When the Sanhedrin ordered Peter and the other apostles to stop preaching in the name of Jesus, Peter replied with one of Christianity’s more famous quotes: “We must obey God rather than men.”[1] However, the rest of what he said is where our interest lies. Peter pointedly told them that God raised Jesus, whom they had put to death by crucifixion, and whom God has now exalted to His right hand. Then Peter told them what had become the core of their (Peter and the apostles) being: namely, they were now witnesses, as was the Holy Spirit whom God gives to those who obey Him.[2]

Remember, at that time, the Jerusalem Temple, with its Most Holy Place, the place where God dwelt among His people, still stood.  However, God’s presence left when, at Jesus’ crucifixion, the veil of the Temple was rent.[3] The exclamation point came when the Romans destroyed the Temple in A.D. 70. Interestingly, that latter event occurred within the generation to whom Jesus twice told all those things would occur.[4] More importantly, there is now no need of another temple for, at Pentecost, fifty days after the crucifixion, when God poured out His Spirit, a believer’s heart became the new most holy place, where Christ now indwells us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul also confirmed as much, telling the church at Corinth that their body is now the temple of the Holy Spirit – which God gave.[5]

Thus, when in the Apocalypse John saw the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, it was said to have been made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.[6] John even saw God sitting on His throne and heard loud voices saying glorious things.[7] An angel then carried him away to a high mountain and showed him the bride, the wife of the Lamb, which was the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven.[8] Interestingly, we are told the New Jerusalem had no temple as the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb are its Temple.[9] Superlatives simply do not do justice to what must have appeared majestic and glorious to John!

Thus, the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, made ready as a bride, is none other than we, the Church.[10] Furthermore, we must keep in mind that when Paul talked about human marriage, he likened the relationship between husbands and wives to that between Christ and the Church, specifically stating so in saying,  “I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church.”[11] But that is not for some time in the far distant future. It was a fait accompli when Paul wrote it, as much as it is for us in the here and now. There even was precedence in the Old Testament which made reference to God’s people who, at that time were the Israelites, as His bride.[12]

That is not meant to be literal or as a temporal reality, but spiritual. The Lamb and His bride, the Church, simultaneously are, and are in, the New Jerusalem. Also, again, simultaneously, the Lord God, and the Lamb, are New Jerusalem’s Temple. However, since we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit in addition to the Lord God and the Lamb being the Temple of the New Jerusalem, we, therefore, who are one with the Lamb and the Lord God are that city and Temple.[13] How wonderful is that – and how can that be?

For our evidence we turn to Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in which He earlier had confirmed that concept when He said, “That they [His disciples] may be one even as We [He and the Father] are one.”[14]

Continuing, He said, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone [His disciples], but for those also who believe in Me through their word [those to whom His disciples preach]; that they [all those just mentioned] may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they may also be in Us…. The glory which You have given Me I have given them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity…”[15]

Earlier still, Jesus alluded to that spiritual reality when He said that His Father would send a Helper – the Holy Spirit – who would be in them, His believers;[16] and when He spoke of us as branches, abiding in Him, the vine.[17]

Summing it all up, (a) Jesus, the Lamb, is in us in the Person of the Holy Spirit, and we are in Him; thus we, believers, the Church, are the Temple of the Holy Spirit; (b), Jesus, the Lamb and the Lord God are also the New Jerusalem and its Temple; (c) we are one with Him as He is one with the Father. Therefore, (d) we, the Church, the bride of the Lamb, are the New Jerusalem that John saw come down from heaven. Again, that is a spiritual depiction, not literal.

           Lastly, the New Jerusalem is not a fifteen-hundred-mile cube with walls of seventy-two yards that orbits the earth, as some spuriously claim. Miles and yards are English units of measure, but that characterization completely strips it of all spiritual significance and as a present reality. In God’s economy, twelve has spiritual significance. The original Greek describes it as a twelve thousand stadia cube with walls of 144 cubits.[18] Cubits, are an Egyptian unit; stadia, Greek. John wrote the Apocalypse in Greek and employed the Greek words σταδιων (stadia) and πῆχων (cubits). Seeing this spiritually is not a sin. God is spirit, and we must worship Him in spirit and truth.[19]

Additionally, Jacob had twelve sons who became the twelve tribes of Israel, and there were twelve minor prophets and twelve apostles. The number, 144, is a multiple of twelve. The city itself had twelve gates, and at the gates were twelve angels; on the gates were the names of the twelve tribes. The city’s wall had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Lastly, the twelve gates were twelve pearls.[20] Therefore, the New Jerusalem is a spiritual depiction of who we are in Christ. Describing it in human terms dishonors God’s Word and is confusing to those who wish to understand a difficult subject.

Concluding, seeing the Church with Christ as its head and us as the body, the whole being the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the New Jerusalem, fulfills Daniel’s prophecy of the anointing of the Most Holy Place – the last of six entities [seven, per the LXX] we see in the overview of his seventy weeks prophecy.[21] Not surprisingly, all six [seven] were fulfilled by what Christ accomplished at the cross and His subsequent resurrection.

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[1] Acts 5:29

[2] Acts 5:30-32

[3] Matt. 27:51; Mark 15:38

[4] Matt. 23:36; 24:34 (all those things from 24:5-33)

[5] 1 Cor. 6:19

[6] Rev. 21:2

[7] Rev. 21:3-8

[8] Rev. 21:9-10

[9] Rev. 21:22

[10] Rev. 21:1-3; cf. 19:7

[11] Eph. 5:22-33; cf. v. 32

[12] Isa. 49:18; 54:4-8; 61:10; 62:1-5; Jer. 2:32; 3:1, 6-10; 31:31-32; Ezek. 16

[13] Eph. 2:19-22; 4:15-16; 1 Pet. 2:4-8

[14] John 17:11

[15] John 17:20-23

[16] John 14:16-17

[17] John 15:1-11

[18] Rev. 21:15-17

[19] John 4:24

[20] Rev. 21:12-14, 22

[21] Dan. 9:24