Revelation 21:9-22:21

Illus: School is about knowledge, it is about formation.

Math teaches someone to think rightly.

The Bible isn’t just information---it is not a manual.

Transformative in nature.

The NJ is now unfolded with more detail.

At the center of the city is God himself and the Lamb.

The final revelation of God necessarily brings to a climax all earlier revelations. It completes God’s purpose of bringing all things under one head, even Christ.

Revelation 11:15 CSB

The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.

Revelation 11:5 CSB

If anyone wants to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and consumes their enemies; if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way.

Ephesians 1:10 CSB

as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.

Ephesisans 1:10

The New City = The Bride

1 Corinthians 3:16 CSB

Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

2 Corinthians 6:16 CSB

And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Ephesians 2:21 CSB

In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

2 cor 6

1 Peter 2:5 CSB

you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

As a bride, we enjoy personal intimacy and joy in the presence of God; as a city, we enjoy structural organization with other saints in a harmonious worldwide community.

“in the spirit” 4 times to indicates significance.

MOUNTAIN

Revelation 14:1 CSB

Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him were 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.

The glory of God in heaven in is not throughout the earth.

The wall is not needed…but is imagery to remind us of our security in Christ.

**Symbolic nature of 12---huge City, shaped like a cube---HOLY of HOLIES

Aaron’s—High Priest....The church now dwells with God.

Sun/Moon—

Isaiah 60:19–20 CSB

The sun will no longer be your light by day, and the brightness of the moon will not shine on you. The Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor. Your sun will no longer set, and your moon will not fade; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the days of your sorrow will be over.

The Nations—redeemed humanity, culture and all.

new Jerusalem—Garden of Eden

But even better than a garden…the garden has become a city and has driven out the darkness.

Revelation is designed not just to inform us about God’s final purposes, but also to increase our longing for Him and the realization of his purposes.

This purifies us and guards us from pursuing false idols.

Tree of Life

Ezekiel 47:12 CSB

All kinds of trees providing food will grow along both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. Each month they will bear fresh fruit because the water comes from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be used for food and their leaves for medicine.”

Ezek 47:12

Not that there will be new ailments but cures for old sicknesses.

Visions End—22:5 exhortations.

Chiasm—so correspondence with .