First, before we can do business, we have to set aside a number of popular assumptions garnered from various hymns, sermons, and Far Side cartoons. The New Jerusalem is not a figure of Heaven, the final eternal state, but is rather a glorious image of the Christian Church. This is explicit in a number of places. The Jerusalem above, Paul says, is the mother of us all (Gal. 4:26).
When we come to worship God on the Lord's Day, we do not come to an earthly mountain that can be touched (Heb. 12: 18), but rather to a heavenly Zion (Heb. 12:22), a heavenly Jerusalem. And when the angel gives the invitation to John to come and see, the invitation is to see whom? The Bride, the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:2, Rev. 21: 9-10). Who is that? Well, of course, the Bride of Christ is the Christian Church (Eph. 5: 25). This city, made of transparent gold (Rev. 21: 18), is a perfect cube.
What else in the Bible is a perfect cube? The Holy of Holies in the Temple is that shape, and the Christian Church is explicitly described as the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Cor. 6:19). So the New Jerusalem is the Christian Church, being gradually manifested through the course of history, gradually revealed in all her glory.
That said, this should have obvious political implications. But first a word about how the glory of God works. The glory of God, when it visits the human race, does not obliterate us. The glory of God has infinite weight, but provided there has been propitiation, it does not crush -- it lifts and exalts. Observe.
The New Jerusalem is described as having the glory of God (Rev. 21:11). The city does not require sun or moon, because the glory of God shines on it (Rev. 21:23). The city possesses the glory of the Almighty God Himself, and this glory is so resplendent that it makes the sun and moon superfluous. But, with the glory of sun and moon put in the shade, so to speak, what is not put in the shade?
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