No Temple

A city descends from heaven (Revelation 21:9ff). It’s laid out as a cube, like the Most Holy Place. It’s measured, like other holy environments in the Bible. It is adorned with jewels – precious stones like the stones of the temple or on the high priest’s breastpiece. It’s a golden city, pure gold, like the pure gold of the sanctuary or the sanctuary furniture.

John sees no temple in the city (21:22), and we expect that’s because the temple has grown to encompass the city. There’s no separate temple because it’s an urban temple.

Not so. There’s no temple in the city, but it’s because “Lord, the God, the Pantocrator, her temple is, also the Lamb” (v. 22, following Greek word order). The city isn’t a temple for God; God is a temple for her.

This inverts everything that the world had known about temples and gods. Gods came to live among humans, and when they did the humans built them elaborate sanctuaries. The idea of a sanctuary for humans is nonsensical; humans aren’t divine.

God does come to dwell among men (John 1:14), but that’s only the beginning of John’s story. Call it theosis; call it theopoiesis: The end comes when men dwell in God, when God becomes the holy space for His image, created and glorified into a Bride. 

God has finally tabernacled with men not when the Word pitches His tent among us; God has finally tabernacled among men when we pitch our tent in Him.