Commentary - Revelation 21:9-27

Bird's-eye view

In this glorious passage, John is shown the positive counterpart to the judgment of the great harlot, Babylon. Having witnessed the final destruction of apostate Jerusalem, the old covenant city that had prostituted herself, he is now shown her replacement: the New Jerusalem, the bride, the Lamb's wife. This is not a vision of a literal, cubical condo floating down from outer space at the end of a timeline. This is a profoundly symbolic vision of the New Covenant Church, the glorified people of God, established on earth as a result of the finished work of Christ. The language is drawn straight from the Old Testament's descriptions of the temple, the priesthood, and the promises to Israel. What John sees is the spiritual reality of the Church, the new society God has created, which is the true dwelling place of God with man. It is a city whose builder and maker is God, and its reality was inaugurated with the destruction of the old temple-based system in A.D. 70.

The vision systematically reveals the nature of this new community. It is defined by the glory of God, secured by His divine protection, and built upon the unified foundation of the Old Covenant people (the tribes) and the New Covenant teaching (the apostles). Its dimensions speak of perfection, its materials of divine value and purity, and its layout of universal welcome. Crucially, it has no temple, for the Lord God and the Lamb are its temple. It needs no created light, for the glory of God is its illumination. This is the new world order, where the nations of the earth are discipled, bringing their redeemed cultural treasures into the city as tribute to the King. The passage is a portrait of the victorious Church, the bride made beautiful for her husband, fulfilling her destiny to be the light of the world.

Outline

Context In Revelation

This vision of the New Jerusalem in chapter 21 is the glorious climax toward which the entire book of Revelation has been building. It stands in stark contrast to the city described in the preceding chapters, Babylon the Great, the harlot. Babylon, representing apostate, first-century Jerusalem which had rejected her Messiah, was judged and utterly destroyed (Rev 17-18). The marriage supper of the Lamb was announced (Rev 19), the beast and false prophet were defeated, and the final judgment was depicted (Rev 20). Now, with the old, corrupt order removed, the new creation is fully unveiled. The refrain "Behold, I am making all things new" (Rev 21:5) finds its detailed expression here. This is not an appendix to the story; it is the whole point. The destruction of the old was necessary for the full manifestation of the new. The harlot had to be cast down so that the bride could be revealed in all her glory. This vision is the answer to the prayer, "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Key Issues

The Bride, The Lamb's Wife

Before we step into the city, we must understand what it is. The angel is explicit: "Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." He does not say, "I will show you the future house of the bride." He shows John a city and says, "This is her." The New Jerusalem is the Church. Throughout Scripture, God's people are referred to as both a bride and a city. The apostle Paul tells the Corinthians, "I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Cor 11:2), and the author of Hebrews says we have come "to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Heb 12:22). This is not a literal metropolis. It is a people. It is the covenant community, the assembly of the saints, the household of God, presented in the magnificent symbolic language of a glorious city. To miss this is to misread the entire vision, trading a glorious spiritual reality for a crude and clunky literalism.

Verse by Verse Commentary

9 Then one of the seven angels who have 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.”

It is significant that one of the angels of judgment is the one who reveals the bride. This connects the destruction of the old with the establishment of the new. The very same divine action that poured out wrath on the harlot city served to purify and reveal the true bride. The judgment on apostate Israel in A.D. 70 was not the end of the world, but the end of an age, clearing the ground for the new temple, the Church, to be fully manifested. The harlot and the bride are mutually exclusive opposites. The fall of one is the rise of the other. The angel invites John to see the positive result of the judgments he has just witnessed.

10-11 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 precious stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.

This is a vision, not a space flight. Being taken to a high mountain is standard prophetic language for receiving a divine revelation, echoing Moses on Sinai and Ezekiel's vision of the new temple (Ezek 40:2). From this vantage point, John sees the true nature of God's people. The city is "holy," set apart for God. It comes "down out of heaven," meaning its origin, character, and life are all divine. It is not a human project built from the ground up; it is a divine gift brought down to earth. Its defining characteristic is the glory of God. The Shekinah glory that departed from the old temple (Ezek 10) has now returned to dwell permanently with His people. The Church is the vessel of God's glory in the world. Her brilliance is like jasper, which in Revelation 4:3 described the appearance of God on the throne. The bride reflects the glory of her husband.

12-13 It had a great and high wall. It had twelve gates and at those gates, twelve angels; and names have been written on those gates, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west.

The wall signifies security, salvation, and definition. This city is distinct from the world outside. The twelve gates, inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, establish the Church's identity as the true, fulfilled Israel. There is no radical discontinuity; the New Covenant Church is the maturation of all God's promises to Old Covenant Israel. The gates are open on all four sides, symbolizing the universal nature of the gospel invitation. The kingdom is open to people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, from all corners of the earth.

14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Here we see the perfect union of the two covenants. The gates bear the names of the tribes, and the foundations bear the names of the apostles. The Church is one unified body, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone (Eph 2:20). The Old Testament saints enter through the gates of promise, and the whole structure rests on the New Testament apostolic testimony to Christ. There are not two peoples of God, but one, united in the Lamb.

15-17 And the one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and its wall. And 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, 12,000 stadia; its length and width and height are equal. And he measured its wall, 144 cubits, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements.

Whenever God measures something in Scripture, it is an act of claiming ownership and evaluating it by His perfect standard. The rod is gold, signifying the divine and precious nature of this standard. The numbers here are deeply symbolic. The city is a perfect cube, 12,000 stadia on each side. This is the shape of the Holy of Holies in Solomon's temple, magnified to an enormous scale. The point is that the Church herself is the new Holy of Holies, the place where God dwells on earth. The number 12,000 combines 12 (the number of the covenant people) with 1,000 (a number of completeness and magnitude). The wall is 144 cubits (12 times 12), again symbolizing the completed, organized people of God. The phrase "human measurements, which are also angelic" tells us that God's heavenly ideal is being realized in this earthly, human community.

18-20 And the material of the wall was jasper, and the city was pure gold, like pure glass. The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone...

The materials describe the character of the Church. The wall of jasper reflects God's own glory. The city of pure, transparent gold speaks of the highest value and a purity that has been refined by fire, a purity so complete that it is transparent, with nothing to hide. The foundation stones are a rainbow of precious gems, echoing the twelve stones on the high priest's breastplate, which represented the twelve tribes. This signifies that the Church is the new priesthood, a royal priesthood, and celebrates the diverse and complementary beauty of all the saints, firmly established on the apostolic foundation.

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

A pearl is a jewel formed within a living creature through response to an injury. It is a beautiful object born of suffering. The entrance to this glorious city is through the suffering and death of the Lamb. Each gate is one pearl, meaning the way in is singular and costly, yet gloriously beautiful. The very street, the common ground of the city, is pure gold. In this new covenant community, holiness and divine value are not restricted to a special sanctuary but characterize the whole of life.

22-23 And I saw no sanctuary in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its sanctuary. 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.

This is one of the most revolutionary statements in the Bible. For a Jew, religion without a temple was unthinkable. But in the New Jerusalem, the physical temple is gone because the reality it pointed to has come. We do not need a sacred building because we have unmediated access to God through Jesus Christ. God and the Lamb are the temple. Likewise, the city has no need for created lights. This does not mean the sun will be extinguished. It means the Church does not derive its life, wisdom, or guidance from natural or human sources. Her light is the direct revelation of God's glory, and that glory is focused and made known to us through the Lamb. Christ is the lamp.

24-26 And the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will never be closed by day, for there will be no night there; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

Here is the Great Commission in apocalyptic language. The Church, shining with the light of God's glory, becomes the light of the world. The nations, the Gentiles, are not destroyed but are converted; they "walk by its light." The "kings of the earth," representing redeemed civil structures and cultures, bring their "glory and honor" into the city. This means everything good, true, and beautiful in human culture, once redeemed from paganism and offered in service to Christ, is brought as tribute to the King. This is a vision of the successful, worldwide advance of the gospel. The ever-open gates signify both perfect security and a constant welcome to all who would come. There is no night, meaning no time of sin, fear, or ignorance.

27 And nothing defiled, 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.

Despite the open gates, the city maintains absolute purity. This is a holy city. Those characterized by sin, those who practice what is abominable and false, have no place here. Citizenship is not a human right; it is a divine gift. The only qualification for entry is to have one's name written in the Lamb's book of life. This is the doctrine of sovereign election. We are citizens of this city not because of what we have done, but because the Lamb has written our names in His book from before the foundation of the world.

Application

First, we must recognize that the New Jerusalem is not a future retirement home we are waiting for, but a present reality we are living in. The Church is that city. We are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem now (Heb 12:22). This should radically change how we view the Church. It is not a flawed human institution we tolerate on Sundays; it is the glorious bride of Christ, the dwelling place of God, the light of the world.

Second, our lives should reflect the character of our city. It is a city of transparent gold, so we should live lives of transparent purity and integrity. It is built on the apostles' teaching, so we must be devoted to sound doctrine. It is a holy city, so we must be diligent in rooting out all that is defiled, abominable, and false from our own lives and our congregations.

Finally, we must embrace the mission of our city. Our gates are to be open to the world. We are to be so radiant with the glory of God in our worship, our fellowship, and our lives that the nations are drawn to our light. Our task is to see the "glory and the honor of the nations" brought captive to the obedience of Christ. We are not hunkering down and waiting for evacuation. We are the New Jerusalem, which has come down from God to earth, and our task is to see the knowledge of the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.