Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

21:22-23
three gems in each row, as on the high priest’s
breastplate: “St. John does not adhere either to the
order or to the names of the stones in the LXX Greek
of Exodus, and any query we may raise about
translations of the Hebrew names which he might have
preferred to those offered by the LXX can only land us
in an abyss of uncertainty. It is reasonable to suppose
that he did not trouble to do more than give a
euphonious list in some general correspondence with
the Exodus catalogue. He has so arranged the Greek
names, as to emphasize the division by threes. All but
three of them end with s sounds, and the three
exceptions with n sounds. He has placed the n endings
at the points of division, thus:
Jaspis, sapphiros, chalcedon;
smaragdos, sardonyx, sardion;
chrysolithos, beryllos, topazion;
chrysoprasos, hyacinthos, amethystos.
“Why should he trouble to do more? If he had made a
list perfectly worked out, what could it have done but
answer exactly to the list of tribes which he has already
arranged for us in [Chapter] 7? And how would our
wisdom be increased by that? St. John wishes to give
body to his vision by listing the tribes; but he has
already listed the tribes. So he lists stones which (as we
know from Exodus) are to be deemed equivalent to the
tribes. He makes two points: first, that the names of the
apostles can be substituted for those of the tribes – and,
after all, the new mystical twelvefold Israel is more
truly to be described as companies gathered round the
Apostles, than as the actual descendants of Reuben,
Simeon, Levi, and the rest. Second, he puts the jasper
up to be head of the list and so, no doubt, to stand for
Judah and its apostle (cf. 7:5). And jasper is both the
general stuff of the walls above, and the colour of the
divine glory. The meaning of the allegory is plain.
Messiah is the chief corner-stone; it is by being founded
on him that the whole city, or Church, acquires the
substance and colour of the divine glory.” 28
Instead of being aligned with the signs of the Zodiac
and their twelve portals, the twelve gates were twelve
pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl.
Obviously, these gates are decorative and ornamental
only, not designed to withstand attack; but since the
City is to comprehend the whole world, there is no
danger of attack anyway. Emphasizing the tremendous
wealth and glory of the New Jerusalem, St. John tells us
that the street of the City was pure gold, like
transparent glass. We may note here that the value
which men have always placed on gold and precious
stones derives from the prior value which God has
imputed to it. God has built into us a desire for gems,
but His Word makes it clear that wealth is to be gained
as a by-product of the Kingdom of God, and His
righteousness (Matt. 6:33).
The Harlot was adorned with jewels, and she perished
with them; the Bride is adorned with jewels because of
her union with the Bridegroom. It is God who gives the
power to get wealth, for His glory (Deut. 8:18); when
we turn our God-given wealth into an idol, he takes it
away from us and stores it up for the righteous, who use
it for God’s Kingdom and are generous to the poor (Job
27:16-17; Prov. 13:22; 28:8; Eccl. 2:26).
Eight centuries before St. John wrote, the prophet
Isaiah described the coming salvation in terms of a City
adorned with jewels:
O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted,
Behold, I will set your stones in fair colors,
And your foundations I will lay in sapphires.
Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies,
And your gates of sparkling jewels,
And your entire wall of precious stones. (Isa. 54:11-12)
It is interesting that the word translated fair colors is, in
Hebrew, eye shadow (cf. 2 Kings 9:30; Jer. 4:30); again,
the wall of the City of God is merely decorative: built
with jewels, with cosmetics for “mortar.” The point is
that the Builder is fabulously wealthy, and supremely
confident against attack. This, Isaiah says, is the future
of the Church, the City of God. She will be rich and
secure from enemies, as the rest of the passage explains:
And all your sons will be taught of the LORD;
And the well-being of your sons will be great.
In righteousness you will be established;
You will be far from oppression, for you will not fear;
And from terror, for it will not come near you. . . .
No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper;
And every tongue that accuses you in judgment
you will condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
And their vindication is from Me, declares the LORD.
(Isa. 54:13-17)
22-23 The whole City is the Temple, as we have seen
– but there is no Sanctuary in it, for the Lord God, the
Almighty, and the Lamb, are its Sanctuary. This is
really another way of stating the blessings described
earlier: “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in
the Sanctuary of My god, and he will not go out from it
anymore” (3:12); “For this reason, they are before the
Throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in
His Sanctuary; and He who sits on the Throne shall
spread His Tabernacle over them” (7:15). “Their city of
residence is their temple; it contains within it no
temple whose walls or doors intervene between them
and the God they adore. God is temple to the city, and
the city is temple to God.” 29
Indwelt by God in the Glory-Cloud, the City shines
with the original, uncreated Light of the Spirit. Thus
the City has no need of the sun or of the moon to
shine upon it, for the Glory of God has illumined it,
and its lamp is the Lamb, as Isaiah had foretold:
Arise, shine; for your Light has come,
And the Glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For behold, darkness will cover the earth,
28. Farrer, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, p. 219. Fifteen years earlier, Farrer’s views on the subject were much more elaborate, as evidenced by his chapter on
the order of the jewels in A Rebirth of Images: The Making of St. John’s Apocalypse (London: Dacre Press, 1949), pp. 216-44.
29. Farrer, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, p. 221.
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