JY: Welcome to Gear Talk, a podcast on biblical theology. Today, Jason and Tom continue our series on major characters in the book of Revelation. Today, we’re focusing for the second week on Babylon and New Jerusalem. Last week, we considered these cities from the Old Testament. Today, Jason and Tom focus on New Testament passages describing these cities. What do they have to do with believers today?

TK: OK, Jason, we are back for Part 2 of talking about two cities, Babylon and New Jerusalem. Where do you want to start today?

JD: I want to start back at Zephaniah 3:9 in the launching place that we laid out and get us into the book of Acts. So Zephaniah 3:9, in the context of Day of the Lord judgement and the fires of God coming down as if the enemies are a sacrificial—are a sacrifice, we read, “At that time, I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshippers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering.” I noted in our last podcast how the feature of changed speech, calling on Yahweh’s name, and the worshippers being tagged the dispersed or scattered ones—all of that is an illusion directly to the Tower of Babel. And what Zephaniah is envisioning is that at the day of the Lord’s coming there’s going to be a reversal of Babel. Speech will be changed, people will call on Yahweh’s name and those who were once dispersed, scattered around the world, will now be brought back in to Yahweh as worshippers.

And many scholars have—in reflecting on the book of Acts, the earliest chapters at Pentecost—noted that in Acts 2, where Peter himself in his—well, in Luke’s recounting of this early experience of the church—he cites Joel chapter 2, which is a latter day’s prophecy about the Day of the Lord, and which includes this phrase, “Those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32). But what’s not present in Joel 2 is any mention of tongues. We get both calling on the name of the Lord, the transformation of tongues, and this element of those who are far being brought in; all of that shows up in Zephaniah chapter 3. And so Pentecost is being portrayed as an initial reversal of the Tower of Babel. And so with that, you have this global Babylonian exile where Babylonian influence has infected and affected everyone in the world, and they’ve been scattered by the judgment of God, taking all of that wickedness to the ends of the Earth. But now because of languages making it very difficult for that, for a unity of violence against God they—it’s difficult without language that is the same to see this unified affront against God and his ways. And God did that so that there would be a gracious context, a context where the gospel could run because the gospel can trump languages. But in this context of Pentecost, we have tongues being transformed and proclaiming the good news. People calling on the name and explicitly Luke tells us that there were peoples, multitudes indeed, that were coming from all the nations of the earth.

TK: Yeah, I’m looking at Acts 2:9 and he goes through a whole list there.

JD: A whole list where you have Jews coming from the dispersion, all being gathered, and now they’re hearing these transformed tongues and all these tongues calling in the Name, and their lives are being changed. The missing element in this list that would have been present in Old Testament lists of nations is the lack of Cush, or what in Greek is Ethiopia. And I think Luke very intentionally holds off in noting that there were—he doesn’t mention any Jews from Ethiopia, because he wants to say the Ethiopians, specifically non-Jewish Ethiopians, he wants to save the mention of that four Acts 8 and the Ethiopian eunuch, because that specifically, explicitly was the people group that Zephaniah had used as his only example: in the region of Cush, in the region of the rivers of Cush, the dispersed will gather. And that was one of the terminus spots for the rivers—one of the four rivers flowing out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 2. God had always intended to bring his waters of life to Africa, and I think that Zephaniah chooses that particular people group because he himself was likely Ethiopian. His father’s name was Cushi. Cush means black. It’s black Africa, and he probably has relatives that are not only Jewish and royal, but also Ethiopian. And he’s celebrating the work of God among his Ethiopian heritage, this black African heritage, and Luke wants to draw attention by saying that the Ethiopian eunuch was the very first Gentile who was saved in fulfillment of Zephaniah’s prophecy. But the point for this podcast is that it marks—what happens in Acts 2 and what happens in Acts —marks the reversal of Babel. It’s taking place within this world of judgment, within this world just cursed. We could say it’s in the world of Babylon, and yet there are individuals who are being captured out of the slavery and the bondage to the evil one. They’re being brought from darkness to light, and Luke portrays that movement as a reversal of the Babylon or Babylonian judgment in Genesis chapter 11. So what you have now are a group of sojourners, exiles, whose identity is with Jesus whose citizenship…

TK: Fair to say, former Babylonians, correct?

JD: Former Babylonians—yep we could call them that former Babylonians, who have now gained new birth certificates, as we saw in Psalm 87, new birth certificates with—and yet they’re living still in the region of darkness. But they are beacons of light, like cities set on a hill, all of them testifying to the heavenly glories associated with the heavenly Jerusalem, and with God’s throne.

So we come now to a text like 1 Peter 2:9, it says, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” Four different phrases, all in the old covenant associated with Israel. And now a new Israel has been birthed, called the church. And he says, all of you, this new nation of God are designed to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Then he says these words in verses 11 and 12, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.” That day of visitation is what Revelation anticipates when Christ will return. What’s intriguing is that he calls these Christians, or he contrasts these Christians with the conduct of the Gentiles.

TK: Yeah. So he’s not treating them as if they are Gentile. You’re something else.

JD: That’s right. He’s given—he recognizes that as Christians, they have gained a new identity. They have moved from, in his words, darkness to light they. They are no longer to follow the passions of the flesh which waged war against their soul when they were Gentiles. But now—I mean many of them still have they—their blood hasn’t changed as it were, and yet they have new citizenship and they have a new identity. They’re not counted as who they once were. Similarly, Paul in Philippians can say our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20). But it’s into this context that Peter, just continuing in 1 Peter chapter 5 is able to say, “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings” (1 Pet 5:13). So he’s writing to a church, and he’s speaking about a church, another church, most likely a church in Rome, and he calls this Roman city Babylon.

TK: So hang on, let me stop you right there for a second. He said she who is at Babylon. So a reader could think. Oh, you’re talking about an individual woman, but you just said it’s a church. So how did how did you get there?

JD: So he calls this woman, as it were, who is likewise chosen—so in first Peter 2:9 he had said, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” And it seems to me most likely that Peter is now writing even as a representative of another local church to a body in Asia Minor and wanting to encourage the saints there.

TK: I think 2 John is doing the same thing when it says the elder to the elect lady and her children—that idea of being able to call, then, the church like a woman.

JD: A woman, and here that woman associated with what seems to me to be a spiritualized use of Babylon. So he’s using this language, and I think it’s a stepping stone then for how John in the book of Revelation uses this language of Babylon pervasively as a—it’s certainly in John’s day it was one location, but it has a long history, as we’ve covered in in our previous podcast, this history reaching through Israel’s Babylonian exile all the way back to the Tower of Babel, the Tower of Babylon. It’s an image of pride, an image of self-reliance over God-dependence, and therefore it’s anti-God and anti-Christ, and Peter uses the language of Gentiles as this is the context we’re in, but you’re not one of them. And he uses the language of Babylon to recall, we are living in a place that is hostile to God and yet we are, in his words, soldiers and exiles. As Paul says, our citizenship is not here on earth, our citizenship is in heaven. And as we move into the book of Revelation, John is wanting—he’s using this framework and he’s building it out so that now there are only two major cities within the spiritual realm: the city of Babylon and the city, Jerusalem. And as you said, last podcast, the call of Revelation is that the reader must decide which city they will be associated with and to maintain—if you choose the city Jerusalem, then be courageous and persevere because one day you will return home and you will claim all that has been purchased for you.

TK: We need to—a benefit of reading a book like Revelation is getting to watch the destiny of Babylon, in this case, played out for you. So that you get to watch it and hopefully, we mentioned it yesterday, but John said this book is intended not just to hear it, but to keep it, to obey it. That what you hear, what John is showing to you—you will do something with it and the thing he’s wanting you to do is first of all, if you’ve been walking in sin to repent, repentance is a major theme in Revelation. But that thought of repent and fall in love with New Jerusalem, your true mother—if you’re a believer—and all she stands for. So don’t cave in. There’s something I think really significant about the way that Babylon is talked about, and that the saints are warned here, “Blessed are those who keep their clothes on” (Rev 16:15). Like in the midst of all this, there’s a thinking, this will be a grievous trial for you to live in Babylon. Blessed are you, if you stay awake. Watch where you’re living. You mentioned it the first time, Babylon is specifically referenced in Revelation 14:8, and it says, “Another Angel a second followed saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great.” But based on what you’re saying, is no the spiritual Babylon was all throughout the book, it’s just assumed up till this point, correct?

JD: That’s right. It’s the context in which this unholy trinity is operating on earth. And I think that as we move into Revelation 17, especially 17 and 18, we see that Babylon has been the context in which the Dragon, the beast, and the false prophet have been operating. Babylon is the culture and it so quickly follows the loudest and where the majority is going, where the deception lies, it just naturally rides its way on that pattern of evil. And yet, as the book is going to describe, the very powers that have utilized Babylon will destroy Babylon.

TK: Well, if we started in—I think we could start in—17 is we have this statement and it says, “Then one of the seven Angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute, who is seated on many waters’” (Rev 17:1). I think that that statement, even many waters, is intended to keep—it’s supposed to say all over the place—keep me from thinking, Oh, I’m looking for the one city on earth this represents at different times. People have said, I wonder if that’s New York or such and such a place or such and such a place. And I think the idea is no, Babylon, like you said, represents the world and it’s—there’s two cities that Revelation is presenting.

JD: Verse 15 makes that explicit. “The Angel said to me the waters that you saw where the prostitute is seated are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.” That’s the same type of language that’s associated with the great redemption, where some from every tongue and tribe and people and nation are gathered in, redeemed from these very contexts. So the prostitute this—who’s going to be named Babylon in just a few verses—she is making her abode, she’s flourishing. This culture is just pervasive. Not in one place, but around the whole world, infecting, affecting all people’s languages, nations.

TK: And the idea of prostitute is sexual immorality, is just a theme in Revelation, and the idea is relations, that the proper relations people have with God, and that Babylon is willing to have relations with idols is the picture—certainly shows up in sexual immorality. But that picture of them, the church being virgins, makes sense is these are people who will not worship other gods, but have held themselves aside and said no, I will worship God alone.

JD: And your language there, it comes out of Chapter 14, and it really is striking knowing that the apostles themselves recognized how deeply sinful they were and how much they had been redeemed from. And yet Paul can say, “Such were some of you, but you’ve been washed, you’ve been sanctified, you’ve been justified in the name of the Lord” (1 Cor 6:11). So that those who were once identified as dirty and filthy and unclean, the sexually immoral, the idolaters, those without courage—all who would have been thrown into the lake of fire—now gain new identities such that they can be portrayed within this book—those whose citizenship is in heaven are like pure virgins, completely clean, bathed in the blood of the Lamb and as if their past has no more direct bearing on their future. Because what Jesus did decisively through his death and his burial and his resurrection, culminating in his sitting at the right hand of the Father—what he has done in that work has transformed, has really made new creations and that new creation has dawned in the lives of these saints who are living as sojourners and exiles.

So it— I say this only because, “We all were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). All of that is in how Paul speaks to Titus. All of us were there, and yet, “When the goodness and the loving kindness of God our savior appeared, he saved us, this not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4–7). That is the gospel and so, our listeners should not grow discouraged if they say, oh, the remnant in here is pure. If you believe in Jesus, if you are trusting in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of your sins and the fulfillment of all of his promises if you have renounced Satan and all of his works and all of his ways, and if you are committing with God’s help to follow Jesus and to obey his teaching, you are among those that this book portrays as purified virgins honoring God, following God. And it’s so hopeful.

TK: That makes total sense of saying these are people of pure speech, Jesus said from the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks, that pure speech would come from a transformed person. So, these are transformed people and then the opposite, Babylon, like we’ve been talking about, is people who can be described as prostitutes. They’ve sold out to something else. It’s interesting, start of 17 and we get to a portrait of the woman is riding on the beast. And so you can have a thought of this seems like a safe spot to be, because Satan, this unholy trinity of Satan and his two beasts—how can I survive in this dangerous world? Well, I could join the Babylon system because at least as she’s portrayed here, she seems like she’s in control. What do you think about that?

JD: It looks like she’s in control and she has associated with her all kinds of things of this world that are so attractive. “The woman was arrayed—she’s arrayed—in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup”—but that cup is “full of abominations, and the impurities of her sexual immorality” (Rev 17:4). It’s intriguing, too, that John says the Spirit caught me up and took me into the wilderness (Rev 17:3). That’s where Jesus was tempted. It’s where Israel was judged. It’s not the promised land, it’s not home, and it’s there that he saw the woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, with its seven heads and ten horns. Written on that, on this prostitute’s head was Babylon the great mother of prostitutes and of all the earth’s abominations (Rev 17:5). She’s being elevated as, yeah, I want to be around her. She seems in control and she has power and she’s able to move and act. And she has stuff that looks so desirable and it’s all of what makes idolatry so attractive. And yet she dwells in the wilderness. It’s not where we want to be.

TK: Jason, this sort of language, Babylon, the great mother of prostitutes, cities are portrayed as mothers in—and so the if you’re like the children of the mother is that talking about the citizens? So can we describe the citizens of Babylon as prostitutes? Is that what this is saying?

JD: It’s either the citizens or people groups and it’s—but what you have are just as the Lamb and the heavenly Jerusalem have offspring, this prostitutionary mother has offspring, and in that sense they’re illegitimate children. She has united herself with the beast and his powers and generation after generation after generation is being produced that is anti-God, anti-Christ. I think about 1 John 2 I believe it’s 18 where John says, “We know that it’s the last hour because you’ve heard that the Antichrist is coming, and indeed many antichrists have come already among us. Therefore, we know it is the last hour.” That language of the last hour is straight out of the Greek translation of the book of Daniel, where all the phrases about the end times, the latter days, the end are rendered with this term hour. It’s the last hour, not the last minute. But already 2000 years ago, the spirit of the Antichrist in persecution and false teaching was already alive and well. In John’s day, it is pervasive and it’s covered the globe. In his day it’s associated with the Roman Empire, but it’s not limited to the Roman Empire. From generation to generation, Babylon takes new names, but it’s the same pervasive cultural influence being controlled by the beast, who himself is guided by the Dragon. And even in cultures today, Babylon can take different forms. The beast can show its face through Babylon in various ways. You’ve had some good examples of that in your own ministry.

TK: I was just going to say you can read these things in Revelation and think, wow, I will—wherever that’s practiced, I would recognize that right away, and it’s easier to see it when you go into another culture because you’re seeing a system that’s foreign to your own and you can recognize, wow, this is oppressive—the pressure of this. So, Revelation talks about people not being able to buy or sell, and certainly people in America are feeling that now. But believers around the world have felt that for so long and just pick your context, your religion. Islam would be a good example where believers, if they would just not profess the name of Jesus, they would be free to buy and sell, and in that sense move about the city but choosing to not do that. You are saying right, then I operate under a different city, a different city is my mother. And because of that people will say well, you can’t buy or sell. You can’t work here. And we are feeling that the sexual revolution has that’s been a flavor of it here in America, the beastly flavor of if you bow the knee, if you say if you speak the way we tell you to speak, you can keep your job, you can buy, you can sell, you can go about your business.

And I would just say a commonality—it was true in the first century as well—is people weighing out Babylon in the same way, Jesus would have heard Satan’s temptation to him in the wilderness, weighing out what’s being offered and saying I’m taking that deal. I’m choosing that because I want to preserve being able to buy to sell, to move around the city. Rather than saying no, Babylon’s not safe. And it’s false. I’m not getting riches here. I’m not getting security. She rides on a beast and the end of Revelation 17 says this, that the beast—actually it’s verse 16—it says, “And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked and devour her flesh, and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their heart to carry out his purposes.” That thought of I’m going to choose Babylon, maybe a believer in an Islamic country saying family, we are just going to say these things so that we can buy and sell and go about our business. It’ll be safe. It will—a believer in the first century saying I’m just going to say Caesar is Lord because then I can just operate and nobody else believes it anyways, but it will allow me to be safe. But the picture in Revelation is no, it’s not safe. And it’s not like this woman is in control of this beastly power. The Beast hates her, just like Satan hates everything and will destroy. So, if I’m weighing it out and saying in here, in in particularly in Western nations right now, I’m going to choose the safe route and bow to this sexual revolution. Take that safe road thinking that will preserve my life. It might preserve it for a little bit. You might keep your job for a little bit, but don’t think that’s where your security comes from. Eventually Babylon will come down and the very system she’s—the very beast she’s thinking she’s riding is turning on her.

JD: I think of it was only decades ago that we saw the rise of egalitarian Feminism. Now we’re in a new culture where being a feminist is not left enough. Indeed, we have this transgender revolution that is destroying Feminism. You can’t say women should be equal to men in all things and yet deny the very reality of womanhood. And where you have this beast, as it were, destroying the culture that it once flourished in. And the only true hope is to align your worldview with God himself, who’s orchestrating all things, who’s on the throne, and who will bring an end not only to Babylon, this economic social political system, the air that so many of us breathe—we need to recognize this is unhealthy air and he will put an end to it and he will, with that, overcome all the powers that have been guiding it. Babylon rides the beast. The Beast is ultimately in control and moving Babylon where he will, moving the culture where he will. And yet the day is coming, when God will overcome the dragon, the beast and the false prophet in chapter 18.

TK: So, oh, just going to say—so it’s not surprising though, in a in a different region of the world, you will find a different version of the exact same story. Whether it’s radical Hinduism in a certain place or whatever the Islam, sexual revolution, it’s that that idea of a prostitution, the way Revelation is talking about, can take many different forms. But never safe.

JD: Never safe. I think of my trip this summer going into the mountains of Colorado, into the heart of Breckenridge during Pride Month and we had to decide, are we going to shop at the 75% of the stores in the town that had pride flags waving or not? Will we buy? Will we sell? I think about in Ethiopia taking a very different worldview where you will rarely, if ever, find Ethiopians who are atheists. Instead, they all believe in the spiritual realm, and one of the problems is that Protestant Christianity often has this infiltration of tribal religions, fear of spirits, worship of ancestors that are holdovers from this pagan world, and we don’t see that in our majority Western culture. It’s that the beast is working in fresh ways depending on where he is in the world and how he’s operating through different cultures, and yet all of it is the Babylonian delusion, and it will ultimately all be brought down.

TK: I think a commonality to all of it, which gets pictured in all of it, is there is a temporary security and social benefit to identifying with Babylon no matter where you are. That’d be a marker of it—if this feels this is the easier temporary version. So, you were in 18:2?

JD: Yes, “Fallen, Babylon the great has fallen. She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast. For all nations have drunk the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. The kings of the earth have committed immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living”—yet the declaration is fallen. Verse 10, “You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.” God has brought the judgment that we hope for, and we need to declare it is coming, don’t associate with the evil. Set yourself apart like light in darkness. Like oil and water, be different. Don’t allow yourself to meld, because in the end, God will indeed work—he will bring the evil down. And this this city, which finds its end, stands in great contrast to the heavenly city. And I think it would be it—you can add any final comments you want to about Babylon. But it would be good to end this podcast just elevating and focusing on this heavenly city, Jerusalem, and how the book elevates her.

TK: I love the picture here because the angel comes in Revelation 21:9. He says, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And there’s a word missing in this that was in chapter 17 when he said, “Come, I will show you,” because he said, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute.” Keeping that in mind—there are two cities, but one city will be judged, and the other one is the pure bride of the Lamb. Both cities are associated with riches. One now in this age, which you can never firmly hold with your hand, they are passing away and you will constantly need because that beast that the woman is riding on hates her and will devour her. So just will not last. And the other city described very similarly. except it’s the glory of God. And these are lasting—the pictures here are lasting pictures, and they’re supposed to be of such magnificence that you look at Babylon and say, why would I choose that? Why would I sell out for that?

So we get a picture of, for instance, a gate is a pearl, that sort of thing. And instead of saying something as a reader, like can a pearl really be that big? To think this, we are supposed to as readers/listeners be valuing something and choosing something and saying, a wise person would choose this direction. A wise person wouldn’t sell out. A wise person would fall in love with this city, where the things are good and they are lasting, but they are forever. For me, the stunning thing is the cities are both being portrayed as wealthy. The cities are both being portrayed as of desire, and there are people who are going to choose both. So, I have to—as a person reading Revelation, a keyword that you see more in Revelation than any other New Testament book is the word repent. I need to turn for my sin and say, Lord Jesus, I need you. I do not—I know what my background is, but I do not want to be identified with Babylon. I love the place where you are, and that’s where that’s where I want to be.

JD: So you’ve pointed to it a number of times. Revelation 21:9, right after stressing how the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, all liars will have their portion in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death, we read that the angel—one of the angels came forth saying, “Come I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.” So he says, show me the bride—I will show you the bride. And he carried me and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem, “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great high wall with twelve gates and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel—on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev 21:9–14).

I’ll just pause here and say the city is built on the foundation—on twelve foundations on which are the names of the twelve apostles. So, this reminds me of Ephesians 2:20, where the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Jesus Christ as the cornerstone. This whole city finds its structure, its strength in the fact that it’s built on the twelve apostles. So, this city that has twelve gates and on those twelve gates, the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. I think it’s implying that this is a transformed Israel that that is built upon the work of the apostles. Like Peter, who’s able to say, don’t be like the Gentiles. No, you’re not a Gentile anymore. You’ve gained a new identity. You are the chosen race, the holy nation. The church is the—is being portrayed, it seems to me in this chapter, as the New Israel, built upon the foundation. This is the city. We are members of the bride. And a beautiful element is what happens next. “The one who spoke with me.”

TK: Just hang on one second. Just want to make a thought about the foundation of the twelve apostles. That can seem somewhat nebulous, like OK, so Peter or Matthew, they’re a foundation, I don’t know what to do with that. They are the ones who give us the teaching of Christ. They’re the ones his words come from, so this city is associated with those who will identify with the apostles and what they’ve said. And say, Yep, I affirm that, I accept that I’m with them versus just saying, oh, well, and what do I think of Matthew or what do I think of these different apostles? It’s that Jesus entrusted—he said, I’m building my people through these guys here and I’m saying, yep, I affirm what they’ve said. And the reason I’m saying that is sometimes you’ll get people who say things like, well Jesus himself never said this. Maybe about a particular sexual sin or something like that, but say no, it’s—if the apostles said it that is the foundation the city is built upon. We have the testimony of the prophets and the Old Testament, the apostles and the New Testament, and this entire city celebrates that.

JD: That’s absolutely right. Jesus told his apostles before he left. I am leaving, but I will send you a helper who will remind you of all that I have taught. And it’s that recollection that we find now in the New Testament documents. It is the Gospels and Acts, the Epistles and Revelation that clarify, indeed develop, unpack for us as the church all that Jesus taught. Jesus didn’t just teach what’s recorded in the Gospels, he has taught and continues to teach through all of the apostolic writings. We don’t just—I mean the red-letter edition is, I think, unhelpful because it elevates Jesus’s word as potentially more authoritative, more true, more right for the church than everything else. And yet all of it is Jesus’s words through his apostles, and it truly is what is to guide all of who we are. It is the lens. It’s even the lens through which we approach the Old Testament scriptures. It is our under—it’s the clarification about what it means to be a Christian and to read our Christian Bible faithfully.

TK: And something beautiful about this city is that the entire city recognizes that is our foundation. We’re agreed upon that.

JD: And at the center of its reality is the throne of God and the Lamb. The city it portrays is the same length and width and height. It’s a perfect cube, with an illusion back to the Holy of Holies, which is the only other cube mentioned in Scripture. But now there’s not the distinction between the Holy of Holies and the holy Place and a holy place. There isn’t—the reason there’s no temple is because everything has become the most holy place where the very presence of God is. Last podcast we talked about how all of Jerusalem would be the throne. People wouldn’t remember the ark of the covenant anymore because all of Jerusalem will have become the ark, and that’s what’s being portrayed here—the presence of God is among his people. This city has won. This city comes down, and it indeed is the dwelling place for all who are in Christ. It is absolutely secure, with strong fortified walls. Its gates are open, just giving the image of, do you want to come? You’re welcome to come if you will but surrender and hope in the great King, the Lamb. So, we’ve, we’ve contrasted these cities and our prayer for you, the listener, is that you will recognize a citizenship that is not of this world, a citizenship that is in heaven. That it would influence how you live among the Gentiles now, that they might see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven, even as you wait for the appearing of the glory of our great God and savior, Jesus Christ, when that city will indeed be realized completely.

TK: Amen. As you were talking, Jason, I just looked down. Revelation 22:4—it says, “They will see his face; his name will be on their foreheads.” Something that you see throughout Revelation is talking about people being marked either on their hands or their foreheads. And that can get played out a lot about people taking a mark of the beast. But the idea is God’s people are also marked. It’s a symbol of who owns you, where your mind, your thought, your heart goes. And may we be people, that somebody be able to look at you and say that that one’s owned by the Lord. That one’s a citizen of a different place. All right, Jason, look forward to next time and like you’ve prayed, may we prove faithful and also love people that God is calling. And proclaim that message.

JY: Thank you for joining us for Gear Talk. Make sure you visit our show notes for a link to our preacher’s guide to the book of Revelation. We’ve also included a link so you can sign up for our newsletter. We’ll see you next week.