6
RESURRECTION INTO NEW CREATION
It is surprising that my first sermon was not my last. In the middle of a sleepy summer, when attendance was low, I was invited by a beleaguered pastor to fill the pulpit for a small, elderly Presbyterian congregation in my hometown in rural Northern California. I am certain the pastor deserved a vacation. But I fear whatever rejuvenation he received while away may have been promptly depleted upon his return. I knew the pastor well. In fact, I had dated his daughter some seven years prior during high school and early college. That relationship had been quite serious, and he was fond of me, so undoubtedly he deemed me sufficiently competent and sober-minded for the task at hand.
Little did he know that for the past several years my seminary professors had been dumping theological gunpowder into my brain, tamping it down firmly with a Greek New Testament and Hebrew Bible, and then, heedless of the possible consequences, packing in more. With only a few ministerial outlets into which I could safely discharge the compressed fuel, I had become a walking kingdom-of-God powder keg. And the fuse was lit when I stepped into the pulpit that quiet Sunday. After the opening prayer, I exploded. I hope the pastor, upon return from his vacation, was able to safely extract the theological shrapnel from the kindly but unfortunate little old ladies who happened to be sitting in the first rows.
Figuring I might have one and only one chance to reach this audience, I had prayerfully (but perhaps not prayerfully enough!) determined that I needed to awaken them to full kingdom-of-God life by hitting them with the most jolting and paradigm-shifting material at my disposal. I no longer remember my sermon’s official title, but the unofficial title could have been “Forget about Heaven!—It’s All about Living in the Kingdom of Heaven Today and Eventually in the New Creation!” With all the frothy enthusiasm of my seminary training bubbling out, I explained in eager detail that the Christian tradition’s emphasis on heaven as the final reward for salvation was misguided, for the final vision of the Christian story does not involve us floating off to heaven, but heaven coming down to earth. There was a general look of bewildered confusion on the faces of the congregants. This was a strange teaching. Undoubtedly a few knowing looks regarding fresh seminarians were surreptitiously exchanged.
The congregation was kind enough to invite me back for a second Sunday. And although the sermon was delivered with equal lather, it seemed to go tolerably well. But at the conclusion of the sermon, when I broke protocol by including a Q and A and then forgot to prepare the benediction, quickly fumbling out Colossians 3:1–10—which, amid some very encouraging words about putting on the Christ, also exhorts the audience to avoid “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness”—I think they determined that although I was undoubtedly entertaining, my style and teaching might be disorderly. Through the experience I did learn an important lesson that should have been obvious from the get-go: when speaking in a pastoral capacity to a new audience, one must first build trust by giving the familiar. Subsequently, if one determines that the audience needs to hear new truths, those truths must be introduced gently, humbly, and gradually. Fortunately, I have had opportunities to fill the pulpit more successfully since that time.
I tell this story to illustrate that there are deeply held convictions about heaven as the final reward among Christians—convictions that are not easily modified. Despite a near consensus among academics that the Bible does not teach that heaven as traditionally understood is the final goal of redeemed humanity, traditional convictions about heaven remain very stable in the church because, as a legacy of Western civilization, they are perpetually reinforced by the media and popular culture. For example, for the last several years the book Heaven Is for Real, which recounts the to-heaven-and-back experience of four-year-old Colton Burpo, has been a hot topic among many Christians, with the conversation overflowing into the non-Christian community. In fact, although released several years ago, as I draft this book right now, the book is currently still a top-ten best seller in Christian Living on the website of the world’s largest book retailer. Moreover, it has recently been released as a major motion picture. I am not making a judgment about the validity of Colton’s reported experiences. I am merely signaling that these kinds of stories remain popular, and as they become part of the cultural fabric, they tend to reinforce the overriding conviction that heaven is the ultimate goal for redeemed humanity.1
Accordingly, I am more convinced than ever that the sermon that I preached that sleepy Sunday more than a decade ago contained the germ of ideas that the church still needs to hear. The reader, however, can heave a sigh of relief. For in what follows I will not attempt to redeliver my enthusiastic but unwise homily. Instead I will do something more important—synthesize some major themes in the story of salvation. For if final salvation is not primarily about the individual soul going to heaven, but about embodied transformation as the individual participates alongside others in the holistic restoration of the entire cosmos, then the logic of the allegiance-alone proposal takes on greater coherence. Allegiance to Jesus the king is the basis of citizenship in the new Jerusalem. Moreover allegiance entails an invitation to rule alongside him and is the foundation for transformation into his image.
Since the story of salvation is heavily traversed ground, special attention will be given to features of the story that are often neglected. In fact, I am going to begin the story in an unusual place—at the end, the grand finale, the appearance of the new heaven and the new earth.
The New Heaven and the New Earth
For those who enjoy being carried along by a gripping story until the plot tension resolves in a magnificent climax, I must apologize. Spoiler alert! I am about to tell you how the most marvelous story that the world has ever known concludes—well, at least I’ll tell you a portion of the conclusion, for much remains a mystery. But I do not want to apologize overly much for playing spoiler, because God felt that it was imperative for his church to know something of the beautiful final glory toward which God is moving history.2 We can be confident that God wants us to know something of the grand finale, because the enthroned Lord Jesus sent a vision of the end to the prophet John.
Jesus’s very last recorded scriptural words for the church, then, are found not at the end of the Gospels but in Revelation.3 Notice how Jesus’s final words point at vetera et nova, things old and things new:
Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star. (Rev. 22:12–16 ESV)
So, at the end of the salvation story, we do not find humans in heaven; rather we discover they are city-dwellers, still on earth.
In addition to Jesus, who self-attests that he is “the Alpha and the Omega” (the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet) and “the beginning and the end,” in what way do we see the old and the new combined in this passage? In the beginning of the biblical story we have humans, Adam and Eve, inside a secluded garden containing not just one but two specific trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:9). After eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—which involved a rejection of God’s prerogative to define what is good and evil for humanity—they are placed outside the garden. A cherubim with a flaming sword prevents their access to the other tree, the tree of life (Gen. 3:24). Now in Revelation we find that the original garden has become a magnificent city, so the progress of life and culture has somehow been taken up into God’s redemptive work.
So the movement from garden to city is a new development. Yet not all is new, for a vestige from the garden remains—the tree of life. Some of the people described in this final vision in Revelation are practitioners of evil, like Adam and Eve in their disobedience, and they remain outside with no access to the tree. Others have washed their robes. And given the overall trajectory of the Christian story toward resurrection, we have every reason to believe this vision, no matter how symbolic, intends real people with real physical bodies. They can go through the gates inside to the tree of life. After they are removed from the garden, there is nothing that Adam and Eve can successfully do to return to the tree, but those in the new Jerusalem who have chosen to wash their robes can freely access the tree. So the human ability to move from outside to inside, to approach the tree of life, is a new feature of the story as well. The story of salvation, then, is in the final analysis the story of how resurrected humans can enter into the new Jerusalem and eat from the tree of life because they have washed their robes, but how some nevertheless remain in disobedience outside the city. Moreover, it is not a story about how we can get back to the primitive paradise of Eden, but the story of how God can enfold the progress from garden to city into his redemptive plan. But where is this city?
After the climactic scenes of the return of the Messiah as a rider on a white horse, the binding and banishment of Satan and his minions, and the final judgment in Revelation 19–20, John sees not a vision of heaven but something more startling: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth departed, and there was no longer any sea” (Rev. 21:1; cf. Isa. 66:22). I want to say a couple things about this vision of a new heaven and a new earth.
Describing the New Heaven and Earth
How can we describe the new heaven and new earth that John sees? First, in the preceding chapter, Revelation 20, when judgment was rendered by the Christ from the great white throne, John saw “the earth and the heaven” flee from the presence of the judge (Rev. 20:11). That is, John saw the old heaven and the old earth disappear. Other biblical authors describe this event using related imagery. For example, the author of Hebrews says that although the earth and heavens are the work of the Son, nevertheless “they will wear out like a garment,” they will be rolled up, and “like a robe they will be changed” (1:11–12). And we discover as the Letter of Hebrews continues that the change envisioned in relationship to this heavenly Jerusalem that will emerge is not a total discard of the old earth and heaven but a shaking of the present created order, and only the elements of eternal value will persist (11:22–29). God is a consuming fire able to melt the present order and remove the dross, so that what results is so radically pure and new that it is appropriate to call it “a new creation,” even though it includes elements from the old creation. Essentially the same imagery is found in Peter’s Second Letter, where it states that in association with the day of the Lord, “the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the elements will melt while burning,” so that what eventually comes forth can be called “new heavens and a new earth,” a place where righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:12–13). So even though John states in Revelation that the first heaven and earth have “passed away,” the new heaven and new earth is best understood not as a brand-new creation from nothing but as containing elements of the old creation that have been purified and radically recrafted so as to be taken up into the new.
Second, there is a puzzling feature of this new heaven and new earth, for John notes in relation to it that “the sea is no more.” From the distant lens of our contemporary world—where the sea is often associated with warm sandy beaches, dancing ocean spray, and relaxing vacations—this may seem both odd and disappointing. What? No ocean in the resurrection age? As with much in Revelation, we know that this image and others like it function as powerful symbols, so it is difficult to know when we are to press such symbols in service of a literal, historical future occurrence or when God intends the symbol to evoke a different sort of truth. For example, when the Christ returns as a historical event, should we expect him to appear on an actual white horse, with a sword literally extending from his mouth (Rev. 19:11–15)? It doesn’t seem likely. As Saint Augustine helpfully reminds us, the Scriptures “are in the habit of making something like children’s toys out of the things that occur in creation, by which to entice our sickly gaze and get us step by step to seek as best we can the things that are above and forsake the things that are below.”4 With the sword extending from Jesus’s mouth, it is more plausible that we are dealing with a metaphor designed to point us to a higher reality—and probably also with regard to the absence of the sea. Toward what higher reality, then, are we pointed by the missing ocean in this vision?
Once again, the end of the biblical story points us back to the beginning. When Genesis opens, we find the created order is a vast watery chaos—“the deep”—a limitless primordial ocean: “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Gen. 1:2). As creation progresses, this watery mess is bounded, tamed, and controlled by God’s creative word. For example, God speaks “the expanse” into existence and uses it to make a division within the deep between the waters in the heavens and the waters below the heavens (Gen. 1:6–8). God then commands the waters below the heavens to be gathered into one place, so that dry land appears. Later we discover that the land itself serves to bottleneck a freshwater supply that likewise holds a threat if it were to be unleashed. For without these separators functioning properly to control the water, the dry land would be overwhelmed. The undifferentiated life-destroying brine of “the deep” could appear once more. Creation could be undone—which is precisely what happens when “all flesh” (excluding Noah and those with him) is destroyed in the flood: “All the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened” (Gen. 7:11). Thus, the roar of the ocean serves as a reminder to the people of God. In creation, God told the haughty ocean waves, “This far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed” (Job 38:11; cf. Ps. 65:7; 89:9). The ocean is a mighty destructive force, a wild threat to life associated with terrifying beasts (Ps. 74:12–17), especially evil pagan empires that harm the people of God (Dan. 7:2–3; Rev. 13:1). But in the past God has subdued the ocean, including the beasts, so that although the waves threaten, God is sovereign (Jer. 5:22; Ps. 93).
John’s vision in Revelation describing an oceanless new heaven and new earth thus anticipates but goes beyond the vision of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God promises in his covenant with Noah that he will never destroy all flesh again by unbounding the reservoir of waters (Gen. 9:11). Moreover, God will one day slay the great writhing dragon of the sea (Isa. 27:1–2). A river flowing from the temple will make the Dead Sea fresh (Ezek. 47:1–12). Yet John’s vision brings this line of thought a step further. At the end of God’s story the sea will not even exist! John’s vision indicates that the danger posed by the untamed waters (and the beasts associated with the waters) in times past and present will no longer even be possible in the new heavens and the new earth. The perilous sea will not just remain tame but will have been entirely removed. John’s vision of an oceanless new order, then, is best read as announcing the utter and absolute removal of all external threats to life for humankind.
Divine Presence Interrupted and Regained
In the final words of Jesus in the Bible, we find that humanity has advanced from the primitive garden to a marvelous city. But we haven’t yet explored the nature of the city. John’s vision of the new heavens and the new earth centers upon the splendor of the bride, the new Jerusalem: “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2 ESV). As the new Jerusalem descends, John hears a booming voice coming from the heavenly throne:
Behold, the dwelling place of God is with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. And he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and death shall exist no longer. Neither mourning, nor crying, nor pain will exist any longer. For the former things departed. (Rev. 21:3–4)
And so we discover the defining characteristic of the eternal city, the new Jerusalem: it is comparable in purity and joy to a bride. It is a place where those who have been burdened by grief are perfectly consoled. Above all else it is the abode of God with humanity.
We are invited to consider the coming together of God with God’s people as akin to a wedding banquet and the subsequent consummation of the marriage. That is, the coming together will be so celebratory, satisfying, and ultimately intimate that the metaphor of a wedding is the best language that God can give us to describe the union, even though it is clear that the union is not itself sexual. Jerry Walls, in Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, speaks of how heaven will fulfill our deepest yearnings, and how sexual desire and consummation in this earthly life is merely “a foretaste of even greater delights in the world to come.”5 As the scenes of the great biblical drama roll past our mind’s eye, we recognize that this declaration—“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with humanity”—is a fitting climax to the story God has been directing all along. In the new Jerusalem the companionship that God and humans enjoyed prior to the fall is restored. Yet the story of the recovery of direct fellowship is more complex than we might guess, for it is the climax of Old and New Testament teachings about fellowship with God.
Divine-Human Companionship Disrupted
Before Adam and Eve eat from the tree, God is described as walking with them in the cool of the day. Prior to the fall, this divine-human companionship was the norm. Yet once the camaraderie is disrupted by the desire of humanity to define good and evil for itself (rather than accepting God’s superintending moral role), Scripture ceases to describe this direct, unimpeded fellowship between God and humanity. After the fall, God still yearns to dwell with his people, but humans are not at a suitable level of holiness so as to be directly in God’s presence.6
The Tabernacle
Through Moses at Mount Sinai, God gives his people instructions to make a tabernacle (or tent), which will facilitate human-divine fellowship through a mediated system. No mortal will be able to enter into God’s presence apart from successfully traversing the graded levels of purity and holiness that the tabernacle facilitates and enshrines. To draw near unto God’s presence, one must be properly purified. In fact, although an ordinary priest could offer sacrifices on behalf of a worshiper at the altar in the outer courtyard of the tabernacle, and could at special times enter the inner sanctuary (where the showbread, menorah, and incense altar were stationed), only the high priest could enter the most holy place. And the high priest could do this but once a year on the Day of Atonement, at which time he would approach the ark of the covenant where God was enthroned between the cherubim, and bring the blood of a sacrificial offering (see Lev. 16), covering over the sins for the year.
The Temple
Much later the tabernacle, a mobile tent-like structure, would provide the conceptual pattern for God’s fixed palace—the temple built by Solomon. Although it was believed that God dwelt in the holy of holies of the temple in a special fashion, nevertheless God’s presence was understood to transcend such earthly limitations. Solomon’s dedicatory prayer, offered when the temple was completed, makes this clear: “Look, the heavens, even the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27). This first temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, only to be rebuilt in the sixth century BC. It was in the process of being enlarged during the time of Jesus. Yet God had grander plans, for his desire was to dwell not in a temple but directly with humans once more.
The Incarnation
The taking on of human flesh by Jesus the Son, who preexisted with God the Father, is the shocking yet fitting master stroke in the divine plan for restoring divine-human fellowship. God walking in our very midst, his glory nevertheless disguised, mediated, and tempered by human flesh. In his Gospel, John famously describes Jesus’s incarnation, but English translations struggle to capture how the incarnation advances God’s plan to dwell with his people: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). That is, the Word (Greek: Logos) that was present with God the Father in the beginning (1:1), and through whom God the Father made the universe (1:3)—the very Word who can indeed appropriately be called “God” in his own right (1:1, 18)—is declared by John to have “dwelt among us.” In the Greek of this verse it is clear that John is drawing upon the Old Testament image of the tabernacle, the skēnē, the tent. For John says, “The Word [Logos] became flesh and tabernacled [eskēnōsen] in our midst.” So Jesus is compared to the tabernacle, a very much this-earthly building that nevertheless housed God’s presence—a divine-human intermingling.
Jesus’s human flesh was just like the Old Testament tabernacle—which was constructed of typical building materials such as wood, dyed yarns, cloth, skins, precious stones, and gold—in that both appeared from the outside as nothing more than an ordinary (albeit ornate in the case of the tabernacle) structure that nevertheless concealed God’s presence and glory. Since no physical description of Jesus is ever given in Scripture, it is safe to assume that when one looked at his body, stature, hair, eyes, and skin, one saw nothing uniquely special that would suggest divinity (cf. Isa. 53:2). An observer could only begin to equate Jesus with the divine presence when she or he contemplated the signs that Jesus was performing, his mighty deeds such as turning the water to wine, the healings, and his raising of Lazarus from the dead. In seeing the signs, one could see the glory, and in seeing the glory one could begin to exercise believing loyalty toward Jesus (see John 2:11). As John, in speaking of this tabernacling of Jesus in our midst, says, “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (1:14).
John extends this tabernacle comparison by inviting us to consider Jesus to be beth-El, Hebrew for “house of God.” In Genesis 28:10–19 the patriarch Jacob had fallen asleep in a certain location, using a rock as a pillow. While he slept, he saw angels ascending and descending upon stairs or a ladder, and he determined that he was at an important intersection between heaven and earth. So he named the place beth-El. Thus, when we find Jesus describing himself to Nathaniel, “You will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51), the point should not be lost upon us: Jesus has come as the true tabernacle, the ultimate house of God.
Preliminary Access Regained
The incarnation may indeed be the most surprising moment in the story of the restoration of companionship between God and humans, but Jesus’s crucifixion is another significant moment in this story. Describing this event, the New Testament writers use imagery from the temple to describe the significance of Jesus’s death. The Gospel writers tell us that upon Jesus’s death the curtain in the temple that separated the most holy place from the outer chamber “was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38; cf. Matt. 27:51; Luke 23:45). The author of Hebrews explains the theological significance of this rending of the curtain, and it becomes clear that the meaning of this event pertains to the restoration of fellowship between God and humanity.
Before the curtain was torn in two, the high priest could enter the most holy place but once per year, for the way was “not yet opened” (Heb. 9:8). Yet in his death Jesus the Christ as the great high priest offered his own blood, passed through the outer holy chamber, through the curtain, and went into the heavenly most holy place, of which the earthly most holy place is but a shadowy copy. He “entered once for all” (Heb. 9:12) and in so doing blazed the trail into the most holy place, so that other humans can also enjoy direct access to the divine presence:
Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness for accessing the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh) and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart by the full bearing of pistis, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with clean water. (Heb. 10:19–22)
So humanity is able to draw intimately near to God once again—go into God’s very presence—through the perfect mediation of Jesus the Christ’s offering. Yet this restoration of fellowship, like much else in Christian theology, has an already but not yet dimension during the present church age. In the here and now we have the privilege of spiritual access to God the Father, but the immediacy of gazing upon God (via his image) face to face must await the resurrection age.
Complete Restoration
After Adam and Eve’s disobedience, God took the initiative in seeking them out, bringing his presence near to them. God also initiated fellowship with Abraham, with Moses and Israel through the tabernacle, with Israel and the gentile nations through the temple, and with all humanity through the incarnation. Should we be surprised, then, if we find that the biblical story ends with God climactically drawing near to his people once more, as God brings the heavenly Jerusalem down, so that God and humanity can dwell together? Fellowship between God and humanity has been so completely restored that, as John reports, there is no longer need for a temple at all in the new Jerusalem: “And I did not see a temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty is its temple, and the lamb” (Rev. 21:22).
In the story of God’s relationship with humanity, the answer is always grace—God approaching us. In the final analysis, we don’t go to heaven; God brings his heavenly abode down to earth, having re-created the universe so that there is a new (that is, radically renewed) heaven and earth. We do not go to God, but he comes to us.
Living in the New Jerusalem
We have just explored the manner in which the biblical narrative anticipates one goal of final salvation: God and humans will dwell together on the earth once again. Humans will have unmediated access to God. They will enjoy the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1). They will have access to the tree of life once again—it will bear twelve kinds of fruit, and its leaves will bring healing to the nations (Rev. 22:2). But this is not the end of the story of God and humanity; it is more like the first chapters in the second volume of an ongoing saga. Can we learn anything about what life and culture will be like as humans dwell with God once again in this new heaven and new earth? As John is carried away in the Spirit to a tremendously lofty mountain, he sees “the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (Rev. 21:10).
The description of the new Jerusalem gives us insight into what it will be like to be a citizen of that dynamic city. The city is described as having “the glory of God,” a thick wall (approximately 216 feet thick!), and twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. Moreover, the wall has twelve foundations containing the names of the twelve apostles.
In seeking to interpret this imagery, we must tread carefully, bearing in mind the symbolic nature of the vision as it is doubtful that a literal, physical city with the precise features should be anticipated as a future reality.7 What is clear from the vision itself is that the wall, along with the gates, is that which divides the holy inhabitants of the city from the disobedient sinners who must remain outside the city (Rev. 22:14–15). Thus, the wall signifies that the true people of God are encompassed by the apostolic foundation, implying that its citizens are those who have given allegiance to Jesus as king on the basis of the apostolic testimony. Jesus appointed twelve apostles to show symbolically that he was reconstituting Israel around himself—and in so doing he redefined what it means to be a member of the family of God. To be a citizen of the new Jerusalem means to have welcomed the apostolic testimony about Jesus (the eight stages of the gospel discussed earlier) so as to have entered into the community that is guided by the Spirit and the apostolic witness. Meanwhile, although the gates serve the same function as the wall (separating God, the Lamb, and the saints from the sinners who dwell outside the new Jerusalem), they have two other important functions.
Home at Last
First, the gates allow the redeemed to access the city. The imagery suggests that the new Jerusalem, having descended from heaven, is gradually populated as its citizens arrive at the city as the goal of their pilgrimage. The city is a beacon of light toward which the pilgrims can walk, for the glory of God provides the light, and the Lamb of God is the lamp (Rev. 21:23; cf. Isa. 60:19). Those pilgrims who stream most readily to the new Jerusalem undoubtedly are those who all along have found this world to be a place that is hostile, alien, and unwelcoming—at best a place of exile and temporary refuge. These pilgrims, like Abraham, never settled, because they were “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). Such people long ago realized that their true citizenship was in heaven (Phil. 3:20), and they have been eagerly awaiting the consummate establishment of the kingdom of God “on earth as in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). Their allegiance is to Jesus the king, and when his throne is established in the new Jerusalem, they find they are for the first time in their true home as they worship in his presence (Rev. 21:5; 22:1–3).
The Gathering and Advance of Culture
Second, the gates permit the collection and advance of culture in the new Jerusalem. “The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bear their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, for night will not exist there” (Rev. 21:24–25). This image of the new Jerusalem hearkens back to the reign of King Solomon, when foreign dignitaries such as the Queen of Sheba came bearing gifts to Jerusalem, coming to learn of God’s manifold wisdom (1 Kings 10:1–13). This image of the pilgrimage of the nations is expanded by Isaiah, who envisions the nations flowing into the exalted Jerusalem in the last days in order to learn the ways and laws of God (e.g., 2:1–4). In speaking of the future glory of Jerusalem, Isaiah declares, “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your shining” (60:3). When the nations stream into the renewed Jerusalem, they bear their best: “The abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you” (Isa. 60:5). The items gathered are listed as bronze, silver, gold, iron, frankincense, camels, rams, and precious building materials. In short, the gates of the new Jerusalem are forever open to those things of God’s good, renewed creation that deserve to be celebrated and welcomed.
But at the same time, the gates do not permit culture to advance in the new Jerusalem in unwholesome ways. As John sees in his vision: “Nothing unclean will ever enter into it” (Rev. 21:27). Since the new Jerusalem is repeatedly described as full of God’s “glory” rather than human self-glory (Rev. 21:11, 22), John sees a city whose inhabitants undertake cultural progress in precisely the opposite way as did the builders of the tower of Babel.
The constructors of the tower are said to have acquired a technology of oven-baked bricks and mortar, but they did not offer this cultural achievement to God’s glory. In fact, quite the opposite. By a manipulative and self-serving technical mastery of the created order, they sought to pierce the heavens in order to “make a name” for themselves (Gen. 11:4). Yet God scattered these hubristic builders. Citizens of the new Jerusalem are instead like Abraham, who did not seek to make a great name for himself at all, realizing that a great name is something that the promise-fulfilling God bestows as a gift on his servants. God promised Abraham, “I will . . . make your name great” (Gen. 12:2), and bless all the families of the earth through Abraham (Gen. 12:3). The seed of Abraham, who ultimately is Jesus the Messiah, has allowed the blessings to the nations to flow forth through the Holy Spirit. In response, the nations, healed of their desire to make a name for themselves, can offer their cultural achievements to God in the new Jerusalem. And as these cultural gifts enter, the new Jerusalem is not a static city but a city growing in beauty and magnificence. This vision has important implications for the fundamental value and dignity of work as we bear God’s image.
Seeing the Face of the Glorified Lamb
Finally, life in the heavenly Jerusalem will above all else be characterized by worship. The heavenly Jerusalem, now established on earth, contains at its center “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1). The followers of Jesus as citizens of the new Jerusalem will bow before the throne and gaze upon God’s glory: “His servants will worship him” (Rev. 22:3). Unlike in the past, when it was deemed dangerous for the people of God to enter into the very presence of God, now it is clear that such obstacles have been utterly removed, as we are told that humans have access to “the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:3). Moreover, “they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). Yet the marvel of viewing face to face the glorified Lamb on God’s throne8—the climax of final salvation for the individual (and ultimately for the community of the saints)—can only be fully appreciated in conjunction with the Bible’s theology of image, the subject of the next chapter.
How, then, can we best describe the biblical vision of the final horizon of salvation? Contrary to widespread cultural assumptions in the Western world and much popular Christian teaching, the final goal of salvation in the Christian story is not the individual soul reaching heaven. On the contrary, heaven is discussed very little in the Bible and is best regarded as a temporary abode with God in anticipation of the more glorious next act in the divine drama. God will radically recraft the present cosmic order, refining everything. The transformation will be so dramatic that when he sees the vision, John is compelled to exclaim, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth departed” (Rev. 21:1)!
Humans will not return to the primitive garden of Eden. God will bring down a city, the new Jerusalem, showing that God accepts and values the best elements of culture and development. Work will no longer be burdensome toil. As we rule alongside the Messiah, our work will be a service-oriented stewardship of creation that causes culture to continue its progress. Life will flourish. The gates and the walls of the city show that good and evil will be decisively separated; nothing impure and no evildoer will ever enter the city. God will take up residence in the midst of the new Jerusalem. After the bodily resurrection, God’s people, those who yield allegiance to Jesus, those whose robes have been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, will enter it. We will eat fruit from the tree of life.
FOR FURTHER THOUGHT
1. What images or ideas did you most strongly associate with heaven when you were growing up? What images does our contemporary culture tend to perpetuate?
2. The final vision in the book of Revelation circles back to the garden of Eden. What’s the same, what has changed, and why is this significant?
3. The ocean is not the most pervasive symbol of primordial evil in our contemporary culture. If God was to give a new vision to John today and wanted to evoke a similar idea, what symbol do you think God might use? Why?
4. How is the incarnation both a fulfillment of earlier patterns and an anticipation of future things with respect to divine-human fellowship?
5. How, practically speaking, might it change our ethical choices when we remember that the final goal for redeemed humanity is not the soul floating upward toward heaven but God bringing the heavenly Jerusalem down to earth? (E.g., consider environmental ethics, bioethics, and interpersonal ethics.)
6. Given the purpose of the wall and gates in the new Jerusalem, do you think the church today should seek to erect similar “walls” and “gates” with respect to how it engages culture and the world? Practically speaking, what form might such “walls” and “gates” take?
7. What does “home” mean to you? Why is the new Jerusalem finally home for God’s people in a way that nothing else has been?
8. What in contemporary culture do you feel will be refined so that it survives into the new creation? What dimensions of culture are pure dross that will be removed?
9. What can you personally contribute to culture today that will be fit to endure into the new Jerusalem in the future?