The new heaven and the new earth
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth had passed away and no longer was there any sea.
2 I saw the new Jeru salem, the holy city coming down from God, out of heaven, adorned as a bride prepared for her husband.
3 A loud voice came from the throne, “Here is the dwelling of God among mortals: He will pitch his tent among them and they will be his peo ple; he will be God-with-them.
4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death or mourning, crying out or pain, for the world that was has passed away.”
5 The One seated on the throne said, “See, I make all things new.”
And then he said to me, “Write these words because they are sure and true.”
6 And he said to me: It is already done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I my self will give the thirsty to drink with out cost from the fountain of living water.
7 Thus the winner will be rewarded: For him I shall be God and he will be my son.
8 As for cowards, traitors, de praved, murderers, adul terers, sorcerers, and idolaters – all those who live in falsehood, their place is the lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
The new Jerusalem
9 Then one of the seven angels came to me, one of those with the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues. And he said, “Come, I am going to show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
10 He took me up in a spiritual vision to a very high moun tain and he showed me the holy city Jeru salem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shines with the glory of God,
11 like a precious jewel with the color of crystal-clear jasper.
12 Its wall, large and high, has twelve gates; stationed at them are twelve angels. Over the gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.
13 Three gates face the east; three gates face the north; three gates face the south and three face the west.
14 The city wall stands on twelve foundation stones on which are written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who was speaking to me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city, its gates and its wall.
16 The city is laid out like a square: its length is the same as its breadth. He measured it with his rod and it was twelve thousand furlongs; its length, breadth and height are equal.
17 Then he measured the wall: it was a hundred and forty-four cubits high. The angel used an ordinary measure.
18 The wall is made of jasper and the city of pure gold, crystal-clear.
19 The foundations of the wall are adorned with every kind of precious jewel: the first is jasper, the second sapphire, the third turquoise, the fourth emerald,
20 the fifth agate, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysopraze, the eleventh hyacinth and the twelfth amethyst.
21 The twelve gates are twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl and the square of the city is paved with gold as pure as transparent crystal.
22 I saw no temple in the city for the Lord God, Master of the universe, and the Lamb are themselves its temple.
23 The city has no need of the light of the sun or the moon, since God’s Glory is its light and the Lamb is its lamp.
24 The nations will walk in its light and the kings of the earth will bring their treasures to it.
25 Its gates will not be closed at sunset, for there will be no night there.
26 It is there that the wealth and the most precious things of the nations will be brought.
27 Nothing unclean will enter it, or anyone who does what is evil and false but only those whose names are writ ten in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
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Comments Revelation, Chapter 21
• 21.1 First vision of the heavenly Jeru salem. “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).
The Bible began with a vision of the first creation in which God was conversing with Adam, his friend, in the garden of Eden. The Apocalypse ends with a more beautiful vision in which there is overflowing delight in God. Now I make all things new. The holy and permanent City of people has been built.
A new heaven and a new earth. The risen body of Christ was the principle of the new spiritual and material universe we were hoping for. Now, the power of his resurrection has transformed the whole world. It will not be a paradise for isolated “souls,” nor for pure angels, but a city of human beings: humans have fully become God’s children: he will be my son.
He will wipe every tear. God dwells among people and he pours his own happiness into them. The sufferings that filled so many lives, the martyrs’ tortures, the inner pain of repentant sinners, all this is over. Such joy and peace, as cannot be found in any place on earth, are finally found in the heart of God.
The second death (v. 8). Before this happens, eternal condemnation. Being forever deprived of God, locked in one’s sin and aloneness: a mystery for us. Human freedom is something so great and so real that God himself cannot force us to love him: those who have consciously and definitely left the path to life, will inherit the lake of burning sulphur.
The new Jerusalem comes down from God. Somehow, people tried to build the human community. At the end of history, they discover that along with them, God was building some thing much greater: a humanity gathered in the very life of God.
From now on. God, beginning and end, will never cease to give the water of life (Is 55:1; Jn 4:10). Our eternity in God cannot be immobile: which would soon bore us. God is pure creativity and to live in him is both to possess him and to be carried further into his mystery.
• 9. Second vision of the heavenly Jeru salem: God’s temple. There are two images at the heart of the Bible: the wedding banquet and the temple. After Jerusalem, the new bride, it is now the Holy City, God’s temple. People no longer need a temple when God is permanently present among them: reality replaces shadows.
Its length, breadth and height are equal (v. 16). A city built as a perfect pyramid: perfect and lasting. Its wall, a symbol of security: there is no more fear, not even our hidden fear, the fear of feeling life slipping away. The brightness of the city is that of jasper and its primary foundation is of jasper: jasper is the color attributed to God in the fourth chapter.
There are angels at the gates as in the Garden of Eden: all is guarded and enclosed within the divine mystery. The wall of holiness and truth rests upon the apostles: the truth of the New World was already contained in their words, namely, the testimony of Jesus’ apostles. The final city is the goal of humankind’s long pilgrimage; without knowing it, the just, the poor, the merciful, and those who are sorrowful have been longing for it: The nations will walk in its light.
There was a fountain of life in paradise. Lost through sin, people were always searching for it. Ezekiel had already written that the living water is the Spirit of God and Jesus promised it to the Samaritan woman. Now it flows from the heart of God-Trinity, from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
And they will reign for ever (22:5). This is the final word and it is the seventh time it is said in Revelation.