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§20 The City of God: Entering God’s Promised Shalom (Rev. 21:1–22:6a)

John’s final, most detailed and most important vision of Christ’s parousia is of a new heaven and a new earth, the Holy City, and the new Jerusalem where the dwelling of God is with men and the old order of things has passed away. Following the return of the Lamb, after his last battle and millennial reign, after the destruction of Satan, of his evil kingdom, and finally of death itself, the vision of the eschatological city of God “may be viewed as the climax not only of the book of Revelation, but of the whole story of salvation embodied in the Bible” (Beasley-Murray, Revelation, p. 305). With typical eloquence, Caird adds that “Here is the real source of John’s prophetic certainty, for only in comparison with the new Jerusalem can the queenly splendors of Babylon be recognized as the seductive gauds of an old and raddled whore” (Revelation, p. 262). In short, the new order is defined in terms of the presence of God and the absence of evil.

Upon closer reading of this passage, however, the interpreter will discover that John’s picture of the new Jerusalem is actually a metaphor for the eschatological people of God, the Lamb’s bride. According to the prophet, Christian hope is centered in the prospect not of a heavenly place but of transformed human existence. A discussion of the chiastic patterning of both the vision’s prologue and the vision’s main body will illustrate our point. In particular, the vortex of both chiasms helps to focus the reader’s attention on the vision’s climactic point: the new Jerusalem is the Lamb’s Bride, the community of overcomers. Recall that a literary chiasmus functions as a rhetorical device to aid the reader in ranking the significance of various elements in a complex picture. The items found at its vortex, where the two parallel and inverted phrases intersect, are ranked as most significant. In this way, the interpreter focuses on the most critical element in the author’s climactic vision of Christ’s parousia. Let’s develop this point more fully.

The chiasmus that shapes the vision’s prologue (21:1–5a) is composed of a series of contrasts. The first contrast begins with the confirmation of the promised new creation (A; v. 1a), which John sees. This is followed by the negation of the old creation (B; v. 1b). The second contrast is between the passing away of the sea (C; v. 1c), the symbol of uncertainty caused by tribulation, and the coming of the new Jerusalem (D; v. 2a). These two contrasts are then inverted by what John hears; a vision is followed by oracle, video by audio, typical of prophetic ecstasy (cf. 2 Pet. 1:16–18). He first hears the divine confirmation of God’s eschatological dwelling (D′; v. 3) where there will be no effects of evil (C′; 4a, b). These are the very things that have passed away (B′; v. 4c) with God’s transformation of old things into a new order (A′; v. 5a).

At the vortex or center of this opening chiasmus is not a city but rather a bride beautifully dressed for her husband (E; v. 2b). The reader is drawn to John’s real concern. Even though John is rather indefinite in speaking of a bride, his use of the marriage typology recalls 19:6, where the eschatological community is the Lamb’s bride. John repeats the type in 19:7–8 where the bride’s wedding dress consists of “righteous acts” and reflects the relational (or covenantal) nature of John’s idea of the church: eternal life belongs to those in right relationship with God and God’s Lamb, attested by righteous deeds and in continuity with both the apostolic witness to the testimony of Jesus (cf. 21:14) and the history of Israel (cf. 21:12).

The second chiasmus (21:5b—22:6a) shapes the vision’s main body, which follows from and expands upon the prologue to the vision. John is recommissioned to write (A; 21:5b) about the water of life (B; 21:6), which is the inheritance of the community of overcomers (C; 21:7) who are not evil doers and do not belong to the second death (D; 21:8). John repeats these same themes in reverse order in concluding his extended description of the new Jerusalem (E; 21:9–26). The new order belongs not to the impure (D′; 21:27a) but to those found in the Lamb’s book of life (C′; 21:27b). They will take their place in the garden where the water of life is found (B′; 22:1–5). This vision of the new order, which John is commissioned to write down, is trustworthy and true (A′; pistoi kai alēthinoi, 22:6a) even as the returning Lamb is also named “Faithful and True” (pistos kai alēthinos, 19:11).

The vortex of the second chiasmus expands the equation of new Jerusalem with bride found in the vortex of the prologue. The vision’s main body proceeds from the angel’s pledge to show John the bride, who is now identified as the wife of the Lamb. Yet, when the angel shows John the bride, John gets a “Cook’s tour” of the Holy City, Jerusalem (21:9–10). This equation underscores John’s understanding of God’s eternal reign as a transformed people rather than as a place (i.e., heaven). His vision of the new order has been carefully crafted to underscore this foundational eschatological principle: the primary result of God’s coming triumph over evil is a redeemed and transformed people, who live forever with God and God’s Lamb. This hope provides the church with its ultimate incentive for a faithful witness to God’s gospel.

21:1–5a / The prologue to John’s vision of the new Jerusalem introduces the reader to its main features. As a perspective on Christ’s parousia, John’s portrait of the Holy City symbolizes a new order of human existence. Because it comes down out of heaven from God to earth, the reader assumes the realization of God’s promised salvation will be historical and public rather than spiritual and private. Further, the impression one receives from what John sees (21:1–2) and hears (21:3–4) is that the history of human existence under the new order is characterized both by the absence of evil and its various effects (e.g., secularism, injustice, suffering, death) and by the presence of God who “tabernacles” with the worshiping community.

The new Jerusalem discloses the vital essence of the new heaven and new earth. While surely John depends upon Ezekiel’s vision of the new Jerusalem, which is the site of the eschatological temple and God’s shekinah (cf. Ezek. 40–48; esp. 40:2 and 48:35), John’s emphasis is different. His Christian perspective is not religious but interpersonal; that is, God’s triumph in Jesus Christ is not about a transformed cultus but about a transformed people. For this reason, he does not subordinate a new Jerusalem to a new temple as Ezekiel does. Because of this, we understand John’s interpretation of his vision as the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy of the eschatological cultus (contra Morris, Revelation, p. 238). John’s use of the Ezekiel new Jerusalem typology relocates God’s transforming grace and abiding glory from the temple of a restored Jerusalem (T. Dan 5:12; 2 Esdras 7:26; 10:49; cf. Heb. 12:22) to a restored people who are the new Jerusalem of John’s vision. John’s creative combination of the Jerusalem and marriage typologies is appropriate to his theological program, since it speaks of restoration as an intimate relationship.

In this sense, John refers to the two eschatological cities, old Babylon and new Jerusalem, as metaphors of human existence. “Babylon” denotes the world of human actions and attitudes, which yield a manner of life at odds with God’s intentions for a good creation. Finally, then, unbelief is a decision against God’s good intentions for humanity; Babylon’s self-destruction symbolizes sin’s effect on the unbelieving world. “Jerusalem” denotes yet another world—this one of faithful actions, which results in a transformed life in harmony with the creator’s will (cf. 4:11). The eschatological character of Christian discipleship is a new quality of existence when God’s intentions are concretely fulfilled in a “new creation,” which is the people of God (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 5:22; 6:15; Eph. 2:10; 4:24).

The supreme blessing God dispenses at Christ’s parousia is that of an eternal relationship: Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. The word translated “dwelling” (skēnē) is used in the LXX to translate the Hebrew word (miškan) for “tabernacle,” and is associated with the glorious presence (shekinah) of God (cf. Caird, Revelation, pp. 263–64). There is no such “building” found in the new Jerusalem (21:22) because the tabernacle has been replaced by Jesus, the embodiment of God’s shekinah (cf. John 1:14). The application of this christological conviction to the parousia reflects a distinctive emphasis of the Johannine community which understood itself as abiding in God and God in it because of its intimate relationship with God’s Son (cf. John 14–17; 1 John 4:7–21). In this sense, the fulness of the abiding glory of God will be experienced by the community at Christ’s parousia.

Moreover, the use of the marriage typology also constitutes the final vindication of the community’s devotion to God during the awful suffering of the present evil age. The testing of the community’s faithfulness to God, which we have discussed as a problem of theodicy, comes precisely when believers are asked to trust God during those occasions when God’s loving presence seems most absent from or incongruous with the actual experience of powerlessness when death … mourning … crying … pain seem to be the norm. The passing of the old order does not alter the nature of Israel’s covenantal relationship with God; rather, the very nature of history has been altered so that the quality of the church’s covenantal relationship with God has also been transformed in the absence of those evil powers who once sought to undermine it.

The prologue is bracketed by the language of newness: a new heaven and a new earth are the work of God who is making everything new. New is an eschatological catchword; it tells the reader to think and hope about the future of salvation’s history, and specifically about the ultimate import of Christ’s return. In this sense, the new order does not refer to a “brand new” reality; neither does Christ’s parousia mark the end of human history. Rather it consummates the renewal of the old order. In making everything new, God removes all that interferes with the formation of a covenantal relationship with the believing community (cf. Heb. 8:6–13). We may now understand the cryptic reference to the passing of sea which probably symbolizes the uncertainty or ambiguity of current faith caused by trials and tribulations (cf. James 1:6). With the second coming comes certainty of the gospel’s truth.

21:5b–8 / This passage has the singular distinction within Revelation of quoting the words of God. In introducing the vision of the new Jerusalem as the Lamb’s bride, God recommissions John to write this vision down. That it is God rather than Christ or Christ’s angel who commissions John may well testify to the fundamental importance of what follows in the vision’s main body. The effect is one of having the Father make formal presentation of the Son’s bride as “the wife of the Lamb” (21:9) to John and the other wedding guests who are witnesses of the wedding (perhaps the readers of Revelation?). This presentation suggests movement, beginning with the bride’s processional out of heaven in preparation for the wedding (21:3) and concluding with the Father’s announcement that the overcomers are the bride of the groom.

What follows constitutes God’s trustworthy and true sayings (logoi) about the wedding’s eschatological significance. In fact, it is a summary of those theological convictions that have been verified with the final coming of the new order. In this light, the authoritative pronouncement from the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End (cf. Rev. 1:8), that It is done. confirms that the antecedent promises of the new order have now been fulfilled. The Isaianic summons to drink from the water of life (cf. Isa. 44:3; 55:1), rehearsed by John’s Jesus at the Samaritan well (cf. John 4:10–14), is satisfied by the one who overcomes.

We do not find a baptismal emphasis here, although the equation of water and life in Jewish cultic rituals was quite common (cf. Life of Adam and Eve 6; ApMos 29:12–17). John’s use of the water metaphor serves theological rather than sacramental interests. As such, he wishes to continue Isaiah’s use of water as symbolizing the restored covenant between the remnant Israel, the community of overcomers, and God (cf. Rev. 7:16).

John chooses to frame his fundamental eschatological conviction by echoing the covenantal formula of the Davidic covenant, I will be his God and he will be my son (2 Sam. 7:14 par.). His decision to do so is striking in two ways. First, this same formula is used elsewhere in the NT of Jesus (Heb. 1:5, 12:7; Luke 1:32–33; et al.). In these instances, the Davidic formula functions as a messianic title that not only conveys something of the intimate relationship between God and Jesus—like that shared between King David and God—but also transmits the church’s conviction that Jesus is God’s Christ, the promised heir to David’s throne. That is, the Davidic covenant became a messianic promise that Jesus then fulfilled. Both parts are claims for Jesus’ uniqueness. Thus, when John transfers the messianic formula from Christ to Christ’s bride, he also changes the idiom for God, from “Father” to “God,” in order to retain his conviction that Jesus is the “only begotten Son of God” (cf. John 1:17–18; Beasley-Murray, Revelation, pp. 313–14).

Our second point, however, alludes to the Isaianic texts that serve as the “scripture-scape” for this vision (Isa. 44:3; 55:1). That prophecy indicates that the blessings of the Davidic covenant will finally be fulfilled not in an individual but in a remnant people. Further, they are a people consisting not only of Jews (cf. Isa. 44:3–5) but also of Gentiles (cf. Isa. 55:3–5). Membership in the eschatological community is not based upon ethnicity—perhaps the contention of some of John’s Jewish opponents. Rather, it is based upon one’s response to God and whether one meets the theological (orthodoxy) and ethical (orthopraxy) conditions of covenant. Thus, those who belong to the second death rather than “first resurrection” (cf. Rev. 20:4–6) are the cowardly, the unbelieving … the idolaters and all liars who can not belong to the messianic community because of improper responses to God. They are not dressed in the “fine linen” of righteous deeds; they have not followed the Lamb, and so they cannot drink from the spring of the water of life; rather they are thrown into the waters of the fiery lake of burning sulfur (cf. 19:20; 20:10, 14, 15).

21:9–10 / One of the seven angels that had previously shown John the punishment of Babylon’s whore (cf. 17:1) is now commissioned by God to show John the wife of the Lamb. While the angel’s mission is to disclose the contrast between these two women, it also makes it clear that they represent two contrasting spheres or “cities” of human relationships (cf. 17:18). This explains why the angel, who pledges to show John the bride, then showed him the Holy City, Jerusalem. This expansion of John’s earlier vision of the city (in 21:2) actually reverses the order of presentation, heightening the significance of the Lamb’s bride: on this occasion the angel first identifies the bride as the wife of the Lamb, and then shows John the Holy City. The description of the city’s architecture that follows in 21:11–26 actually describes the bride; this particular city is the realization of a particular human community, the faithful church (cf. Boring, Revelation, pp. 219–24).

John is transported to a mountain great and high to view the bride. The significance of his vantage point is indicated by the prophetic formula, in the Spirit (cf. 1:10): what follows for John is further indication that God will fulfill the promise of redemption. According to biblical prophecy, the mountain is Mount Zion, the building site for the eschatological city (cf. Ezek. 40:2; 28:13–14; Isa. 2:2; Mic. 4:1; cf. Caird, Revelation, pp. 269–70). Its great and high elevation is symbolic of the city’s power and influence in the age to come; for “the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (21:26). In fact, John’s vantage point is the very spot to which the eschatological city will descend out of heaven from God; thus, the angel has brought him to a place where he can easily survey the city from within its opened gates. Himself a member of the community of overcomers (cf. 1:9), the seer is now an insider to these eschatological mysteries of God and is able to be a faithful witness to “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”

Moreover, this text recalls the “desert” region where John is earlier led “in the Spirit” to witness the judgment of the “great prostitute” (cf. 17:3a). The desert, an isolated and forboding place, is apropos to the prostitute’s evil and eventual execution. By contrast, the angel now leads John to a mountain where he sees a vision of shalom and eternal life. Thus, the image of the great mountain cues the reader for a vision of the bride’s triumph, which will be very different in tone and spirit yet similar in power and importance to the prior vision of the prostitute’s defeat.

21:11–26 / Our commentary on John’s vision of the new Jerusalem will try to conceive of its architecture in interpersonal terms, in keeping with our thesis that the new Jerusalem is the Lamb’s bride, the community of his faithful disciples. Specifically, three landmarks on the cityscape are studied by John: (1) the city’s wall (21:12–14), (2) the city’s plat (21:15–17), and (3) the materials used to construct the city, especially its foundation stones (21:18–21).

Before we comment further on these three features, two additional elements must be noted because of their importance to the other three. First, John’s survey of the city is bracketed by his more general observation that the city radiates with the glory (shekinah) of God (21:11, 23), the tangible proof of God’s presence. It is the surety of God’s presence that provides light (or truth) for the nations (21:24–26) and ensures that nothing impure will ever enter into the city (21:27). Upon even a cursory reading of the Fourth Gospel, one notes the importance of the “glory” motif to the theology of the Johannine tradition; the essence and the aim of the Word’s messianic mission is his glory (John 1:14). Thus, in John’s narrative of Jesus’ public ministry, teaching interprets miracles as powerful “signs” that reveal the transforming nature of God’s glory within history, culminating in Jesus’ passion as the full revelation of God’s glory (cf. John 7:39; 8:54; 11:4; 12:16, 23, 28; 13:31, 32; 14:13; 15:8; 16:14; 17:1, 4, 5, 10). By locating God’s glory in Christ’s death rather than in his miracles, John shows the reader that the glory of God is ultimately God’s forgiveness of sin rather than the Lord’s miraculous power over nature; that is, “the glory of God is manifest for the salvation of man in Jesus” (so D. M. Smith, John, p. 30). This, then, is the essence of God’s Word which is the light of truth (cf. John 1:9; 1 John 2:8) first seen in Christ and now seen by all the nations (cf. 5:9) who follow after him.

The new Jerusalem is the domicile of a glorified people. Their glorification is testimony that their sins have been forgiven by the Lamb of God, and their relationship with a holy God has thereby been secured. This realization stands at the center of Christian hope: if the Lamb is glorified because of his faithfulness to God even unto death, so also will the Lamb’s followers be glorified at his parousia because of their devotion to him. The failure of those who followed the beast to give glory to God (cf. 16:9), in contrast with the heavenly beings (4:9, 11; 5:12, 13; 19:1, 7) and the eschatological people (cf. 7:12), rejects the core of Christian proclamation. Because they remain in sin, their names are not written “in the Lamb’s book of life”; because they remain impure, they are excluded from the new Jerusalem and the shalom of God.

Second, more important than what John finds in the city is what he does not find: I did not see a temple in the city (21:22). Most commentators point out that this remark differentiates John from other Jewish writers for whom the realization of Ezekiel’s eschatological temple was an essential element of their idea of hope. Perhaps John himself had expected to find such a temple in his vision and this text registers his surprise. A better explanation, however, is that this passage marks the essential protest of Christian proclamation that speaks of hope in terms of relationships rather than in terms of places and things. John’s comment agrees with Jesus (cf. Mark 14:57–59, par.) and Stephen (Acts 6:13; 7:48–53; cf. 21:28), who were executed in part for shifting the center of Jewish worship from the temple and its formal cultus to a dynamic, personal relationship with God as exemplified in and effected through the life and death of God’s Christ. The writer of Hebrews reminds us that the Son’s relationship to God and to God’s people is priestly; and this relationship transcends the limitations of the temple cultus on earth (cf. Heb. 9:1–14). In this sense, then, even as the new Jerusalem “is” the people of God, so also its temple “is” the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb (cf. 11:17–19). Now we turn to the critical landmarks of the new Jerusalem for comment.

John first saw that the city had a great, high wall (21:12–14). There are good reasons why the seer should be attracted to the city’s wall. Much like the well-known skyscrapers that define and distinguish today’s great cities or the Great Wall of China, the wall surrounding an ancient city gave it a distinctive identity. John reports that the wall of the new Jerusalem was great and high, symbolic then of the city’s exalted status among the nations. But the wall had a more practical function: to protect those who lived within. Indeed, all such potential threats have since been banished and “nothing impure will ever enter the city” (21:27). Those who live within the city’s walls are kept secure for an eternity.

Like the eschatological Jerusalem of Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek. 48:30–34), the wall of John’s Jerusalem has twelve gates, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Rev. 7:1–8); it has twelve foundations as well, corresponding to the twelve apostles of the Lamb (cf. 21:19–20). Rather than looking for zodiacal significance in John’s description (e.g., Caird, Revelation, pp. 271–72), the interpreter should quest after the theological significance of the city’s wall. First, the gates surround the city and symbolize the universal or inclusive character of God’s salvation (cf. 5:9). The credentials of the eschatological people of God are spiritual and not ethnic; thus, any person from any nation can enter into the community of faith to find God’s blessing. Second, the addition of twelve apostles to twelve tribes “maintains the continuity of the OT and the Christian Church” (Charles, Revelation, vol. 2, p. 162). The number twelve symbolizes the ongoing community of faith in whose history God’s salvation is worked out; the history of the twelve tribes (cf. Heb. 11:10) continues in the history of twelve apostles, who represent the true church. John’s vision of the new Jerusalem is the concluding chapter in that ecclesiastical history (cf. Heb. 12:22–28). Third, the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ is foundational for all the nations (cf. Matt. 16:17–19; Eph. 2:20), Jewish and Gentile (cf. Eph. 2:11–13), because it confirms the biblical promises of God’s salvation, first entrusted to God’s prophets and now fulfilled through Christ. The essential difference between God’s revelation in Christ and God’s revelation to Israel is not one of content but one of intent. The apostles did not bear witness to a “brand new” thing, as though God revealed one thing to Israel and another thing to the church; God is one God. Rather, they recognized that the biblical promises given to Israel through the prophets were now fulfilled in the ministry of the Messiah. This is precisely the point John is making: the wall surrounding new Jerusalem symbolizes the fulfillment of Israel’s hope for God’s shalom and locates its final realization in the community of overcomers.

Secondly, the angel then measured the city with the rod of gold (21:15–17). In an earlier vision (11:1–2), John was given a reed to measure the “temple of God and the altar.” Here, it is the angel and not John who measures the city, simply because its dimensions are beyond human computation and comprehension: each side measures 12,000 stadia, or about 1400 miles! While Ezekiel’s majestic city was a square, John’s Jerusalem is cubic. Rather than a symbol of perfection, as Greek philosophy would have surmised, the city’s cubical shape is probably of theological interest to John as a symbol of God’s presence. Knowing that the temple’s “holy of holies” was also a cube (cf. 1 Kings 6:20) although much smaller (about thirty feet per side), and that it too was the location of God’s shekinah, John links the city’s shape with the presence of God which pervades and sustains it (see above; Mounce, Revelation, p. 380).

The measurements also rehearse the significance John finds in the number twelve; every dimension is a multiple of twelve. Of the method of measurement, Caird understands the final phrase, which the angel was using, as a “proviso” that the man’s measurement was really angelic (Revelation, pp. 273–74). His rendering argues against the NIV, which distinguishes the angelic measurer from the human measurement it employs. The text’s syntax is admittedly obscure; however, Caird’s interpretation (and translation) is preferred since it underscores the symbolic character of the angel’s action: the angel is measuring the location where God’s true Israel (i.e., “the Twelve”) live in worship and praise of God who dwells there with them.

Finally, John describes the precious gems and building materials used to build the city walls (21:18–20) and their gates of pearl (21:21a; cf. Isa. 54:12; for the significance of pearl gates see Ford, Revelation, pp. 343–44); the main street, like the rest of the city, was paved with pure gold, like transparent glass (21:21b). W. Reader remains unconvinced by both ancient and modern attempts to explain these rare and valuable materials by any other known list of stones in biblical (e.g., Exod. 28:17–20; cf. Isa. 54:11–12) or pagan (e.g., zodiac signs) traditions. He rather relates John’s list of stones to the gem stories found in Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities written about the same time as John’s Revelation but within the milieu of the Palestinian Jewish synagogues. In this midrashic document, the jewel motif carries theological significance: jewels represent the purified people of God. Moreover, because the stones are emblematic of God’s good creation, they were hidden during the period of Israel’s sin, then to be recovered at the time of eschatological Israel’s final purification and salvation (cf. BibAnt 26).

John’s use of the jewel motif is similar, but with one important Christian interpretation. Earlier, he noted that the names of the apostles are inscribed on the foundations of the city wall (21:14), thus linking the church’s spiritual and eschatological foundations to the teaching of the apostles. Reader keenly notes that the list of gems in 21:19b–20, stated in the nominative case, is not appositional to 21:19a, which is stated in the dative. Rather, John supposes that each foundation stone consists of one single enormous gem (so Reader), much like the wall itself that is fabricated entirely with jasper or the city that is fabricated with gold (21:18). Again, the critical theological point is that the city’s foundation is apostolic; the true Israel of God is the people nurtured by the witness of the twelve apostles to the risen Jesus.

The critical pastoral point is that the eschatological community, purified and perfected at the parousia of Christ, consists of those whose faith is patterned after the apostles’. No doubt, John has in mind those Christian teachers whose instruction opposes the apostolic tradition and threatens the salvation of the believing community (cf. 2:6, 14–15, 20; 1 John 2:18–27). To overcome evil is to repudiate any teaching contrary to the apostolic “testimony of Jesus Christ.”

John ends his tour on the main street, which is paved with gold. He mentioned earlier (cf. 21:18) that the entire city is made with a gold of high quality—as pure as glass (cf. Morris, Revelation, p. 246). In this second reference to the city’s gold, he singles out for special comment its great street. Why? Perhaps the seer wants the reader to recall an earlier vision of yet another main street in yet another “great city” where the bodies of the “two witnesses,” who represent the community of overcomers, were discarded by the beast for public inspection and ridicule (cf. 11:8–10). Yet, like the Lamb’s before them, their defeat is as transitory as the beast’s momentary triumph. By repeating the image of the main street in a great city, John rehearses this same point again: the street of their former shame has now been replaced by the street of their eternal glory. Such is the ironic character of Christian hope: while believers may well be objects of public ridicule during the present age, their situation will be reversed at Christ’s return.

21:27 / This verse, along with the description of the “paradise of God” that follows (22:1–5), forms the chiastic bracket that concentrates John’s vision of the new Jerusalem. This concluding stop on John’s tour of the eschatological city combines with the earlier speech of God (21:5–8) to provide the themes proper to any interpretation of John’s vision of Christian hope. Recall that God specified those shameful or deceitful characteristics of the impure (cf. the vice-list in 21:8a), who are placed in the “lake of burning sulfur … the second death” (21:8b) rather than in the Lamb’s book of life. The community of overcomers exists in harmony with the character of a holy God, disclosed in the life of God’s Lamb. Because of his redemptive work, the vital hope of the believing community now is for a finished transformation of character so that at his parousia they will be able to live a manner of life intended by God from creation (cf. 4:11).

God’s earlier speech also indicated something of the nature of the community’s inheritance of eternal life (cf. 21:7a): it is predicated on the relationship between the overcomer, a “Son,” and “his God” (cf. 21:7b). The chiastic patterning of this vision guides the reader to the subsequent expansion of this point in 21:27b, where John reports that only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life will enter into their inheritance. The relationship between the eschatological community and its God depends on a commitment to the prior action of the slain Lamb (cf. 3:5; Morris, Revelation, p. 248); only then can the overcomer refer to the Lamb’s God as “his God” (cf. 3:12) and to God’s Son as “brother” (cf. Heb. 2:11, 17).

22:1–5 / The phrase, Then the angel showed me, seems to indicate John’s decision to add a separate “paradise tradition” into his vision of the new Jerusalem. The reasons for this are clearly theological: he thereby indicates that God’s redemption returns the new creation—the community of overcomers—to the Garden of Eden and to the creator’s intentions for humanity (Caird, Revelation, p. 280; Boring, Revelation, p. 218). These intentions, already indicated by the “new song” at the Lamb’s exaltation, are twofold (5:9–10): to create a people who can now serve God (22:3) and reign with God for ever (22:5). These intentions are fully realized at the Lamb’s return.

Fitting this passage into the chiastic patterning of John’s second vision of the new Jerusalem further illuminates his theological program. Before, God promised that “I will give (the one who overcomes) to drink … from the spring of the water of life” (21:6). John uses the paradise tradition to recall and expand upon this important biblical image of hope (Zech. 14:8; Ezek. 47:1–12), the water of life, in two important ways. First, John now locates the source of this water: it flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Rather than locating Christian hope in the promise of a restored city (Zech. 8; cf. Ps. 46:4) or temple (Ezek. 40–48) as the prophets did, John’s Gospel proclaims a person, Christ Jesus, through whom God has already fulfilled the promise of life (cf. John 7:37–9). Second, by placing the river (cf. Gen. 2:9–10) with the tree of life (cf. Rev. 2:7; Gen. 2:9; 3:21–22) and the crops of monthly fruit (cf. Gen. 3:3), John draws the reader back into the Garden of Eden as a place of promise, this time for the healing of the nations rather than for their curse (cf. Zech 14:11). In a sense, the images suggest this “Central Park” in the city of God not only regains Eden’s promise but actually improves upon it! After all, Adam and Eve were never allowed to eat the fruit on the “tree of life”; and they were dismissed from the garden, now guarded by angels, so they could not eat the tree’s fruit and live forever (cf. Gen. 3:22–23). The phrases, there will be no more night and the Lord God will give them light, are additional links to the creation story (Gen. 1:3–5). In fact, the “night/light” dualism marks out God’s work on the “first day” of the original creation. Perhaps here the negation of this dualism—there is no more night … or sun—functions as a final element of John’s inclusio. Especially if night is also used as a metaphor for evil, as it often is in Scripture, then John’s point seems to be that God’s new creation is a reversal of the old, cursed creation because there is nothing in it which might prompt God’s people to rebel against God and the Lamb. The new creation, then, is characterized not only by the absence of evil, but by the absence of human desire to rebel against God’s reign.

Eve and then Adam’s evil had been in seeking to acquire divine knowledge through illicit means. Now they bask in the presence of God; receiving God’s light, the community of overcomers can now see his face. Although we disagree with Caird’s conclusion that a community of martyrs (rather than a more inclusive community of faithful disciples; cf. 21:12, 14) occupies John’s new Jerusalem, we do agree that these idioms for divine presence reflect the intimate knowledge of God as a manifestation of the new covenant: God’s people “have also come to bear the impress of his nature on their lives (cf. 1 John 3:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Cor. 15:49)” (Revelation, pp. 280–81). Further, this more personal acquaintance with God reverses God’s curse of Cain, who was banished not only from the land but from God’s presence (cf. Gen. 4:10–14).

While John does not tell us from what the nations are healed, the many allusions to the former Eden lead the reader to assume that God’s merciful healing which takes place in the paradise of the new Jerusalem constitutes God’s restoration of all that is lost in humanity’s fall. Not only immortality is regained, but a nourishing relationship with God and the Lamb as well. Moreover, in recalling that Cain’s murder of Abel was the ultimate offense against a human relationship, even as Eve and Adam’s rebellion was the ultimate offense against their covenant with God, the interpreter recognizes that both the divine and human dimensions of relationship are now restored in the paradise of God. The eschatological community of overcomers is recognized by their righted relationship with God and with each other.

In this regard, let me make a concluding point about the closing refrain in John’s portrait of paradise, And they will reign for ever and ever. According to the creation story, the ultimate value to which God gave human life is indicated by God’s decision to “let (humanity) rule … over all the creatures” (Gen. 1:26). In that story, of course, humanity’s evil is defined in part as the corruption of their reign over God’s creation. In fact, God’s restoration of the covenant with Noah (cf. Gen. 9:8–17) seeks to reestablish humanity’s rule over creation (cf. Gen. 9:1–7). Against this biblical backdrop, then, the interpreter of Revelation recalls that John’s idea of eternal life includes the establishment of the believing community’s rule over the new creation (1:6; 5:10; cf. 1 Pet. 2:5, 9–10).

22:6a / The last element of John’s chiastic patterning of his vision of the new Jerusalem repeats God’s justification of why John should write the vision down: These words are trustworthy and true (cf. 21:5b). Although the NIV indicates that these words are spoken by the angel, the text does not identify the speaker. Perhaps the speaker is God, who repeats the earlier verdict about John’s vision in 21:5b to frame its importance for his readers. Perhaps the speaker is the Risen Christ, or his mediating angel, since the phrase does remind us that Christ is called “Faithful and True” (cf. 3:14; 19:11). At day’s end, however, the exact identity of the speaker is not as important as the sentiment spoken: in a world of competing options, where Christian discipleship is challenged in a variety of ways, the believing community may fully depend upon John’s account of Christian hope as trustworthy and true.