Blessed are those who wash their robes so they can have access to the tree of life and can enter into the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, and the murderers, and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood!
Revelation 22:14-15 NET
Revelation 21:1-22:5 is a description of New Jerusalem. New Jerusalem is sometimes taken as a literal city. Mainly because all of the descriptive terms are related to a physical structure. But this is one of the rare times in Revelation where we are told what the symbolic language represents.
Revelation 21:9-10 explicitly identifies this “city” as the Bride of Christ. This “city” is composed of the redeemed throughout the ages who have put their faith in God. When creation is remade (Rev. 21:1), the bride will be revealed in all her God-given glory. But she already exists.
Those whose robes have been washed white in the blood of Christ (Rev. 7:13-14) come into the city through its gates—gates made of pearls (Rev. 21:21). The so-called “pearly gates” are not something that awaits us when we live this life—they are a present reality. And the tree of life, lost when humanity was driven from the garden (Gen. 3:24), and now found in the center of the city (Rev. 22:2), is once more made available for us to eat from.
Outside the city are those who continue in rebellion, the people of this world who have not washed their robes in the blood of Christ. They have no part in the bride nor the tree of life.
Are You in the New Jerusalem?
We do not currently see the New Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, with our physical eyes. But she is a reality nonetheless. She is being built and refined during this age and will be revealed when God makes everything new (Rev. 21:5).
Is your name written in the Lamb’s book of life? Have you entered through the “pearly gates” of the New Jerusalem? If not, then . . .
“. . . the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say: “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge” (Rev. 22:17 NIV).
