The New Jerusalem

What will heaven be like, and what will hell be like? Revelation doesn’t answer either question in exhaustive detail, but it gives real insight into both.

The structure of the chapter

Chapter 21 opens with the same literary move used earlier in the book, where the lion turns out to be the lamb, and the army of God turns out to be worshipers from every nation, coming out of the Great Tribulation: John hears one thing and sees another.

Here, too, John hears about the bride of the Lamb but then sees her as the New Jerusalem. The mismatch is the point — a woman and a city are obviously not the same thing — and it signals that this is a symbolic description, not a literal one, while still insisting on its Jewish roots.

The passage can be structured as follows:

21:1–8: Introduction to the New Jerusalem, which summarizes the passage that follows (similar to Isa. 60), with each verse anticipating a later section:

• 21:2 -> 21:9–11
• 21:3 -> 21:22–24; 22:3
• 21:6 -> 22:1
• 21:8 -> 21:27a

21:9–22:5: The New Jerusalem in detail:

• 21:9–14: first impression of the city
• 21:15–17: measurements of the city
• 21:18–21: material of the city
• 21:22–27: internal features of the city
• 22:1–5: symbols of God’s presence

Introduction of the New Jerusalem

Everything is new

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.”

“New” here isn’t just describing something that recently came into existence — it describes a quality. The first heaven and earth were temporary, but the new ones are permanent, and in them many of the Old Testament promises reach fulfillment.

No more sea

The verse also says there will be no more sea, which matters because of what the sea represents throughout Scripture. It is the place where evil originates, as in Revelation itself, or in the sea monsters Leviathan and Rahab, or in evil kings personified as sea monsters, like Pharaoh, or in the sea itself functioning as an evil medium. It is also the place of the dead, alongside Hades.

So if there is no more sea, there is no longer any place where evil can dwell and oppress the faithful — indeed, there will no longer be any sea at all, the domain of evil and death simply gone from the new creation.

Jerusalem the Holy city

“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”

This picture has deep roots in Isaiah, where Jerusalem is the beautifully dressed city, an image that is developed further until she receives a new name and enters an intimate relationship with God, who rejoices over her.

The New Testament picks up the same thought:

• God has prepared a city for the faithful
• we have a citizenship in heaven
• there is a heavenly Jerusalem
• Jerusalem is free

There’s also an interesting parallel within Revelation itself, between verse 2 and verses 10 and 11: verse 2 has the new Jerusalem “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband,” while verses 10–11 have the “Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,” where “it shone with the glory of God.” Lining the two up shows that the bride’s beautiful dress is the glory of God — and God's glory is his mercy and compassion, which the church is likewise called to reflect.

God lives with the people

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.”

This loud voice already appeared earlier, at the judgment of the kingdom of Satan and the judgment of Babel.

That God lives with his people is a promise in the Pentateuch, picked up in Ezekiel, when he returns to the temple and even including the nations. This is also a topic in the New Testament and in Revelation.

Wipe away the tears

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

This is another promise from Isaiah, where tears and death flee, along with crying and sighing. The old order will be gone, along with all its mourning, and we are meant to read this vision by looking forward, not back.

All things new

“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’”

The promise that God makes all things new is fulfilled in Jesus, who began the new creation with us.

Living water

“He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.”

This fulfills Isaiah, where God freely gives water to drink. The term “without cost” recurs throughout the New Testament — in John, Matthew, the epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, and the Thessalonians — and is very often paired with the idea of a gift given for free.

The living water has its source in God, who gives abundantly to drink, even to the point of overflowing. It is, of course, fulfilled in Jesus, both with the woman at the well and as a promise to all who believe in him.

The overcomer

“Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

Isaiah links God's covenant with the water given to drink, tying this verse back to the same well of imagery.

The promises to the churches that overcome in chapters 2 and 3 all find their fulfillment here:

• Ephesus is promised to eat from the tree of life
• Philadelphia is promised to be a pillar in the new temple, to be part of the New Jerusalem, and to have God's name written on them
• Sardes is promised to be in the book of life and to wear white clothes
• Pergamon and Thyatira are promised a light stone (or stones)
• Thyatira and Laodicea are promised to rule with Jesus
• Smyrna is promised to be excluded from the second death

Ready for the second death

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, the idolaters and all liars — they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulphur. This is the second death.’”

This list of the condemned is the direct counterpart to the list of overcomers just given.

Cowardly people are the ones who are ruled by fear — the counterpart of those who have peace, trust in God, and know that God never leaves them. “Murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practise magic arts, and idolaters” can describe unbelievers, but they can just as easily describe people inside the church who compromise, as happened in Pergamon and Thyatira. All of these sins, in fact, trace back to idolatry: murder, as in the way idolaters sacrifice children or kill believers; sexual immorality, linked to temple prostitution; and practising magic arts, which Scripture directly links with idolatry, as with Jezebel.

Liars, finally, have betrayed the faith — they call themselves apostles but act in Satan's way, bring false testimony, disobey Jesus' word, deny that Jesus is Lord, hate their brothers or sisters, and don't believe we have eternal life in Jesus. The list is repeated at the very end of the book and in a shorter version at the end of this chapter, and in every case it ends with “liar,” because it is essential that our words and deeds are consistent. After all, the ultimate liar is Satan himself, and this is one place we want to be as distinguished from him as possible.

Details of the New Jerusalem

First look

The New Jerusalem is the counterpart to Babel when we look at the larger context. The New Jerusalem represents a woman (the bride) just as Babel represents one (the harlot), which is also reflected in Isaiah.

• Babel is the economic system distributed with the power of the ruler, and immorality is done with idolatry (unfaithfulness), but God’s people are faithful to him
• Babel causes suffering while Jerusalem removes suffering
• Babel destroys itself and Jerusalem stays forever
• Babel gets rich by exploitation and persecution, but Jerusalem is rich as God’s gift

The twelve gates refer to the twelve tribes, and the twelve foundation stones to the twelve apostles. The twelve-times-two reflects the eternal worship in heaven, but it is also a reminder to seek reconciliation between Jews and non-Jews, a conflict described throughout the book.

There’s something strange in the arrangement, though: the apostles form the foundation of the tribes — the church as the foundation for Israel. That makes sense once you see that Jesus is the fulfillment of Israel, worked out through the church. It fits, too, that Judah is listed first among the tribes elsewhere in the book, reflecting Jesus.

The measurement of the city

The measuring of the city draws on Ezekiel, where measuring signals security against destructive forces — a deliberate contrast with the old Jerusalem, whose walls were destroyed. In Ezekiel, the temple itself is measured as a square, while the city around it has a different shape, with the temple at its center. In Zechariah, God measures the city so that people find refuge, since God has again shown mercy to Jerusalem. Much of the language in Revelation 21 is drawn from these temple descriptions, especially from the last nine chapters of Ezekiel — yet there will be no temple in the New Jerusalem at all.

Why a cube

When you look further, you find the city has a strange shape: it is a cube. The only object in the Old Testament with this shape is the Holy of Holies. Why revisit that shape here? Because the Holy of Holies pointed to a real limitation in the old temple: God dwelled there, and the farther you stood from it, the farther you were from him. Now, in the New Jerusalem, everyone stands equally close to God. More than that: all the unbelievers are outside the city, meaning outside the Holy of Holies altogether — so once again, you are either completely in or completely out.

One more detail is worth noting: a cube some 1,380 miles on every side — taller than the atmosphere — is itself a signal that the number is meant symbolically (12 x 12 x 1,000: covenant completeness multiplied by totality) rather than as an architectural blueprint. The city’s footprint, by one common estimate, is comparable in scale to the eastern Mediterranean world of John’s day — large enough, symbolically, for everyone willing to enter.

The material of the city

The material recalls the restoration of Jerusalem after her suffering: the gold reflects God's glory, as does the jasper among the stones.

The twelve stones reflect the breastpiece of the high priest, which held the lots used to ask for God's will and was itself square. Each stone represented one tribe of Israel, and here the twelve stones represent the twelve apostles instead — fitting, since we too are called living stones in God's house.

One translation note matters here: our English versions typically read “the first foundation was decorated with jasper,” but a better translation is “the first foundation is jasper” — the foundation isn’t merely ornamented with the stone, it is made of it.

The mention of the street in the New Jerusalem recalls the two witnesses, whose dead bodies were once exposed in a street — except now that same street stands in their honor. Our former shame will be replaced by eternal glory.

The internal features

The statement that the city has no need of sun or moon draws on Isaiah, where the line “your God will be your glory” is here replaced by “the Lamb is its lamp” — so Jesus is God’s glory, or beauty. This also fulfills Ezekiel 43:2 and 5.

The nations and their gifts

The statement that the nations will bring their splendor, glory, and honor into the city is easier to understand alongside Isaiah, which uses the same phrases but speaks of wealth where Revelation speaks of glory and honor.

The parallel is close enough to set side by side. Isaiah: “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. …, to you the riches of the nations will come.” Revelation: “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.” And again, Isaiah: “Your gates will always stand open, they will never be shut, day or night, so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations — their kings led in triumphal procession.” Revelation: “On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it.”

In Isaiah, the nations bring their wealth to acknowledge that God is with Israel and will therefore no longer suffer alongside the others — they come bearing the good news of God’s salvation. A later passage, “I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream,” likewise links the nations’ gift to peace with Israel. In both texts, the glory, honor, and splendor described are not an attribute the nations already possess but something they give to God — not the kind of glory and riches they once drew from Babel. Instead, they bring themselves to serve God.

But who are these kings, and will all the nations be saved? It seems some of them repent and give God the glory, but not all do — the same passage in Isaiah we've been following describes both good and bad kings, a pattern found elsewhere too. This is, in fact, Israel’s calling reaching its fulfillment: it began with Abraham, called to be a blessing to all nations, passed to Israel at the Exodus, and was finally fulfilled in Jesus, who brought the nations into Israel — that is, into the church. So the nations are now coming, though not all of them: only those who believe in Christ, since the closing verse of the chapter still excludes unbelieving nations.

The gates aren't open for exchange with an outside world — there is no such world left to trade with — but to display the result of what has already happened and the security that comes with it: there will be no night. And while the faithful may come in, the unfaithful cannot, which is reflected in two related passages of Isaiah. There, pools of water appear just before the same statement about who may and may not enter; here in Revelation, the water instead follows it.

Symbols of God's presence

This closing picture draws on several Old Testament rivers: the river flowing from the altar, the river that flows when Jerusalem is rebuilt, and the water from the house of the Lord watering the trees. It also echoes the creation story, where the rivers are likewise associated with precious stones, just as they are in Revelation.

The source of it all is the throne of God and the Lamb, and water throughout Scripture is closely associated with the Holy Spirit: when God gives us a new heart, when we are born of water and Spirit, in living water and worship in the Spirit, and in water and Spirit as joint witnesses.

Finally, the circle closes back to the beginning, to creation and the fall: the Tree of Life returns, and everyone has access to it. All evil is gone, and we are free to focus entirely on serving God.

The name on the forehead was originally worn on the priest's forehead, and here it shows that God's own character, once imprinted on the priest, is now imprinted on us.

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