Revelation 21:9-16 “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." (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, … (15) And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. (16) The city is laid out as a square; its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed: twelve thousand furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal.”
One of the first things we notice about the New Jerusalem is its immense size. The above passage of scripture describes the city as being laid out as a square. For it is two thousand four hundred kilometres long and two thousand four hundred kilometres wide. Those measurements make the city about 5.7 million square kilometres in size. This is equal to about half the size of the United States of America, which for a city is enormous. So, what about its height? For the scripture teaches us that its length, breadth and height are equal. Now when some read, that the city’s height is equal to its length and breadth, they have thought that God has made the heavenly city like a giant box that is two thousand four hundred kilometres high. But that is not the case at all, for God doesn’t dwell in a box. He never has and He never will. God does dwell on Mount Zion though (Isaiah 8:18), and so it is the height of Mount Zion that is described by the apostle John in the above passage. This is why he says, that he was carried away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain. In other words, the city of the New Jerusalem is located on the top of Mount Zion, which is why scripture speaks of the city as being on the sides of the north of Mount Zion (Psalm 48:2). As we mentioned earlier in discussing the size of the new earth, Mount Zion at 2400 kilometres high, will be the highest mountain in the new earth and it will have a vast plateau at its peak, which will be able to accommodate the heavenly city of Jerusalem.
Michael E.B. Maher
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