If you have a Bible with you, please take it and turn to Revelation chapter 21, the book of Revelation chapter 21. We're going to be looking this morning at verses 9 through 27. If you are new to covenant, it is typically our practice to preach through books of the Bible, and we've been working our way for some time now through this marvelous and challenging portion of God's word, the book of Revelation. And if you're able, would you please stand as I read this portion of God's holy and inspired and life-giving word. Every word of it is true. It's for our good. Let's receive it in faith. Revelation chapter 21 beginning in verse 9. ...and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal. It had a great high wall with 12 gates, and at the gates 12 angels, and on the gates the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed. On the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on them were the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. He lies four square, its length the same as its width, and he measured the city with the rod 12,000 stadia, its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel's measurement. The wall was built of jasper while the city was pure gold like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth barrel, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh just synth, the twelfth amethyst. And the 12 gates were 12 pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord, God, the Almighty, the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. This is God's word, let's pray. And now, O Lord, we ask that you would help us to have ears to hear your word, minds to comprehend it, hearts to receive it in the way that we should. God, I pray that you would correct any misunderstanding that we have, that you would guide us in all truth, and that by your truth, Lord, you would sanctify us today. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may have a seat. So what are we to make of what John is seeing here? I mean, we can tell just by the way he's writing. We can tell by what he wrote, that what he is seeing in this vision that the angel lays out for him, what he's seeing strains the very limits of human language, doesn't it? And so what is it that he's seeing? What are we to make of this city that he's describing for us here? Well, John goes about answering that through his very now, I hope, characteristic to us, the symbolism that he uses in his writing. And if the symbolism is still hard for us to decipher, the angel that is speaking to John is actually quite clear, and he explains it quite well, I think. Look again at verses 9 and 10. What do we see? After telling John that he's going to show him, quote, the bride, the wife of the lamb. Now pause there for a second. We know who that is, don't we? That's the church. That's the church of Jesus Christ, the bride of Christ, the wife of the lamb. We've already seen this symbolism earlier in the book of Revelation, where the church of Jesus Christ is referred to as the wife of the lamb, the bride of the lamb. We see this elsewhere in the New Testament, where the church is referred to as the bride of Christ. We see this in the Old Testament, where God speaks to his old covenant people as his bride, as his wife. So this is the people of God. This is the church of Jesus Christ. And the angel says, I'm going to show you this. I'm going to show you the church. I'm going to show you the bride of Christ. And what does he do? The angel shows him, quote, the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Now did the angel mess up there and say, I meant to show you the church, but what I showed you instead was a city? No. You see what's happening here, I hope, is that God's people, his church, is this holy city, this new Jerusalem, this holy dwelling place for God. The details of this depiction of this bride slash city gives us insight into the nature of the church. So which is it? Is John seeing a city or is John seeing the church? Which is it? Well, the Bible is not shy at all about mixing metaphors at times. Paul does this. We see the Old Testament prophets do this. We see Jesus do this. And we see this happening in the book of Revelation as well. One commentator puts it like this. Because of the fluid character of the imagery, it is wisest not to distinguish rigidly between the inhabitants of the city, that is the saints, and the city itself, the saints together with the glorified creation. I think that's helpful. And what we see unfolded here in chapter 21 then is what is true of this holy city, as it were, is also true of its inhabitants, the people, the bride of the Lamb, the church of Jesus Christ. One commentator puts it this way. John is clearly told that the holy city, the new Jerusalem, is in fact a beautiful picture of the people of God. The city symbolizes the saints, the people of God. We don't simply live in the new Jerusalem, we are the new Jerusalem. The city is the church, the bride of Christ adorned in the beauty and loveliness that she has received by grace from God. So John's vision is showing us some things that are true about the church. Now most directly since John is seeing what is yet to come, he's getting a vision of the church in all of her glorified beauty in the age to come. But what we learn about the church then, we can also learn about the church as we are now. Because the same things that will be true of the church, that is you and I, in glory, are to a lesser degree, but no less true, are true of us now as well. So what John's vision of this bride city tells us about the church then, it also tells us about who we are now. And we see a few things. First of all, notice that the church is glorious. The church is glorious. John describes something that is absolutely remarkable in one little clause in verse 11. I want you to look at verse 11 again. This bride city that John sees is described as quote, having the glory of God. Now if you know your Old Testament reasonably well, you know that this is a very profound statement. This is a big deal. One commentator puts it this way, the radiance that John once saw emanating from the throne of God, whose glory appeared like jasper and sardius, now permeates the city. The Lord's glory indwells his people and floods this new community with the beauty of his holiness. Now let's camp on that for a moment. How generous is God that he would share with his church what is most personal and precious to him, which is his glory. When we speak of God's glory, we're speaking about his very essence, the essence of his purity, his holiness, his indivisibility, his triune glory. When we speak of his glory, we're speaking of all that is made known through Christ, all that is made known through his written word, the shining forth, if you like, of the sum total of all of his perfections. That's what we're talking about when we talk about glory and glory belongs singularly to God. That's why he says through the prophet Isaiah on at least two different occasions, my glory I will give to no other. And yet, this glory, which is an essential aspect of the very essence of God, according to verse 11 here, comes down and shines out through the Lord's redeemed church. I don't think we're meant to dissect every little detail that John records here because what John is seeking to do is he's trying to put glory into words. And you can only ever just approximate that. And so we see this language that gives us sort of this kaleidoscope of colors resembling precious stones and jewels, the shining forth of God's glory, and he sees it shining forth in and through the church, the people of God. And so what John is seeing here is the church in all of her completed, redeemed, glorified beauty. And this has been the goal of all creation ever since the world was corrupted by sin. So ever since Genesis chapter three, what John is seeing now has been the goal of everything. You know, when you get together for a multi-generational family portrait, I've been a part of this. Many of you have been a part of this. Perhaps it's at a family reunion where you get together and get everybody together for a big group shot or whether you have a professional photographer take some sort of a multi-generational portrait. One of the unbreakable rules of that is that you do not put Grandma and Grandpa in the back off in a corner where you can barely see the tops of their heads. You just don't do that, do you? You take kind of the central figures of this family tree and you put them right up front, which is what you should do, by the way. And you put people like me, the son-in-law, in the back in the corner where I'm just kind of doing this over one of the cousins' heads, right? I think that we have done that to a large extent to these truths about the church in glory, about what will become of us in the glorious age to come. I think we've made it something far lesser than what the Bible makes it. Because everything from Genesis 3 onward is stretching towards what we've just read about here. If you need more proof, I just read to you Paul's words from Romans chapter 8. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. That is the church. You see? Paul is saying creation has grown since the fall for the moment we just read about here in Revelation 21, the glory, the revealing of the church of Jesus Christ in all of her completed redemption. Notice again what's happening in verses 24 through 26. Twice there we're told that the nations will bring their glory, their glory, their honor into this bride city. Now this may seem odd considering that in Revelation and in fact most of the scriptures, the nations are depicted as agents of the beast, forces arrayed in hatred and bitterness against the Lord, against his church. We're told here in the book of Revelation in chapters 14, chapter 18, chapter 19, chapter 20, we're told that the nations were seduced by the great harlot and deceived by her enticements, that they were deceived by the dragon to make war against God and against his church. But there is an exception in the book of Revelation to this pattern when the word nations is used in that fourfold sequence, people, tribe, nation and language. That clause, that fourfold sequence is employed seven times in the book of Revelation and only there are we to take the nations or the word nation in a positive manner. Now here, what are these nations doing that John sees? They are bringing their glory and I think that's to be understood as everything that is good about them. Every good treasure that they possess, everything representative of them as a people that is not hopelessly lost in sin. They're bringing their glory, everything good and beautiful and precious into the bride. John here is seeing, in other words, the church in all of her multinational facets. The people of God never belong to one single ethnicity, one single language, one single culture, not even one single era. But all people throughout all time since the fall when God saved Adam and Eve after they sinned, the church has consisted of Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, primitive and sophisticated, all who have come to Christ. And John is seeing this, that when the Lord saves a people, he does not erase everything about them. That quite intentionally, because he made them, they, we together, bring what is glorious about God's original creation of us, we bring that into the church. Does this not remind you of what happened not long after the birth of Christ, his first Advent, when the Magi, the wise men from the east, from those pagan nations came and they brought their treasure? Right there, representatives from pagan nations had received the light, quite literally, they'd received the light and they followed Christ, because there at his birth, at his entry into the world, he brought the kingdom. And now here, sometime after his second Advent, John gives us a view that the nations are still doing this, they're still streaming to Christ. And here John sees this overwhelming vision of the glorified church and he sees there the nations, the many different faces, the many different cultures there as God planned it, making up his one great, vast, glorious people. One of the many things that the book of Revelation does so well is that it helps us to see the church in her glory, just as it does here. And yet at the same time, Revelation does not shy away from acknowledging our flaws and our sins as we are in this age. The churches that are addressed, for instance, in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation have all sorts of problems. Some of them lack love, that's a big one. Some of them have poor doctrine, that's a problem. Some of them are even tolerating false teaching and false teachers. And so Revelation is not unrealistic about how the church sins and continues to struggle in this world. But the Lord wants us to see this glorious picture of the church in all her beauty. For all of her flaws, remember what she will be like. Some Christians seem to take delight in bad mouthing the church, in criticizing the church, in constantly grumbling and groaning about the church. Please don't do that. You're criticizing the wife of Jesus. Have eyes to look beyond our current struggles. Have eyes to look beyond our current failures and sins, and you will see amazing things. Even now, even as we are now, when we witness people come to Christ, we're getting a glimpse of the glory. When a sinful habit is abandoned by one of our brothers and sisters, we're seeing some of the glory. When those of weak faith grow into a courageous faith, we are getting a glimpse of the glory. When a husband and wife are reconciled, we see some of the glory. When people sacrifice their time, talents, and treasures to serve the body of Christ and to love their neighbors, when that happens, we're seeing some of the glory. Friends, the church is glorious. And we're not talking about some abstract reality outside of us. Brothers and sisters, remember, when we talk about the church, we're talking about us. We're talking about you. Secondly, the church is secure. The church is secure. You see there in verses 12 and 13 that the city is secured by a high wall. Now, the wall is equipped with 12 gates, and each of those gates is guarded by an angel. I did a little search this past week on the most secure buildings in the world, and a few of the same sites came up on every single search. And one of those sites that was on every search was the United States gold depository at Fort Knox. And the security measures there are really impressive. And those are just the ones we know about. The building is located on a military base. That discourages theft right there. It's constructed of granite and steel and steel-reinforced concrete. It's surrounded by constant electronic surveillance, barbed wire, armed watch towers, heavily armed soldiers with automatic weapons. The gold itself is kept underground under that building and is behind a 21-inch thick, 22-ton blast-proof vault door. And those are just a few of the things that we know about. But you know, I had a rather brilliant thought. There is a far better sort of security than granite and steel vaults and armed guards. While those things provide security, there's a way to get a better security, and it's far easier. And here it is. Are you ready for this? It's living in a place where there are no threats. Thank you. Thank you. Just dawned on me this week that you know what would make this place really secure if there was no sin. If there were no threats. That's the best security, isn't it? Watch this. Look in verse 25. We're told that the gates to the city are never shut during the day, which means they're never shut because it tells us then that there's just no night. And they're never shut, and you know why? Because they don't need to be. We've heard about those communities where, well, you know there, you know, you just never lock your doors. You know, funny, growing up in Houston and living in Philadelphia, I never heard anybody say that. Well, you know, the great thing about Houston is you never lock your doors. No. I mean, you booby trap your doors. I mean, you do. But can you imagine a world so safe that at Fort Knox they take down the fences, they turn the rifle towers into greenhouses, and they remove all the guns and surveillance, and they put all the gold just out on the lawn. You imagine a world that safe. Well, the bride city is like that, but magnified to the extreme. Nothing can threaten the saints in glory because everything that once lived that attacked the Lord, that attacked His people, will be cast away, as we saw last week, into the lake of fire. Again, verse 25 tells us that there's no night there, meaning the very same sort of thing that we saw last week when it says that the sea is no more. It doesn't mean that there are no more bodies of water, but this is capturing the same thing. There's no night which is to communicate to us that there is no evil, no threat, no danger, no sin. Look at verse 14 again. And the wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on those foundations were written the names of the 12 apostles of Jesus. Now, again, we're talking about the security of the church here. The wall, the wall that surrounds the city is built on 12 foundations. Can you imagine how long that building process takes? 12 foundations. Now, if you're wondering about this whole thing, about the importance of the apostles, let me just remind you of a few things. Acts chapter 2, verse 42, the very first church formed in Jerusalem, the very first thing we're told about that very first church, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. Ephesians chapter 2, you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Ephesians chapter 3, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Jesus has given to the church. He gave to the church apostles. What's being gotten at here is the stability, the security, the safety, the groundedness of the church. God has not built his church on sand. He's not built his church on something faulty, but on what could not be more solid. The witnesses of his apostles. That's shorthand for talking about the word of God. We see there on this bride city the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. We see the names of the 12 apostles. All of this is pointing us to the foundation of the word of God. If the church is not built on the word of God, it will crumble. If the church is not built on the word of God, she will not be secure. She'll be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Every kind of false teaching will find its way in. Every wolf in sheep's clothing will come in and prey upon the people of God. It is the word of God that the Lord builds his church upon. Do you remember how long it took, and to be quite honest, how boring it was for a while before they started building stuff out front when it was just the groundwork? Just the foundation stuff? It seemed to take forever, and you'd come up week after week and go, I don't think it looks any different. Well, I don't think that hole was there. Well, they seemed to build a little trench there. What have they been doing all week? And of course, to the untrained eye, that's what it looked like. Days and weeks would pass at times looking like nothing really was going on. And yet, so important were those first stages of construction down into the ground that without it, the whole thing would collapse. And so solid and true is the church's foundation that we weather the severest storms. We endure the most cruel mistreatment, and we persevere under the deadliest trials because of who and what we're built upon because of our security that we have in Christ. Third, the church is precious. The church is precious. Or you could just as easily say, the church is loved. The church is valued. Look at verse 21. And the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Now, these aren't pearly gates. These aren't pearl encrusted gates. Get the symbolic vision here. We have 12 massive pearls, each carved into a gate. And the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each of the gates were made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass. Again, the vision that John sees is straining the limits of human language. But think here, think here of a groom adorning his bride with the most precious valuable things because of his great love for her. This is what the love of Christ is like for his church. And the imagery to depict that love is over the top, isn't it? Each gate made of an impossibly giant pearl. Even the most common and utilitarian thing like the streets he describes are made of a gold that is so strange and singular and otherworldly that John describes it as being as transparent as glass. And in all of this, John's vision is holding forth the bride of the lamb as being profoundly loved, valuable, precious to the Lord. And he adorns her as such. Again, church, we're talking about us. We're not talking about something outside of us. We're talking about us. This is how you are loved. This is the depth of the love that the bridegroom has for his bride. And can you see the potential, attractional power of this truth? What I mean is this. Think about what this could do to empower our witness to our neighbors and the world if we truly believed and properly reflected this magnificent love that the Lord has for us. Do you remember when you first fell in love? Do you remember that? There's nothing like it, is there? There's nothing like falling in love and knowing that the one you've fallen in love with loves you too. That's the best. That's the best thing. Remember how hard it was to think about anything else? It changed you, didn't it? When I met Karen on my first day on campus at university, I saw her and I said, yes, please. And I thought I met her because I made a beeline towards her. And I introduced myself and I was charming. And honestly, at that point, I thought about her every day. I woke up in the morning thinking about her. I thought about her when I was sitting in class. And that went on every day, every evening. I saw her once passing in a hallway and I said hi to her and she acted like she didn't know me. True. And I saw her the next weekend. It was at a campus gathering and I asked her out and we went out because I had to because I could not think of anything else. Such was my affection for her. And you know, I was a poor college student. Seriously, I was trying to live on $20 a week. And suddenly I'd fallen in love and I can't even buy her a pizza. That's hard because I wanted to lavish things on her. Believer, do you know how precious you are to the Lord? Church, do you know how beloved you are of Christ? If he adorns leopards and parrotfish and hummingbirds with such beautiful colors and patterns, imagine how he feels about you, church. The church is precious. And then finally, the church is holy. The church is holy. Beginning in verse 15, John describes the dimensions of the Lamb's bride, this holy city. Much like Ezekiel's vision from Ezekiel chapters 40 and 41 of the eschatological temple and the measuring of it, much like that, John sees an angel now measure the bride's city coming down out of heaven. And look there in verses 16 through 17. There's a great weight of symbolism here. Notice how he uses the number 12 and its multiples repeatedly. Numbers that symbolize perfection and completeness. And if you consider that the wall's thickness is 144 cubits, again a multiple of 12, then John's vision here, if you total them all up, John's vision consists of 12 twelves. And you'll notice that the length of all the sides of the bride's city, it makes it a perfect cube. And incidentally, there are 12 edges on a cube. Again, the symbolism here is of perfection and completeness. And this cube John sees in his vision is absolutely massive. Each of the six walls of the cube are 1200 stadia. That is half the width of the continental United States. It would reach as high as the low earth orbit of certain satellites. But those significant characteristics of what John sees in his vision, the most significant thing there, I think, is the cubic configuration of the bride's city. You see how it's a cube? Each side measures the same. It's four square. There's one other place in the Bible where cubic dimensions are prescribed for a structure. We find it in 1 Kings 6 with the design of the holy of holies in the temple. Now, the symbolism here I don't think could be any more obvious. A more fully theological explanation for what John is seeing in this vision is found in Ephesians chapter 2. Listen to this. So you, he's speaking of the church, so then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you are also being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. This is what John is seeing. In this massive golden cube, what he sees is the church in glory. As Jesus has caused us at that point to grow into a holy temple in the Lord, the dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Now, in verses 18 through 21, we see this massive cube adorned with various gemstones, this massive cube in the very same configuration of the holy of holies, the place where God dwelled among his people. And these stones, these gemstones are the same stones that were arrayed on the breastplate of the high priest in Exodus, where we read that those stones were arranged in four rows of three, each representing one of the twelve tribes of Israel. And so when the high priest would enter into the holy of holies with that breastplate, with those twelve stones, he would be symbolically bringing the people into the presence of God. He was their mediator, acting on their behalf, bringing them, as sinful as they were, bringing them into the holy presence of God, there to make atonement for their sins. This is why we see in verse 22 that there's no temple here in the new creation, because the whole thing is not just the temple, but the very inner sanctuary itself. He's seeing the church, he's seeing you, brothers and sisters, in your perfected, glorified state, and he's saying, I see them as the very holy of holies, whose one mediator is not a priest who's a sinner like them, but whose one mediator is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And there we are in the presence of God. That's why we see that when John looks, he sees this great, pure, golden, massive, holy city, and what he's really looking at is the church. That's why we read in verse 27, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. I want you to see those words, only what is holy, only what is pure, only what is free of anything that's sinful or detestable or false, only that may enter the glorious future that the church has in God's presence. But I want you to really look at what is said and what is not said. What is said is that holiness is absolutely required. Not niceness, not do the best you can, but true, pure holiness. Holiness is required in the presence of God. No exceptions will be made. No exceptions can be made. That's what is said, but it does not say, therefore, you better go out and make yourself holy. You better get out there, get to work, and reach that level of holy perfection so that then you can get into this reality. That is decidedly not said, because you can't do that. And that's why the answer is not given, is only those who've tried hard enough, and who've achieved enough holiness may enter. That's why that answer is not what's given. I mean, that would seem like the most natural contrast in verse 27. Nothing unholy can get in, so you better really buckle down and get holy so you can get in. That would seem the most logical contrast, but that's not the one that verse 27 holds out. What is the contrast that he shows? It's between unholyness in sin and falsehood on the one side, contrasted with those whose names are written somewhere, whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. The first group described are those who have insisted on remaining in a sinful condition. They don't believe they need a gracious salvation, and so they don't even look for it. The second group are those who have had Christ act on their behalf. They've looked to Christ for their holiness precisely because they knew they couldn't achieve it themselves. Isn't this exactly what the Bible tells us that Jesus does for us? And again, don't think of the church here in abstract terms. When the Scriptures speak of the church, when the Scriptures tell us about the church, it's us who are being talked about, the believers in Jesus Christ. You are the church, we are the church together, and it contrasts the sinfulness and ugliness and unrighteousness of the world with the holiness that can only come to us from an outside source, from Christ Jesus. That's why our hope is not that we would be our righteousness, but that Christ is our righteousness. It's not that we would achieve holiness, but that Christ has made us and declared us holy. And so, church, you are the ones who, by God's grace, share in His glory. You are secure beyond anything you can imagine. You are loved more deeply and profoundly than you have ever been or imagined that you could be loved. And you are holy because God has made it so. There's one more passage I'm going to read for you because I believe it captures just exactly what John sees here in his vision. It's from Ephesians chapter 5, where Paul is addressing the relationship between husbands and wives. And he says, I'm telling you a mystery here when he talks about the relationship of husband and wife. He says, I'm telling you a mystery here, but I'm talking about the church. And he says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her. That is, make her holy. Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish. Do you know what Paul is describing there? He's describing who we are being made and ultimately he's describing who we will become in glory. He's describing what John just saw. Thank God for that. That's your future, believer. Your future is not a tragedy. Your future is glorious. Praise the Lord. Let's pray. And now, O God, we ask Your help that Your Word would remain with us and that by Your Spirit You would apply it to us in ways that would cause us to be more grateful, more humble, more loving, more hungry for righteousness, more courageous in this world.