This presentation looks into what I shall call the striking physicality of John's description of heaven, our spiritual and eternal abode. No puffy clouds and wispy-thin vistas here. Solid cities, massive gates and very solid-sounding streets dot the heaven-scape!

1. XXIV: REVELATION
CHAPTER 21
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In which the Eternal City
descends upon a New Earth

2. Throughout Revelation’s treatment of the Eternal
State, there exists a striking, even unexpected,
physicality to the depictions of Heaven’s
appearance.
Heaven fills with structures of measured
substance, possesses a geography and a political
system. What are we spiritually-minded souls to
make of this physicality in Heaven?

3. I’m just filler . . . you
know, ‘No hyperlinks for you
till Slide 4!” I’m a bit of a
fashionista what with my 126
designer glasses. Got me this
gig, though!

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Slide Array Table of Contents
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5. PHYSICALITY VS.
SPIRITUALITY
The Bride, the wife of the Lamb, represents a
SPIRITUAL ENTITY in the Bible;
Yet, the New Jerusalem, also called “the Bride”,
seems to possess all the trappings of a PHYSICAL
ENTITY, a metropolis.
They exist as one and the same entity.
QUESTION: Why so much PHYSICALITY in the
Bible’s description of the purely SPIRITUAL?

6. WE START WITH AN AIRY
POETIC SIMILE
“And he carried me away
in the spirit to a great
and high mountain . . .
. . . and showed me the
Holy City, Jerusalem,
coming down out of the
Heaven of God, having
the glory of God . . .
. . . her brilliance was LIKE a very costly stone, as a stone of
crystal clear jasper.”

7. BUT AFTER THE AIRY
SIMILE,
PHYSICALITY
TAKES OVER!

8. THE PHYSICALITY:
DELIBERATE AND REPEATED
Many purely physical architectural references.
Depiction of great volume, physical bulk!
Elaborate materials’ list of physical gemstones.
Elaborate depictions of distance, movement in time and
space and compass directions.
Connection between angelic and earthly measuring systems

9. THE PHYSICALITY:
DELIBERATE
?
Y
H
W
Many purely physical architectural references
Depiction of great volume
Elaborate lists of physical gemstones
Elaborate depictions of distance, movement in time and
space and compass directions.
Connection between angelic and earthly measuring systems

10. A ‘REAL’ CITY . . . .
iliar ge
A fam
: a cu be
shape
ometric
k walls and
Thic
tion stones
12 founda
Materials: go
12 gates and
ld
and familiar
a street
gemstones

11. A CITY WITH
SPIRITUAL MEANING
sciples
= 12 Di
Stones
dation
2 Fou n
1
12 Gate
s = 12
Tribes
of Israe
l
The Bride Eternal consists of
BOTH Abraham’s offspring:
NT Saints of the Church and
OT Jewish Saints

12. YET PHYSICAL
MEASUREMENTS ABOUND
1500 miles to a side
Walls 72 yards thick
Angels measure stuff!
And angelic and human
measurements are the
same.
Compass directions
included

13. A CITY WITH
IMMENSE SIZE
God must mean the
immensity of the city to
accommodate lots of . . .
of . . . bodies? But we’re
spirits, aren’t we?
Yet the city hangs somehow
in close (?) relation to an
apparently physical New
Earth.

14. A CITY WITH CIVIC AND
POLITICAL FUNCTIONS
ernity:
le in Et
ys a Ro
ght Pla
Li
amb,
d, the L
y of Go
he Glor
T
is city.
ines th
illum
The City Entertains Guests: The
kings of the earth bring
their honor into it.

15. A CITY WITH CIVIC AND
POLITICAL FUNCTIONS
The City
S
upports
Suburbs
earthly n
where th
ations w
e
alk by it
s light.
dards of
ntains Stan
e City Mai
Th
ing unclean
e ss: Noth
Holin
ters-ever.
en

16. We get much of our sense of what ‘spirit’ means
largely from Greek phrasings-but they’re pagans,
for crying out loud.
Our biblical texts here challenge those Greek
notions of a wispy formless spirit world with blunt,
repeated depictions of physicality.
Maybe we should accept the challenge?

17. o u g ht :
For t h
ariety
y and v
ecificit
o the sp
D
hysical
many p
Bible’s
of the
e e d s of
d the n
es excee
eferenc
r
imile?
iritual s
ing a sp
form
r of the
numbe
e sheer
oe s t h
D
eed the
ces exc
referen
hysical
p
iritual
ing a sp
develop
e d s of
ne
nings?
e’s mea
at simil
th

18. our easy
to retool
invites us
that God
ounts to.
I think
reality am
t spiritual
se of wha
se n
“And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards,
according to human measurements, which are
also angelic measurements.” Rev 21:17

19. parently
ngels ap
estion: A
u
crements
hallenge q
ers with in
C
d use rul
e walls an
measur
ev 21:17)
stand. (R
we under
RE????
Y MEASU
, DO THE
XACTLY
WHAT, E
“And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards,
according to human measurements, which are
also angelic measurements.” Rev 21:17

20. A PLACE TO START:
I CORINTHIANS 15: 35-48

21. But someone will say, “How are th
e dead
raised? And with what kind of bo
dy do they
come?” You fool! that which you
sow does not
come to life unless it dies; (I Cor 15:
35-36)
Physical death is a necessary transitional
portal between the physical life we know so
well and the spiritual existence to which God
graciously and gloriously destines us.
There exists no connection between the two
states. We know no developmental process
by which we move incrementally to attain the
spiritual realm without using death’s portal.

22. . . . that which you sow, you do no
t sow the
body which is to be, but a bare gr
ain, perhaps
of wheat or of something else. Bu
t God gives it
a body just as He wished, and to
each of the
seeds a body of its own.
(I Cor 15: 37-38)
We posses ‘bodies’ in both physical and
spiritual states. The physical body does not
make a very useful model for helping us
understand what our spiritual bodies will be like.
God forms our spiritual bodies’ configurations
after His own pleasure.

23. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one
flesh of men and another flesh of beasts and
another flesh of birds and another of fish. There
are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but
the glory of the heavenly is one and the glory of
the earthly is another.
(I Cor 15: 39-40)
rsity of spiritual ‘flesh’ or
We may assume a dive
en; we may also expect to
form in Heav
een the ‘glory’ of the physical
distinguish betw
f our new spiritual bodies.
body and the glory o
peak in terms of ‘bodies”!
But notice: We still s

24. There is one glory of the sun and another glory of
the moon and another glory of the stars, for star
differs from star in glory.
(I Cor 15: 41)
In Heaven, the saints are not bland cookiecutter beings, one saint like the other in form
and prestige. Reflecting the quality of our
works, perhaps, or the level of spiritual maturity
and service we attained to on Earth, one saint
shall be distinguishable from another in graded
measures of glory.

25. SO ALSO IS THE RESURRECTION
OF THE DEAD . . .
Sown . . .
Raised . . .
Perishable body
Imperishable body
In dishonor
In glory
In weakness
In power
A natural body
A spiritual body

26. CONCLUSIONS

27. CONCLUSIONS
On death, believers do not dissolve into some cosmic
‘force’ or collective entity a la Bhuddism. Neither do
we reincarnate up or down the food chain.
Physical existence is at best an inexact model upon
which to understand details of our spiritual
existence in Eternity.
But-our present physical existence does, apparently,
provide some parallels to what we shall experience
in Heaven:

28. USEFUL PARALLELS
In Heaven, we retain our individuality, and Heaven
is a place of population diversity (Nations + Bride,
bodies of varied glory)
We retain an experience of ‘space-ness’ within
which separate and distinct spiritual forms and
structures of significant spiritual substance have
their existence. Concepts of ‘here’ and ‘there’
continue to have some meaning.
We navigate among familiar physical laws with new
spiritual powers.

29. As we work our way backwards in the book
of Revelation, we come to John’s presentation of the actual return of the Savior.
Chapters 19 and 20 continue to maintain the
end of the book’s story order presentation of
events.
XXV: The Return
of Jesus Christ

30. As we work our way backwards in the book
of Revelation, we come to John’s presentation of the actual return of the Savior.
Chapters 19 and 20 continue to maintain the
end of the book’s story order presentation of
events.
Search th
e
Table of C
ontents
for Other
Offerings
In
This Serie
s
XXV: The Return
of Jesus Christ