Revelation 20 is in a lot of ways kind of the heart of the book of Revelation, but it’s also one of the hardest chapters to interpret with confidence. There are so many things in Revelation 20 that are basically black and white, that are absolutely unmistakable, totally clear, and there are things that are super gray where it’s just not 100% clear exactly how we should be interpreting them.

So, we’re going to do this in two sort of sections. First, we’re going to talk about the stuff that you write in Sharpie. It’s the stuff that Revelation 20 is definitely saying. And then we’re going to talk about the stuff that you write in pencil. It’s the parts of Revelation 20 where there’s real disagreement.

Before we touch on any of that, we need to remember one really important thing. Revelation 20 is not all one big thing. There are multiple visions happening in Revelation 20, and those multiple visions are meant to teach us different things.

We have to interpret the multiple visions in Revelation 20 really carefully because Revelation is an apocalyptic writing. Ancient Jewish apocalyptic literature like Revelation uses flowery, poetic, symbolic imagery. That is the way that Revelation tells you to read it.

And so the visions here in Revelation 20 signify important things about what God is doing. These images point beyond themselves to real truths, but the images themselves are not always meant to be taken as literal predictions.

Vision One: The Final Judgment

In the first vision, John sees this final judgment. And in this final judgment vision, all of the people who persistently, unrepentantly followed the serpent and the beast and Babylon all the way to the end are condemned alongside them.

Revelation 20:11 says:

“I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.”

Again, this is a symbolic vision. Is there a literal white throne? Maybe, maybe not. Is there a literal book? Maybe, maybe not. Is there a literal lake of fire? Maybe, maybe not.

The point is not whether the images themselves are literal. The point is what they point toward: God’s absolute rule and authority over all things and God’s judgment over all wickedness.

And the judgment that He pours out is universal. Nobody gets out of it. Nobody is exempt.

John says in verse 12:

“I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.”

Great and small means status does not matter. Rank does not matter. Power does not matter. Wealth doesn’t matter. Nobody can hide behind anything. Everybody is brought before the Lord.

John says the dead are judged according to their works. And he describes it with books. The books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works.

And then he doubles down on that. In verse 13, he says:

“The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works.”

That language—the sea, death, Hades—that’s every domain, every category. Everyone who has ever lived is raised up and brought to judgment.

The Books and the Book of Life

John’s vision describes two books. And those two books answer two very different, very important questions.

First, the books, plural, seem to function as a kind of record of what you did in this life. How did you live? What did you choose? Did you submit to the Lord or rebel against Him? Did you walk with the Lamb or did you walk with the beast? That’s the books.

But second, the book of life seems to be a specific thing, maybe a different thing. The book of life answers an even deeper question. Did you actually belong to the Lord? Did you come to the Lord in faith and repentance? Did you submit to Him as King, worship Him as God, throw yourself on His mercy as Savior? Were you marked by the Lamb through faith and repentance? Or were you marked by the beast through your persistent, unrepentant rebellion?

John makes the dividing line explicit. He says in verse 15:

“If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.”

When Revelation 20 says things like that, it’s pulling straight from the book of Daniel. In the book of Daniel, Daniel sees visions of thrones, the Ancient of Days, these books opened. Daniel 7:10 says:

“The judgment was set. The books were opened.”

And then in Daniel 12:2, it says:

“Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

That exact same basic reality shows up all throughout God’s Word and especially in the teachings of Jesus. Jesus says again and again throughout His ministry that a day is coming when the dead will hear His voice and come out.

John 5:28–29 says:

“Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come out; those who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

And He says in Matthew 25 that He’s going to gather the nations. He’s going to separate them.

Matthew 25:46 says:

“These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

So here’s what we should be writing in Sharpie right now, just from vision one: Everyone who has ever lived will be raised in the end. And your eternal destiny depends on how you responded to Jesus in this life. Did you come to Him in faith and repentance, or did you persist in rebellion?

And if you persisted in rebellion, it says your destiny is something called the lake of fire.

Vision Two: Satan Bound and Finally Defeated

Vision number two is a lot harder to write about in Sharpie, but there still are some things we can.

The second vision is this second apocalyptic, flowery, poetic image where Satan, the serpent, is bound and robbed of his full power until he’s released and then defeated in a futile last stand. That’s really weird, but John is pretty clear about who the dragon is.

Revelation 20:2 says:

“He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years.”

So that means the serpent is the serpent from Genesis 3. And that means that the serpent is the devil. This is the same enemy who’s been running throughout the whole story since the fall.

Genesis introduces him by saying:

“Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made.” — Genesis 3:1

That’s kind of a wink-wink from Genesis saying, “All right, hey, what I’m talking about here, it’s not just a serpent. There’s something more happening here.”

Revelation tells us what is happening. It says that serpent, the one that’s been tempting humanity into rebellion, has been at war against the Lord and His people all the way through all history. But in the end, he is beaten and destroyed.

John says specifically that the devil is thrown into the abyss. Verse 3 says:

“He cast him into the abyss, and shut it, and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time.”

What Is the Abyss?

Revelation uses that term, the abyss, as a kind of term for a sort of holding place for destructive demonic forces—forces that sometimes come out to wreak havoc and can be shut back in again.

Revelation already used that imagery of the abyss. We saw in Revelation 9 and 17 these images of demonic forces of destruction coming up out of the abyss to wreak havoc. And the beast is described in some sense as coming out of the abyss.

And so when Revelation 20 says that Satan is bound so that he should deceive the nations no more, it probably doesn’t mean that Satan literally cannot tempt anyone once he’s bound or that he can’t persecute anyone once he’s bound. But what it does seem to mean is that he cannot stop the gospel from going global. He cannot keep the nations locked in total darkness the way that he could before.

His influence is severely limited once he is bound.

It’s like he’s got one hand tied behind his back.

When Was Satan Bound?

So when was he bound? That’s a really good question, and it’s kind of a hard one to answer with certainty. This is where the pencil really comes in rather than the Sharpie.

A good way to think about this question would be to ask: How would this help the first-century churches endure what they were going through right then? Pressure from Rome, pressure from false teachers, pressure to compromise. How would learning about the fact that Satan will be bound at some point be of any help to the first-century churches?

One very plausible answer would be this: Satan was bound during the ministry of Jesus because of the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Essentially, one way to answer that question—when is Satan bound?—would be to say he’s actually already bound today. He was bound when Jesus came down from heaven, went to the cross, and brought about our salvation.

Jesus says in John 12:31–32:

“Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

He says in Matthew 12:29:

“Or how can one enter into the house of the strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then he will plunder his house.”

He says, essentially, “What I’m doing on earth right now is binding the strong man who’s been ruling this place and taking over his house. I’m casting out the prince of this world, the devil. I am being lifted up, and I am drawing all people to myself.”

Revelation itself already showed us this kind of vision in Revelation 12 of the dragon being thrown down and limited, hobbled after Christ’s victory. And even though the dragon is still enraged, Revelation 12 paints a picture that his power is somehow limited.

And so I think it’s really plausible that the binding of Satan that Revelation talks about is actually describing the reality that the victory of Jesus has limited the power of Satan over the nations so that the gospel can spread out throughout all the world, including the pagan strongholds.

But you want to write that in pencil, not in Sharpie, because there are other possible ways to interpret that.

Satan’s Final Release

The next thing is even less clear because then Revelation 20 says Satan is released.

Revelation 20:7–8 says:

“And after the thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison, and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war.”

There’s a lot to talk about here, so let’s just take these things in order.

The first thing we need to talk about is the fact that when the devil is released, he’s released on purpose. That means the Lord holds the key. That means that the release of Satan at some point to go wreak havoc again one last time is happening on God’s time.

But why? Why would you let Satan out one last time?

Revelation 20 tells you exactly why. It says he is let out so that he can deceive one more time, just like he always does.

Why would the Lord let him go out to try to deceive everyone one more time? The logic of this kind of satanic prison furlough is it presents humanity with a real choice: Follow the true King or follow the serpent king. Because God did not create us to be robots. He created us to have a choice.

Gog and Magog

When he is released, it says he gathers together Gog and Magog. The language here is taken from Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. It uses Gog and Magog as kind of an image of the enemies of the Lord all coming together from all four corners of the earth.

So, this is not Russia. This is not China. There’s not one nation that any of this is pointing to.

This is all of God’s enemies from all four corners of the earth who assemble together for a kind of final doomed charge on the gates of God’s kingdom.

And the really funny thing is that the charge on the gates of God’s kingdom immediately fails. John says:

“They went up over the width of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God and devoured them.” — Revelation 20:9

This is intentionally anticlimactic. The serpent pulls together this massive army, and it doesn’t even land a meaningful blow.

God sends fire. The enemy is destroyed. God’s people stand victorious.

And then John lands the knockout punch. Verse 10 says:

“The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet are also. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Amillennialism and Premillennialism

There’s a really wide range of ways to interpret all of that. Some of those interpretations are ridiculous and obviously not true. But there are two major interpretations that Christians have held throughout history to explain what’s going on in Revelation 20, and really the whole book overall.

These two are really common and really longstanding. Both of these are almost 2,000 years old. There are people who have held these views for basically the entire history of the church. Both of them are reasonable. Both of them are coherent. And I’m not sold 100% on either of them.

Amillennialism

The first one is called amillennialism. This is the most common interpretation of Revelation throughout all of church history.

What I’m about to say might really surprise you because it’s maybe very different from what you’ve grown up hearing, but this is actually the traditional view of Revelation. What your grandma believed 70 years ago is not traditional. What people believed 2,000 years ago is traditional.

This is one of two views that you could call the traditional view.

Amillennialism says that the thousand-year reign of Christ is a symbol for the whole age of the church. The thousand-year reign of Jesus in the vision that John has here in Revelation 20 is a symbol for all of history from the time that Christ came the first time all the way through when He comes the second time.

According to amillennialism, they basically break it down like this. They say Satan was bound when Jesus came the first time so that he cannot stop God’s mission through the church. As a result, the gospel goes global. We make disciples of all nations.

And the reason that we’re able to do that is because we have been raised up with Jesus. This vision says that Jesus is ruling on earth with the resurrected saints. Amillennialism says we actually are those resurrected saints.

Amillennialism points out that in Ephesians chapter 2, Paul says you’ve been resurrected with Jesus. He’s talking about you right now. You’re not dead. The final resurrection hasn’t happened. And yet, when you were redeemed by the cross, in a sense, you were turned from dead to alive. You were resurrected.

The same thing happens in Colossians chapter 3:

“If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.” — Colossians 3:1

So, you are not dead yet, but you have been resurrected with Jesus.

Amillennialism says that Revelation is doing the same thing here, that the resurrected saints who rule with Jesus are you and me. It’s the same language. We’ve been raised up with Christ even though one day we will be literally bodily raised up in the end.

And amillennialism says that when Revelation talks about the fact that the resurrected saints reign or rule with Jesus, it is once again talking about you and me. Again and again throughout God’s Word, it describes God’s people as ruling with Jesus, reigning with Jesus. We are His kingdom workers. We are His hands and feet. We are His kingdom of priests. We are His priest-kings on earth.

Revelation 5:10 says:

“And made them kings and priests to our God, and they reign on the earth.”

We are consistently described as ruling with Jesus in a sense.

And then amillennialism usually sees the final release of Satan as something that will happen in the future in some kind of confrontation that happens at the very end, right before the physical return, the second coming of Jesus, and the final judgment.

That is amillennialism. Satan is bound right now, and he will be released at the very end, right before Jesus comes, and then He will crush him fully and finally forever.

That is amillennialism. That is the most common interpretation of Revelation throughout all of history.

But I have some hang-ups.

My big hang-up above all is that in Revelation 20, when it describes the resurrected saints who reign with Jesus during the thousand-year reign, the language it uses to describe them is really specific. It specifically describes the resurrected saints as martyrs. It specifically describes them as having been beheaded for the faith. It specifically describes them as having been killed by the beast and so forth.

And that just feels a little bit too precise to comfortably refer to all Christians throughout all time in a really neat and tidy way. Now, it still could. That’s not a deal breaker, but it just doesn’t totally fit for me.

So, I’m not 100% sold on amillennialism.

Premillennialism

But there’s a second extremely common interpretation of Revelation throughout history. This is the second view that you could call the traditional view. Amillennialism and this one are both traditional views of Revelation, and this one is called premillennialism.

This is the second most common interpretation of Revelation throughout history. Both of these have been around for about 2,000 years now.

Premillennialism says that Christ is going to literally reign physically on earth for some long period. Maybe literally a thousand years, or maybe a thousand years is a representational number. Whatever the case, there is a future literal thousand-year reign where Jesus will come to earth and spend a thousand years or something literally reigning before the final judgment, before the final resurrection.

And so in premillennial interpretations of Revelation, they say there’s a special resurrection that is going to happen before the final resurrection where the saints or the martyrs are going to be raised up before everyone is raised up. But then there’s going to be a final resurrection that comes after all of that. And then there will be the final judgment and everything like that.

Premillennialism essentially says that Satan will be bound sometime way in the future, and then Jesus will come and reign literally on earth for a thousand years. Then Satan will be released and allowed to destroy everything that Jesus built during that thousand-year reign, and then Jesus will defeat Satan for the final time, and it’ll be over. There will be a final judgment, and he’ll be cast into the lake of fire and so forth.

That is premillennialism.

And once again, that is a very common interpretation of Revelation going all the way back 2,000 years ago. And just like amillennialism, I think this is reasonable. I think it makes sense. I have no issues with it.

But I do have some hang-ups that keep me from just jumping in and saying, “Yeah, that’s what I believe.”

The biggest one for me is I don’t understand why there would be a kind of junior varsity reign of Jesus where He comes down for a thousand years, rules, and then lets Satan come back up out of the pit and undo everything, and then has a big battle and then takes him out once and for all and then judges everyone.

And in all of this stuff, I don’t really get it because until the final judgment, creation has not been healed. Until the final judgment, everything has not been fixed. Before the final judgment, the world is still imperfect. The world is still broken. The world is still all these things. We still have a sinful nature and so on and so forth.

I don’t really get how a thousand-year reign of Jesus fits into the story that Revelation itself tells or that the whole Bible tells. So for me, it just still doesn’t quite fit comfortably enough for me to just say, “Oh, I’m a premillennial.”

So I can’t really say I’m an amillennial. I can’t say I’m a premillennial. I think these two views both have a lot going for them. Both of them are reasonable. Both of them make decent sense of what is there in God’s Word, but I’m just not convinced enough of either of them.

And so, when it comes to those things, we have to write those in pencil rather than in Sharpie.

What We Can Write in Sharpie

But here’s what we can write in Sharpie.

No matter where you land on exactly how to interpret the timeline, all of Satan’s outbursts operate on God’s time. The dragon, the serpent, is not a second god. He’s not an equal opponent with God. He is under the thumb of the God of the universe. He is on a leash that is held by the one and only God of the universe.

I think the reason that it’s so hard to really neatly map this out into amillennialism or premillennialism or whatever else is because Revelation is really not trying to help you build a detailed timeline.

It’s just not.

It’s trying to show you the glory of King Jesus and the certainty of His victory. Satan’s ability to deceive and corrupt and stir up rebellion has a finish line.

Revelation 20 images that finish line as Satan bound, then released, but ultimately destroyed at God’s good pleasure. And if you stay loyal to the Lamb even up to the point of death, you will ultimately reign with King Jesus in whatever form that takes.

The beast does not get the final word. Babylon does not get the final word. The serpent does not get the final word.

The Lamb gets the final word.

And even if the whole world lines up together against King Jesus to try to wage some kind of last stand against Him, the result will always be the same. There won’t be any contest.

God sends fire. The enemy is destroyed. God’s people stand victorious.

What we can write in Sharpie from Revelation 20 is victory is assured. God wins in the end.

And that means you win in the end.

The universe has a happy ending.

Revelation 21–22: “I Am Making All Things New”

Revelation 20 is the leadup to the happy ending. Revelation 21 and 22 is that happy ending painted on the wall for us in neon colors.

This is the closing punchline of the book of Revelation. And more than that, this is the closing punchline of the entire story that the Bible tells. Absolutely every thread that’s been woven from Genesis all the way through Revelation is being tied up here in Revelation 21 and 22.

And it is glorious.

You can sum up everything that happens in Revelation 21 and 22 in a really short, simple phrase:

“I am making all things new.”

What is happening in Revelation 21 and 22 is that we are seeing all of creation restored to its good created design. And that’s unbelievably beautiful, but it might actually be kind of surprising depending on what you’ve grown up being taught because that phrase, “I am making all things new,” means something a little different than what maybe we assume it means.

Because when He says, “I am making all things new,” really, a better way to translate that would be to say, “I am renewing all things.”

That phrasing actually matters because it means that what’s happening here is not God destroying creation and then replacing it with something else. It’s not God destroying the world and then taking us off to some magic place called heaven on the Magic School Bus.

God is not destroying or replacing creation. He’s renewing and restoring creation.

He doesn’t say, “I am making all new things.” He says, “I’m making all things new.”

He’s renewing everything that exists. He is resurrecting all of creation. In the same way that He will resurrect all of us, once it was broken, but now it is restored.

And so in Revelation 21 and 22, we’re witnessing the moment that God is liberating creation from its bondage, liberating it from decay and futility. He is setting creation free, making it new, just like He promised He would.

In Isaiah 65:17, He says:

“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor come into mind.”

And that means something really specific. When we say that God is renewing and restoring all of creation in the end, it means there are things that will not be there anymore. And there are things that will be there that were not there before.

He takes away what belongs to fallen, broken creation. And He adds what belongs to healed, restored creation.

What Will No Longer Be There

Revelation 21:1 says:

“I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.”

Now, that does not mean that there is literally not a sea. The sea is part of God’s created design. The sea is good, not bad.

In the ancient Near East, the sea was a metaphor. It was a symbol of chaos, danger, wickedness, brokenness, destruction, death, evil, spiritual forces, and so forth. They use the image of sea monsters like the image of Leviathan as a kind of cosmic sea monster who represented the forces of darkness and stuff like that.

That is why earlier in Revelation it talked about the beast who came from the sea. The point being that the sea is the domain of chaos and darkness.

But now it says the sea is no more. Everything that threatens God’s people has been removed at the root. The devil is gone. The forces of darkness are gone. Sinfulness is gone. Brokenness is gone. Death is gone.

Revelation 21 and 22 just keeps on stacking image after image on top of each other to show us that everything that is wrong with the world is gone.

I love Revelation 21:25–27. It says:

“Its gates will in no way be shut by day (for there will be no night there), and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it so that they may enter. There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

Now, does that mean that there’s literally no gate around the city? No. The point is, in the ancient world, you would shut the city gates at night because enemies typically attacked at night. And yet here the image is they never shut their gates because they don’t need to.

There is no danger. So there’s no need for the protection that comes from closing your city gates.

And in the same way, does it mean there’s literally no night? No, of course not. Day and night are part of God’s good created design. The point is night represented danger, and there is no danger.

You are absolutely secure in the renewed and restored creation even though you have no form of self-defense.

Danger is not there. Wickedness is not there. Unrepentance is not there.

It says there are no humans who are in rebellion against the Lord in the renewed and restored creation. The humans who refuse to let go of the brokenness of the serpent and his kingdom all the way to the end are nowhere to be found.

Revelation 21:8 says:

“But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Now, the point here is not that none of these people were good enough, so they don’t get to be there. The point is that anyone who has persistently sided with Babylon and the beast and refused to repent and let go, refused to submit to the Lord as King and worship Him as God and throw themselves on His mercy as Savior all the way to the end, has been given exactly what they want.

They’ve been given a place where they can sin completely undisturbed for all of eternity.

It’s called the lake of fire.

They don’t want to be with the Lord. They don’t have to be with the Lord.

No More Death, Mourning, Crying, or Pain

And because all of these things are true, it says there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

Verse 4 says:

“He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. The first things have passed away.”

Every single way that this world was broken in the fall is fully undone in the renewed and restored creation.

Another way of putting that would be to say that the curse of Genesis 3 has been undone.

Revelation 22:3 says:

“There will be no curse anymore. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will serve him.”

In other words, the entire curse that we see in Genesis 3 is undone. There is no longer a rift between humanity and creation, no longer a rift between humans themselves, no longer a rift between humanity and God.

Everything the fall has taken away from us is restored fully and finally and forever.

There is no more curse. So there is no more death. There is no more beast, no more serpent, no more Babylon, no more threats, no more hidden enemies, no more spiritual confusion.

It’s beautiful.

Better Than Eden

In fact, it’s so beautiful that Revelation 21 and 22 essentially says that the final creation is greater than the original creation. It says that the restored creation is better than creation before the fall.

Now, I don’t understand how this could work at all, but this is the picture Revelation paints. The Garden of Eden is not just restored. It’s essentially supercharged, for lack of a better word.

Revelation 22:1 says:

“He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

That’s an echo of the way that Genesis 2 describes Eden.

Genesis 2:10 says:

“A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was parted, and became the source of four rivers.”

And that’s an echo of Ezekiel 47. It describes the life-giving river of the Lord flowing out to heal the land.

It smashes those two images together. The point is this is more glorious than Eden ever was. Eden was good, but it was incomplete. But this is complete.

This is the finished work of creation.

And we see that actually even more intensely in Revelation 22:2:

“In the middle of its street, on this side of the river and on that, was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”

And so once again, you remember the tree of life from Eden.

Well, this is that, but better.

The tree of life is comically gigantic. It is comically bountiful. It literally never runs out. There are 12 different harvest seasons from the tree of life. There is constant provision. There is no season of scarcity. There’s no season where it stops bearing fruit.

The point is this is more glorious than anything we could ever imagine. The point is whatever idea you have in your head about what eternity will be like, this is bigger, better, and grander.

The Healing of the Nations

And it’s for everyone.

It says the fruit from the tree of life was for the healing of the nations. That’s a really important sentence because that term “the nations” is the same term it uses to describe the pagans, the unbelieving Gentiles, the people who used to worship the beast and follow after the serpent.

It says now they’ve been brought to repentance, and they are being healed by the Lord forever and ever.

The redeemed humanity who is with the Lord in this renewed creation makes up all of God’s people through all of time and space.

Revelation 21:12–14 says:

“Having a great and high wall; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. On the east were three gates; and on the north three gates; and on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them twelve names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.”

What’s going on with that?

What’s going on is that is the entire biblical people of God. There is Old Testament Israel, the 12 gates with the names of the 12 tribes. And there is the New Testament church, the 12 names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

So this is Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church united together into one people, one family, one kingdom, one flock.

There is no concept in Revelation or in any of the Bible of some kind of weird split future where God has one plan for ethnic Israel and then a different plan for the Gentile church. That’s some nonsense some dudes made up in the 1800s and we just keep repeating like a game of telephone.

No, there is one plan. There is one people.

This is the multiethnic people of God fulfilled through Jesus Christ.

That’s why Revelation 21:24 says:

“The nations will walk in its light. The kings of the earth bring the glory and honor of the nations into it.”

Verse 26 says:

“They will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.”

These are the kings of the earth who united against the Lord with the beast over and over and over throughout the story Revelation is telling. But now they are coming to the Lord in faith and repentance, bringing glory to the foot of His throne.

This is the fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 60. Read it. It’s awesome.

The nations, the Gentiles, the former pagans leave behind beast worship and come to the foot of the throne of the Lamb in faith and repentance—and even the kings of the earth.

The punchline of Revelation is not that a handful of people are saved and everybody else gets wiped out. I don’t know why we keep saying that.

The punchline of Revelation is that so many people we never saw coming are gathered with us for eternity.

God’s plan is not to destroy. It’s to redeem.

God’s Dwelling Is With Humanity

But then the vision in Revelation 21 and 22 reaches its climax.

It says that all of redeemed humanity, including the nations, including the kings of the earth who used to be His enemies, are gathered in this renewed creation where there is no darkness, no wickedness, no sickness, dying, grief, pain, mourning—whatever—that is better than the original creation because it is complete. It is finished.

We are gathered together, but our focus is not on any of those other things. Our focus is on the fact that now, finally, God’s dwelling is with humanity.

Revelation 21:3 says:

“Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

It says there is no more temple, no more temple system that mediates between us and God through sacrifices and priests, because there’s no more separation, because there’s no more exile.

Instead, it says we live every moment of our existence in eternity in the Holy of Holies with no barriers.

The Bride of the Lamb

It gives us two really interesting images. Number one, we live for all of eternity as the bride of the Lamb.

Revelation 21:2 says:

“I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.”

It’s not talking about some city coming down that we’re going to live in.

The city coming down is us.

Revelation 21:9–10 says:

“‘Come here. I will show you the wife, the Lamb’s bride.’ He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

He says, “I’m going to show you the bride.” And then he shows him the New Jerusalem.

So we are the New Jerusalem. We are the bride of Christ, and we are the Jerusalem that He occupies and rules in.

The point here is our eternity with the Lord is defined by the same intimacy and closeness and faithfulness and deep knowing and being known that we’re meant to experience in marriage. The closest human relationship that you can possibly have on earth is a shadow of what every single moment of life with the Lord in eternity is like.

The Holy of Holies

And in the same way, because we are the bride of the Lord and because we are the city of His glory, His glory is overwhelmingly present with us at all times.

It says we are the city having the glory. And then it says something really weird.

Revelation 21:16 says:

“The city lies foursquare, and its length is as great as its width. He measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand twelve stadia. Its length, width, and height are equal.”

Now again, remember it’s describing us.

When something’s length, width, and height are equal, that means it’s a cube.

So is it saying we are going to be a cube?

It is an apocalyptic vision. Don’t take it hyperliterally.

But the point is we are the Holy of Holies in eternity.

Remember, in the old temple and tabernacle, the Holy of Holies was the place that only the high priest could go to only once a year. It was the place where, kind of metaphorically, God’s presence dwelt in the center of the temple and the tabernacle. It was the place of God’s immediate presence.

And the Holy of Holies was equal in length, width, and height.

The point is we live all of eternity in the immediate presence of God, not just a high priest once a year.

The wall has been broken down completely. The distance created by sin is gone. And so we have the same kind of access to God every moment of our lives that the highest-ranking priest had for one moment, one day a year in the olden days.

And so Revelation 21:22 says:

“I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.”

And Revelation 22:4 says:

“They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.”

This is priestly imagery. We live in eternity with the Lord. Like priests of the Lord, we dwell with Him in the deepest sense of the word.

We Will Reign With Him

But it says we’re going to do more than just dwell with God. John’s vision here says that we are going to reign with Him.

Revelation 22:5 says:

“They will reign forever and ever.”

In some sense, we’re going to rule alongside Him. Not just in the thousand-year reign of Jesus, whatever that represents, but for all of eternity.

And that maybe sounds really strange to us because that’s not something we hear preached very often, but it’s not a plot twist.

This has been the story since the beginning.

Genesis 1:26 and Genesis 1:28 say humans were created to have dominion, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it.

In other words, we were created and called to be the hands and feet through which the Lord rules over creation. When we cultivate and build and innovate and steward the world, we are carrying out the rule of God in the world through our own hands and feet.

But now, in the renewed and restored creation, it says we’ve been fully restored to that calling in the fullest and deepest sense of the word.

We reign with Him for eternity as His kingly images, His kingly regents.

But John wants to make absolutely sure we don’t get the wrong idea. He says there is still only one throne. Reigning with Jesus doesn’t glorify us. It glorifies Him through us.

Everything we do as God’s kingly regents, reigning with Him, is ultimately meant to point the glory back to Him.

And John actually reports a really embarrassing story just to illustrate that for us as clearly as he possibly can.

Revelation 22:8–9 says:

“I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. When I heard and saw, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who had shown me these things. He said to me, ‘See you don’t do it! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.’”

John is so overwhelmed by everything he’s seeing, he gets confused and he starts worshiping the angel in front of him.

The angel says, “Hey, stop. I don’t want to be worshiped.”

The same thing will be true for us in the renewed and restored creation. We no longer have a sin nature. And that means we no longer want self-exaltation, self-glorification. We no longer want to dethrone the Lord and rob Him of His glory.

We want to give Him all of our glory.

The Story of Revelation

That is Revelation 20, 21, and 22.

The entire story that God’s Word tells is the story of God renewing creation, removing all darkness at the root, dwelling with His people with no barrier, healing the nations, uniting His people into one, and calling us today to respond either with unrepentant rebellion or repentant submission.

That was the calling that the Lord gave to these seven churches through the book of Revelation. And that’s the same calling that He’s giving to us today.

He has given us Revelation as a road map for how to be faithful to Him, no matter what our fallen and broken world throws at us, whether it’s persecution or temptation. And that same road map that led the seven churches through their crisis will lead us through ours.

The seven churches received the book of Revelation. They took it to heart, and they threw themselves into faithfully following King Jesus. They turned away from the compromise that the Balaamites and the Jezebelites and the Nicolaitans were trying to pull them toward, and instead they threw themselves into faithfulness to the Lord.

No matter what Rome did to them, they accepted persecution. They accepted marginalization. They accepted rejection. They continued just to love the people around them and to proclaim the truth to them even when everything was taken from them because of it.

And as a result, here’s what happened.

The same Romans who spent years arresting, torturing, and even killing the Christians from the seven churches slowly lost the ability to close their ears, their eyes, and their hearts. They fed one Christian after another to lions in the Colosseum until one day the Spirit broke through the walls of their hearts.

The persecutors of God’s people were slowly won over by God’s people they were persecuting.

And within just a couple hundred years of when John wrote Revelation, the Roman Empire went from being a vicious machine that devoured Christians. It went from being a beast that waged war on the Lord and His people to being a really radical example of what happens when the Lord gets His hooks into an entire kingdom.

The Roman Empire that used to persecute Christianity eventually converted to Christianity and, in that process, radically changed as a nation.

That same thing can happen today if we’ll take the same lessons to heart John laid down for the seven churches in Revelation.