29 Heaven - Holy City and Throneroom of God

Chapter 29
Heaven - Holy City and Throneroom of God

The Holy City - The New Jerusalem

The timing of the Rapture of the Church is not for us to know.  Jesus does not even know - only the Father knows.  God's eyes knows what happens at any given moment, knowing the beginning from the end. He knows the ups and downs of mankind and when we will be ready to receive what He has for us.  He alone is the One to decide.  He does, however, give us clues - not to know the day nor the hour, but the times and season (Matt 25:13).  We have been in the times and seasons for some time now, and we know the clock is ticking fast toward that day and the hour.

At that precise moment in time, in the twinkling of an eye, an angel will sound the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will immediately arise from their graves to meet Christ in the air.  Because the verse below states when Jesus is revealed, we shall become like Him, leads us to believe that the spirit/souls of the departed in Paradise come down in the clouds with Jesus to receive their glorified bodies, followed by those alive in Christ will then be (raptured) caught up to meet Jesus and together all past and present believers in Christ will take on their glorified bodies (1 Thess 4:15-17).  As Jesus is revealed to us, we instantly will become like Him - and from that point on, we will live out forever in our resurrected, glorified, immortal bodies.

1 John 3:3...when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

Escorted into the Holy City

Christ will then escort His Bride (all His believers - His Body) into the Holy City to bring us to our eternal home, just as He had promised before He left the earth.  What a glorious time that will be.

Heb 12:22-23  But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect.

John 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

Three areas of heaven

Again, there appears to be three separate areas in heaven: (1) Paradise, (2) the New Jerusalem (Holy City), and (3) the Throneroom of God.   Within the Holy City; however, rests the throneroom of God on the mountaintop of God.  Each area of heaven seems to have its own special function. 

Where Is Heaven?

Located in the north part of our universe (Is 14:13), heaven is a "place" of being, not simply a spiritual experience.  It is a physical place where God dwells, along with the redeemed saints and angels.  Regarding its size, it will be large enough to house the forty billion people who has ever lived upon the earth since the time of Adam and Eve.  It was always God's desire that everyone become saved and spend eternity with Him (2 Pet 3:9). That, however, is not the case because God gave man a free will to choose what he wants in life.  That would include his eternal destiny, which does not always align itself with God's will.  Of these forty billion people, about 7.6 billion people are living on our planet today. How many saints will end up in heaven is unknown.  It will, however, only be a fraction of all the people who have ever lived upon the earth since the time of Adam and Eve.

Psm 8:3 When I consider Your heavens, the works of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained...

Heaven also contains an innumerable number of angels. For heaven to house all the saints (past, present, and future), as well as God's angels, it would only make sense that heaven would have to be an immense place (Heb 12:22-23; Jer 33:22).

 What Does Heaven Look Like

The New Jerusalem is separate from Paradise, being entrenched around the Mountain of God. Known also as the Holy City, City of God, or City or Mount of Zion, this city measures 1500 square miles wide and 1500 miles high.  To put that into perspective, look at the map below to see how massive it is.  As you can see, 1500 miles covers an area from New York City to Denver Colorado, up to Minneapolis, Minnesota to Florida and down into Mexico.  Now, go up 1500 miles high and do the same.  

The Holy City covers the land mass of a great and high mountain possibly plateauing or plateauing around groups of peaks as it travels up to the top where the throneroom of God rests.  The Holy City, or the New Jerusalem is a very large city covering a vast amount of space on the Mountain of God.

Rev 21:10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the Holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.

The Foundation of the City

There is a 300 foot foundation that supports and surrounds the capital city of New Jerusalem. This foundation is made of twelve precious stones - one on top of another.

Rev 21:12-14 Also she had a great and high wall with twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates, and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel...Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

1st layer: Jasper
2nd layer: Sapphire
3rd layer: Chalcedony
4th layer: Emerald
5th layer: Sardonyx (white stone with layers of red)
6th layer: Sardius (a fiery red stone)
7th layer: Chrysolyte (a transparent golden yellow stone)
8th layer: Beryl (a sea-green stone)
9th layer: Topaz
10th layer: Chrysoprasus (a blue-green stone)
11th layer: Jacinth (a violet stone)
12th layer: Amethyst (a flashing purpose stone)

The walls of the city rests upon these twelve foundations, and on these foundations are written the names of the twelve apostles. In each of the four walls are three gates, totaling twelve gates in all. On each gates is the name of one of the tribes of Israel. Each gate is composed of one large white pearl, far more beautiful than our imaginations can fathom.  Each of these gates are guarded by angels and only God's celestial beings and saints are able to freely enter in.  That means all of God's saints must have the name of God written on their forehead (Rev 22:4).  While that may seem like a given, it will be necessary as we will discover in later chapters when God brings heaven down to earth, and we will see the necessity of angelic guard over the Holy City.  Inside these gates of the Holy City are streets of pure transluscent gold that lead up to the mountain of God.

Rev 21:27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Along these twelve streets of gold are rivers that flow down from the mountaintop where the throneroom of God rests, with trees planted along the rivers for continuous healing. Later on in the New Heaven and the New Earth, these same trees will come down from heaven to earth, and will be available for healing of the nations of natural people throughout the earth. In season, each tree will bear their fruit.

There is no physical temple in the New Jerusalem. On the top of the mountain lies the throneroom of God where God sits on His throne with Jesus at His right hand where the saints have access to worship God.

Rev 21:22 And I saw no temple therein, for the LORD God Almighty and the Lamb are in the temple of of it.

Our Glorified, Resurrected, Immortal Bodies

Our resurrected bodies will be more than immortal duplicates of our present bodies.  God's seed of us is perfection, while the seed of our humanness, caught in a sin nature, was imperfect.  To learn more, we need to examine the Apostle Paul's analogy of the wheat seed. 

I Cor 15:35-44  ... "How are the dead raised up?  And with what body do they come?"  Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.  And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain - perhaps wheat or some other grain.  But God gives it a body as He please, and to each seed it own body...So also is the resurrection of the dead.  The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.  It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.  It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.  It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.  There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 

A mortal body is like a seed, while an immortal body is like the full-grown plant.  Both are physical, but there is a difference between the two in appearance.  The seed is small, hiding its full potential, while the full-grown plant becomes the fullness of the seed.  All seeds raised to an immortal, glorified body will be perfect as God is perfect (Heb 12:23).

We must remember that believers will no longer be living in Paradise as spirit/souls awaiting their resurrected immortal, glorified bodies.  We are now in the perfected state as we enter into the Holy City of God having perfected glorified bodies and being residents of the New Jerusalem - the Holy City of God. 

Over the next seven years, while the Tribulation Period is going on over the whole earth, what happens up in heaven is a completely different scene.  Based on various scriptures, it appears that shortly after entering heaven, we will all stand before Jesus at the Judgment Seat of Christ.  This is not a judgment of where we will spend eternity, because that issue was settled when we accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  Our judgment will also not be a judgment of punishment, but one of rewards.  As we stand before Jesus, the books will be opened on our life, and we will have to give an account of our deeds or lack of them (refer to the chapter on Believer's Judgment).  This judgment will determine how many crowns we will receive and how we will rule and reign with Christ over the 1000-year Millennial Reign.

2 Cor 5:10  For we (believers) must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it is good or bad.

Before we return with Christ at His 2nd coming, we will be celebrating the Marriage Feast of the Lamb.  This will be a time of celebrating being the Bride of Christ - our marriage to Him (Eph 5:27).  How long that will go on, scripture does not tell us.

We will be living in our new home that Christ built for us.  Throughout the city, there will be many dwelling places for the saints to call their home.  What they look like and how large they are is unknown.  We do know that the King James Version calls these dwelling places mansions.

John 14:2-3  In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

The Throneroom of God

The Prophet Isaiah and the Apostle John each gave us a vision of the Throneroom of God.  God sat high and exalted upon His throne, having the train of His robe fill the temple. God appeared bright and shiney like a jasper and carnelian (sardius stone), with a rainbow surrounding His throne like an emerald. Above Him are six winged angels.

Isa 6:1-2...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. NIV

Rev 4:2-4 ...I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance, and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. NKJV

Darkness, or night, does not enter into heaven because the glory of God from His throne on top of the mountaintop is its light to light up all of heaven.

Rev 21:23 And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it. But the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof

Right after the Apostle John received the vision to come up to heaven in Rev 4:1, we see a scene in the throneroom of God of a sea of glass (represented as the masses of believers) worshipping Jesus.  At the same time, we see 24 elders sitting around the throne of God (represented in the apostles and the prophets over the masses) lay their crowns down to Jesus as a sign of submission to Him.  That too is a symbol of everyone laying their crowns down at the feet of Jesus.  Everything we have or will ever have, we yield over to Him.  That doesn't mean we are giving our crowns to Him, but we acknowledge full submitted to Him as we yield ourselves completely.  Jesus is Lord over all.

Revelation 4:1-4 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this." ²At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. ³And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. ⁴Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads.

Rev 7:9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

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