Revelation 21:1 says, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more.” The main items in the old creation are the heaven, the earth, and the sea. However, in the new creation, there are only the heavens and the earth, while the sea is no more. The sea has been done away with. Verse 2 says, “And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” The New Jerusalem is something of heaven but does not remain in heaven. It comes down from God out of heaven, out of the place where God is. Furthermore, the New Jerusalem, the holy city, is a bride adorned for her husband. She is a city, yet she is a bride and she has a husband.
Verse 3 says, “And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will tabernacle with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.” This city is, on the one hand, a bride, and on the other hand, a tabernacle. In this verse the Greek word rendered tabernacle is used twice, once as a noun and once as a verb. This city is the tabernacle of God through which and within which God tabernacles with man. John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.” When the Lord, who is the Word, became flesh, He tabernacled among us. The Lord’s human body was a tabernacle in which He tabernacled among the human race. Now the New Jerusalem, the holy city, in principle is exactly the same. It is the tabernacle of God through which God tabernacles with man.
Revelation 21:4-5 says, “And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death will be no more, nor will there be sorrow or crying or pain anymore; for the former things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said, Write, for these words are faithful and true.” As we have seen, there are two creations of God in the universe. The first is the old creation, and the second is the new creation. Here we are told that all things of the old creation have passed away and God has made all things new. In the new creation there is a new heaven, a new earth, and the New Jerusalem. Everything is new. We must remember what the difference between the new creation and the old creation is. The old creation has nothing of God mingled with it, whereas the new creation does have God mingled with it. The old creation was created as an empty vessel, an empty container, with man as the center with a mouth to take in God, so that God might be mingled with man. Therefore, the old creation is an empty vessel without God mingled with it, but the new creation is a new vessel with God contained in it and mingled with it.
Verses 6-8 say, “And He said to me, They have come to pass. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give to him who thirsts from the spring of the water of life freely. He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be God to him, and he will be a son to Me. But the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and fornicators and sorcerers and idolaters and all the false, their part will be in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Verse 9 says, “And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, Come here; I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” In these verses we are told clearly that in the new creation, the new universe, there will be a bride, and this bride is the wife of the Lamb. The New Jerusalem is the bride, the wife, the counterpart, of the Lamb, who is the Son of God, the Lord Christ. What is the difference between the bride and the wife? The bride is for the wedding day, but after the wedding day, the bride becomes the wife. At the beginning of the coming age the New Jerusalem will be the bride, but after that, the New Jerusalem will be the wife of the Lamb.
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