Revelation 21:1-27 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Revelation 21:1 to Revelation 22:5. The Vision of the New Jerusalem. The doctrine of the new heaven and the new earth goes back to Isaiah 65:17, and is derived from the belief that the present world was so corrupt that it could not possibly be the seat of the Messianic kingdom, at any rate in its present condition. The idea was developed in the apocalyptic literature, especially in Ethiopic Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch,, 4 Ezra. Some expositors hold that the New Jerusalem was established with the foundation of the Christian religion, and that the history of the Church is the history of the building of the city. But such an interpretation is mere allegorising. The writer of Rev. indicates in the clearest possible way that the holy city will not be established upon earth till after the final judgment, and the description of the manner of its appearance does not correspond at all to anything in the history of Christianity. It is only by abandoning the plain meaning of the text that we can construe this description of the New Jerusalem in terms of the history of the Church. The writer of Rev. regarded it at any rate not as something which was to be slowly evolved in the process of the centuries, but as the final dé nouement of history and the last intervention of God.

An interesting attempt to rearrange chs. 20- 22 has recently been made by Charles (ET, xxvi. pp. 54 f., 119 f.) on the ground of the difficulty in harmonising certain statements in Revelation 21 with the situation described in Revelation 20. In Revelation 20:13-15, for instance, the final judgment has already taken place, and condemned sinners have been plunged into the lake of fire; yet in Revelation 21:8 the wicked are still described as dwelling outside the Holy City, and there is still a possibility of moral recovery; cf. Revelation 22:2, the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. In order to avoid this apparent contradiction, Charles suggests that the writer intended to arrange his material in the following order; Revelation 20:1-3; Revelation 21:9 to Revelation 22:2; Revelation 22:14-15; Revelation 22:17; Revelation 20:4-15; Revelation 21:1-8; Revelation 22:6-7; Revelation 22:16; Revelation 22:13; Revelation 22:12; Revelation 22:8-10; Revelation 22:20. According to this scheme the account of the millennial reign of Christ is very much expanded, and contains a vision of the New Jerusalem which comes down from heaven to be the abode of Christ and the glorified martyrs during 1000 years. The rearrangement, however, is so intricate that Charles has to assume that the author of the book died after reaching Revelation 20:3, and that the material which he left for the completion of the book was put together by a faithful but unintelligent disciple. Beet in his reply to Charles (ET, xxvi. p. 217) argues that no such rearrangement is necessary, since the lake of fire need not have caused extinction of life in the case of the wicked any more than in the case of the beast and the false prophet, who are described in Revelation 20:10 as being tormented for ever and ever. Other scholars, e.g. Vö lter, J. Weiss, Spitta, and Bousset, prefer to assume that the materials for these Chapter s were derived from two, three, or even four different sources which the author of Rev. has not attempted to harmonise.

The vision of the New Jerusalem may be divided into the following sections: (a) the distant view of the new city (Revelation 21:1-8), (b) the measuring of the city (Revelation 21:9-17), (c) the character of the city (Revelation 21:18-27), (d) the river and tree of life (Revelation 22:1-5).

Related Commentaries of Revelation 21:1

Revelation 21:1-27

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.

7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things;a and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.

10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,

11 Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:

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 in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof.

16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

17 And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.

18 And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass.

19 And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald;

20 The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.

21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

22 And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.

24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

25 And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.

26 And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.

27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.