Read & Reflect

REVELATION 21:1-4

• Note the promises in this passage.  Which of them give you most hope or comfort?

REVELATION 21:5

• For the first time, the “he who was seated on the throne” speaks directly.  Reflect on the scope of what he says.

“As verse 16 makes clear, the city is not only vast in terms of its footprint–fifteen hundred miles each way. It is also fifteen hundred miles high. John, of course, has no thought of what kind of buildings would occupy this extraordinary structure; he is constructing a symbolic universe, not an architect’s design. The city will be an enormous, perfect cube . . . because that is the shape of the holy of holies at the heart of the ancient temple in Jerusalem, the place where God’s presence is most palpably found (1 Kings 6:20).” [1]

REVELATION 21:3,22

• Throughout the Old Testament, God’s presence amongst his people was mediated through the priest—going into the Holy of Holies of the temple once a year (cf. Hebrews 9). According to this chapter, how will we relate to God in heaven?
• Reflect on the above truth in light of the following passage:

1 Corinthians 13:12–13 (ESV)

¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

[1] Revelation (N.T. Wright for Everyone Bible Study Guides), N.T. Wright and Kristie Berglund.