(4) The City of Glory[573], Ch. 21:11-21
“Having the glory of God”, i. e. the glory of his abiding presence, which is reflected in the glory of gate and wall and street, yet the city is described for our better understanding in terms of the earthly creation. Its light is like unto a stone most precious, and the materials of its structure are most costly; the building of the wall is of jasper, the city and the street of pure gold, and the foundations of the wall adorned with all manner of precious stones,[574] while the several gates are each of a single pearl,—the mingled symbols of brilliancy, glory, costliness, and beauty. The city lies foursquare, a perfect figure, the distinctive number of the earthly creation still, though new, with twelve foundations, gates, and angels, the church number, reflecting the number of the tribes of Israel and of the apostles of the [pg 230] Lamb, and with walls one hundred and forty-four cubits high, the square of the church number, and twelve thousand furlongs in length on each of the four sides,[575] the church number multiplied by a thousand, and the number of the sealed in each tribe (ch. 7:5f.),—pertinent symbols, all of these, of the perfect home of the redeemed, as well as of the symmetry of the perfect church. The city is further described as a perfect cube like the holy of holies in the sanctuary, the length and breadth and the height of it being equal (v. 16) which perhaps means that in the height is included the eminence on which it stands, though others think that there is an intentional absence of all verisimilitude.[576] The symbolical meaning of the cubical dimensions is evidently that of a symmetrical and ideal perfection which is proportional in all its parts, and like to the holy of holies in the earthly temple.[577] The circuit of the walls is forty-eight thousand stadia, i. e. four times twelve thousand furlongs or stadia, and seems to be a designed reference to the city of Babylon, the greatest city of the ancient world, the circuit of which was four hundred and eighty stadia, i. e. four times one hundred and twenty furlongs or stadia, while that of the New Jerusalem is greater a hundredfold, which is evidently the language of symbolism.[578] The city which is first seen from afar, coming down out of heaven (v. 11-14), is afterward measured, and its glories pointed out by the angel (see the divisions indicated by paragraphs in the text of the Revelation given in the first part of the volume).
(5) The City of Many Nations, Ch. 21:24, and 26
The nations walk amidst the light thereof, and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it, a description which seems to reflect the thought of a new earth that will be peopled as well as the holy city, as implied in the first verse of the chapter, and perhaps designed to show the cosmopolitan character of the New Jerusalem.
(6) The City of Exclusions, Ch. 21:1, 4, 22, 23, 25, 27; and 22:3, 5
The city has no more sea, i. e. the old, earthly, turbulent sea of conflict and unrest (v. 1); no more death, neither mourning, crying, nor pain any more (v. 4); no separate temple or inner sanctuary of partial access to God, for the city is all temple, and God forever dwells among his people (v. 22); no sun, nor moon, nor night, for the Lamb is the light thereof, his spiritual light superseding the physical (v. 23, 25, and ch. 22:5); no shut gates of defence or hindrance, for there is no longer either night or enemy abroad (v. 25); and no more curse, nor any unholy to renew the conflict, nor anything unclean or that maketh an abomination and a lie, for Christ is throned as victor (v. 27, and ch. 22:3). In this final view of heaven not only has the temple disappeared, but also the elders, and the four living creatures, and all that accessory symbolism of the earlier visions which was appropriate to the church-historic period. These are no longer needed, for the conditions which they served to symbolize have passed away. Even the angels are no longer seen within, for this is a vision of redeemed men who look upon the face of their Redeemer.