“So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have.” (2 Peter 1:12)
Did you know that there is a blueprint for heaven in the Bible? That’s right! We serve such a wonderful, loving God that he not only provides directions about how to get to heaven, he also left a painstaking description of it so that we will recognize it when we arrive.
Interestingly, while there are over 400 references to heaven in the Bible, only a handful of those verses tell us anything about it. In fact, we have to wait until the last book, Revelation, before we get any real description about this magnificent city where Jesus said he was going to “prepare a place” for us. (John 14:2)
Here’s the Apostle John’s description:
“It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates…The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man’s measurement, which the angel was using. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass…The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass.” (Revelation 21:11-21)
So heaven is a cube that stretches 1500 miles in all directions. It’s hard to imagine, but if New Jerusalem were located in the United States, it would extend from the northernmost tip of Maine to the southernmost point of Florida, and would reach from the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Colorado River.
But that’s only the measurement at the first level. The Bible says that the City is as high as it is wide. Think about it. The Sears Tower in Chicago stands tall, a quarter of a mile, but it pales in comparison to heaven, which is fifteen hundred miles high.
The jasper walls surrounding the first level are one half-mile high, higher than any church steeple anywhere in the world. All of its twelve gates are made of solid pearl.
Heaven contains three and one-third billion cubic miles. Did you know that if half of heaven were taken up by it’s golden streets, there would still be enough room for nine quadrillion rooms thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high?
There’s a couple of other interesting points about heaven that are brought out in Revelation 21. The city has no need of sun or moon, since the glory of God and the light of the Lamb are present. And it’s gates never close because its inhabitants have nothing to fear. In fact, no evil can enter through its gates. Instead, only those whose names are entered in the Lamb’s Book of Life have a ticket to heaven. (Revelation 21:23,25,27)
Frankly, God doesn’t spend a lot of time describing heaven because what it looks like is just not as important as how to get there. That’s why Jesus said, “You know the way to the place where I am going…I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:4,6)
I’m grateful that heaven is not a Motel Six, but I sure am glad that God left the light on so we can all find it.
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