Revelation 21:10-27
What Is Heaven Like?
1. Only the pure will experience Heaven
2. Heaven will be safe
3. Heaven will be beautiful
4. We will be in God's presence in Heaven
May 13, 2007
And he carried me away in spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as a crystal/ It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. He measured the wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man's measurement, which the angel was using. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The street of the city was of pure gold, like a transparent glass.
I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lord are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. (NIV)
Heaven has always fascinated people. Artists have for centuries tried to paint Heaven. Authors have tried to describe their idea of Heaven. Numerous movies and songs have included the word "Heaven" somewhere in their titles.
And if you go on the Internet and do a search on the word "Heaven", you will get literally millions of matches. If you look up some of those websites about Heaven--you'll also learn a couple things.
The first thing you’ll learn is that despite all the talk about Heaven, we are still living in an irreligious society. If you’re hoping to find something interesting concerning someone's thoughts about Heaven, how to get there, and what it would be like, you might be disappointed with the first couple pages of Google results. Most of them really have nothing to do with Heaven. There are, however, websites titled “Stationery Heaven”, “Programmers Heaven” (for computer programmers), and Angelic Heaven (a fan website dedicated to Charlie’s Angels). The common theme here–they all deal with earthly, and not heavenly, things.
The second thing you’ll learn is that despite the fact that we are living in an irreligious society, people's conception about Heaven is pretty much the same no matter who you talk to. Basically, Heaven is something better than what we are experiencing at the moment. Heaven has always been--and still is--the promise of a better existence. That is, I can only assume, what the owner of the Hot Rod Heaven website had in mind when he named it. He meant to say, "Come and escape your ordinary, dreary daily life. Put aside your cares and worries and enter a place where you have no concerns, but are surrounded by cool cars."
The book of Revelation was written to people who must have been hoping for something better, hoping for a time when they could put aside their cares and worries. The Christian church was undergoing persecution. Christians were the despised of society--not simply ignored, mind you--but actually despised. People were suffering and even being killed for their faith. The threat of danger was always just a step away.
It is to such people that God addressed the revelation which he gave to the apostle John.
God promised these people Heaven, and in our reading for this morning God answers the question, "What is Heaven like?"
1. Only the pure will experience it
Let’s first ask ourselves if this is even a question with which we ought to concern ourselves. Can we seriously expect that we have a chance of getting into Heaven.
Well, let’s see what it takes to get in there.
It takes more than we've got. The closing chapter of Revelation reminds us that those who practice magic arts (and that includes those who consult their horoscopes), the sexually immoral (including those who look at other people with lust in our hearts), the murderers (anyone who has ever hurt someone with either our actions or our words), and the idolaters (anyone who has ever followed their own desires rather than God's commands)--none of these people will enter the city of God, none of these people will enter Heaven.
Our reading itself says that nothing impure will enter Heaven, nor anyone who does what is shameful and deceitful. Obviously we have no hope of earning Heaven.
And yet God has promised it to us--not because we have earned it, but because Jesus has earned it. Earlier in Revelation John sees a group of people in Heaven wearing white robes, and he is told that they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. Imagine that! They washed their robes in blood, and the robes came out white.
That is, when God looks at those who believe in Jesus, those who believe that Jesus' blood which he shed and the life that he gave on the cross was a payment for their sins, God sees those people as worthy of Heaven. So yes, we can be interested in heaven, because we know that we have been purified by Jesus’ suffering and death, and we know that death itself has been defeated by his resurrection. Therefore we death, we know that we will be in Heaven.
2. Heaven will be safe
So what’s it going to be like?
The city John sees has a high wall around it. Revelation contains an abundance of Old Testament references and imagery. In Old Testament times, a wall around a city served as protection for that city. Quite obviously, if a wall surrounded the city, an enemy would not be able to overrun the city because the wall would stop them. A wall provided separation from enemies.
The wall in our reading sends the same message. When we are in Heaven, we will not have to worry about all sorts of enemies. The Christians to whom John wrote had to constantly be protecting themselves--looking over their shoulders, staying out of dangerous places and situations. They felt unprotected from the enemy of the Roman government. It appears also that false doctrine was another enemy which was threatening them. In many of their letters, the apostles rebuke those who were accepting false doctrine. As Christians watched false teachings be accepted, teachings which in the end denied Jesus as Savior--as Christians watched these teachings become common, they must have felt as though they were standing out in the desert, visible for miles around, open to attack from all sides. And they must have felt as though enemies were closing in from all sides.
There are times that we feel the same way. People who don't like us and don't like what we believe still treat us unfairly. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's not no subtle, as they come at us with both barrels firing. And what can we do? We can't fight back. There are usually more of them than there are of us, and besides, God tells us not to. So we stand there helplessly, exposed, unprotected.
The government defends a woman's "right to choose" and implies that anyone who doesn't support it is a cruel, heartless, and foolish person. And what can we do? Oh, sure, we can work to change the laws, but there appear to be more of them than there are of us--or at least they're louder and more forceful. We feel helpless, exposed, unprotected.
As we see these enemies coming from our left and our right, we swing around to look behind us, and churches themselves are now fighting against us. Churches themselves are calling us intolerant for saying that homosexuality is a sin. Churches themselves are telling us--and everyone--that not only is society not behind us, but that God is not behind us, that the Bible doesn't actually speak out against such sins. Religious leaders themselves declare that Jesus could not have risen from the dead--and they thereby tear our faith apart as useless.
Turning once again, we see the Devil in front of us like a roaring lion. Seeing that we are assaulted by all sorts of problems, he offers us an easy way out. As he did with Jesus in the wilderness, he holds all sorts of seductive images in front of us and says, "You can escape all these problems if only you worship me, if only you stop doing everything that a Christian is supposed to do." And we wonder how we can survive. We long for something better--for Heaven.
Now the Bible tells us--in fact, the book of Revelation even tells us--that through all of this, even though we may not be able to see or understand it, Jesus is caring for us--even now. But Revelation also promised something even better. In Heaven not only will there be a high wall around us, but the gates of the city will never be shut.
In Old Testament times the gates of a city didn't need to be shut during the day, because it would be possible to see an enemy coming from a long ways away. But at night the gates were closed in case of a surprise attack.
If the gates of a city were never shut, that could mean only one thing--that the city had no enemies. And that is exactly how secure we will be in Heaven. The chapters before our reading tell us that Satan and those who serve him--governments who deny God's Word, church leaders who claim God's power for themselves--this unholy trinity will all be thrown into the lake of burning sulphur. That is, all will be thrown into Hell where they will suffer eternally.
In fact, even the sinful nature which causes so much trouble will no longer exist in Heaven. We will be perfect in Heaven--not able to sin--for we will have no more enemies. For that matter, there will be no more sorrow of any kind. Earlier in this chapter, we read, "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
What is Heaven like? It is safe.
3. Heaven will be beautiful
What does heaven look like? In John’s vision he sees a city that “shone with the glory of God.” We recall how brightly Jesus shone on the Mount of Transfiguration. Try to imagine what a sight it would be to see a whole city shining that brightly!
And yet the city did not shine brightly in such a way that it almost became painful for John--as when you stare into the sun. And it did not shine in such a way that all colors disappeared--as when someone snaps a flashbulb directly into your eye.
No, instead John was able to see twelve gates in the wall, and each gate was made of a single pearl. What a beautiful sight it must have been! John was also able to see in the wall twelve foundations, each decorated with a different type of precious stone. Some of these we recognize--sapphire, emerald--while others are not possible to positively identify. And it's not real important that we able to positively identify each stone, because the overall effect remains the same. This is an absolutely beautiful city.
Just to be in such a city will be a joy. If you've ever been fortunate enough to be at one of our country's national parks, sitting out in the woods, high on a mountain, surrounded by the sounds of animals rather than tourists, perhaps you said to yourself, "This is heavenly."
Obviously it wasn't Heaven, and yet the beauty of the place overwhelmed you, didn't it? It was simply a thrill for your eyes to see.
Is that exactly what you’re going to see when you enter heaven–twelve gates, twelve pearls, and so on? I don’t know. I wouldn’t say with certainty that God is attempting to give us a Polaroid of heaven here. The overall context of the book of Revelation is not that every single detail ought to be taken literally, but rather that the pictures in the vision are intended to portray spiritual truths. (This is indicated very early on when John sees seven stars and seven lampstands and is immediately told that they represent seven angels and seven churches.)
Therefore it’s quite possible that the picture of heaven in Revelation is less of a Polaroid and more of an impressionistic painting attempting to give a, well, an impression of what heaven is like.
When you think about it, God is in a sense limited in his attempt to picture heaven for us. How do you describe heaven to those who haven’t been there, who have not experienced it?
It would be like trying to describe the Rocky Mountains to someone who had never been out of downtown Cleveland–and had never even seen mountains on TV. What words could you possibly use to explain them? Often when you explain something to someone, you can say that it is a lot like something else that person has experienced. But to a person who has only experienced the flatness and the concrete of Cleveland, to what experience of theirs would you compare a mountain? “You know when you come up 12th Street from the Flats, and there’s that hill in front of you? The Rocky Mountains are sort of like that–only they’re a lot taller, and they’re really green.” Yeah, that would help a lot...
Maybe the best thing you could do would be to simply find some way to assure that person that mountains were beautiful, and that they would enjoy seeing them.
Similarly, Heaven is going to be so beautiful and so wonderful that we can't even begin to compare it to anything that we know.
4. We will be in God's presence
Maybe that intimidates us a bit–that we can’t really compare heaven to anything we know here on earth–that we don’t really have a clear picture (at least not as we define “clear”) of what heaven will be like.
But maybe what heaven looks like, what we’ll do there, what it will feel like–maybe those things aren’t what truly matters about heaven.
In fact, even if we knew and understood exactly how beautiful and how safe heaven is, there would still be something missing.
What could possibly be missing? What more could we possibly want than everlasting safety and beauty?
A number of years ago I went to Europe with a good friend of mine named Dan. I remember that one gorgeous summer evening we were on the edge of Santorini, a Greek island, high on some hills, watching the sun gently set into the Aegean Sea. I'm not sure that I've ever witnessed a scene more beautiful--or for that matter, safe, I suppose. One might have been inclined to say that it was as close as you could get to Heaven on earth.
And yet as I sat in the midst of a scene of nearly unimaginable beauty, I felt like something was missing. I sat there thinking, “What a beautiful scene. And I’m here watching it with....Dan.” And I felt a bit disappointed that I wasn’t watching it with the girl I was dating at the time.
And the lesson we can learn from this story--besides the fact that the person you're dating when you're 20 years old may not, through the wisdom and love of God, be the person that you end up marrying--the lesson we can learn from this story is that what really makes a place wonderful is if you're there with the person you love.
The parallel to Heaven is obvious. If God is not there, it's nothing more than a more comfortable version of earth. Why did the psalmwriter talk about how joyful he was when they told him to come to the temple of the Lord? Because that is where the Lord was. Why did he talk about how he would rather be a lowly doorkeeper in the house of his God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked? (Psalm 84:10) Because at least as a doorkeeper he would be near God.