New Jerusalem
Covenantal Habitation of the Saints
The images of the new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem in Revelation chapters twenty-one and twenty-two are believed by many to represent man’s heavenly home or the eternal state upon a new material creation. A variation in Preterist circles has it that these images indicate man is somehow mystically in “heaven now.” However, the better view is that the new Jerusalem symbolically describes the covenantal habitation of the saints under the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Literalist Conceptions
Most of us have encountered various literalist
conceptions of Rev. 21 and 22 at some time or other.
Indeed, it would be strange if we had not; the church abounds
in them. If nothing
else, we have probably been confronted with literalist notions of
the new Jerusalem in a song or hymn, which mentions “streets of
gold,” or heard the saying about St. Peter and the “pearly gates.”
These and similar allusions are based upon the assumption
that the imagery of Rev. 21 and 22 should be understood literally;
that it describes things as they actually are or will be, rather
than merely providing a symbolic description of spiritual truths.
Typically, it is assumed that Revelation’s imagery of the new
Jerusalem portrays heaven.
Plummer’s interpretation is typical of this school:
“Having described the origin and progress of evil in the world, the final overthrow of Satan and his adherents, and the judgment when every man is rewarded according to his works, the seer now completes the whole by portraying the eternal bliss of the redeemed in heaven.”[1]
The weakness of this view is obvious: John
specifically states that the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven
from God. (Rev. 21:2,
10) If it comes down
out of heaven, clearly the imagery cannot portray heaven itself.
[2]This has caused others to see
the imagery as referring to a material, new creation.
Among the “church fathers” that saw these images as
portraying a new physical creation and city, Irenaeus thought there
would be three levels of resurrection corresponding to individual
worthiness:
“Then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in
heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of paradise,
and others shall possess the splendour of the city…For the first
will be taken up into the heavens, the second will dwell in
paradise, the last will inhabit the city.”[3]
Tertullian thought the images portrayed an
earthly city during the “millennium”:
“But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to
us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of
existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection of a
thousand years in the divinely built city of
Modern expositors falling into the error of a
literalist interpretation of John’s vision include Mathison and
Gentry:
“His elect people will inherit the eternal estate
in resurrected, physical bodies (Jno.
The assertion that man will live forever in
physical bodies in a material “new creation” betrays a fundamental
misunderstanding of God’s redemptive purpose.
It is the stuff of Jehovah’s Witnesses other cultic sects
inhabiting the fringes of Christendom.
It stems from Gentry’s belief in Postmillennialism, which
holds that God’s redemptive purpose culminates in a redeemed,
material creation.[6]
Never mind the many statements in scripture plainly pointing
to the fact that the saints inheritance is in heaven (Phil. 3:20;
Col. 3:1-3; I Thess. 4:17; I Tim. 6:7; II Tim. 2:11; Heb. 11:13, 16;
I Pet. 1:4), we are now to believe that our eternal state is upon
earth; that having begun in the spirit, we are to be made perfect in
the flesh! (Cf. Gal.
3:3) Discerning
students will reject these literalistic approaches, opting instead
for the view that John symbolically describes the present, legal
condition of the church under the New Testament, where the saints
are redeemed from sin, justified in law, and restored to the
communion and presence of God.
Old Testament Origins of
Revelation’s Imagery
Perhaps the simplest way to demonstrate the
proper interpretation of Revelation’s new heavens, new earth, and
new Jerusalem, is to examine how Old Testament writers employed the
imagery. Study of the
prophets shows that three themes dominated their writings: 1)
Prophecies of the coming captivity in
Understanding the poetic and typological nature
of the prophets’ writings is particularly important in the study of
eschatology where the language is couched in apocalyptic imagery and
symbolism derived from Old Testament sources.
For example, the new heavens and earth of Revelation find
their source in the prophet Isaiah, who used the imagery to describe
the captivity’s return from
“Our adversaries have trodden down thy
sanctuary…Thy holy cities are a wilderness,
However, in Isa. 65, a remnant is promised:
“Thus saith the Lord, As the new wine in found in
the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it:
so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them
all. And I will bring
forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my
mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall
dwell there.” (Isa. 65:8, 9)
The remnant would return and inherit a “new”
heavens and earth. The old heavens and earth, The old heavens and
earth, marked by the nation's apostasy, bringing clouds and storms
of destruction and wrath, would be replaced by a heavens and earth
where God’s people would be blessed with peace and joy:
“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new
earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for,
behold, I create
The immediate application of this prophecy
looked to the return from captivity, but the poetic nature of the
language describing the new heaven and earth of restored
What New Testament Writers
Say
New Testament writers make clear that
"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do
ye not hear the law?
For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid,
the other by a freewoman.
But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but
he of the freewoman was by promise.
Which things are an allegory: for these are the two
covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,
which is Agar. For this
Agar is mount Sinai in
In this passage, Paul indicates that
The book of Hebrews was written during a crisis
of the last days when Christian Jews were under persecution and
pressured to forsake Christ and turn back to Judaism.
The writer's main argument is to show that the law of Moses
was merely provisional and would shortly pass away. Christian Jews
therefore should not be deceived into thinking they could find
security or salvation in the temple cultus.
Much to the contrary, the on-going temple cultus was an
implicit denial of Christ's atoning sacrifice and sonship and marked
the Jews as his enemies to be destroyed.
Twice in the writer's argument he mentions the removal of the
old heavens and earth that a new system could assume their place.
(Heb.
"For ye are not come unto the mount that might be
touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and
darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of
words; which voice they that heard intreated that the word should
not be spoken to them any more…But ye are come unto mount Sion
[e.g., Zion], and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the first born, which are written in heaven,
and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made
perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, , and to the
blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things that that of Abel.
Heb. 12:18-24
Here, the writer compares the tangible nature
of things pertaining to the old covenant to the intangible things of
the new, indicating the superiority of the latter.
Notice that the new covenant Christ mediates answers to
Timing of the New Jerusalem
The discussion above demonstrates the
substance of the new heavens and earth and shows that it answers to
the spiritual regeneration of man in Christ.
What about the timing?
When would these things come to be?
Stephen, when tried for preaching Christ would come and
destroy the city and temple and change the customs embodied in the
Mosaic law (Acts 7:13, 14), cited the sixty-sixth chapter of Isaiah
as proof that he was preaching nothing that had not been prophesied
long before. Before the
Sanhedrin he quotes Isaiah, saying, “Heaven is my throne, and earth
is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or
what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these
things?” (Acts 7:49,
50; cf. Isa. 66:1, 2)
Stephen thus indicated the imminent fulfillment of Isaiah’s
prophecy. The timing of
the new heavens and earth, therefore is not left in doubt, but was
clearly tied to the destruction of
First, Isaiah makes clear that national
"He that killeth an ox is as if he slew a man; he
that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dog’s neck; he that
offereth an oblation, as if he offered swine’s blood; he that
burneth incense, as if he blessed an idol.
Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul
delighteth in their abominations.
I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their
fears upon them; because when I called, none did answer; when I
spake, they did not hear: but they did evil before mine eyes, and
chose that in which I delighted not.
(Isa. 66:3, 4)
Next, he indicates the Jews would persecute
their believing brethren and cast them out of the synagogue:
“Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his
word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s
sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but he shall appear to your
joy, and they shall be ashamed. (Isa. 66: 5)
Then, Isaiah prophesies the destruction of the
city and temple alluded to by Stephen and foretold by Christ:
“A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the
temple, as voice of the Lord that rendereth recompence to his
enemies…For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his
chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his
rebuke with flames of fire.”
(Isa. 66: 6, 15)
“And I will also take of them for priests and for
Levites, saith the Lord.
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I make, shall
remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name
remain. And it shall
come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one
Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come and worship before me,
saith the Lord. And
they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have
transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall
their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all
flesh.” (Isa. 66:21-24)
“All flesh” is equivalent to “every creature”
and “all nations” of the Great Commission. (Matt. 28:18-20; Mk.
16:15, 16) “Worshipping
before the Lord” points to the assimilation of the Gentiles into the
kingdom (church). The
carcasses of those eaten of fire and worms has in view the bodies of
the Jews who perished in the ravages of war, famine, and pestilence
during the siege.
Josephus reports that eleven-hundred-thousand Jews were slain in the
siege of
Heaven Now?
At the beginning of this article we indicated
that, given the fulfilled nature of biblical eschatology, some
Preterists feel they were somehow mystically in “heaven now.”
Is there any validity to this interpretation?
No.
The heavenly city that God has prepared for his people (Heb.
“Therefore we are always confident, knowing that,
whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for
we walk by faith not by sight:)
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from
the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
(II Cor. 5:6-8)
“For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire
to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless
to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.”
(Phil. 1:23, 24)
These passages make plain that there was a
place Paul desired to go; there is not the least indication that he
in any sense felt he had already gone to it or that it had, or ever
would, come to him. The
essential barrier to enjoyment of that place was his fleshly body.
Not until the body was put off in death could his hope be
realize.
Is there a sense in which saints this side of
eternity share in that heavenly kingdom?
Yes, indeed there is.
The new covenant is a legal arrangement between two parties:
God on the one side and ransomed sinners on the other.
Under the new covenant, those who obey the gospel by
repentance and baptism are acquitted from sin and made sons of God
through Christ. As
sons, we have citizenship and inheritance in heaven.
(Eph. 2:19; Col. 3:20)
We have been translated in contemplation of law from the
dominion of sin to the
Conclusion
The new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem
describe the covenantal habitation of the saints, the New Testament
church. The legal
benefits of the New Testament came in fulness in A.D. 70 when the
Old was taken away that the New could assume its place. The saints
today enjoy a face-to-face relationship with the Father through the
mediation and agency of the risen Son.
At the death of the body, the inheritance that is ours as a
matter of law will become our own in very fact.
[1] A. Plummer, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, Pulpit Commentary (Hendrickson, Peabody, MS), Vol. XXII, p. 509.
[2] It comes down out of heaven, not because it was first “raptured” there, but because the New Testament originates with God; he is the architect of our salvation.
[3] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, V, xxxvi, 1, 2; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 567.
[4] Tertullian, Against Marcion, III, xxv; Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, p. 342.
[5] Kenneth L. Gentry
Jr., Christ's Resurrection and Ours, (
[6] “God seeks the redemption of the world as a created system of men and things...Christ’s labors will eventually effect the redemption of the created system of humanity and things.” Kenneth L. Gentry Jr, Three Views of the Millennium and Beyond (Zondervan, 1999), p. 43. Cf. Keith A. Mathison, Postmillennialism, An Eschatology of Hope (P&R Publishing, Phillipsburgn NJ, 1999), p. 107: “Christ’s atonement lays the foundation for the work of restoring all of man and all of creation.”
[7] Josephus, Wars, VI, iv, 5, 8.
[8] Josephus, Wars of the
Jews, VI, ix, 3.
This figure does not include those who perished in
foreign cities or died in battles throughout the rest of
[9] Josephus, Wars of the Jews, V, xii, 3, 4.
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