Revelation 21 Bible study: The holy city, Jerusalem

John says, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more." (21:1). "I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband." (21:2). "I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (21:3) "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.”" (21:4). The loud voice's words run from 21:3 to the end of 21:4. These notes quote these four verses whole once, here, as the WEB has them, and say no more of them than their own words. Lines on Favor's map land on 21:1-5 and on 21:3: Lines that land here carries them. These notes identify nothing in this chapter with any person, people, nation, church, city, place, event or era, then or now: not the new heaven and the new earth, the sea, the holy city, New Jerusalem, the bride, the Lamb's wife, the nations, the kings of the earth, or the names of the twelve tribes and of the twelve Apostles. They give no time for anything in it, set no place beside it, convert or reckon none of its measures, explain none of its stones, and apply none of it to anyone, then or now.

Genesis 2:1→leads toRevelation 21:1-5

The heavens and the earth are “finished” in 2:1. Isaiah hears God say, “I create new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17). John sees “a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away” (Revelation 21:1), and the one on the throne says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (21:5); the city’s lamp “is the Lamb” (21:23). Revelation doesn’t quote Genesis, so reading “the first heaven and the first earth” as Genesis 1’s creation is a reading. Readers also differ on whether the new creation replaces the first (“passed away”, Revelation 21:1; 2 Peter 3:13) or frees it (“the creation itself also will be delivered”, Romans 8:21).

πυλώνpylonsay poo-LONE

Strong's: "a gate-way, door-way of a building or city; by implication, a portal or vestibule". "having a great and high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels" (21:12): behind gates both times is this noun. It comes again in 21:13, 21:15, 21:21 and 21:25. Revelation has it eleven times, and the first is here (counted in RP2018, and in all eight editions TAGNT compares).