The “New Jerusalem”

6. (a) What is the “New Jerusalem,” as described in Revelation? (b) Why should the “great crowd” be deeply interested in this “Jerusalem”?

⁶ What, then, of “the new Jerusalem,” first mentioned at Revelation 3:12? Here the glorified Jesus says of ‘the one who conquers’: “I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, . . . and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which descends out of heaven from my God.” Later, at Revelation 21:1, 2 and 10, John locates these conquerors in “a new heaven” and describes their composite group as “the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” Christ the bridegroom.

7. How does the “New Jerusalem” differ from the “heavenly Jerusalem”?

⁷ However, there is a slight difference between the “New Jerusalem” described in Revelation and the “heavenly Jerusalem” of the book of Hebrews in that the “New Jerusalem” is made up of the 144,000 who are betrothed to the bridegroom, whereas the “heavenly Jerusalem” comprises 144,001, this “one” being the bridegroom King.