And so we come here to Revelation 21and see the presence of God again with His people. It’s a glorious scene. We then see something else. We see described the bride of the Lamb, that is, the bride of Christ. This bride is a holy bride, a bride without blemish, without stain, a bride who has been made perfect through the work of Jesus Christ, perfectly adorned for her husband. This bride is the Church, the communion of the saints. This is the company of those who have seen the meaning of the cross and have responded to the one who died there for their sin. And so, you have along with the presence of God this perfect bride.
And then there’s a third feature, which as I understand it has to do with permanence and stability. This is important, too, because each one of these is contrasted with what went before, and when you talk about stability, you’re talking about something that the earlier paradise did not endure. The earlier paradise depended upon the constancy of the man and the woman; and they were not constant, they fell. Here, in the new paradise that John is describing, which is established by God Himself in power, you have permanence because it depends not upon man, but upon the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The new Jerusalem is described as having a great, high wall with gates, and twelve foundations with the names of the twelve apostles on them. These features of a city evoke the very ideas of permanence and stability, as well as safety and security. A garden, on the other hand, is not usually associated with permanency. The garden may be beautiful, but trees die and flowers fade, and if you don’t keep up with your work, a garden pretty soon becomes something of a jungle. And yet this new city that comes down to the new heaven and earth has characteristics of a garden. It’s as if the Garden of Eden, though ruined by the fall, is going to be perfectly and permanently restored in the form of this glorious heavenly city. God Himself and Christ the risen Lamb will be there, never to leave His people again.
Those are the two parameters within which we stand. In our past is Eden, which we have forfeited. In our future is the new Jerusalem, and it is our privilege to be able to enter into it through the work of Christ. But the point you see is that we have to enter it as Jesus Himself entered and established that kingdom, and that is through His cross and through His resurrection. On the cross he paid the price for our sins, and nobody is going to be in that city who has not come by faith in His atonement. That’s why, at the very end of this chapter, it says that no one is going to be in this city except those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. That’s the Lamb who died upon the cross for our sin, and by whose resurrection from the dead we will be given new resurrection bodies appropriate to dwell as residents of this new and lasting city.
