The New Jerusalem is the consummation of the entire divine revelation. The sixty-six books of the Bible have a conclusion, and this conclusion is the New Jerusalem. The Bible begins with God's creation and ends with His building. The creation is not God's goal. It is for His goal, which is the building. This thought of the divine building runs through the whole Bible.
The vision of God's building first came to Jacob. While he was escaping from his brother Esau, he had a dream. He dreamed about God's house, Bethel (Gen. 28:11-19). Later, God brought Jacob's descendants out of Egypt and over to Mount Sinai, where they stayed for a long time. While they were there, God showed them the heavenly design of a building, the tabernacle, which would be God's dwelling among His people on earth.
After they entered the good land, God wanted them to build the temple. The Old Testament is a history mainly of the tabernacle and the temple. These two are one—the dwelling place of God on this earth among His people. The history of Jacob's descendants is a history of the tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament. These two were the center, the focus, of the history of God's Old Testament people on this earth.
In the New Testament we see God incarnated. God became flesh. John 1:14 tells us that this incarnated One "tabernacled among us." John particularly used this word "tabernacled." It indicates that when the Lord Jesus was on earth in the flesh, He was God's tabernacle. In typology the tabernacle built in Exodus was a full type of the Lord's incarnation; the Lord was incarnated to be the very embodiment of God on this earth. This embodiment was God's dwelling. Colossians 2:9 tells us that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily, in Christ with a human, physical body. The very Christ was the embodiment of God, and this embodiment was the tabernacle of God.
In John 2:19 the Lord told the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Lord Jesus' physical body was a temple of God (v. 21). In John 1 is the tabernacle and in John 2 is the temple. The Lord's word "in three days" signifies His resurrection. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:6 that when Christ was raised, we were resurrected together with Him. Peter says further that through that all-inclusive resurrection we have all been regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3). We have been born of God and are His sons. This implies that the very temple the Lord Jesus built up in three days, that is, in His resurrection, is not an individual thing but a corporate thing. Therefore, in the Epistles we are told that the church as the Body of Christ is God's temple. First Corinthians 3:16 says the saints are the temple of God.
The New Testament ends with the New Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem as the conclusion of the Bible is called the tabernacle (Rev. 21:3). John said he did not see any temple in the holy city, "for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" (21:22).
As we have pointed out, the measurement of the New Jerusalem is the same in length, breadth, and height. In three dimensions the city measures twelve thousand stadia (21:16). The principle revealed in the Bible is that a building with three dimensions the same indicates the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle was ten cubits in three dimensions. The Holy of Holies in the temple according to 1 Kings 6:20, was also three equal dimensions, of twenty cubits each. According to the measurement of the New Jerusalem, then, this holy city must be the Holy of Holies. If we read Revelation 21 carefully, we can see that the holy city is both the tabernacle and the temple.
Both the Old Testament and the New Testament are focused on the tabernacle and the temple as God's dwelling. Then the conclusion of the whole Bible, both the Old Testament and the New, is also the tabernacle and the temple. In the Old Testament the tabernacle typified Christ individually as God's tabernacle, and the temple typified Christ corporately as God's temple. What we have here is Christ and the church. Christ is the fulfillment of the type of the tabernacle, and Christ as the Head with the church as His Body together fulfill the type of the temple. This will have a consummation, and this ultimate consummation will be the New Jerusalem, which is both the tabernacle and the temple. Here is the ultimate consummation of God's dwelling, which He has been building for centuries. This New Jerusalem is further a living composition of all the saints of the Old Testament, as represented by the names of the twelve tribes, and of all the saints of the New Testament, as represented by the names of the twelve apostles. It is a living composition of God's redeemed people to be His eternal dwelling place.