Revelation 21

CLV ¹ And I perceived a new heaven and a new earth, for the former heaven and the former earth pass away, and the sea is no more.” 

The dwelling place of new covenant humanity had to be prepared in heaven before it could be spiritually extended to spiritually raise up children on earth. The new creation is not the garden of Eden reopened. Eden contained  juvenile humanity. The full image of God was not fleshed out until eschaton Adam arrived in the old covenant. Jesus left that old creation and went to prepare the mature celestial place for His new marriage-covenant people.

God’s people are not unclothed or clothed in animal sacrifices any more. The bride became telosed and dressed in white; she was made to fully stand for the spiritual marriage. The city of God extends to earth to raise God’s children in this never-ending new covenant creation; for all tribes and nations. 

Telos. This Greek word can be translated as aim, design, purpose, goal, or objective. According to Aristotle, we have a telos as humans, which it is our responsibility to fulfill. According to him, this telos is based on our uniquely human capacity for rational thought; more specifically though it is our unique relationship through God’s Word, not fully fleshed out until the first century. Humanity is in heaven now to intercede for us forever, even when we don’t have words to express ourselves properly. First Adam led us to the human place called Hades. Telos Adam led us to the human place called heaven.

Before His ascension, nobody accept the only begotten Son of God could be in the new creation place; neither on earth nor in heaven. By way of the Holy Spirit betrothal on Pentecost, God began to spiritually prepare His people for His heavenly place of eternal dwelling, by writing God’s Word on the heart of humanity.

In Jacob’s weddings, betrothal and consummation typically took place in the bride’s father’s house (tents for him). some time after the marriage Jacob took his family to his father’s land. Jacob’s new family unit would become the twelve tribes of the flesh-born nation of Israel. 

The typical father of the spiritually betrothed tribe in the land of first century Jerusalem was Judah. The bride’s house for the betrothal on earth was the temple complex in Jerusalem. The day was Pentecost. The place Jesus went to prepare for that bride in waiting was in the Father’s house in heaven.

The land of Jerusalem rejected the anti-typical new creation. They were anti-christ not anti-typical. So a protected place in the wilderness was prepared for the bride awaiting the spiritual consummation. The birth place of the bride moved from only Jews to Gentiles too. The spiritual consummation preceded going to the Father’s spiritual house in heaven; also know as the rapture of the bride. The rapture was the moment the new creation in heaven and on earth were married. Married together is redundant.

Humanity, as the new covenant church, was being raised to be the bride of Christ in heaven. That was a higher position than even the former creation of heavenly beings called angels occupied. At Pentecost, the bride of Christ was either on earth or in Hades. Heaven was not yet open for humans. 

Before Christ could marry that first century church, He had to become their new high priest in the order of Melchizedek and He could only do this for His people if He was in heaven. On earth He was not a priest. On earth He was still in the body of Judah. No descendant of Judah became a priest. The typical men of Judah rejected the new cosmic order.

After taking His old covenant human sacrifice to the true temple in heaven, Yeshua became a priest,  without His earthly body from the tribe of Yehuda. Earthly bodies don’t live in heavenly realms. The real temple was made accessible to humanity after the human/God messiah entered it. Just like He was the first human to leave Hades, He was the first human to enter the real temple in the heavenly realm.

That remaking of heaven was a prerequisite to the spiritual new creation for all new covenant humans under heaven. The presence of God was brought to earth for the humans in three new ways. First was the spiritual conception of God’s Son, then was the Spirit sent by the Son from heaven to His people on Pentecost. That was the spiritual conception of the corporate body of Christ on earth. Third was the spiritual marriage of God’s people in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Those who had already died were the first to enter heaven.

Yeshua wasn’t on earth in the flesh anymore, but His image was present as the Holy Spirit. He sent the indwelling Spirit only after ascending to heaven. The earthly realm was being made new by the Spirit of creation, but the permanent dwelling place for the bride of Christ was being made ready in the Father’s house in heaven. The fact that it extends to earth, even though we can’t see it with our eyes, is further proof that heaven is in another realm.

What first Adam lost was his Spirit of God cohabitation. He was driven out of his Spirit inhabited probation place that God had prepared for him and Eve on earth. They were like betrothed children who didn’t spiritually grow up to marry yet.

Jesus satisfied the types as eschaton Adam on earth and made that probation place an eternal place in heaven. Adam’s place was destined to telos (the full potential or inherent purpose or objective of a person or thing) at 1000 years.

Adam missed the goal of eternal life for humanity. He went to a new and temporary spirit realm called Hades, rather than to the spirit realm called heaven. He was banned from the typical tree of life lest he finish the age fallen.

What made the land new, if not Christ becoming the new spiritual head of humanity in the place of Adam? That new head of the human body took Adam’s call to rule over all of creation and He even overcame Adam’s fall. He took the human nation into the age alive. It all started to be realized at His birth. At half-time He over-ruled Hades, which was only a temporary place for fallen humanity. In the new heaven and earth, Hades was replaced by heaven.

We restarted our calendar to mark the dawning of this new creation on earth. But Jesus was born into the body of Adam from the tribe of Judah. That old creation under Adam wasn’t completely ended until AD 70. It was at that time that the final tribe of Judah was divorced from the land and sent out to join the diaspora. The final remnant in the land of Jerusalem were put to death too.

Those who claim to be the true Jews today still claim to keep a calendar that goes back to the birth of Adam rather than the birth of their Christ. They think they can still rule in the old creation just by saying so. Only Yeshua could rule in the old creation and He ended the old so the church could spiritually join Him in a new betrothal. Adam failed to keep His Holy Spirit place in his betrothal. Their marriage was consummated outside the garden of potential permanence. 

Why would you rather have Adam as your covenant representative? Adam can’t make the bride eternal. Adam didn’t go to prepare a dwelling place for her in heaven. Adam didn’t even fulfill his typical old covenant potential, let alone Eve’s. He lost it. It was eschaton Adam who didn’t miss the mark of His full potential. On the cross, He reversed Adam’s fall for all his people. He did rule in the age to never ending human life, even as He ended the fall in their second death.

The sea represented Jew/Gentile division, which does not exist among God’s people today. It was part of the typical old covenant. That the physical earth still has oceans is not the point. The sea is no longer a symbolic type of national separation in the new covenant creation, because we don’t live in a covenant of types anymore. The kingdom is within. It is spiritual. It is not seen with earthly eyes. It is seen with kingdom eyes or heavenly body eyes. But is is still represented to us in the book of the Revelation with earthly pictures we can understand. The place of God’s people has moved to heaven. There it is kept.  John saw it: the kingdom of the Father, His Son, his bride and His city.

² I perceived the holy city, new Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.” 

The whole point of the new creation letters to the first century people of Yahweh is to prepare them to stand up for the eternal marriage. That is when God moved in with His people in the one and only unbreakable marriage covenant. New covenant salvation can’t be lost. It was only during the transition from old to new creation that Jews were (in the corporate body of Adam) in danger of missing their  potential for eternal life. They missed their thousand year spiritual Jubilee by insisting on keeping Adam as their progenitor in the flesh. They wanted to keep that generation of God’s people typical rather than become the spiritual re-generation body of Christ. Jesus could not be their high priest in the old flesh mode.

Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His Jewish people on Pentecost to prepare the nation to enter their eternal promised land. The Holy Spirit of Yahweh went o the Jew first, only after Jews were in the new body were the national divisions taken away. This is the promised land that we can never get kicked out of. That land Sabbatical is kept for us. The only way we could lose our salvation is to return the new covenant fulfillment to the land of types. 

The new covenant city of God is kept in heaven incorruptible, yet extends to earth in the spiritual realm. Unlike Adam’s place on earth, spiritual life is now secure, in heaven and on earth. All was made new.

The spiritual realm is real. Earthly eyes aren’t enough to see it. Earth bound eyes can’t interpret the book of the final Revelation properly either. Haven’t you noticed that?

John was looking into the heavenly realms. We can’t even comprehend heaven without our earthly icons. We still have earthly brains. Earthly minds are enlightened by the mind of Christ. You have the mind of Christ by way of the same Holy Spirit He first sent to the first century Jews. John was in the Spirit in the Lord’s day when he saw the final Revelation concerning the preparation of the new covenant bride and the destruction of the old covenant bride.

That all took place in the Lord’s day. When Matthew chapter 24 was being spoken by the Son, only His Father knew the day and hour of the NC wedding and the OC destruction. The last revelation comes through the Father, to the Son, to an angel, to John, in the Spirit, in the day of the Lord – to the churches (the bride). Believers were being informed and prepared, not unbelievers. Unbelievers remained in the dark. 

The unbeliever’s experience was like having a thief come in the night while they slept in the darkness. They lost their salvation. The salvation thief was Satan. He told them they could keep the law. The knowledge of good and evil written on stone proved them to be covenant breakers like Adam. 

At the time of the cross, the old covenant bride was released by law from eschaton Adam’s side in a chiastically inverted precursor to the new creation event. The old covenant law man pierced His side while He was in a deep sleep on the cross. The law did not kill Him. He sacrificed Himself to release the bride from her OC marriage so she could become free to marry, as a widow is. After releasing the bride from the law of sin and death, He became her high priest in heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to write His law upon her heart. 

Can you think of a more sacrificial or efficacious marriage arrangement? Why are we looking for another new marriage covenant? Will Jews be released from their old husbandman Adam again? Will we become unspiritual and revert to types and do it again? 

The real temple is the forever spiritual one heaven. The old typical temple was a copy of the real temple in heaven. It is almost humorous to think God lives in a cube shaped box, yet so many denominations still try to contain him in their little man-made box of traditions. And some even think God will abandon His new covenant family and move back into a man made box in a typical Jerusalem. 

³ And I hear a loud voice out of the throne saying, “Lo! the tabernacle of God is with mankind, and He will be tabernacling with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them.”

Will God Himself meet with His people? God is spirit. Maybe this is a meeting in the spirit realm. The angels met with Yahweh in the spirit realm according to Job chapter one. Aren’t we promised a better place than angels? Meeting with God on earth is not a better place unless it is a Holy spirit indwelling that lifts us to eternal heavenly realms. Even when Moses met with God in the old creation, it involved a burning bush as a physical representation. And encounters with Yahweh in the old covenant temple aren’t that desirable. They were life threatening. Even Moses had a fading and veiled glory after temporarily meeting with Yahweh. 

 ⁴ And He will be brushing away every tear from their eyes. And death will be no more, nor mourning, nor clamor, nor misery; they will be no more, for the former things passed away.” 

There was never a more trying time than the first century transition from the old creation to the new. It was a pre-wedding time context. Was there crying and suffering at the wedding? Wasn’t it the most joyous time ever? Wasn’t it the end of old covenant death because the new covenant marriage was made permanent? The old covenant people went to their second death as the typical nation. They were living in denial and claiming not to be a widow. But the new marriage covenant people went to eternal life. Eternal life means no more death.

⁵ And He Who is sitting on the throne said, “Lo! New am I making all! And He is saying, “Write, for these sayings are faithful and true.” ⁶ And He said to me, “I have become the Alpha and the Omega, the Origin and the Consummation. To him who is thirsting I shall be giving of the spring of the water of life gratuitously.”

Jesus (or God) was the originator of the new creation still on probation. The new creation was made out of the old. Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit saw it through to the marriage. All proper marriages are new creations consummated. Adam didn’t have spiritual kids in the land that was prepared for him. He lost eternal life during the betrothal probation, prior to having any children in Eden. 

Life eternal was a wedding gift to God’s first century people who were assigned to complete the probation period alive. Paul was convinced that those who had the indwelling Holy Spirit were already secure in their betrothal.

The veil on the face of  Moses was lifted for the people of Yahweh in Christ because the glory doesn’t fade away from the new covenant man’s face. The new covenant interface between God and man is Yeshua not Moses. Yeshua returned to his glory at the right hand of Yahweh. But He returned to become our high priest in a new creation. He now had humanity in his soul. Yeshua opened the eternal promised land for humanity to enter. Moses couldn’t even take God’s people into the temporary promised land.

 ⁷ He who is conquering shall be enjoying this allotment, and I shall be a God to him and he shall be a son to Me.” ⁸ Yet the timid, and unbelievers, and the abominable, and murderers, and paramours, and enchanters, and idolaters, and all the false-their part is in the lake burning with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.” 

It was the old covenant hold-outs who were most guilty of not trusting in God. They were guilty of trying every false method in order to avoid suffering and maintain their status quo in the temporary land.

⁹ And one of the seven messengers who have the seven bowls brimming with the last seven calamities came, and he speaks with me, saying, “Hither! I shall be showing you the bride, the wife of the Lambkin.” ¹⁰ And he carries me away, in spirit, on a mountain, huge and high, and shows me the holy city, Jerusalem, as it is descending out of heaven from God, 

The last seven calamities were not for the Holy City of Jerusalem but for the unholy city of Jerusalem. She was fast approaching the OC finality of the AD 70 destruction. It was a typical city destruction that represented the end of the OC world. The tribe of Judah was also returned to the land it was taken from. But not before the eternal city was complete.

¹¹ having the glory from God. Her luminosity is like a stone most precious, as a crystalline jasper gem, ¹² having a wall, huge and high, having twelve portals, and at the portals twelve messengers, and their names inscribed, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.” 

The twelve messengers prepared the way for the new creation gospel. The twelve messengers were the twelve tribes of Israel. They opened the gates of the spiritual city of Jerusalem to the nations by way of their diaspora teaching. The twelve tribes had been scattered throughout the Roman empire to plant a synagogue in every city. They preached Moses to the nations for hundreds of years prior to the arrival of their messiah. Anyone who believed Moses would believe the Messiah too. Yeshua took them into the promised land of permanent marriage, not Moses.

¹³ From the east are three portals, and from the north three portals, and from the south three portals, and from the west three portals.” 

Like Peter’s sheet vision that had four beginnings (or origins or corners) or like the booths that were made up of four species, one on each side, or like the four living souls created before Adam, that he then was commissioned to tame, so the city welcomed all the nations from the four corners of the earth. In the new creation the human was first and then the animals.

¹⁴ And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lambkin.” 

The foundation of the spiritual city of God was laid by twelve true Jews, who were disciples of the one true Jew Himself; Christ. 

¹⁵ And he who is speaking with me had a measure, a golden reed, that he should be measuring the city, and its portals, and its wall.” ¹⁶ And the city is lying four square: and its length is as much as the breadth. And he measures the city with the reed to twelve thousand stadia. Its length and breadth and height are equal. ¹⁷ And he measures its wall of a hundred forty-four cubits of a human measure, which is that of the messenger.” 

Humanly speaking, the new city is cube shaped, like the typical temple of humanity was. The cube shape is used to convey the new reality that was especially meaningful to God’s Hebrew people and their first century Tanakh-taught proselytes. The presence of Yahweh is everywhere His people are. The enormous cube shaped measurements of the heavenly city were very significant to the first century Jews in Jerusalem. The new covenant has no local temple. The city and it’s people are the temple of God.

The size of the new creation city is pictured as 35 times bigger than the whole Hebrew promised land, which means it is not a physical place on the land, rather it’s a a spiritual reality, fulfilling and surpassing all the expectations. It doesn’t fit in the land of types. Like the disappearance of the oceans, according to the new covenant revelation, the city is not something we experience with typical earthly eyes.

The city extends to earth from our eternal dwelling place in heaven. Our eternal dwelling place in heaven is a spiritual reality, not a physical place in heaven. You don’t have to be in a certain physical location on land to enter the new covenant City of God. It is in another realm. You do have to be spiritual or Spirit born. The apostle Paul was torn between the two realms of living.

The typical city of David was .35 square miles.

The typical promised land was 56,000 square miles.

The new city of God is 1,960,000 square miles.

1,960,000 ÷ 56,000 = 35.

Being 35 times bigger than the whole promised land, it’s a city that just doesn’t fit into the land of types.

The area of old covenant Jerusalem was originally .35 square miles. Modern day Jerusalem is 48.3 square miles, making the modern day city on Earth called Jerusalem, 138 times bigger than the original city. The city of Jerusalem in heaven is portrayed 5,600,000 times bigger than the original city.

Just maybe that pictures a city that is permanently kept incorruptible in heaven, for you. It’s building materials are clean, pure and costly. But heaven doesn’t really mine for materials on earth. Heaven is in another realm altogether. These are merely materials we can relate to.

¹⁸ And the building material in its wall is jasper, and the city is clear gold, like clear glass.” ¹⁹ The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every precious stone, the first foundation with jasper, the second lapis lazuli, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, ²⁰ the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh topaz, the eighth beryl, the ninth peridot, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh amethyst, the twelfth garnet.” ²¹ And the twelve portals are twelve pearls. Each one of the portals was respectively of one pearl. And the square of the city is gold, clear as translucent glass.” ²² And a temple I did not perceive in it, for the Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lambkin.” 

Here God and the Lamb are called the temple. In the old creation, the Sun and the moon were needed to trek the festivals. At the proper times, the people of God travelled to the symbolic place of God’s dwelling. In the new covenant, God indwells His people 24/7 regardless of location. We are enlightened today by the Holy Spirit. All nationalities of peoples from every ruler enter the city and bring glory to the king of kings. 

²³ And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should be appearing in it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lambkin.” ²⁴ And the nations shall be walking by means of its light, and the kings of the earth are carrying their glory into it.” 

Jesus said He came to be the light of the world. Is He the light of your world? Are we waiting for the types to return so the Sun and moon can light the way to festivals in typical Jerusalem?  The Son of Yahweh lights the way to the celestial city. The never ending marriage was the final fall festival that sealed eternal life for God’s people. 

²⁵ And its portals should under no circumstances be locked by day; for there shall be no night there. ²⁶And they shall be carrying the glory and the honor of the nations into it, ²⁷ and under no circumstances may anything contaminating, or one who is making an abomination and a lie be entering into it, except those written in the Lambkin’s scroll of life.”

If the gates are physical pearls then why are they open continuously? How are we keeping the unclean people out? It is a spiritual reality that only God’s people can enter into. The gospel is the only way in. Born by the Spirit is the only way in because eternal life is a spiritual reality. It is in the realm where the angels live. Nobody has ever seen an angel’s made-for-heaven body, at least not with biological eyes. God describes the city using the earthly materials and dimensions we are familiar with. 

Revelation 22:11-20

YLT ¹¹ he who is unrighteous—let him be unrighteous still, and he who is filthy—let him be filthy still, and he who is righteous—let him be declared righteous still, and he who is sanctified—let him be sanctified still: ¹² And lo, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to each as his work shall be; ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and End—the First and the Last. ¹⁴ `Happy are those doing His commands that the authority shall be theirs unto the tree of the life, and by the gates they may enter into the city; <sup>15</sup> and without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one who is loving and is doing a lie. <sup>16</sup> `I, Jesus did send my messenger to testify to you these things concerning the assemblies; I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star! ¹⁷ And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come; and he who is hearing—let him say, Come; and he who is thirsting—let him come; and he who is willing—let him take the water of life freely. ¹⁸`For I testify to every one hearing the words of the prophecy of this scroll, if any one may add unto these, God shall add to him the plagues that have been written in this scroll, <sup>19</sup> and if any one may take away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the scroll of the life, and out of the holy city, and the things that have been written in this scroll;’ 
<sup>20</sup> he saith—who is testifying these things—`Yes, I come quickly!’ Amen! Yes, be coming, Lord Jesus!

The first century bride of Christ was made ready for the eternal marriage covenant. The groom sent His groomsmen to get the bride and bring her to His Father’s house. He went to the Father to prepare that place for her. Eternal life is now a reality in the church; the mother of all the living. She was set free from Adam to remarry Christ. The old man was put to death permanently. That was the second death for the city of God on earth.