about an eternal home that is beyond our wildest dreams,

our wildest imaginations.

And unwilling to take the language of Scripture at face value,

many people actually seek for some kind of hidden meaning, believe it or not,

behind John's description.

But if the words don't mean what they say, who has the authority to say what they do mean?

Abandoning the literal meaning of the text, you know what it leads to?

It leads to baseless, groundless, futile speculation. That's dumb, right?

The truth about the heavenly city is more than is described,

but not less and not different from what is described. I want y'all to get that tonight.

It's a material creation, yet so unique as to be unimaginable to us.

The words of John provide all the detail we've been given by God to actually excite our hope.

Listen to this. The city had a great and high wall.

It indicates that it's not an amorphous nebulous floating place, okay?

It has specific dimensions. In other words, it has limits.

I always go back to this. God has boundaries. His city has boundaries.

It can be entered and left through its 12 gates. at those gates are 12 angels.

They were stationed there to attend to God's glory and to serve his people.

Talks about this even in Hebrews 1.14. The gates had names written on them.

Look in the text, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel.

Celebrating y'all for all eternity, God's covenant relationship with Israel,

the people of the promise, the covenants, the scriptures, and the Messiah.

They were arranged symmetrically. Listen to what it says here again.

Look at what it says. It says, there were three gates on the east,

three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.

And that arrangement, by the way, is reminiscent of the way that the 12 tribes

actually camped around the tabernacle in Numbers 2 and of the allotment of the

tribal lands around the millennial temple that we study about in Ezekiel 48.

The massive wall of the city, what does it say in the text?

Was anchored by 12 foundation stones, and all of them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

Those stones, y'all, commemorate God's covenant relationship with the church,

of which the apostles here, as we see, are the foundation.

We read about that in Ephesians 2, verse 20.

Ephesians 2:20

At the top of each gate was the name of one of the tribes of Israel.

At the bottom of each gate was the name of one of the apostles.

Thus y'all the layout of the city's gates just

pictures god's favor on all

his redeemed people both those under the old covenant and those under the new

covenant do you see it then a curious thing though occurred here in the text

the angel who spoke with john had a gold measuring rod to measure the city.

And its gates and its wall, it says. And this interesting event,

it's actually reminiscent, by the way,

of the measuring of the millennial temple that is talked about in Ezekiel chapter

Ezekiel 40 · chapter mention

40 and the measuring of the tribulation temple that we studied back in Revelation 11.

But get this tonight, the significance of all three measurements is that they

mark out what belongs to God.

Remember I said God has boundaries? They mark out what belongs to God.

And the result of the angels measuring revealed that the city is laid out as

a square, and its length is as great as its width, and he measured the city

with the rod, 1,500 miles.

Literally, in the Greek here, it's 12,000 stadia, and a stadion was about 607 feet.

And so the city walls are about 1,380 miles in each direction, okay, approximately.

And its length and width and height are equal. And some commentators have suggested

that the city is in the shape of a pyramid. I disagree with that.

When you just look at scripture, I think it's best seen, I mentioned this earlier, as a cube.

In fact, the scholar Henry Morrison actually points this out.

I want to share what he says about this.

He says, and he's talking about those that say a pyramid, okay?

He says, such an interpretation is quite forced.

The language of the passage being much more naturally understood to mean a cube

with the length and breadth and height all the same.

The pyramidial shape, whether as in Egypt, Mexico, or the step towers of practically

all ancient nations, seem always to have been associated with paganism. Thank you.

With the pyramid's apex being directed to the worship of the sun or of the host of heaven.

The first such structure was the Tower of Babel, and the Bible always later

condemns worship carried out in high places.

Talks about that in Leviticus 26. He said, whether

these were simply natural hills or artificially constructed

hills in the form of a pyramid or ziggurat the

cube was the shape specified by

god for the holy place in solomon's temple in first king six verse 20 where

god was to dwell between the cherubim both the language he said and the symbology

thus favor the cubicle rather than the pyramidial shape.

I thought that was great commentary on this. And as you read the text, it's pretty plain.

But he also points out that a cube-shaped city is well-suited for the existence

of glorified beings. And that's what will be in our eternal state.

Listen to what he said. He said it should also be remembered that the new bodies

of the resurrected saints will be more like those of angels,

no longer limited by gravitational or electromagnetic forces as at present.

Thus, it'll be easy for the inhabitants

to travel as easily vertically as horizontally in the new Jerusalem.

Because consequently, listen to what he says on this, the streets of the city

that it talks about in verse 21 may well include vertical passageways as well

as horizontal passageways.

And the blocks could be real cubicle blocks instead of square areas between

streets as in a present-day earthly city.

In other words, he's just saying, hey, in our glorified state with our new resurrected

bodies and our eternal state, we're not limited, right?

We can travel just as easy if the streets are going vertical as horizontal.

Thus the height, the width, all the equalness of that cube, right?

And, but based on certain assumptions about the design of the city and the number

of the redeemed who'll live in it,

Morris, this theologian, also calculates that each person's cube,

if you will, would be approximately 75 acres on each side.

Now, like I said, these are some assumptions here, okay?

But I just thought it was interesting because were that city,

he said, to be superimposed on the present-day United States,

it would extend from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and from Colorado to the Atlantic Ocean.

God will design the new Jerusalem with plenty of room for all the redeemed is

all we need to take out of it.

Amen? Well, listen to this. Come on, we're wrapping up.

The angel next measured the city's wall at 72 yards.

Most likely this is the thickness because we already determined that the height

and all that was the same, right?

So when he says these 72 yards, most likely it's thickness of this wall.

Then as if to emphasize that the city's dimensions are literal,

and not mystical. Did you see this? Did you catch it in the passage?

John adds this, what we would call a parenthetical footnote,

that those dimensions were giving, look at the text again, according to human

measurements, and then he adds this, which are also angelic measurements.

Isn't that interesting?

A yard is a yard, in other words. A foot is a foot. A mile is a mile,

whether for humans or angels, is what he's telling us in the text.

And so the material that the massive wall was made out of was Jasper,

the same diamond-like stone that we talked about in verse 11.

Not only was the wall translucent, but also the city itself was pure gold,

by the way, like clear glass.

And by the way, you say, well, clear glass, we can see glass here,

right? But this is like transparent, right?

Like clear glass. It's something you can't hardly imagine right

i mean the new jerusalem's walls and buildings must be clear for the city to

radiate the glory of god y'all some may be concerned i don't know if y'all are

tonight that the city's translucence will somehow preclude any privacy.

But you know what? There'll be nothing in heaven that calls for privacy.

John next turns to his attention, y'all, and that's where I'm getting excited

as we wrap up tonight, to the foundation stones of the city wall,

which he describes in amazing detail, by the way.

He said, they were adorned with every kind of precious stone.

12 of which the apostles' names, the names of some of the stones have changed

throughout the centuries, y'all, making their identification uncertain.

But eight of those stones were mounted on the high priest's breastplate, if you remember.

It talks about in the Old Testament, back in Ezekiel 28 and 39.

The first foundation stone we see in the text was jasper, which,

as we talked about earlier, is best identified as a diamond,

according to the language.

The second was a sapphire, a brilliant blue stone.

The third was chalstony. It was an agate stone from the Chaldean region of what's

now modern Turkey, sky blue in color, with colored stripes.

The fourth was emerald, a bright green stone, and the fifth was sardonyx,

which is a red and white striped stone.

And the sixth was sardius, which was just a common quartz stone found in various shades of red.

And the seventh was chrysalite, a transparent gold or a yellow huge stone,

and the eighth was beryl, which was a stone found in various colors,

including shades of green,

yellow, and blue, and the ninth was topaz, a yellow green stone,

and the tenth was chrysoprase, a gold tenet's green stone.

And the eleventh was jacinth, a blue or violet colored stone.

And in John's day...

So the modern equivalent would be a red or reddish-brown zircon.

The twelfth was amethyst, which was a purple stone.

Those brightly colored stones that we see in the text refract the shining brilliance

of God's glory into just a panoply of beautiful colors.

I mean, we just can't comprehend. end. We can try, but we can't really grasp it all.

The scene, in other words, was one of breathtaking beauty, a spectrum,

if you can just imagine, of dazzling colors flashing from the new Jerusalem

throughout the recreated universe.

And the next facet of the heavenly city that caught John's eyes was the 12 gates.

And this is where we end up tonight.

I told you, man, this is where I get real excited, which were 12 pearls.

Pearls, y'all, were highly prized and of great value in John's day.

But these pearls were like no pearl ever produced by an oyster.

Y'all knew that's where pearls come from, right?

Because each one of the gates, according to the passage, was a single gigantic pearl.

And if you read the measurements, nearly 1,400 miles high.

And y'all, there's a spiritual truth illustrated by the fact that the gates were made of pearls.

In fact, theologian John Phillips commented on this. He said, how appropriate.

All other precious gems are metals or stones, but the pearl is a gem formed within an oyster.

The only one formed by living flesh.

The humble oyster receives an

irritation or a wound and around

that offending article that has

penetrated and hurt it the oyster

builds a pearl and that pearl we

might say is the answer of the oyster to that which injured it the glory land

he said is god's answer in christ to wicked men who crucified heaven's beloved

and put him to open shame.

How like God it is to make the gates of the new Jerusalem a pearl.

The saints, as they come and go, will be forever reminded as they pass the gates

of glory that access to God's home is only because of Calvary.

Think of the size of those gates, y'all. Think of the supernatural pearls from which they're made.

What gigantic suffering is symbolized by those gates of pearl?

Throughout the endless ages, he said, we shall be reminded by those pearly gates

of the immensity of the sufferings of Christ.

Those pearls hung eternally at the access routes to glory remind us forever

of one who hung upon a tree and whose answer to those who injured him was to

invite them to share his home.