21:1. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth….”
The Jews believed that ‘Elias‘ would restore all things. “‘And he shall restore all things …He shall purify the bastards, and restore them to the congregation. He shall render to Israel the pot of manna, the vial of holy oil, the vial of water; and there are some who say, the rod of Aaron.’…” Lightfoot goes on to explain that this is fulfilled in the Gospel being preached to the Gentiles and the perfecting of the Church. [2:246-7]
Commenting on ‘the regeneration’, Matt. 19:28, “…Our Saviour, therefore, by the word…regeneration, calls back the mind of the disciples to a right apprehension of the thing; implying that renovation, concerning which the Scripture speaks, is not of the body or substance of the world; but that it consists in the renewing of the manners, doctrine, and a dispensation conducing thereunto: men are to be renewed, regenerated,–not the fabric of the world….” [2:265]
“…With the same reference it is, that the times and state of things immediately following the destruction of Jerusalem are called ‘a new creation,’ ‘new heavens,’ and ‘a new earth,’ Isa.lxv.17; ‘Behold, I create a new heaven and a new earth,’ When should that be? Read the whole chapter; and you will find the Jews rejected and cut off; and from that time is that new creation of the evangelical world among the Gentiles.
“Compare 2 Cor.v.17 and Rev.xxi.1,2; where the old Jerusalem being cut off and destroyed, a new one succeeds; and new heavens and a new earth are created.” [3:453]
21:3. “…Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.” (See entire chapters 7, 21, and 22.)
“‘The Rabbins deliver. Let one always live in the land of Israel, though it be in a city the greatest part of which are heathens. And let not a man dwell without the land, yea, not in a city the greatest part of which are Israelites. For he that lives in the land of Israel hath God; but he that lives without the land is as if he had not God; as it is said, ‘To give you the land of Canaan, that God may be with you,’ &c….” [1:258]
Chapters 7, 21 and 22 of Revelation show the truly blessed estate of the saints is not in the literal, polluted land of Palestine, but rather in the glorious Church of Jesus Christ.
21:4. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death…” (See also 20:4-resurrection.)
The tradition concerning ‘the days of the Messias’ said: “…’The righteous, whom the Lord shall raise from the dead in the days of the Messiah, when they are restored to life, shall not again return to their dust, neither in the days of the Messiah, nor in the following age: but their flesh shall remain upon them till they return and live…to eternity….'”
“…’If he shall obtain …to see the world to come, that is, the exaltation of Israel,…The Holy Blessed God saith to Israel, In this world you are afraid of transgressions; but in the world to come, when there shall be no evil affection, you shall be concerned only for the good which is laid up for you…'” [2:310]
21:5: “… I make all things new…”
Davies, [304] “We have previously insisted that for Paul the Christian dispensation was a new creation which could be compared and contrasted with the old creation, and we had occasion to observe how this principle that ‘the End’ corresponds to ‘the Beginning’ governed Paul’s thought also on the Resurrection of Jesus.”
21:6 and 22:1. “…the fountain of the water of life…”
Lightfoot, [1:57], shows that the tradition was to anoint the king at a fountain: “They do not anoint the king, but at a fountain; as it is said, ‘Bring Solomon to Gihon.'”
“The bubblings up of Siloam yielded a type of the kingdom of David, Isa. viii.6….” Siloam began as a fountain, but became a river as it progressed outside the walls. The fountain was later enclosed to ensure that the city would have a water supply in case of siege. [1:61]
The “fountain of the water of life” was the place of the throne of the Lamb in Revelation 22:1. It is the fountain that Jesus promised to His Church in Revelation 21:6 and that which He promised in John 7:37.
21:7. “…I will be his God and he will be My son….”
“… When God would deliver Israel from his bondage, he challengeth him for his son and his firstborn, Exod.iv.22. And in like manner the people of the Gentiles do earnestly expect and wait for such a kind of manifestation of the sons of God within and among themselves. The Romans, to whom this apostle writes, knew well enough how many and how great predictions and promises it had pleased God to publish by his prophets, concerning gathering together and adopting sons to himself among the Gentiles: the manifestation and production of which sons, the whole Gentile world doth now wait for, as it were, with an outstretched neck.” {This shows that Jesus and His Body, the Church, is ‘Israel’.} [4:157]
21:10. “…the holy Jerusalem…”
The Talmudic tradition is that the land of Israel is sanctified by ten holinesses. Among these are the sacrifices, the Passovers, and the Priesthood. No other land is qualified to furnish the sheaf, the first-fruits, and the two loaves. The law of beheading the red heifer, (Deut. 21:3-6), cannot take place except in the land of Israel. Eldership is only to be conferred within the land. The calculation of the year, with its new moons, feasts and fasts cannot take place except in the land, because that is where the Temple is and where the Sanhedrim meet, and only there is the divine glory, (they thought). Indeed, the Holy Spirit, embodied in the Shekinah only dwells in the land of Israel.
“…it was by no means lawful to eat the passover without Jerusalem.” [1:81]
When John saw this Holy Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, she was filled with the ‘Glory of God’, the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit. She contained the Lamb of God and therefore the supreme Sacrifice, the fulfillment of Passover and the Great High Priest. The blood of the innocent has been avenged, so that there is no further need for the beheading of the red heifer.
There is no further need for the calculations of the year, for the city had no need of the sun or moon, for the Glory of God was in it and the Lamb was the Light of it. There are already four and twenty immortal elders around about the throne of God, so there need never be any more. [1:16, 23]
21:12-13. “…it had… twelve gates….”
It appears that the Holy Place of the Temple was the innermost area and was surrounded on the outside by the Court of the Priests, then the Court of the Women, which in turn was surrounded by the Court of Israel, then by the Court of the Gentiles, (pp. 64-5.) On the other hand, Lightfoot describes the courts, p. 73, in such a way that the court of Israel was inside the Court of Women.
Each of these Courts had its own gates, leading outward as well as inward. The several courts were all at different levels so that there were steps leading up or down from one to the other. There were fifteen steps leading down from the Court of Israel to the Court of the Women and the Levites stood upon these steps at a ceremony called ‘Pouring Out of Water’ at the Feast of Tabernacles, singing and playing their musical instruments. The songs they sang were the fifteen Psalms of Degrees, that is, Psalm 120-134.
It would appear that the ‘steps’ were considered to be ‘degrees’, probably marking the rise and decline of the sun, (or moon). Such an arrangement we would call a ‘sun-dial’ is suggested in 2 Kings 20:9-11. It is interesting to note that the various intervals of the breadth of the Courts contain the number eleven three times and the number twenty-two cubits. [1:65-72]
Solomon’s porch may have been the same as ‘the King’s Gate’, which according to the traditions had under it ‘the two gates of Huldah’….”‘Behold, he stands behind our wall, that is, behind the west wall of the Temple; because the Holy Blessed One hath sworn that it shall never be destroyed….The Priest‘s gate also, and Huldah’s gate, were never to be destroyed till God shall renew them.'”
However, Josephus says: “‘Caesar commanded that the whole city and Temple should be destroyed, saving only those towers which were above the rest; viz. Phasaelus, the Hippic, and Mariamne, and the west wall. The wall that it might be for the garrison soldiers; the towers, as a testimony how large and how fortified a city the Roman valour had subdued….’But as to all the rest of the city and its whole compass, they so defaced and demolished it, that posterity or strangers will hardly believe there was ever any inhabited city there.’ Which all agrees well enough with what we frequently meet with in the Jewish writers; that Turnus Rufus drew a plough over the city and Temple….” [1:369]
“…Gate…Under this phrase are very many things in religion expressed in the Holy Scripture, Gen.xxviii.17, Psal. cxviii.19,20, Matt.xvi. 18, &c.; and also in the Jewish writers. ‘The gate of repentance’ is mentioned by the Chaldee paraphrast upon Jer.xxxiii.6; and ‘the gate of prayers,’ and ‘the gate of tears.’
“…Strait gate, ….’With a key he opened the little door, ….saith the Aruch, is a little door in the midst of a great door.“ [2:158-9
“…The elders of the city…are the triumvirate bench:…’at the gate’…means the bench of the chief priest.” [2:331]
“…’The east gate of the Court of the Gentiles had the metropolis Sushan painted on it. And through this gate the high priest went out to burn the red cow…'” [2:439]
21:12, 14. “…the twelve apostles of the Lamb….” (See also Revelation 2:2.)
“…the twelve apostles, …in Talmudic language, under which title Moses and Aaron are marked by the Chaldee paraphrast, Jer.ii.1: a word that does not barely speak a messenger, but such a messenger as represents the person of him that sends him. …The apostle of any one is as he himself from whom he is deputed.’ [2:176]
21:16. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.”
“It obtained among the Jews, ‘That the land of Israel contained the square of four hundred parsae’….A parsa contains in it four miles. ‘Ten parsae…are forty miles.’…four hundred parsae…made a thousand six hundred miles. Which measure why they ascribed it to the land of Israel on every side of the square of it, whether from the measurings of Ezekiel, or from somewhat else, we do not here inquire. But we cannot but observe this, that the same number is mentioned and perhaps the same measure understood, Rev. xiv, 20: ‘Blood issued out of the lake to the horses’ bridles, for a thousand six hundred furlongs.’ Where the Arabic reads….’for the space of a thousand six hundred miles.'” [1:261-2]
21:19: “… The first foundation was jasper….” (See also ‘jasper’ at 21:11, 18. )
“… the jasper stone, upon which was inscribed the name of Benjamin in the breastplate, was the first foundation in the new Jerusalem, Rev.xxi.19: in memory (as it should seem) of this Benjamite {the apostle Paul}, the chief founder of the Gentile church. ‘The jasper of Benjamin fell one day out of the breastplate and was lost. Dama Ben Nethinah having one like it, they bargained with him to buy it for a hundred pence.’ &c.” [4:160]
21:21, 27. “…the street of the city was pure gold….”
“…Shake off the dust of your feet…The schools of the scribes taught that the dust of heathen land defiled by the touch. ‘The dust of Syria defiles, as well as the dust of other heathen countries.’….
“Therefore that rite of shaking the dust off the feet, commanded the disciples, speaks thus much; ‘Wheresoever a city of Israel shall not receive you, when ye depart, shew, by shaking off the dust from your feet, that ye esteem that city, however a city of Israel, for a heathen, profane, impure city; and, as such, abhor it.'” [2:185-6]
21:23. “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb [is] the light thereof.”
Since the priesthood reckoned time by the sun, moon and stars, the fact that the Holy Jerusalem did not need these indicated that there was no more need for this kind of reckoning. Henceforth, times would be reckoned by The Lamb.
Lightfoot, [2:199], deals with the sabbath reckoning: “The servile work which is done in the holy things is not servile….There is no sabbatism at all in the Temple.”
21:24, 26. “…the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it … And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it … ”
The Jews so hated the Edomites that they rejected the prophecy of Amos 9:12 that there should be a remnant left of Edom. They projected this hatred of Edom onto the Romans whom they commonly called ‘Edom.‘ “… This is the offering thou shalt receive from them, gold, silver, and brass, Exod. xxv.3. The gold is Babel: the silver is Media: the brass is Greece, Dan.ii; but there is no mention of iron: why so? Because wicked Edom, that wasted the sanctuary, is likened to that; to teach us that God in time to come will accept an offering from every kingdom except Edom.'” [4:129]
“We can trace this universalism down through the second century BC In the Sibylline Oracles [3.772, 773] we read: ‘And from every land they shall bring frankincense and gifts to the house of the great God’: and in the Book of Tobit [13.11] (170 B.C.): ‘Many nations shall come from afar, and the inhabitants of the utmost ends of the earth unto thy holy name.’ In the Book of Enoch [10.21, 48.4] and in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs [Test.Dan.6.7; Test. Levi 2.11,4.4, 8.14; Test. Simeon 6.5; Test.Naphtali 2.5, 8.3; Test. Benjamin 9.2, 10.5; Test.Asher, 7.3; Test. Judah 25.5] both dated from 200-100 B.C., the same note is struck.” [60-61].
This universalism was obscured by the cruel persecutions suffered under Antiochus Epiphanies and others. “In any case, despite the protests of people like the authors of the Book of Ruth and the Book of Jonah … particularism or narrow nationalism prevailed…. by the first century BC there is almost complete absence of any expression of universalism. [But the Twelve Patriarchs is an exception to this.] In one passage, indeed, the Gentiles are spared in the Messianic Age, but they are spared merely in order that they may serve Israel, ‘He shall possess the nations of the heathen to serve him beneath his yoke’ [Psalms of Solomon (first century B.C.) 17.32]; in the books of the Maccabees and in the Book of Jubilees the note of universalism is completely lacking. Moreover, when we turn to the literature of the first century A.D., the attitude towards the Gentiles in some quarters has still further hardened. The most extreme expression of contempt towards the latter is found in 4 Ezra. Thinking of the Gentiles the author writes: ‘Thou hast said that they are nothing and that they are like unto spittle and Thou has likened the abundance of them to a drop in a bucket.’ [4 Ezra 5.23-7, 13.37. Also Assumption of Moses ( AD7-29) 10.7-10; Ap. Baruch 83.3,6,7; Jubilees 23.29.] [62]”.
21:27. “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth….”
Baptism was for washing from uncleanness….”‘Jacob said to his family and to all who were with him, Put away from you the strange gods, and be ye clean, and change your garments,’ &c. Genxxxv.2. What that word means, …and be ye clean, Aben Ezra does very well interpret to be…the washing of the body, or baptism.”….
“‘…Israel (saith Maimonides, the great interpreter of the Jewish law) was admitted into the covenant by three things,–namely, by circumcision, baptism, and sacrifice….Baptism was in the wilderness before the giving of the law; as it is said, ”Thou shalt sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their garments.” [2:54-5]
“…The baptism of proselytes was the bringing over of Gentiles into the Jewish religion; the baptism of John was the bringing over of Jews into another religion…” [2:63]