The New Jerusalem is the holy city (vv. 2, 10). As the holy city of God, the New Jerusalem is holy, sanctified, fully separated unto God, and thoroughly saturated with God’s holy nature to be His habitation. This holy city is thoroughly permeated and mingled with God. This great city, more than thirteen hundred and sixty miles in length, width, and height, will be utterly separated unto God and saturated with Him. One day, we shall actually be there. Today we see New Jerusalem in a vision, but the time is coming when we shall be in it. How excited we shall be! No doubt we shall recall the vision we saw of it when we were still on earth.
Verse 2 says that the New Jerusalem is “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” and in verse 9 one of the angels says, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” In both the Old and New Testaments, God likens His chosen people to a spouse (Isa. 54:6; Jer. 3:1; Ezek. 16:8; Hosea 2:19; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:31-32). The spouse is for God’s satisfaction in love. As the Bride of Christ, New Jerusalem comes out of Christ, her husband, and becomes His counterpart, just as Eve came out of Adam, her husband, and became his counterpart (Gen. 2:21-24). She is prepared by participating in the riches of the life and nature of Christ.
Verse 9 speaks of the Bride and the wife. The Bride is mainly for the wedding day, whereas the wife is for the entire life. The New Jerusalem will be the Bride in the millennium for one thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8) and the wife in the new heaven and new earth for eternity. The Bride in the kingdom age will include the overcomers (3:12; 19:7-9), but the wife in eternity will include all God’s redeemed ones (21:9).
Since the New Jerusalem is the Bride, we should not consider her a material city. It is impossible for a material entity to be the Bride. God would never marry such a thing. He will only marry something living. The Bride will be composed of all the redeemed, regenerated, and transformed saints of God. In the New Jerusalem there will be no wood, bricks, or dust. Instead, there will be gold, pearl, and transformed precious stones.
Verse 3 says, “And I heard a loud voice out of the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them.” In both the Old and the New Testaments, God also likens His chosen people to a dwelling place for Himself (Exo. 29:45-46; Num. 5:3; Ezek. 43:7, 9; Psa. 68:18; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15). As the spouse is for God’s satisfaction in love, so the dwelling place is for His rest in expression. Both aspects will be ultimately consummated in the New Jerusalem. In her, God will have the fullest satisfaction in love and the utmost rest in expression for eternity. As God’s habitation, New Jerusalem will be the tabernacle of God with men for eternity. It will be God’s dwelling place among men—the nations—to express Him. The tabernacle made by Moses was a type of this tabernacle (Exo. 25:8-9; Lev. 26:11). That type was firstly fulfilled in Christ as God’s tabernacle among men (John 1:14), and eventually it will be fulfilled in the fullest way in the New Jerusalem, which will be the enlargement of Christ as God’s dwelling place. This tabernacle will also be the eternal dwelling place of God’s redeemed people. God will overshadow us with Christ. Hence, New Jerusalem will be a mutual habitation for both God and us.
A person’s dwelling place expresses the person himself. In no other place are we as fully expressed as we are in our dwelling place. If you want to know a person, visit his apartment or house. If his home is not neat, then you know that the person himself is not a neat person. But if his home is very neat, clean, and orderly, then you know that the person who dwells there is that kind of person. Suppose I visit your apartment one morning and find that your bed is not made. No matter how many lectures you may give me on diligence and neatness, I shall know by your unmade bed that you are a sloppy person. Just as our home expresses us, so the New Jerusalem, God’s tabernacle, will express Him. Every part of this city will be neat, clean, and properly built. Every aspect of it will express God. The church today as God’s habitation is also His expression. The church is both for Christ’s satisfaction and for God’s habitation. In the church, a miniature of the coming New Jerusalem, Christ is satisfied and God is expressed.
Restored mankind, the nations, will live around the New Jerusalem as the tabernacle of God, and they will enjoy God there.