Every human vision of a perfect society involves the exclusion of some, and the exaltation and inclusion of others. For Darwin it was the “survival of the fittest”. For the French and Russian Revolutions, it was the exclusion of the nobility and the monarchy. For socialism in many countries, it’s been the eradication of the middle classes. For Stalinism, it was Christianity. For Nazism, it was the homosexual and the Jew. For the white supremacist segregationist, it was the exclusion of black and brown people.
But the vision of new Jerusalem tells a different story. In fact, the story told gives us the only hope for a world that is torn by strife.
Those of you who come to this church know that I promised that I was going to start on the book of Revelation. So I am, but I’m starting at the end. I’m starting at the end for two reasons: One, that I want you to know where it’s going, and two, because this is the beginning of our Global Outreach week. And there is nothing like keeping before our eyes what the goal of global outreach is. And that’s precisely what we find in the passage before us. The work of global mission, the work we’re engaged in as the people of God while we’re still here, is the work that will lead to the healing of the nations.
It’s an expansive vision. A vision of the ultimate reconciliation of all things. That includes all peoples, all languages, all cultures from the rich diversity of human life. At the beginning of this Global Mission week I want us to start here.
It will end in the healing of the nations; we read that in chapter 22. This is the destiny and the destination of those out of every tribe and nation throughout the whole world who have believed the gospel. They’re there in new Jerusalem because of the work of the One who is described here as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He’s also called the Lamb of God, we’re told earlier in Revelation that he was slain, that his blood ransomed people for God from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation.
It tells us that Christ was slain on behalf of believing peoples, believing nations, and that by being slain on their behalf he freed them. He freed them from the penalty of their sins by his blood. By taking their place, by suffering their penalty, he has purchased eternal salvation for those who believe. And what we have in Revelation chapter 21 and 22 is the beginning of a new story. You and I are still living the old story, the old story of the world that began when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden.
The story that’s been known to every human being that has lived since then, wherever in the world they have lived, whatever color they are, whatever language they speak. The old story is a story of birth and misery and death.
But Revelation 21 and 22 describe the new story. This is how C.S. Lewis puts it in words from his book, The Last Battle:
“Now at last they were at the beginning of chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle
What a contrast to the story that we that we’re living in in our lifetime now. So with that background then, I bring you to this fragment of text taken from that section of Scripture. And it kind of leans into three ideas, each relating to God: the city of God, the light of God, and the people of God.
First of all, to the city of God. If you were to read all of chapter 21 you begin at the beginning with a vision of a renewed universe. A new heavens and a new earth John calls it. By the heavens he means the entire universe. Everything that you can see and that you cannot see when you look at the night sky, the entirety of the universe. Every atom, every molecule, renewed transformed, reconstituted a new heavens and a new earth.
In other words, whenever anybody becomes a Christian, no matter what their background, they become a Christian, they come to follow Jesus, they are a new creation. God purposes to make not just people new but to make the new universe new. A new heavens and a new earth.
And then as John describes the vision that he had, he goes on to say this in verse 2 of that chapter,
“I saw holy city new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God.”
Revelation 21:2
Here is a new creation that has come from God every bit as much as the old creation did. When God said, “Let there be light”, there was light. When God said, “Let them bring forth”, they brought forth. When God said, “Let us make man in our image”, man was made in God’s image.
Here is a new creation, the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. What does this city represent? Well, we read in Scripture, we’re told this, it’s identified early on in verse two of the chapter as “a bride adorned for her husband.” She, this city, is the bride of Christ, the wife of Yahweh. She is fulfilled Israel. She is the Church of God, the bride of Christ, the wife of Yahweh in its state of perfection.
Now the book of Revelation is going to be quite honest about the current state of the church, as we’ll see in chapters two and three, Jesus has something to say to the church currently. But by the time you get to Revelation 21, there you see the church in a state of perfection:
“without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish in the sight of God.”
Ephesians 5:27
And that city, new Jerusalem, is a perfect, the perfect, human society, built upon the twelve apostles of the Lamb, with twelve gates that represent perfect accessibility for all of the people of God to enter it. And yet as we read this morning this City of God has no temple. There is no church building. There’s no beautiful building like this in which those of us who are here in person are able to worship and those of you online can only see. It is actually much nicer in person than it is online, you should come and see it sometime.
But these buildings – temples, churches – were only ever representations. They were they were pictures, pointers, shadows of the real thing. Listen to what it says:
“I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”
Revelation 21:22
So in the new Jerusalem, you see, there is no building, but there is God and the Lamb. God and the Lamb are its temple. In other words, all of the new Jerusalem, and if you calculate the size of it, it’s the size of our planet and more – this new Jerusalem all ground is holy ground here.
Austin Farrer was an early 20th century philosopher and historian and theologian, he wrote this:
“Once the history of salvation is achieved there are no temple doors for prayer to storm or for mercy to throw open, the blessed always live in the presence of God.”
“The blessed always live in the presence of God.” And you know this is where the Bible has been bringing us all of this time. Haggai prophesied, in Haggai chapter 2,
“The latter glory of this house,” (referring to the temple in Jerusalem), “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former.”
Jeremiah in his day prophesied, they will no longer say the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and it will not even come into their mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will they make it again. At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord in Jerusalem.
In other words the new Jerusalem will enjoy God himself. Jesus said to us, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
I want you to pause and ponder this just for a moment. What does it say it means, “There is no temple, but the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are in it”? Do you understand this Christian brother or sister, wherever you are? Do you understand that you are going to see God? Do you understand, I ask you that you are going to see God face to face? That is your destiny – to see God! Now I ask you, is it the supreme goal of your life? Is it your ambition? Is it your supreme desire to see God? Are you looking forward to it? Are you preparing yourself for the sight of holiness above, as one of our hymns puts it? Do you understand in light of this great prospect that you will see God – that that puts absolutely everything else in life, absolutely everything else in human experience and human history into its place in proportion to the vision of God? The beautiful beatific vision of God that awaits the child of God.
Holy communion points us forward to that day. Every time we come to holy communion we are being pointed forward to that day when we see God face to face. The city of God is the Church of God and its perfection where its people see God.
But that second thing is the light of God. I’ve said there’ll be no need of a temple because there will be the Godhead there, but then we’re told that there will be no need of the sun or the moon because we will possess life itself. These created lights – the sun, the moon, the stars – will no longer be needed. C S Lewis argued that these that these lights – the sun, moon, and stars – have an important purpose, natural purpose for life, for human beings on this planet, for human beings in particular on this planet, but the major purpose of the sun, the moon, and the stars is to point us above them and beyond them into the future when we will meet the star-maker himself. This is what we’re told isn’t it in the Bible: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
Paul says he dwells in “unapproachable light”. The Psalmist in the Psalm we read, Psalm 36, says this: “In your light we will see light”
In other words, when we get to heaven God’s light — the brightness, the beauty that is God himself – will so illumine our minds, will so open our eyes, that we ourselves will behold the light that is God. We will see into the very essence, the burning brightness of the very being of God himself.
“In your light we will see light.”
“The pure in heart,” Jesus said, “will see God.”
The light of God will purify us to such a degree that we are enabled to view and see God himself. The prophets talked about this. Isaiah wrote:
“The sun shall no longer be your light by day, neither the brightness of the moon will be your light at night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and the Lord your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no longer go down, nor your moon withdraw itself, for the Lord will be your everlasting light and your days of mourning will be ended.”
Now that’s the prophecy of Isaiah, and the writer, John, in Revelation 21 is reflecting on that, and he tells us that this light of God and this sight of God is mediated through Jesus Christ. Look at verse 23: “Its lamp is the Lamb.”
Now remember what Isaiah said in that passage I just read to you from Isaiah 60: “The Lord will be your everlasting light and the Lord your God will be your glory.” John is now using that phrase, and he turns it, and here’s what he says: “The glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”
What’s he saying he’s saying that the Lamb and the Lord are one and the same. He’s saying that Jehovah is Jesus. He is the true light that gives light to everyone who’s coming into the world. Jesus says, “I am,” that is, “I am that I am. I am he Who is. I am Jehovah. I am Yahweh. The Light of the world. And only those who follow me,” Jesus says, “will have the light of life.”
In other words, we must know God in Christ if we are to see God. Let me put it to you like this, you must know God in Christ. You must have put your faith, in trusted in, leant into Christ himself if you are going to see God. No other way if you’re going to see God. He is the focal point; and as we look at the God-man in glory, as we look at Jesus Christ we will enjoy, by the help of the Holy Spirit, an immediate sight of God’s intimate richness and fullness as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
All of Jesus’ incarnate work from his conception to his birth, to his life of obedience, to his death and resurrection and ascension into glory is bent to the end of bringing his people into the Triune presence of God. And having that Triune goal is also, has a an ascetic element to it, because since God’s glory, refracted through the humanity of Jesus, is a refraction, a reflection of God’s inner beauty and splendor, we will be overcome by the beauty that we shall see city of God, the light of God, and then, lastly, the people of God. In verses 24 to 27, we find that there are diverse people. The people who inhabit the city of God are a diverse people.
“By its light shall the nations walk.”
Isaiah had said, “Arise, Shine, for your light has come, the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Darkness shall cover the earth, thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and the nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
Where I was brought up was near a little village called Blantyre. And in the village of Blantyre, there grew up a little a boy who became a missionary. He was very poor, he self-educated, he walked the 14 miles from Blantyre into Glasgow University in order to study medicine. He worked by day on the loom in a mill. David Livingstone was his name. When he went to Africa, he found, he was, he was the person who mapped out where places were, gave the names to places in Africa. He gave his entire, vested his entire life for the Africans. He took a rifle with him, as a missionary he took a rifle with him to do two things: one to chase off the lions and the other to chief of chase off the Arab raiders who were coming and capturing Africans and selling them on the slave trade. When he died his African friends buried his heart in Africa and sent his body back to Britain to be buried in Westminster Abbey.
David Livingstone, when he went to Africa, didn’t find many people believing in Jesus. Today, today, the representative Christian person in the world is a Black African woman. So has that church in Africa mushroomed to be the biggest church in the world. It’s amazing God is drawing the nations.
“In the light shall the nations walk,” and he says, “the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.”
All the goods of human culture and endeavor, all the best results of created order in world history, they will be brought into it. Nothing of real value in the culture and history of the world, nothing of real value that’s been discovered and created by men will be left out of the new Jerusalem. “They will bring their glory and their honor into it,” it says.
Now these same kings, these same nations in the book of Revelation are seen to have been under the rule of Babylon, Mystery Babylon, the kind of secular opposite of the city of God. It’s the city of man, it’s the world system, it’s the commercial industrial complex, that ensnares and like a war offers its services to men and women and to nations and to the powerful. They used to be under their thrall because Babylon served the beast, serves the beast, the power of Antichrist in the world.
And here we find that there are those within all of the nations, even among their leaders, converted to the fear of God, to come in order they might worship. A diverse people, a holy people. Verse 27:
“Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false.”
What is that excludes people? Sin. The nations may bring in their glory and their honor, but they may not bring in their abominations of idolatry, of abortion, of oppression, of unbelief. Those who will not submit to God in Christ will exclude themselves. It’s not God that’s putting an arbitrary line in the sand and saying, “Well, this kind of people, and these kind of people, and these kind of people, and these kind of people aren’t allowed in the city of Jerusalem.”
“No,” he’s saying, “look the only people that will be excluded are the people who don’t want to be there, who will not bow the knee to Jesus Christ, who will not who will not acknowledge that natural revelation that people have in their hearts, written upon their conscience and will suppress the truth in their unrighteousness of their own will. They will be excluded of their own will.”
Jesus said, “If you will not believe that I am, then you will die in your sins.” The holy people, the chosen people, are chosen people. The only thing that qualifies a person for entry is this: we’re told that they have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life. You see the Lamb is everywhere in the book of Revelation, the Lamb is everywhere and in everything. The city is his bride, he is his temple, he is its light, his is the book that registers the names of those in the city whose building, builder and maker is God. There are chosen people who have come to follow the Lamb.
So here’s the great picture, here’s the picture of the end. Here’s the picture of the end that is the beginning of the new chapter, and it has all the nations represented, all the peoples and tribes represented, a whole mass of people who are bringing all their diverse and beautiful aspects of their culture and their life, bringing the whole of it into the city of God.
What will it take to hasten that day? That’s what we think about, don’t we mostly, on these Global Outreach occasions? We’re thinking about what will it take to do this.
The answer of the book of Revelation is this it will take the Church to do this. It takes the Church and all her weakness, with all her failings, with all the things she has in the things that she’s done in the past that she needs to repent of, with all of that stuff it takes the new Jerusalem, this new society, this alternative polis.
That word polis refers to a political entity, a society, a nation – it will take this holy nation that is the church. The book of Revelation is a very political book. It reminds the people of God that we have our own allegiance to King Jesus. We have our own law, God’s Law, given to us. We have our own institutions, the church. We have our own population, the people of God, drawn from every part of the world. Our people, our people, and we live as the alternative society. No wonder people get angry, they know that we have another allegiance, we know that we are bound by another law. When we say something is murder it’s because God’s word calls it murder.
They know these things. It takes the Church being the Church – a world embracing, earth encircling church – to change the world. It takes the Gospel, the proclamation of the everlasting Gospel, which we read about here in Revelation. It takes witnesses – ordinary people like you and I — standing up for Jesus Christ.
In this book there are two witnesses, reflecting the fact Jesus sent out his witnesses two by two. Revelation describes them. They represent the whole church, the many who state their claim, who make their case, and who stand firm in this present darkness ruled by the prince of the power of the air.
In the book of Revelation the witnesses are slain and left on the streets of Babylon. It may come to that. If we’re going to live in the alternative polis of new Jerusalem, it may mean that our witness to Christ, to his law, his rule, his righteousness, may leave us slain on the streets. But the witnesses were slain on the streets are resurrected in the end. There will be a resurrection, great resurrection in the end, it will take the witnesses. And eventually the world will come tripping and dancing into the heavenly city, and all will be well.
The church will in the end survive the onslaught of the beast, and the harlot Babylon, and the glory of the Lord will be fully displayed, and that glorious city, which is the dwelling place of life and joy and everything good and everything worth having through endless ages, is our heavenly home.