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     Last week, we noted the New Jerusalem (mistakenly thought to be heaven) and the church Jesus built have the same foundation (12 apostles), thus they are one and the same (Revelation 21:14; Ephesians 2:19-22; 4:11).  Now more on the New Jerusalem.

     As the vision was revealed to the apostle John, he “saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2).  The city is personified as a bride.  In this vision, an angel said “Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife” (Revelation 21:9).  Reasonably, one asks who or what is the Lamb and who is the bride?

     In the Bible only one person is called the Lamb.  As Jesus approached, John the baptizer announced, “Behold!  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29, cf 1:36; 1 Peter 1:19).  Out of 30 New Testament references to Jesus as the “Lamb,” 26 are in Revelation.  Reflecting His sovereignty, the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb and worshiped Him, the ultimate respect and reverence, (Revelation 5:8-10, 12-14).

     The Lamb was to be married — “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:9).  Now the New Jerusalem is a bride coming down out of heaven.  Synonymously, the New Jerusalem is called “holy Jerusalem” — “...the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,....” (Revelation 21:20).

     The New Jerusalem is noted in four verses in the New Testament, but only in Revelation (Revelation 3:12; 21:2, 9, 22).  The New Jerusalem is called a city.  But why is it called Jerusalem?  And what and where is this New Jerusalem?

     Jerusalem was the city and the temple was where God put His name (1 Kings 11:36: 2 Kg 21:4, 7; 2 Chronicles 6:33).  The temple was God’s dwelling on earth (Ezekiel 43:6,7).  After the church began on Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead, the temple was no longer the place of God’s presence (Acts 7:46-50).  The apostle Paul called the Christians at Corinth the temple of the living God (1 Corinthians 6:16; cf Ephesians 2:19-22).

     Jesus continued His revelation to the apostle John, ‘...the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people.  God Himself will be with them and be their God....‘Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife’”’ (21:2, 3, 9).  So the New Jerusalem is Jesus’ (the Lamb’s) bride.
     The context (Revelation 21) shows the bride is Jesus church — “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27).
     God and the Lamb (Jesus) are its temple in the New Jerusalem -“Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb....But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Revelation 21:14, 22).
     The faithful Christian will be a pillar in God’s temple in eternity — “I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more.  I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God” (Revelation 3:12).
     The New Jerusalem is the Church of Christ in heaven.

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