Revelations 20 and 21

Revelation 21

John sees the New Jerusalem, which is the City of Enoch, come down from Heaven and be established on earth. He compares it to jewels and other precious things in his attempt to describe it. One thing that is impressive is the size of the city. Each side is 1400 miles long, or the distance from Salt Lake to Minneapolis, and is 1400 miles high. The Savior will govern the city and visit it from time to time. The earth will be changed from a telestial state to a terrestial one. Parley P. Pratt said we can expect this world to be material with trees, rivers, vegetation, animals, temples, and food (I like that one), as well families who will eat, drink, play, and worship with. We will enjoy neighborhoods, cities and towns.

God the Father and his Son occupy the eternal throne and their love proceeds from it to the people. All of the posterity of Adam and Eve will partake of the fruit of the tree of life and enjoy wonderful promised blessings that are so worth working for. John says that God himself shall be with them and be their God. He will “wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Revelation 22

John’s writings, including Revelation, all have the underlying theme of love, the need for us to love each other and the love that Father and Son have for us. This is sometimes lost to some because of the actions of family and church members. But John teaches that while the love of people can fall short, God’s love never falters or fails.

Verses 18 and 19 are sometimes used by other religions to prove that there can be no additional scripture added to the Bible. They use the words “If any man shall add unto these things” and “if any man shall take away from the words of the book.” But in each of the verses it says “the prophecies of this book,” meaning the Book of Revelation. If it had meant the Bible, we would have to do away with the John’s gospel and 1st, 2nd and 3rd John which were written after Revelation. The Lord says the same thing in Deuteronomy 4:2. If what it says in Deuteronomy applied to more than just that book, all scripture after it would have to be done away with.

The Book of Revelation is both perplexing and wonderful. While some verses in the Book of Revelation are difficult to understand and some we do not know the meaning of, it still has much that can be understood and contains things that are not found anywhere else in scripture. A careful reading will reveal much that will increase our faith and understanding as well as our hope for many wonderful things that are yet to come. All other prophets who were given a vision of these things were commanded not to write about what they had seen. But the Lord gave specific instructions to John to share his vision with the saints. John’s challenge was to put into words the things that he saw. The difficulty is in describing heavenly things for which there are no earthly words.