Jubilee Community Church
Wednesday Night

  • "No More Veil: The Marriage of Heaven and Earth"

    Revelation 21:1–22:5

    Introduction: Where We've Been

    Church, before we open the text tonight, I want us to take a step back and see the whole road we've walked together.
    We started this series in Revelation chapter 1, standing before the risen Christ — not the meek Lamb of the Gospels, but the glorified Judge, hair white as wool, eyes like flame, feet like burnished bronze, voice like rushing waters, a sword coming from His mouth. We established from the very first page: this book is not primarily about the future. It's about the authority of Jesus Christ, unveiled. Everything that followed — every seal, every trumpet, every bowl — has flowed from that one truth: the Lamb who was slain is worthy to open the scroll, and nothing happens in human history that is not under His hand.
    We walked through the seven seals — the opening of the scroll of God's sovereign plan, the four horsemen, the martyrs under the altar crying "how long, O Lord," the cosmic upheaval of the sixth seal, and the sealing of the redeemed before the seventh seal broke silence in heaven.
    We walked through the seven trumpets — God's warning judgments, mercy still extended even as wrath intensified, the world hardening rather than repenting, right up through the last trumpet announcing "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ."
    We walked through the seven bowls — the full and final outpouring of God's wrath, poured out without mixture of mercy, culminating in Babylon's fall and the marriage supper of the Lamb being announced.
    And two weeks ago, we stood with John and watched the King return — not on a donkey this time, but on a white horse, robe dipped in blood, the armies of heaven behind Him, the beast and false prophet cast into the lake of fire, Satan bound for a thousand years, the Millennial reign, the final rebellion crushed, and the Great White Throne — death and Hades themselves thrown into the lake of fire.
    Tonight, we come to the end. Or rather — we come to the beginning that never ends.
    Revelation 21 and 22 are not an appendix to the book. They are the destination the entire book has been driving toward since chapter 1. And I want to show you tonight that everything we've studied — the seals, the trumpets, the bowls, the judgment — all of it was clearing the way for this.

    I. The New Heaven and New Earth (21:1–8)

    Revelation 21:1 (ESV): "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more."
    The Greek word for "new" here is kainos — same word we talked about Sunday morning regarding the New Covenant. Not neos (new in time), but kainos (new in kind, renewed in quality). This isn't God discarding creation and starting over from nothing. This is creation renewed — redeemed the way your body will be redeemed, the way your soul already has been. Romans 8:19-22 told us creation itself has been groaning, waiting for this moment.
    "The sea was no more" — in Jewish apocalyptic thought, the sea consistently represents chaos, danger, the abode of the beast (remember Revelation 13:1 — the beast rises "out of the sea"). This isn't a comment on beach vacations. It's a statement that everything hostile, chaotic, and threatening to God's order is permanently gone.
    Verse 2: "And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband."
    Stop here. This is the image the whole series has been building toward. Do you remember chapter 19 — the marriage supper of the Lamb? This is the wedding itself, finally realized. The bride — God's redeemed people — is presented, and the city itself is described in bridal terms. Heaven isn't merely a place we go to. Heaven comes down. That's the pattern of the whole Bible — God has never been content to leave His people where they are. He comes down. Eden. The tabernacle. The incarnation. And now, finally and permanently — the New Jerusalem.
    Verse 3 — and this is the verse I want you to feel the full weight of: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.'"
    Church, do you recognize this? This is Jeremiah 31:33 — "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." This is Exodus 6:7. This is Leviticus 26:12. This is the covenant formula that has run like a golden thread from Genesis to Revelation — and here, in this verse, it finally reaches its unbroken, permanent, face-to-face fulfillment.
    Sunday morning we talked about the New Covenant being "already, not yet." This is the "not yet" becoming "now." Everything Jeremiah promised — everything Christ inaugurated at the Last Supper — reaches total completion here.
    Verse 4: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
    The Greek word for "wipe away" is exaleiphō — it means to wipe out completely, to obliterate, the same word used for blotting out a debt (Colossians 2:14). Your tears are not just dried. The very source of tears is erased from existence.
    Verses 5-8 — God Himself speaks for the first time directly in the narrative since chapter 1: "Behold, I am making all things new... It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." And then a sobering word — verse 8 lists those who are excluded: the cowardly, faithless, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, liars — "their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death."
    I don't skip that verse, and neither should you. The glory of chapters 21-22 is only good news because chapters 19-20 already happened. The wedding only means something because the enemy has been dealt with. Grace is only amazing because judgment is real.

    II. The New Jerusalem Described (21:9–27)

    An angel takes John "in the Spirit to a great, high mountain" and shows him the city descending — and what follows is one of the most detailed architectural descriptions in all of Scripture. I won't walk every measurement tonight, but let me highlight what matters theologically.
    Verse 12-14: Twelve gates named for the twelve tribes of Israel; twelve foundations named for the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Here's something worth pausing on, connecting back to what we discussed Sunday about Israel and the church: the eternal city honors both. This isn't the church replacing Israel or Israel excluding the church — this is the whole covenant family of God, Old and New, united in one city, one people, one Bridegroom.
    Verse 16: The city is a perfect cube — 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height (roughly 1,400 miles in each direction). Any student of Scripture should sit up at that shape. There is only one other cube-shaped space in the entire Bible: the Holy of Holies (1 Kings 6:20). The Most Holy Place, where God's manifest presence dwelt behind the veil, accessible only once a year, only by the high priest, only with blood — that shape has now become the dimensions of the entire city where God's people dwell.
    Do you see it? The Holy of Holies didn't just get bigger. It became everywhere. The whole city is now what the innermost sanctuary used to be.
    Verse 22: "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb."
    This is the climax of everything the veil represented. The temple — with its courts, its veil, its restricted access, its priesthood mediating between sinful people and holy God — is not present in the New Jerusalem, because its entire purpose has been fulfilled and is no longer needed. God Himself, and the Lamb, are now the temple. Unmediated. Unveiled. Direct.
    Verse 23-27: No sun or moon needed — "the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb." The nations walk by its light. The kings of the earth bring their glory into it. The gates are never shut — because there's no more night, and no more threat to guard against. But verse 27 reminds us: "nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life."

    III. The River, the Tree, and the Return to Eden (22:1–5)

    Revelation 22:1-2: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."
    Church, here's where I want you to feel the full sweep of the Bible in one breath. Go back with me — all the way back — to Genesis 2. A river flowed out of Eden. The tree of life stood in the garden. God walked with man in unbroken fellowship.
    Then Genesis 3 happened. Sin entered. Man was driven out. Genesis 3:24 — cherubim and a flaming sword were placed "to guard the way to the tree of life." Access denied. The way back to Eden, sealed.
    Every single thing since that moment — the sacrificial system, the tabernacle, the temple, the veil, the priesthood, the entire storyline of the Old Testament, the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the church age, the seals, the trumpets, the bowls, the return of the King, the Millennium, the final judgment — all of it has been God's plan to bring His people back to the tree of life.
    And here, in the very last chapter of the very last book, the tree of life reappears. The river flows again. And this time — no cherubim guarding the entrance. No flaming sword. No veil. The way back to Eden is finally, fully, permanently open.
    Verse 3: "No longer will there be anything accursed" — the Greek word is katathema, related to the curse of Genesis 3. The curse Adam brought is formally, finally lifted.
    Verse 4 — and I want to end here, because this is the verse that answers Jeremiah 31:34 completely: "They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads."
    They will see His face. Not through a veil. Not through a priest. Not through a mediator relaying the message. Face to face. Exodus 33:20 — God told Moses, "you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live." That was true under the Old Covenant. It is no longer true here. The thing that was once fatal to sinful man is now the eternal privilege of redeemed man — because we are no longer sinful, no longer veiled, no longer separated.

    Closing: The Whole Series in One Sentence

    If I had to compress this entire series — every seal, every trumpet, every bowl, every judgment, every act of God's wrath and God's mercy — into a single sentence, it would be this:
    God has been tearing down every veil that ever stood between Him and His people, and He will not stop until there is nothing left standing between His face and yours.
    The veil in the tabernacle. Torn at the cross (Matthew 27:51). The veil of sin. Removed at the new birth (2 Corinthians 3:16). The veil of the temple system. Rendered obsolete (Hebrews 8:13). The veil of this fallen creation itself. Removed here, in Revelation 21-22, permanently.
    That is why we called this series From Behind the Veil — because the whole book of Revelation is an unveiling (that's literally what apokalypsis means — Revelation 1:1, "the revelation of Jesus Christ"). John pulled back the curtain on history's future, on heaven's throne room, on the authority of Christ over every seal, trumpet, and bowl. And where it all ends is not fire and judgment — though that is real, and we do not soften it — it ends in a wedding, a city, a river, a tree, and a face.
    Revelation 22:20-21: "He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen."
    That's how the whole Bible ends. Not with a threat. With an invitation, and a prayer: Come, Lord Jesus.
Jubilee Community Church
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