6He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
9One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." 10And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Dig Deeper
From the time I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, my dream was to become an Egyptologist. I realize full well that most kids that age dream of being a professional athlete, a firefighter, an astronaut, or something romantic and exciting. To me, being an Egyptologist did seem exciting, and I also realize that that means I was a strange little kid. Yet, that was my dream. As I got to high school and began to think about choosing colleges and majors, my dad encouraged me to think about the field of education rather than archaeology for many reasons but the ones that were most vital were simple. I don’t like heat, I don’t like dirty and dusty conditions, and I don’t like living in tents. These are all things that become large parts of the life of the Egyptologist. My dad was wise enough to know that I simply wasn’t cut out for that kind of life because I wasn’t that kind of person. In short, as attractive as it looked, I would hate that kind of life.
There has always been a great deal of debate and consideration about the justice of God when it comes to those who are in the age to come and those who are not. We tend to read passages like this one as being a list of things that will disqualify someone from earning their way into God’s restored age, but that’s really the wrong way to view. The Bible is really God’s story of redeeming humans human that were made in His image but marred by sin, back into the image of their Creator. God describes the love and unity that will characterize this future age and has called His people to be advance outposts of that age, free samples if you will. Those who truly desire this kind of existence, being restored to the image of God and living in His full presence will conduct themselves in ways that anticipate that kind of future and who we are to become. Those who engage in other behaviors, though, have demonstrated that they do not desire that kind of life. They reject it now and would, quite frankly, hate that kind of life in the future. This is why, to put it in other terms, C.S. Lewis wrote that hell would be locked from the inside, full of people who wanted no part of what they would have to become in order to fit into the age to come.
21:6 - Just as Jesus’ phrase "It is finished" (John 19:30) was echoed as the seven bowls were done being poured out, that phrase is alluded to here again as John reports that H says, "It is done," and recounts that He said to me: It is done. I am the Alpha and Omega (in English this would be like saying A to Z), the Beginning and the End (the source, goal, and meaning of all things). This is said in order to confirm the truth of what is about to come. I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. One has to believe that as John heard this he was reminded of Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman that he recorded in his gospel (John 4:14). What he promised then is now available to all.
21:7 - Christ now repeats one of the primary themes of the Revelation: He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. This inheritance, it should be noted, is the sole right of the overcomer. There is no room for a defeatist mentality in Christianity. God assures victory for those that overcome and cling to His Covenant justice, for He says, I will be his God and he will be my son (cf. Gen. 17:7-8; 2 Cor. 6:16-18). Communion with God is a similar concept as the age to come. It will be at its fullest and most complete in heaven, but definitively and progressively, we can have it now. We are already citizens of the new Jerusalem, and are new creations.
21:8 - This is another verse that should dash any hope of universal salvation for all, regardless of their relation to Christ during the present age. It is a summary of all of the followers of the Dragon, the enemies of God. J.P.M. Sweet, says in his book Revelation, "the list belongs, like similar lists in the epistles, to the context of baptism, the putting off of the ‘old man’ and putting on of the new" (cf. Gal. 5:19-26; Eph. 4:17-5:7; Col. 3:5-10; Tit. 3:3-8).
21:9 - On e of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me, thus creating literary continuity and tying together chapters 15-22. He says to John, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. John will be shown the true bride as opposed to the prostitute.
21:10-11 - John is carried . . . away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high. This is in direct and purposeful contrast to the prostitute in the desert. He sees the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. The prophet Ezekiel saw the glory cloud depart from the Temple and travel to the Mount of Olives (Ezek. 10:18-19; 11:22-23). In his later vision of the new Jerusalem, he sees the glory cloud returning to the new Temple, the Church (Ezek. 43:1-5). Central to first-century AD Jewish thinking was the belief that they were still in exile, even though they were living in the land of Israel, because the presence of God had not returned to Jerusalem as the prophets had promised. The great hope of the Jewish people was that God’s glory would soon return. With that very much in mind, John writes that the new Jerusalem shone with glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a precious jewel. The glory cloud of God was now with the Church, the new Temple.
21:12-14 - The woman of Rev. 12:1 wore a crown with stars, this has been replaced as the new Jerusalem had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the twelve gates. With this double twelve, John also ties this vision into the vision of the Throne which was surrounded by twenty-four elders. It is likely that the twenty-four in all of these symbols is pointing to the continuity and unity of the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles. This vision is very similar to Ezekiel’s vision of the new Jerusalem in many ways. Ezekiel implies (Ezek. 48:31-34) that the city has a great, high wall, something John confirms. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, a detail which Ezekiel agrees upon. The gates are described specifically as being three on the east, north, south, and west, which is fitting because Jesus proclaimed that Gentiles would stream into the Kingdom from the four cardinal directions (Luke 13:29; Isa. 49:12). John continues the imagery as he says that the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. This is nearly identical theology to Paul’s words in Ephesians 2:19-22, when, speaking to the people of the New Covenant he says, "Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."
Devotional Thought
John continually stresses the idea that only the overcomers will inherit the age to come. What in your life is the potentially most difficult thing for you to overcome? Do you truly have faith that God will help you overcome that situation? How might you handle your situation differently if you lived as though you knew you would overcome rather than worrying about failing?
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