Revelation 21

3. The saints at death shall not only have a sight of God, but shall enjoy the love of God; there shall be no more veil on God's face, nor his smiles checkered with frowns, but God's love shall discover itself in all its radiant beauty and fragrant sweetness. Here the saints pra…

Lumen actuat colores: Light adorns and gilds the world: What were the world without light, but a prison? The heavenly inheritance is irradiated with light: Christ as a continual sun enlightens it with his beams (Revelation 21:23). 2. To an inheritance incorruptible: It does not…

The wicked stumble at a Savior, and suck death from the tree of life. 4. Without being new creatures, we cannot arrive at heaven (Revelation 21:27). There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defiles.

The kingdom God gives his adopted sons and heirs excels all earthly monarchies: 1. In riches (Revelation 21:21): the gates of pearl, and the streets of pure gold, and as it were transparent glass. 2. In tranquility; it is peaceable, the white lily of peace is the best flower of…

If a physician could give you a prescription to keep you from dying, what sums of money would you give? At the Resurrection Christ will give the saints such a prescription (Revelation 21:4). There shall be no more death.

A father may be fallen to decay, and have nothing to leave his son but his blessing; but God will settle an inheritance on his children, and an inheritance no less than a kingdom; (Luke 17:32) It is your Father's good pleasure to give you a kingdom. This kingdom is more glorious…

On the Sabbath we are doing angels' work, our tongues are tuned to God's praises. This Sabbath on earth is a shadow and type of that glorious rest and eternal Sabbath we hope for in heaven, when God shall be the temple, and the Lamb shall be the light of it (Revelation 21:22-23).

Heaven is the extract and quintessence of happiness. It is called a kingdom (Matthew 25:34) — a kingdom for its riches and magnificence: it is set out by precious stones, gates of pearl (Revelation 21). There is all that is truly glorious, transparent light, perfect love, unstai…

If a Cardinal put his red hat upon the head of a murderer going to execution, he is saved from death. But let all impenitent murderers read their doom (Revelation 21:8). Murderers shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: this is the second death.

The painter going to draw the picture of Helena, as not being able to draw her beauty to the life, drew her face covered with a veil. So when we speak of the kingdom of heaven, we must draw a veil, we cannot set it forth in all its brilliant beauty and magnificence; gold and pea…

(1.) A stately palace. 1. It is large and has several stories; for the dimensions of it, it is twelve thousand furlongs (Revelation 21:15), or as it is in some Greek copies, twelve times twelve thousand furlongs, a finite number put for an infinite; no arithmetician can number t…

What glory can God have by a proud, ignorant, profane heart? 3. If God should pardon and not sanctify, then that should enter into heaven that defiles, but (Revelation 21:27): "Nothing shall enter that defiles." Then God should settle the inheritance upon men before they are fit…

Moses slighted the honors of Pharaoh's Court, having an eye to the recompense of reward (Hebrews 11:26). Saint Paul who had a vision of glory, and Saint John who was carried away in the Spirit, and saw the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven, having the glory of God in it (R…

2. Everlasting and eternal. First, the state of the Elect in heaven, and their glory there, is not subject to corruption, or the least alteration; as appears in that notable and lofty description of the heavenly Jerusalem, Apocalypse 21:14, and from the 10th verse, to the 21st:…

Surely, we must follow Moses, and labor to see him that is invisible, by faith. This will make us courageous, and without fear in Gods cause; remembering this also, that among those which are reckoned to go down to hell, the fearful man is one, (Revelation 21.8) who dares not st…

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Revelation 21:6. I will give to him which is athirst, of the well of the water of life freely.

We for our parts deny it, as having no warrant in the word of God, which mentions only two places for men after this life — heaven and hell — with the twofold condition thereof: joy and torment. Luke 16:25-26; John 3:36; Revelation 22:14-15; Revelation 21:7-8; Matthew 8:11. Nay,…

4. They are called His seed, in respect of the portion which they get from Him; the Apostle says, that parents provide for their children; it is indeed eminently so here, believers come under His care, oversight, and tutelage; and as a man provides for his household, his childre…

There are shortly three things comprehended in this doctrine, (speaking now of unbelief, not only as opposite to historical faith, which we commonly call infidelity, but as it's opposite to saving faith, which we show is that which is called for here:) 1. That unbelief, or not r…

The heaven of glory is called the holy heaven (Psalm 20:6). The Lord will hear from his holy heaven, and the new Jerusalem the Church, has a brave crown on her head (Revelation 21:10-11). She comes down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God.

Cast in two worlds, that is nothing; add to the weight millions of heavens of heavens, the balance cannot go down, the scales are unequal; Christ is a huge over-weight. To all these drawing powers in Christ, in the general, because Christ is the Master and King of the land, wher…

There was a serpent, a tempter in Paradise, but there is none in Heaven; the devil is shut out, and the old man is left in the grave never to rise more. 2. There is not the least evil of affliction (Revelation 21:4): All tears shall be wiped away from their eyes. Whatever is pai…

Math. 5. 6. Rev 21:6. In the fourth place, here is set downe the Meanes of spirituall life, in these words, And in that I now liue in the flesh, I liue by the faith of the sonne of God, who has loued me, and given himselfe for me.

In him are hidden all treasures of wisdom, and knowledge (Colossians 2). God and the Lamb are all things to all the Elect in the kingdom of heaven (Revelation 21). Here we see the right way to become rich: and that is, above all things to seek to be true and lively members of Ch…

For the company of them that dwell in heaven by their faith, cannot be discerned by the eye. John saw the heavenly Jerusalem descending from heaven, yet not with the bodily eye, but in spirit (Revelation 21:10). The things which make the Catholic Church to be the Church, namely,…

The words in the originall translated save, are exceptiue: as if he should say, I will glorie in nothing except in the crosse of Christ: and exclusiue, onely in the crosse of Christ, and in nothing els. Albeit they are sometime aduersatiue, as Gal 2:16. and Apoc 21:27. There sha…

Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after Righteousness, for they shall be filled. And this holy Thirst is spoken of, as a great Thing in the Condition of a Participation of the Blessings of eternal Life, Revelation 21. 6. I will give unto him that is athirst, of the Foun…

'An high Way shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the Unclean shall not pass over it.' Revelation 21:27. 'And there shall in no wise enter into it, whatsoever works Abomination or makes a Lie:'

Where the uncleanness of sin abides unpurged there is no true holiness — it is universally opposed to holiness and is our unholiness; where it is not purged in any measure or degree there is no work of sanctification, no holiness so much as begun; but those who are truly sanctif…

3. At that day of his appearing, all these shadows will instantly be done away: there will not one tear be left on any believer's cheeks, there will be no affliction or desertion to hide him from them, but they shall be forever with him. There will then be no ordinances, nor tem…

5. The form is suitable also, he made the pillars thereof (says she) of silver; pillars in a piece of work signify, 1. Decorating. 2. Orderliness. 3. Stateliness, for which cause when wisdom builds her house (Proverbs 9:1-2) she hews out seven pillars; and Solomon made pillars f…

But it must be some excellent thing that is meant, as the commendation annexed clears. His head is as the most fine gold: In the original, there are two words indifferently made use of, to signify gold, the first because of its shining brightness and beauty; The second is applie…

3. It respects her provision and expectation; that she is provided for, waited upon, and to be dealt with, and even dalted, not as children of mean persons, but of princes, to whom it is her father's good pleasure to give a Kingdom, and such a one as is undefiled, and fades not…

2. These figures and similitudes, have their own use, to make us the better take up, and understand the spiritual things which are represented by them; when in a manner, he condescends to illustrate them by similitudes, and so to teach (as it were) to our senses, things which ar…

Fourthly, consider, how dreadfully God has threatened it with eternal death; scarce any one sin more expressly and particularly. (Revelation 21:27) Without, even in outer darkness, are dogs, and murderers, and idolaters, and whatever loves, or makes a lie. Fifthly, a lie shows a…

Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters (Revelation 22:15). And it were well with them, if all their punishment were only to be left without: but there is a lake of fire prepared for them, into which they shall be cast and plunged, the fir…

Lying was one sin of Israel, for which their land did mourn (Hosea 14:2, 3). And God threatens to give all liars their part in that lake which burns with fire and brimstone (Revelation 21:8). Methinks that one place should make all liars to tremble.

Take heed of this sin in time; lay aside lying before it grows into a custom, which will be hard to leave. Old ones, break off this sin, before you be dragged by the chain of this sin into the fire of hell, which is the threatened punishment thereof (Revelation 21:8). Be not too…

But when we ascend to the heavenly kingdom, this mantle of sin shall drop off. That kingdom is so pure, that it will not mix with any corruption (Revelation 21:27). A sinful thought shall not creep in there.

The work by which this was to be done, was begun immediately after the fall, and so is carried on till all is finished at the end, when the whole world, heaven and earth, shall be restored; and there shall be, as it were, new heavens, and a new earth, in a spiritual sense, at th…

Alpha and Omega are the names of the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, as A and Z are of ours; and therefore it signifies the same as his being the first and the last, and the beginning and the ending. Thus God is called in the beginning of this book of Revelation, b…

Therefore we may suppose, that immediately on the fall of man, it was made known in heaven among the angels, that God had a design of redemption with respect to fallen man, and that Christ had now taken upon him the office and work of a mediator between God and man, that they mi…

Now Christ the great Redeemer shall be most perfectly glorified, and God the Father shall be glorified in him, and the Holy Ghost shall be most fully glorified in the perfection of his work upon the hearts of all the church. And now shall that new heaven and new earth, or that r…

Compare Deuteronomy 9:23. By these waters, says judicious Mr. Strong, understand the doctrine of the Gospel; as (Revelation 21:2) a river of water of life, clear as crystal. Hic fluvius est uberima doctrina Christi, says Mr. [reconstructed: Brightman].

Which promise is again renewed to his churches of the New Testament (2 Corinthians 6:16). And when the churches shall be in their greatest flourish, and purity, then shall there be the fullest and most glorious manifestation of the divine presence among them (Revelation 21:3): A…

Blessed are they who will come out and help Christ against the mighty. The shields of the earth and the nobles are debtors to Christ for their honor, and should bring their glory and honor to the new Jerusalem — see (Revelation 21:24). Alas, that great men should be so far from…

The Harlots guests are lodged in the depths of Hell, Proverbs 9:18. No more perfumed beds; they must now lie down in flames. Whoremongers shall have their part in the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death, Revelation 21:1. Such shall not inherit the…

Expressly they are the sons and daughters of the Lord God Almighty, and they only, 2 Corinthians 6:17-18. All others are excluded, Revelation 21:27. It is true that sometimes unfit persons creep unawares into the great house of God, so that in it are not only vessels of gold and…

This is that light that can break into the darkest dungeons, from which all other lights and comforts are shut out, and without this, all other enjoyments are, what the world would be, without the Sun, nothing but darkness. Happy they who have this light of divine favor and grac…

See how men hurry up and down, over sea, and land unwearied in their pursuit with hazard of life, and often with the loss of uprightness, and a good conscience; and not only thus esteem it in itself; but make it the rule of their esteem, one of another, valuing men less, or more…