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Sunday School Lesson
The New City Of God (Revelation 21:9-27)
Jerusalem. Her beauty takes one’s breath away.
This wife is not just a wife; she is a city. John’s attention was drawn to the city’s glory, walls, gates, and foundations. The glory of the city is de- scribed in terms of shining brilliance and security. It was like that of a precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
Jasper was a well-known jewel in the ancient world. Jasper is not clear, but the phrase clear as crystal is de- scriptive of beauty.
The walls of the city are high, which symbolize protec- tion. The city’s measurements are symbolic of a place that will hold all God’s people. Given in cubits, these meas- urements are multiples of 12. The walls are 144 cubits (200 feet) across, there are 12 lay- ers in the walls (Revelation
21:17), also representing safety.
The glory of the city is de- scribed in terms of majesty and symmetry. This text is brought to you by the number 12 (we see 12 gates, 12 angels at those gates, 12 names of the tribes of Israel on the gates, and 12 foundations).
The Old Israel and the New Israel account for the number 12 (a complete picture of God’s people). This city has perfect symmetry too. Just like Israel camped around the tabernacle (Numbers 2:1- 34), so the people of God sur- round the throne in the New Jerusalem. In fact, the city is a perfect cube (Revelation 21:16). Think of the volume of this in a literal way. The space shuttle circles the earth at about 300 miles above the earth. The city goes out into
outer space about 1,400 miles. That’s big.
The Lamb Temple Revelation 21:22-27
The most important part of Old Jerusalem was the tem- ple. So John looks inside the city to find the temple. To his surprise he finds none. Nei- ther does he find a light. But he does find the Lamb. An en- gaging part of biblical cosmol- ogy is that light existed before sun, moon, and stars (Gene- sis 1:3-5, 14-19). Also after the sun is extinguished, light will still exist (Revelation 22:5). The most important part of this city is the Lamb himself.
The picture of walls made of jewels reveals that the new Jersalem will be a place of pu- rity and durability--- it will last forever.
The New Jerusalem that John saw in his vision sparkled. John utilized vivid language to describe what he saw. Because John had never seen anything like this, some ofitmaybethebesthecando with figures of speech.
The Bride City Revelation 21:9-14
John was mesmerized by this holy city that came down out of Heaven. He obeyed the voice of one of the seven an- gels (Revelation 15:1), find-
ing himself in the Spirit (a vi- sionary inspiration), and even went to a mountain great and high (see also Isaiah 2:2, 3) to view this wonderful wife of the lamb. Revelations 17 also speaks about another metaphorical woman who is filled with abominations, has terrible names written on her, and is called Babylon.
THIS metaphorical woman is a wife filled with trans- parency, who has the seal of God on her and is called
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