![]() If your view is that a Christian’s eternal destiny is simply to “go to heaven” when we die, you may feel that as long as you are born again or regenerated, you are basically waiting to go to heaven. The view you have between the heaven and the New Jerusalem can change your entire Christian life. It is the eternal, consummation of all God’s work in humanity throughout the ages, a mingling of God and man to be the mutual dwelling place for both God and all His redeemed people for eternity. 1:1) signifying, God’s spiritual, eternal building of divinity and humanity. However, the New Jerusalem is not a physical place “to which we go” but the greatest sign in the entire Bible (see Rev. 66:1), and the place where Christ ascended physically after His resurrection (Acts 1:9-11) is no doubt a physical place. ![]() Heaven, God’s dwelling (1 Kings 8:50), the place of His throne (Isa. This verse directly indicates a difference, for the New Jerusalem to come down out of heaven indicates that the two expressions are not synonymous. In Revelation 21:2 it says that the holy city, New Jerusalem is coming down out of heaven. It’s all about the same.” However, the opening verse I referenced points to a distinction. Well, someone may say, “Aren’t they one and the same-heaven and the New Jerusalem? I say heaven. However, Revelation 21:21, in speaking of the New Jerusalem, does say “ the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.” You can see from this illustration, the thought of heaven having golden streets, is just one example of the confusion of heaven and the New Jerusalem. In the many years since my childhood days of singing that song, I’ve never once read in the Bible where it says that heaven has golden streets. That is, that we’re going to heaven-“to that bright land where we’ll never grow old” and “walk those streets that are paved with gold.” However, in aspiring to heaven, the writer was, in referring to golden streets, addressing an attribute of the holy city, New Jerusalem. ![]() I may have gotten a few words wrong, but the gist of the song is pretty clear. In that bright land where we’ll never grow oldĪnd some day yonder, we’ll never more wander,īut walk those streets that are paved with gold.” “I’ve got a mansion just over the hill top When I was a child, I remember singing a song that says: Many people unintentionally, mistake the New Jerusalem for heaven. 21:2)įundamentally Different, Not Just a Matter of Semantics “And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. In today’s spiritual climate, there is much interest in heaven and the afterlife, and it’s so easy to hear a phrase like “New Jerusalem” and rush to the conclusion “New Jerusalem = Heaven.” Thomas Marvin sees each differently and clarifies that with this post originally titled Heaven or the New Jerusalem - Is There a Difference? While the blog The Pursuit of the Deeper Truth and Proper Christian Experience has a rather long title, and a bias toward the writings of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, here at Christianity 201, we’re an equal opportunity blog with a bias toward anything that gets us thinking and studying. However, I noticed this 2011 piece has had what is, for this site, a fair number of comments, including a recent question, and I thought we’d make an exception. ![]() Although some of the articles I have written here over the years get repeated occasionally, as a general rule, pieces written by third parties do not.
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