Revelation 21

From Genesis to Revelation

Y’all let me tell you, the correlation between the beginning and the ending was mind blowing!!!

So here we are in Genesis

Genesis 3:8-10 AMP - And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool [afternoon breeze] of the day, so the man and his wife hid and kept themselves hidden from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to Adam, and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 He said, “I heard the sound of You [walking] in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself. Genesis 3:17-18 AMP - 17 Then to Adam the LORD God said, “Because you have listened [attentively] to the voice of your wife, and have eaten [fruit] from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’;

The ground is [now] under a curse because of you;
In sorrow and toil you shall eat [the fruit] of it
All the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you shall eat the plants of the field. Genesis 3:23-24 AMP - 23 therefore the LORD God sent Adam away from the Garden of Eden, to till and cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So God drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He [permanently] stationed the cherubim and the sword with the flashing blade which turned round and round [in every direction] to protect and guard the way (entrance, access) to the tree of life.

Eden showed us creation before the fall. New Jerusalem shows us creation after redemption.

God does not leave

This is what Revelation has been unveiling beneath the seals, trumpets, bowls, beasts, Babylon, wars and judgments. God was removing everything that opposed what He desired from the beginning: to dwell with His people. But Revelation 21 is not even the deepest point of the vision, because John has only shown us the city from the mountain. Revelation 22 is going to take us inside. The river appears. The tree humanity lost access to appears again. The curse disappears. The throne of God and of the Lamb stands in the city. His servants serve Him. His name is on their foreheads. There is no more night. And then comes the sentence I believe the entire Bible has been moving toward: “They will see his face.”Revelation ends with God dwelling with humanity and humanity looking at HIM!

The sanctuary is carrying Eden language. The veil is preaching the same terrible reality humanity encountered outside the garden: God desires to dwell with His people, but sin has made unrestricted access to His holy presence impossible.

That makes what happens at the cross even greater. When Jesus dies, the temple curtain is torn from top to bottom. Not from the bottom upward as though humanity had finally fought its way through, but from the top downward. Hebrews later says that through the blood of Jesus we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place “by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body.” The barrier humanity could not remove was opened through Christ. But even the torn veil was not the final destination. It was opening the way toward what John sees in Revelation 21, because when John finally sees the New Jerusalem, the city itself carries the shape of the place that once stood behind the veil.

John says the city is laid out like a square, and then tells us its length, width and height are equal. The city is a cube. Why would the Holy Spirit preserve its height alongside its length and width? Go back to 1 Kings 6:20. Solomon’s inner sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and twenty cubits high. Length, width and height were equal. The Holy of Holies was a cube. Now John reaches the end of Scripture and sees an entire city whose length, width and height are equal. The New Jerusalem strongly evokes the shape of the Holy of Holies, and once you see that, the whole chapter begins to open differently. Under the old covenant, one man entered that inner sanctuary once a year, and never without blood. The place associated most intensely with God’s dwelling presence was the place ordinary worshipers could not enter. But at the end of Scripture, what was once one restricted room has expanded until the whole city bears its shape. What one high priest could enter becomes the dwelling of the entire redeemed people of God. What was once hidden behind a veil becomes home. What once said, “Do not come closer except through the appointed mediator and sacrifice,” now becomes the environment in which the Bride lives because the Lamb Himself has opened the way.

And then John says something that would have sounded almost impossible anywhere earlier in the biblical story: “I did not see a temple in the city.” No temple. After Exodus, Leviticus, Kings, Chronicles, Psalms, Ezekiel, Haggai and Zechariah, after generations of longing for the sanctuary and the presence of God, Scripture reaches the final city and John cannot find a temple. But the next words tell us why: “because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” The temple has not disappeared because God no longer desires to dwell with humanity. The separate sanctuary has become unnecessary because there is no corner of this city from which His presence must be separated. There is no inner room because the whole city is holy. There is no veil because nothing remains that must hide the people from God or God’s holiness from the people. There is no earthly high priest walking into the inner chamber because the Lamb is there. There is no yearly entrance because access is no longer yearly. The presence that once filled one room fills the city.

Even the gold begins to speak differently. Solomon overlaid the inner sanctuary with pure gold. Revelation says the New Jerusalem is “pure gold, as pure as glass.” We have sometimes preached the gold as though God is primarily showing us how wealthy heaven is, but John is describing sanctuary imagery. Gold that humanity hoarded, killed for, measured status by and built kingdoms upon becomes construction material in the dwelling of God. The thing earth calls treasure is beneath the feet of people who finally possess the real treasure. God Himself. The city is not glorious because it has gold. Gold becomes ordinary because the glory of God is there.

And then another connection opens this even further. In Part 27 we saw the astonishing order in Ezekiel: resurrection imagery in Ezekiel 37, Gog in Ezekiel 38–39, and then beginning in Ezekiel 40 the prophet is shown the dwelling of God. But look carefully at how Ezekiel 40 begins. Ezekiel says God brought him “in visions of God” and “set me on a very high mountain,” where he saw structures that looked like a city. Now read Revelation 21. The angel carries John away “in the Spirit to a mountain great and high” and shows him the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. Ezekiel is taken in visions of God to a very high mountain and shown the future dwelling. John is taken in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and shown the New Jerusalem. Ezekiel sees a man with a measuring rod measuring the structure. John sees an angel with a measuring rod of gold measuring the city. John is not merely borrowing a few beautiful images from Ezekiel because he needs language for eternity. He has been carried onto the prophetic mountain where Ezekiel stood and is being shown where Ezekiel’s vision was ultimately pointing.

Now remember how Ezekiel ends. After the dry bones, after Gog, after the temple, after the river and after the division of the restored land, Ezekiel closes his entire book by giving the city one final name: “THE LORD IS THERE.” Those are the final words of Ezekiel. The climax is not the measurements. It is not the land. It is not even the river. The climax is presence. THE LORD IS THERE. Then John stands on his own prophetic mountain looking at the city and hears from the throne, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.” Ezekiel said, “THE LORD IS THERE.” Revelation says, “HE WILL DWELL WITH THEM.” The prophets were not merely seeing architecture. God was revealing His desire to bring His people into uninterrupted communion with Himself.

Then the angel tells John, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” Think about what John must expect to see. The angel says he is going to show him the Bride, but when John looks, he sees a city. The Bride is revealed through the New Jerusalem. That alone should keep us from reading Revelation 21 like a travel brochure for the afterlife. The architecture is carrying covenant language. The city is a people. The city has twelve gates bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel and twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The whole redemptive story is built into the imagery: the covenant story carried through Israel, the apostolic witness to the Lamb, one city filled with the glory of God. The Lamb is not merely preparing a place for His Bride. The Bride herself is being shown through the imagery of the place God fills with His presence.

Hallelujah Come Jesus Come!!

I have more to add, however please share what was revealed to you during your studies

Was it realizing the New Jerusalem bears the dimensions of the Holy of Holies? Was it Ezekiel and John standing on the prophetic mountain looking toward the dwelling? Was it realizing why the gates never need to close? Or was it seeing that God did not simply restore Eden—He brought the Bride beyond the place where Eden fell? Tell me what the Lord uncovered for you.