The Christ in Prophecy Journal

The Mighty Angels of Revelation 21 and the Rainbow Road

MP3: The Mighty Angels of Revelation 21 Continued
Hosts: Nathan Jones & Vic Batista

The Rainbow Road

Nathan Jones: Jewels like diamonds, rubies, and sapphires — because they’re so ultra-rare — make them so valuable. But, in Heaven, gold and jewels are worth nothing. They’re pavement! The streets of Heaven are literally paved in gold.

Revelation 21:22-23 state,“But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light.”

My kids once asked, “If God is the source of light for the New Jerusalem, then how does the other side of the earth get it’s light?” True, God is the source of light and the glory of the city. A city that is made out of jewels could have the light of God emanate through it. Gold in its absolutely purest state is actually clear. So, since the streets are made of pure gold, then the light of God shines through the streets and walls. But, for the other side of the planet, the lesser light — the sun — remains.

The closest imagery that I can come up with for describing golden roads and jeweled walls is from the Thor movies. Or, imagine the rainbow road from the Mario Kart games. I wonder if whoever designed the concepts and the computer animation for Asgard from the Thor movies read Revelation 21 first. As I watched those two Thor movies I was struck by how Asgard must be the closest one can get in man’s imagination of what Heaven must look like. Asgard was animated as a city of gold with jewels everywhere and the streets like rainbow roads. The animators made a city beautiful beyond comparison, but likely so pale compared to what the real New Jerusalem will actually look like.

Vic Batista: So many have tried to create as best as they could some semblance of what God has in store, but like the Bible says, who knows the mind of Christ? The New Jerusalem will look so incredible I think I am just going to walk around it for the first 2,000 years with my mouth open going, “Wow!”

Nathan Jones: Agreed, I don’t think that we are ever going to get bored of living there.

The Pearly Gates

Nathan Jones: Revelation 21:12-13 describes New Jerusalem’s gates:

“Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates, and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west.”

The fact that the New Jerusalem contains twelve gates indicates that we who are the residents of that eternal city won’t just be living trapped within its massive walls. The New Jerusalem will be the capital city of the universe, but the people can come and go in order to travel throughout the universe.

#NewJerusalem will be the capital city, but people can travel throughout the #universe. Click To Tweet

I love that the Apostle John goes out of his way to describe the 12 gates as each individual gate is made of one pearl. That description is where our culture gets the idea that Heaven’s entrance is a pearly gate, and that’s where you always hear that Peter stands outside with a book and tests people before he’ll let them in. But, we are not talking about gates made out of pearls, but the text is describing how each of the 12 gates is made up of one pearl. Just how big is that pearl? Some of heaven’s angels are massive, as Revelation has described throughout. These are big guys needing huge gates. So, if each gate is made up of one pearl, what is the size of the oyster that made that pearl?

Vic Batista: Something that awesome God likely created with His own hands, rather than using a huge oyster, I’d wager.

Nathan Jones: I’m still thinking oyster. God must have used some incredibly massive oysters when creating those gates.

Besides the brilliance of the pearly gates, the streets of the New Jerusalem will be built out of pure gold as transparent as glass. Think about how we horde money all of our lives here on earth. Even the riches man — Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia — is worth $78 billion. Putin may be the richest man on the planet, but what is $78 billion when you are living in a city made out of the most precious stones that ever existed? The entire 1,500 mile cubed city is made out of gold, precious stones, and pearls!

In the seventy-fifth segment of our series “The Mighty Angels of Revelation,” we’ll discover the truth about what makes the New Jerusalem really our eternal home.

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Dr. Nathan E. Jones

As the Internet Evangelist at Lamb & Lion Ministries, Nathan reaches out to the over 4.5 billion people accessible over the Internet with the Good News of Jesus Christ. He also co-hosts the ministry's television program Christ in Prophecy and podcast The Truth Will Set You Free.

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