John relates to watching all of the nations there, trying to cultivate the garden because the Adam-and-eve did within the Genesis. Having John, brand new pleasure regarding God’s purpose as a consequence of Goodness would make the repair from people on the put since the co-rulers out-of God’s world, ready to manage Jesus to take design to the uncharted area.
A different sort of Jerusalem
But it is not merely money back again to a garden; it is a revolution with the a separate Jerusalem, an effective city where people countries as well as the range performs along with her when you look at the tranquility and you may balance prior to God. John basic revealed this new production given that a married relationship out-of eden and you will planet. Paradise was depicted because the one another a location and a bride-to-be, decreasing out of God’s beautiful website name and you can getting on earth, much like the stairways Jacob noticed in the dream. John known as area-bride an effective “the new Jerusalem.” It actually was so glorious that he could only determine they away from practical rocks.
Jerusalem itself try an effective icon to possess John. It actually was the first and only city where Goodness resided in a permanent holy domestic, the first area where leaders worshiped the genuine Author. In the centre of one’s Israelites’ Promised Homes, Jerusalem represented a perfect Guaranteed Property: each one of restored manufacturing. John illustrates brand new reunion out of heaven and earth once the ancestry off a different sort of Jerusalem. Instead of the old Jerusalem that was contaminated and you will dishonored by very off Israel’s leaders, this new Jerusalem could well be influenced by an excellent divine queen. The fresh new town would-be based from the God, not by individual hand.
However An alternative Temple
John was a king of your Hebrew Scriptures, with his eyes of your own the newest creation are an excellent kaleidoscope out of photos drawn regarding the biblical poets and you can prophets. His escort Elizabeth mission were to perform an artwork collage from Old testament metaphors that pushes us to reckon into the meaning of these types of photo.
A great example try John’s bodily meanings of one’s the latest Jerusalem within the Disclosure –21. He says the brand new heavenly urban area has actually four sides, each with about three doorways, add up to this new 12 tribes away from Israel. Then says a dozen huge base rocks, and that correspond to the 12 apostles. Following this, John states the new beautiful area is a great cube, either side are a dozen,000 stadia, or step one,400 miles. After that we have been advised your walls have been 144 cubits large, or about 2 hundred feet.
As well as in the quintessential surprising spin of all, there is absolutely no forehead strengthening about new production! The existence of Jesus in addition to mutton which had been just after minimal to your temple now enter most of the square inches of the this new globe. There is certainly an alternative humankind there, satisfying the new getting in touch with put-on them just how straight back with the web page one of the Bible. Humankind tend to rule in God’s visualize, integrating that have God within the taking this creation toward the fresh and you can uncharted area. And so closes John’s apocalypse and the unbelievable story of your own whole Bible.
So it appears like a routine you to defies mathematics, and some individuals let it rest at this. However, John was not looking to document a blueprint. He was using one or two type of Old testament references so you can hobby a higher meaning. Let us break this down:
The image out of a region to the a top hill having several gates add up to the fresh new 12 tribes from Israel was adapted from Ezekiel’s vision of one’s this new Jerusalem inside Ezekiel 40.
The idea of a great cube comes from 1 Kings 6:19–20, and this determine that the Holy out of Holies from inside the Solomon’s temple is cubic.
The results of consolidating these types of records just is reasonable to the a beneficial symbolic level. If you attempt to draw they, the newest number just don’t work. However, John’s goal was to show that Ezekiel’s thought of a good the Jerusalem could well be one to icon forehead with the same characteristics since the Holy out of Holies from inside the Solomon’s temple.