The debauched and bloody city, Babylon, the world’s greatest achievement, went up in a rage of flames to the horrified howls of humanity. A massive global war ensued, with destruction so complete the earth was left a blackened wasteland. A great victory march in the heavenly realms paraded the defeated dragon and his unwholesome horde to their final end in the lake of unquenchable fire.
Surely hollow-eyed and exhausted from the Sturm und Drang of it all, John was now lifted up to an impossibly high mountain to view an even more impossibly huge city. If Babylon had looked powerful and wealthy before, the memory of it was now pathetic and sadly absurd.
For this city was made entirely of the purest gold and shimmered with every hue of gem and pearl. In fact, each of its portals was carved from one voluminous pearl a piece. The sentries were angels. Every part of the city was foursquare, infinitely stable and solid, and the grand colonnade down the center of the city was paved with blocks of gold so pure each shone crystal clear.
Perhaps the Psalm came to John’s mind that had sung of earth’s Jerusalem,
Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised
in the city of our God.
His holy mountain,beautiful in elevation,
is the joy of all the earth,
Mount Zion, in the far north,
the city of the great King.Psalm 48:1-2 (NRSVUE)
The Bride
Babylon had been no bride, promised to but one bridegroom. Babylon had thrown open her gates to whichever suitor brought her power and wealth.
But this city descending through the sky was adorned in the glory of God, glistening and lovely, kept for one alone, the bridegroom, the Lamb of God.
Adorned in Glory
John’s readers would surely have remembered the story of God’s pillar of fire and cloud descending upon the tabernacle.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Exodus 40:34-35 (NRSVUE, italics added)
Later, God honored Solomon’s temple, surrounding it with God’s Shekinah, the brilliant, even overwhelming, presence of the Lord.
… a cloud filled the house of the Lord, the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.
1 Kings 8:10-11 (NRSVUE, italics added)
But the Lord’s glory had departed from Solomon’s temple in the days of Ezekiel and had never returned. Now, God’s glory filled New Jerusalem, the city prepared for the Lamb. The Lord’s glory, never meant for buildings made by human hands, was settled in God’s true holy habitation: the people of God.
This is the teaching all the apostles had given.
God’s Glory Given to the Bride of Christ
Peter
Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones let yourselves be builtinto a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:4-5 (NRSVUE, italics added)
John
… We know that whenever Jesus will be made visible we will be similar to him, for we will perceive him just he is.
And each one having this expectation concerning Jesus consecrates themselves just as that One is consecrated.
1 John 3:2-3 (my translation)
The writer of Hebrews
It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.
Hebrews 2:10 (NRSVUE, italics added)
Paul
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NRSVUE, italics added)
Paul, in fact, wrote often of this glory that God, even now, is steadily conforming every believer to receive and reflect.
I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
2 Corinthians 11:2 (NRSVUE)
The Radiance of Diamonds
The first thing John noted was the city’s luminosity. He compared it to the glistening of a precious stone, such as jasper—most likely what we would today call a diamond. The prophet Malachi had likened those who were devoted to the Lord as God’s precious treasure. In fact, John may have been thinking of Malachi’s prophetic oracle because John had only recently been given the vision of God’s final judgment. Those whose names were not written in the Book of Life did not receive life from the Lord, but rather the Lake of Fire.
When was that book written, though?
Then those who revered the Lord spoke with one another.
The Lord took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who revered the Lord and thought on his name.
They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, my special possession on the day when I act, and I will spare them as parents spare their children who serve them. Then once more you shall see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.
Malachi 3:16-18 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
It has been suggested that the context for Malachi’s prophecies had to do with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, making this oracle particularly relevant to John’s Apocalypse.
The Wall of Salvation
John then noted the great high wall surrounding the city. Even today, gated communities are considered safe neighborhoods, and in John’s day, walls had for thousands of years protected cities from invasion. A spiritual city would also be fortified by a wall.
Isaiah
Violence shall no more be heard in your land,
devastation or destruction within your borders;
you shall call your walls Salvation
and your gates Praise.Isaiah 60:18 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
Zechariah
“For I will be a wall of fire all around it,” says the Lord, “and I will be the glory within it.”
Zechariah 2:5 (NRSVUE, emphases added)
Both of these prophetic utterances describe a spiritual wall, which would point to the city John gazed at as being a spiritual city. John’s audience would have recognized these prophetic allusions and understood what John was describing to them.
Gates of Splendor
As he looked more closely at the magnificent wall of gold, John noticed the portals of pearl, twelve of them, each with an angel standing sentry, and each with a name inscribed over them. Each inscription bore the name of a tribe of Israel.
Isaiah had named the gates of the heavenly city “Praise.” Judah, the tribe of kings, means “praise” in Hebrew. If Isaiah’s prophecy was in John’s mind, then he would have recognized that all the gates are praiseworthy, for all belong to Christ, the King of all kings. It is through the tribes of Israel that salvation can be obtained, as John had quoted Jesus saying to the woman at the well, salvation is from the Jews.
The city itself was foursquare, so of course there would be twelve gates, three on each side. But more so, John alluded to another saying of Jesus, this time in Luke’s Gospel.
“Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and take their places at the banquet in the kingdom of God.”
Luke 13:29 (NRSVUE)
Arrayed in Treasure
John’s readers would have been familiar with the high priest’s golden breastplate set with jewel for each of the twelve tribes of Judah.
There is certainly some corollary between the gems of that priestly apparel and the precious stones John now observed. There is, perhaps, an even closer corollary to Isaiah’s prophecy of Jerusalem’s far future.
O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted,
I am about to set your stones in antimony
and lay your foundations with sapphires.
I will make your pinnacles of rubies,
your gates of jewels
Isaiah 54:11-12 (NRSVUE, italics added)
Views summarized from Revelation: Four Views A Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg
