Revelation 21:9-27 (The Holy City)

Introduction

When I first became a Christian (at 19 years old), the Lord used the exposure that I’d had to the gospel – people telling it to me over the course of years of my childhood – to change my heart. My mother raised me and my younger brother in church; we were there all the time – Sunday mornings, every Sunday evening, and there were services on Wednesday nights too. But it wasn't until I was 19 years old that I became a Christian; that’s when I first realized that this Jesus is real, He truly is the savior of guilty sinners, and He’s my savior.

I began to trust in him as my savior and to follow him as my Lord – I actually wanted to be righteous (I didn't just want others to think I was righteous), I wanted to be righteous even when no one else was looking. I wanted to express my love and gratitude for who God is and for what He is, and I believed that His word was good.

Well, when I was 19, I realized what God had saved me from – I realized that the Lord Jesus Christ had lived the perfect life that I had not, He had died underneath the wrath of God for my sin, and He had died in the place of sinners like me. So, I realized that 19 years old that Jesus was the one who saved me from my sin, saved me from the penalty that I deserve, and saved me from God's wrath and eternal destruction.

But if you had asked me what has God saved you to, I wouldn't have been able to give you a very good answer. I would have tried to give you an answer, but it wouldn't have sounded very good, and it certainly wouldn't have been biblical. As a matter of fact, for the first decade or so my Christian experience, if you had asked me what has God saved you to, I probably wouldn't have been able to give you a very good answer.

It was only after about eight or nine years of full-time evangelistic ministry, where I'm sharing the gospel with sinners and calling them to repentance – this is my vocation for a good portion of my adult life – it was only after eight or nine years that I begin to realize that the church has a far greater emphasis in the Bible than I ever realized. I began to understand that the local church… and the reality that there are Christians throughout the entire world who are gathering in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ… that this is a bigger deal in God's plan of salvation than I had ever known.

We’re going to be reading this morning from a text that's going to teach us more about what God is saving Christians to – more so than what God is saving sinners from. Our text this morning in Revelation 21 is coming near the very end of the book of Revelation, near the end of the Bible, and it is that that final destination we've been talking a lot about… the destination or the end to which God is moving all things.

There is an emphasis in the book of Revelation on the end to which God is bringing sinners. He's bringing them to destruction, this eternal state under His wrath. And He's also bringing those whom He loves – those who are saints, those who are servants of God – He's bringing them to their final destination or end as well. And this is the great emphasis of our passage this morning: What does God saving Christians to, and how do we participate now in what God is saving us to?

These are the sort of things I'd like for us to think on this morning. I think this is certainly the focus of our text today.

Would you stand one more time with me, as I read our primary text? Let's stand for the reading of God's word as I read Revelation 21, beginning in verse 9. I’ll read to the end of the chapter.

Scripture Reading

Revelation 21:9–27 (ESV)

9 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.”

10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

12 It had 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— 13 on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. 16 The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal.

17 He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. 18 The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, like clear glass. 19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. 21 And 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.

22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 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.

24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

27 But 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.

Main Idea:

God has intended to create a people with whom to dwell from the very beginning, and He will do it – He will make saints from sinners, He will make a city of saints, and He will make that city shine with His own glory.

Sermon

1. A City From God (v9-10)

In the first eight verses of Revelation 21, there were four heavenly announcements – four “words” from the one “seated” on the heavenly “throne” – each one emphasizing the certainty, the wonder, and the newness of “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2).

This “holy city,” this “new Jerusalem,” this “bride adorned for her husband” is what John “saw” (Rev. 21:2), and the bulk of what we studied last Sunday was what John “heard” (Rev. 21:3) in those four announcements.

Our passage today flips that around.

There is only one heavenly word from an angelic messenger here, and everything else is John’s description of what the angel “showed” him (Rev. 21:10). And we read what John heard there in v9. John says that “one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues… spoke to [him], saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb’” (Rev. 21:9).

Now, the last time John heard anything from an “angel” with the “bowls” was Revelation 17, and there John said, “one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute…” (Rev. 17:1).

For that vision, John was “carried… away in the Spirit into a wilderness,” and he saw Babylon… a blasphemous woman, a wicked woman, a scandalous woman… a woman who represented the totality of all “earth’s abominations” and the people who practice them (Rev. 17:3-6).

It is no coincidence that our passage this morning uses nearly identical language, only with some obvious and important changes. John’s vision here “carried [him] away in the Spirit” not to a “wilderness,” but “to a great, high mountain,” where he saw an entirely different kind of woman (Rev. 21:10). Here John sees “the Bride” or “the wife” of “the Lamb” (v9).

But she doesn’t look like a woman at all; she appearsas a “city” that is “coming down out of heaven from God” (v10).

As I told you last Sunday, there are a lot of physicaland material and even geographical descriptions in Revelation, but the major emphasis of this book is not on a place or a buildingor a anything physical at all. Rather, the emphasis throughout Revelation is on (1) the One who sits on the throne, (2) the Lambwho reigns and roars like a lion, and (3) the people God marks off as His own – a people who bear the names of “the sons of Israel,” but a “people from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:4-9).

As we read (in our text this morning) the magnificent descriptions of “walls” and “foundations,” of precious metals and stones, and of the size and grandeur of the “city,” we ought not marvel at the architectureor the appearance of the city. No, we ought to marvel at God’s wisdom and power to make guilty sinners into a glorious city of redeemed and sanctified saints – a “people-temple” for His glory.

This has been God’s intention throughout the Bible. He has always been working to create a people (among the sons and daughters of Adam) with whom He would dwell (as He did with Adam and Eve in the beginning).

But the trouble is – people are sinful, and God is holy. Even the best people are shot through with sinful desires, they have skeletons in their closets, and they would be utterly ashamed and condemned if they were to stand before God’s bar of justice… So, if God comes near, sinful people are in danger.

This is a major feature of the Exodus story in the Old Testament.

Some of you will remember that God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt, and then He brought them to Mt. Sinai in the wilderness. And it was there (at that trembling and blazing mountain) that God reminded them of His power to save, there that God gave them His laws for ordered living as His people, and there that God gave them the blueprint of a tabernacle (a building) in which God Himself would come to dwell among them (Ex. 19-27).

But while Moses was on the mountain (receiving all of God’s instructions), the people of Israel were at the base of that mountain worshiping a golden calf.

This whole episode is a scandalous and biting display of just how sinful people are – even in the shadow of God’s gracious salvation and His very near presence, sinful humans are prone to do exactly what God said not to do.

Friends, if we think those people back then were some special kind of wicked, then we probably haven’t considered very seriously just how deep goes our own sin and hypocrisy. We definitely don’t want to excusesin (either theirs or ours), but we also ought to be able to say (with the sixteenth-century English reformer John Bradford), “But for God’s grace, there go I.”

In response to Israel’s sin that day, God threatened to destroy the whole lot of them and start again with Moses. But Moses interceded on their behalf, and God renewed His covenant with them.

In fact, that covenant renewal event in Exodus 34 is a pivotal and crucial moment in the whole biblical story. It was then that God revealed Himself as “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children” (Ex. 34:6-7).

It is this tandem feature of God’s character that is at the heart of what we learn about God as we see His plan unfold. God is both merciful and just, He is both gracious and wrathful, He is both forgiving and exacting – He “forgives iniquity and transgression and sin, but He will by no means clear the guilty.”

In the Exodus story, once the covenant was renewed, the people of Israel got to work on the tabernacle God told Moses to construct. And the repeated phrase throughout the last five chapters of Exodus is “they did… in accordance with all that the LORD has commanded.”

And when the tabernacle was finished and the priests were set apart for service (all “as the LORD commanded Moses”), we read (in Ex. 40:34-35), “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”

Time will not allow us to follow the details of the story throughout the Old Testament, but God’s presence among the people was tightly connected with this tabernacle and (later) a temple (which king Solomon built). It was especially a square-space at the innermost part of the building (the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place) where God’s presence was known among the people of Israel.

But, of course, the people of Israel failed to fear and obey God, just as Adam had done long before. And God’s presence among them became the basis of their judgment instead of their blessing.

And yet, God promised that it would not always be so. In fact, God sent a vision to the prophet Ezekiel (not long after the destruction of Solomon’s temple), and it was a vision of a huge and glorious temple-city, named “The LORD is There” (Ezekiel 48:35). And this eight-chapter description of Ezekiel’s vision (ch. 40-48) is the major backdrop of John’s vision we’re reading about in Rev. 21.

This is not a kingdom or a city that has been built by human ingenuity or cunning. And no man-made house has ever been adorned with such beauty. No, this is a “city” that is a “bride,” and her beauty and glory is “from” God Himself – the God who builds a city that covers the whole world… the God who remembers His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… and the God who gave all believers everywhere the New Covenant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s marvel at the features of this city we see poetically and symbolically described here: first, that this is a “great” city, and last, that this is a “holy” city.

2. A Great City (v11-21)

Our whole passage this morning is a description of a “city” that is a “bride” (v9-10). The city is “from God” (v10). It is “the holy city” (v10). It has “the glory of God” (v11). And it has a “great, high wall” (v12).

Verses 11-21 focus on the “wall” and the “greatness” of it. And, of course, the “greatness” of this “wall” (at least at first glance) is referring to its bigness and its value.

· The wall is “144 cubits,” which is about 70 yards (v17).

· The wall has “twelve gates” (v12), “three” on each of its four sides (v13).

o And each “gate” is “made of a single pearl” (v21).

· The wall has “twelve foundations,” which secure it soundly (v14).

o And the “foundations” are “adorned with every kind of jewel” (v19).

· The “city” is made of “pure gold,” and the “wall was built of jasper” (v18).

All of this is incredible! Just imagining such a city and such a wall is breath-taking – the brilliance of it, the grandeur of it, and the way it represents both the Old Testament people of God as well as the New.

But if we will consider this just a bit more than a first glance, we may begin to realize that this representation or symbolismis far more amazing than the material description we have here.

The “greatness” of this wall and the city it encompasses is not in the gold or jewels, but it is the “names” that are written on it and the people who dwell inside.

Consider with me a passage from Ephesians 2, where the Apostle Paul describes what God has done in Christ and what God is doing by the power of His Spirit for/in/with those who believe and follow Jesus. Turn with me to Ephesians 2 for a moment so we can look at this together and then return to Revelation 21.

Writing to a largely Gentile (i.e., non-Jewish) church in first-century Ephesus, the Apostle Paul said (in v11), “remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh… that you were at [one] time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:11-12).

Here, Paul is describing the situation of all non-Jews during the time since Adam and before Jesus. Under the Abrahamic covenant, God’s promise was to bless Abraham’s descendants (Gen. 12:1-4). Of course, God also promised to bless the whole world through Abraham’s offspring, but it was not yet clear how that would work.

Then, during the Mosaic covenant, God’s promises of blessing were for the people of Israel… at least for those among them who lived according to the Ten Commandments and the Book of the Covenants – those laws and rules for life and worship in the nation of Israel.

Throughout the OT, Gentiles across the world had no gracious covenantal promises from God, they were strangers (i.e., they were ignorant) to what God had done and promised through Moses, and they were (for all intents and purposes) “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).

Then the Apostle Paul says (in v13), “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph. 2:13-16).

In this profound and sweeping statement, the Apostle Paul says that all of God’s OT promises to the people of Israel and all of the blessings God gives to those who participate in the New Covenant… that they are all drawn up together in the Lord Jesus Christ… who reconciled sinners to God (both Jew and Gentile) when He died in their place upon the cross.

No Jewish person ever earned God’s blessing by obedience to the law. And all people everywhere must look to Christ who lived and died for sinners!

In short, God does not have a Jewish people and a Gentile people… He has created “in” Christ Jesus one “new man” or new people. And these are not at peace with God because of ethnic descent or because they have somehow figured out how to meet the legal requirements of God’s law on their own. No, they are at peace with God because Christ Himself “is our peace” (Eph. 2:13).

Friend, if you want forgiveness of sins, if you want peace with God, if you want to be counted among those who receive from God blessings and not cursing, then look to Christ! Turn from your sin and trust in Jesus! Don’t spend one more moment as an alien or foreigner to God’s covenant of grace and love.

If you want to talk more about what this means or how you can receive God’s grace in Christ today, then let’s talk after the service.

But the passage in Ephesians continues on, describing something critical for our understanding of Revelation 21. Look now at v17.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “And he came and preached peace to you [that is, Christ Himself in and through the messengers who came and preached the gospel] he came and preached peace to you who were far off [i.e., Gentiles] and peace to those who were near [i.e., Jews]. For through him [i.e., through Christ] we both [Jew and Gentile] have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also [i.e., you who repent and believe] are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph. 2:17-22).

Ah, here now we may better understand why John’s vision in Revelation 21 says that the “great” wall of the “city” that he saw “coming down out of heaven from God” has “foundations” which bear the “names” of the “twelve apostles” (Rev. 21:14), and why the “jeweled” adornment of those “foundations” are described in nearly an exact echo of the jewels that represented the “twelve tribes” of Israel upon the OT priestly ephod. This city and this wall are what God’s Spirit is building right now!

This great wall (in Rev. 21) is depicting the union of the “twelve tribes” (OT people of God) and the “twelve apostles” (NT people of God) as one people!

Not only that, but we also begin to understand why John saw that the whole city was made of “pure gold” (Rev. 21:18), since gold was the setting of those OT priestly stones, and gold was the material used for all the most important features of the OT tabernacle and temple… And it’s no coincidence that John’s vision here emphasizes that the city is perfectly square.

What John saw in Revelation 21 was a completed temple, a newly constructed and brilliantly adorned tabernacle. But this temple is not made of literal gold and jewels – remember the angel told John that he was “showing” him “the Bride” of “the Lamb” (v9). No, this eschatological temple, this God-made and glorified city is joined and built together with “people-stones” – Christians (both Jew and Gentile) who have been made into a dwelling place for God Himself.

The Bible says (in 1 Peter 2), “As you come to [Christ], a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4-5).

Brothers and sisters, John’s vision here reminds us that this is where we are headed… not merely to a new place or city… but to the end or completion of what God has already begun to do in us by the power of His Spirit.

God will complete the work He has begun (i.e., that work of sanctification, that work of unity in Christ, that work of full salvation for all who love and trust Christ)… and Christians will themselves be as brilliant and priceless stones in the city God is building up for His glory.

And we ought to be encouraged and even challenged by the fact that God is doing this work as we speak. It is in the context of our church relationships that God is doing the work of sanctifying us (or making us holy), so that we will be what He has intended us to be.

God’s goal for all Christians is that we would be conformed to the image of His Son – that we would become a holy people, a sanctified people, a people who are marked not by the sins and abominations of this world (like the woman Babylon and all who make their home with her)… but instead marked by the love and righteousness which Christ has exemplified for us and which He gives to us.

Brothers and sisters, we are being prepared as a bride for the Lamb… we are being built up as a holy city… we are now and will one day be citizens of the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God Himself.

How are you participating in this preparatory work? Are you personally striving for holiness? Are you helping other Christians to grow in love for Christ and helping them learn what it looks like to keep His commands? Are you living now as though your eternal salvation is not private, but shared with all other saints who are citizens of the holy city?

But the glory of this marvelous city does not originate in the people who live there. No, the “radiance” of this city and the “glory” of it is God’s.

This city is “the holy city” (v10), and it has “the glory of God” shining throughout… because the whole city is itself the temple of the Lord.

3. A Holy City (v22-23)

Our whole passage this morning is full of all that John saw in this glorious heavenly vision, but there is one thing he says he did not see. In v22, John says, “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” (Rev. 21:22-23).

Friends, it is no coincidence that John’s vision here concludes this way. There are three other times in the Bible where we read about the new construction of a tabernacle or temple for God’s dwelling, and each time the account ends with a similar climactic statement.

In Exodus 40, we read, “Moses did… according to all that the LORD command him… In the first moth in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected… Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Ex. 40:16-34).

In 1 Kings, we can read about Solomon’s temple, where he took the tabernacle blueprint and expanded it to include even more ornate, more durable, and more lavish materials. And when Solomon completed that temple, and brought the ark of the covenant (that symbol of God’s intimate presence on earth) into the “inner sanctuary,” the Bible says, “a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD” (1 Kings 8:8-11).

These two moments in the history of OT Israel were high-water-marks of God’s presence among them, but (as many of us know) they did not last. After Solomon’s reign, the kingdom of Israel was divided because of infighting between Solomon’s sons. In 722 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered and many of the people were exiled. And in 586 BC, the same thing happened to the southern kingdom of Judah… but it was Judah’s fall that included the destruction of Solomon’s temple.

This was a devastating blow to OT Israel… and it was a tragedy for all the world. Where would God come to meet with man? How could sinners ever enjoy fellowship with God again… even if it was only from a distance and through an earthly priest who would fearfully enter that Most Holy Place to make regular sacrifices on behalf of the people?

But not long after Judah was conquered and Solomon’s temple was destroyed and plundered, God sent a vision to the prophet Ezekiel. It was a vision of a rebuilt and glorious temple, a promise that God would not leave His people forever, but He would one day come to dwell among them again.

Ezekiel wrote (among 8 chapters of describing the bigness and grandeur of a rebuilt city-temple), “behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory… As the glory of the LORD entered the temple by the gate facing east, the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the temple” (Ezekiel 43:1-5).

Oh, brothers and sisters, what Ezekiel (in the OT) and John (in the NT) only saw in visions, we will one day experience in person. Neither Ezekiel’s vision nor John’s were ever meant to give God’s people hope of only an earthly temple, rebuilt with worldly materials of stone, metal, and jewels.

No, these prophets (Ezekiel and John) saw through the eyes of faith what we shall behold in real time. And we will not stand outside or be kept far off; but we shall be the inhabitants of the Holy of Holies.

There will be no temple in the heavenly city because God Himself is its temple. And those who turn from sin, who trust in Christ, and who remain faithful to Him… we ourselves shall be built to completion, formed into a dwelling place for God.

Conclusion (v24-27)

We see here (in this closing handful of verses) an utter reversal of the way things have been since Genesis 3. John says (in v27), “nothing unclean will ever enter [the holy city], nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

This God-made city will have no sin and no rebels, only those who have been justified by God’s Son (the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world) and who have been sanctified by God’s Spirit… only holy ones will dwell there. And “the nations” shall “walk” by the “light” of God and of the Lamb (v24), and “the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (v24).

Friends, we live now during the time when the “nations” still “rage” as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 2. He said, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against his Anointed [or Messiah or Christ]” (Ps. 2:1-2).

But that Psalm ends with a warning and a promise of blessing.

It says, “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:10-12).

In our passage today, we’ve been reminded of the glorious reality of that blessing. God has intended to create a people with whom to dwell from the very beginning, and He will do it – He will make saints from sinners, He will make a city of saints, and He will make that city shine with His own glory.

May God help us to believe this is true… may He help us to be sustained by this promise… and may God glorify His name in us even now… as we take refuge in Christ… as we strive for holiness in our lives… and as we invite others to join with us in being built up into a dwelling place for God.