There is a striking similarity between the new city in the millennium described In Ezekiel chapters 40-48 and the new Jerusalem in the eternal state described in Rev chapters 21-22. However there are also many striking differences. One of those differences is in size. The eternal city is incredibly huge, like nothing ever before seen. In doing this comparison I first had to look closely at the standard units of measurement which were being used in both Ezekiel and Revelation. I had previously determined the standard used in Ezekiel in 2008 when I was writing a 250 page commentary on Revelation. I had to do this when trying to make a map of the way the Promised Land would be allocated to the 12 tribes in the millennium. I first had to determine how to interpret the way Ezekiel was describing God’s instructions to him. I next drew the map, starting with the Mediterranean Sea, the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River. It seemed that God was saying that he would allocate the land in 13 strips with each being the same width in the North-South dimension, Ezek 47:12. When I was comparing my map to a map of the area with a distance scale on it I determined that the total length from the northern most line to the southernmost line was about 325 miles. Dividing 325 miles by 13 land strips yielded the result that each allocated land portion was 25 miles in the north south direction.

Other clues in Ezekiel that I used in deciding how I should construct my map included:

1. Ezekiel 48:20 says that the special portion, the sacred part of the land with the city included, would be a large square, 25 miles to a side. This was near the middle of the land in a north-south direction. The Levites were given the middle strip of this square section. The tribe given the strip bordering on the north of this square was the tribe of Judah, and the tribe of Benjamin was given the strip bordering on the south. These were the three tribes which ended up in the Southern Kingdom called Judah after the split of Israel following the reign of Solomon. The portion of the Promised Land that they ended up inheriting was approximately the same area where Judah was originally located, and the city was in approximately the same place where Jerusalem is still located.
2. This square sacred portion of land is broken into three rectangular pieces as indicated in Ezek 48:8-20.
3. This strip of land being square with the northern and southern borders being straight lines meant that the southern border of Judah’s portion and the northern border of Benjamin’s portion were also straight lines going from east to west. Since Ezek 47:14 says that the land was to be divided equally among the tribes that led me to believe that all of the other east-west borders would also likely be straight line borders, except for the northern and southern most borders. Since the 13 tribes had 325 miles in the north-south direction to divide equally that means that each would receive a 25 mile wide strip of land, again except for the northern and southern most borders which would vary from east to west.

I also had to determine which old Hebrew unit of measure matched the allocation of land that Ezekiel was describing. I absolutely knew it could not be a cubit since that was off by an order of magnitude with a map of the area. When I checked the meaning of the original word translated in some of these passages as a cubit I found that it was indeterminate. In Ezekiel 40:5 Ezekiel is shown a vision of a man measuring the millennial temple area. The man has a rod in his hand which was 6 cubits in length, with the clarification that long cubits were being used. We are then told by Ezekiel that a long cubit is a cubit and a handbreadth. That is nominally considered to be about 21 inches. Thus the rod was about 10.5 feet in length. When I used this unit of measurement on the map I discovered that it was exactly 2 times too long. In my research I discovered that it was a reed that the man was using. I also discovered that the Hebrews also had a rod that they used that was a half reed or about 5.25 feet. This worked out almost perfectly with my map. A half reed was the unit of measure in Ezekiel 40-48 and not a cubit as most translations indicate. With that established let me show how I came up with the exact unit that I would use.

The width of the strips of land was said to be 25,000 units, the city was said to be 4500 units and the temple 500 units. I wanted to convert these to miles so I first needed to find the conversion factor from half reeds to miles. I decided to start with the temple. Since there is some unknown factor in knowing the exact number of inches in a long cubit I decided to use 21.11111 inches rather than the more nominal 21 inches. The reason I decided on that was because both Jesus and the Spirit will live in the millennial temple. The Father will remain in heaven. Therefore my reasoning was that since Jesus and the Spirit are 2 in 1 in an infinite way, I would use 21.11111 as representing the 2 in 1 in an infinite way. Let me note that I am a mathematician and I have extensively studied the way that God uses numbers in the Bible in supernatural ways to prove that he and only he could be the author of the Bible. Thus the conversion factor came out to be:

21.11111 X 3 = 63.33333 inches in 1 half reed,

63.33333 ÷ 12 inches in a foot= 5.277777 which is then the conversion factor from feet to half reeds. Thus if our assumptions are correct there are 5.277777 feet in a half reed. Now we can determine the length of the walls of the temple, the city, etc. in feet and miles.

500 x 5.277777 = 2638 feet ÷ 5280 ft in a mile = .50 miles per side for the temple,

4500 x 5.277777 = 23,750 feet ÷ 5280 = 4.50 miles per side for the city,

25,000 x 5.277777 = 131,944 feet ÷ 5280 = 25.0 miles between the northern and southern borders of each east to west land strip.

The series of 7’s in the feet to half reeds conversion factor tells me that this may be the perfect conversion factor since God generally uses 7 to indicate perfection and/or completion. Also note that the conversion factor from miles to half reeds is exactly 1000 as this worked out;

Thus 25,000 half reeds = 25 miles, 4500 half reeds = 4.5 miles & 500 half reeds = .5 or ½ mile. Is this a coincidence or is it God ordained? We each must answer that ourselves.

Next we see from Rev 21:16-17 that the new Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth in the eternal state is 12,000 stadia in length, width and height. It is said to be square and therefore is likely a cube. The walls are said to be 144 cubits thick. Scholars tell us that 12,000 stadia are equal to 1400 miles. If that is the case then the eternal city will be extremely larger than the millennial city. Just how much larger is it?

1400 ÷ 4.5 = 311.111111111111111 etc. This is a 3 followed by an infinite series of 1’s.

The new Jerusalem in the eternal state is thus over 300 times larger than the millennial city. I will hazard a possible guess about why this might be true. In the eternal state the city will be inhabited by the eternal 3 in 1, the trinity and it will be in a unified physical/spiritual state. The millennial city will be purely a physical city and the Father God will not make his residence there. Is God telling us something with this number? Is this one of the myriad ways that God is proving to us that he is the one and only God of the universe?

Would you like to see another mathematical miracle concerning the eternal city. Hold your hats for this! Apparently the length of a stadia in the first century varied according to which culture one lived in. Depending on which measurement one used, the length of the city walls could vary from about 1350 miles to over 1450 miles. Several Biblical references state that the city will be 1400 miles square. Several state that a stadia was 600 feet. If you use 600 feet to represent the length of a stadia, the city would be 1363 miles square. The following analysis uses that dimension rather than 1400 miles.

Could it be that the picture we see of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God has two fulfillments to it? The first would be when the bride comes down out of heaven with Jesus at the Second Coming. This would have to be a spiritual city in a spiritual dimension. It may be the dwelling place for the bride during the millennium as the redeemed may go back and forth between the spiritual city and the physical earth as needed to do the biding of Jesus as we reign with him. This city would be invisible to humans living on earth just as God, his angels, and things in the heavenly dimension are currently invisible to us. The second fulfillment would be in the eternal order when the distinction between the physical and spiritual dimension is removed, when earth again becomes a part of heaven. This calls for a large change as everything is made new, Rev 21:4-5, returned to its original paradise like form. This return is a really drastic change; a reversal of the change that occurred after the fall of man. Recall that in the eternal order there are no longer humans in the universe as all believers are now in their glorified bodies living with God and all unbelievers and evil angels are either in the lake of fire or outer darkness.

Also, might we think of the new Jerusalem in the eternal state as a huge condominium complex where the bride will live forever with God? Let me explain what I am thinking. First let me state some interesting information from Rev 21:16-17 about the new Jerusalem.

     ♦ The city is likely a vast cube, although it could be a pyramid. The city is 12,000 stadia in length, width and height. That is 7,200,000 feet or 1363 miles, assuming one stadia is 600 feet.

     ♦ The walls of the city are 144 cubits or 216 ft thick, assuming one cubit is 18 inches. In ancient walled cities rooms were sometimes built within the walls.

     ♦ If the city is a cube and rooms are built within the walls of the new Jerusalem with each room being a cube 216 x 216 x 216 feet, then each wall would be 33,333 rooms long and 33,333 rooms high. Thus there would be 1,111,111,000 rooms in each wall. Quite a heavenly condominium complex I would say.

As believers, we will one day be living in this city and possibly in these rooms. Remember Jesus’ words in John 14:1-4, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go there to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” It certainly seems that all of these scriptures in John and Revelation are talking about the same place and same theology. The place where God lives has many rooms and thus the new Jerusalem must have many rooms, since Rev 21:3 says that God will live with man in this new Jerusalem.

The calculation of the possible number of rooms that might be in one of the city walls, 1,111,111,000, leads me to wonder if all of these ones have anything to do with the words Jesus spoke in his high, holy prayer in John 17. In John 17:20-24 Jesus is speaking of our eternal residence. He says that he is in the Father and the Father is n him. He also says that he wants us to join them in this relationship.He wants us to be one as he and the Father are one. The Bible is full of interesting mathematical gems. That is one of the ways that God used to prove to us that the Bible is a supernatural Book and that he is the one and only God of the universe.

It would be physically impossible for a city of this vast size to rest on the earth. It would throw it out of balance, it would begin to wobble, and all kinds of calamities would happen to the orbital velocity, it would become unstable and who knows how this would end. This city is over 2/3’s the size of the moon. However it seems likely that the new earth will also be over 300 times the size of the current earth. In that case this large city would fit just fine. Also the laws of physics in this unified physical/spiritual dimension will be quite different from anything we have seen or experienced before.

We will next look at some of the similarities and then the differences between the millennial city and the eternal city, the new Jerusalem.

SIMILARITIES

They are both referred to as Jerusalem.

Both cities have twelve gates, with three being on each of the four sides. Each gate has a name, with the names being the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Both cities have a river flowing out from them. These may be physical, spiritual or both.

Jesus and the Spirit will be in both cities.

There will be good food and drink available in both cities.

DIFFERENCES

Under our assumptions the eternal city is 311.11111 times the size of the millennial city. If we multiply 311.11111 x 4.5 we get 1400.00. The new Jerusalem in Rev 21:16 is 12,000 stadia, which many scholars tell us is 1400 miles, square. The new Jerusalem in Ezek 48:16 is 4.5 miles square.

The new city in the millennium is physical only while the new Jerusalem in the eternal order is a unified spiritual/physical city.

There will be both humans and resurrected saints in glorified bodies living in the millennial city while there will be only resurrected saints in glorified bodies living in the eternal city. There will be no humans in the eternal state.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit will both reside in the temple in the millennial city while all three persons of the trinity will reside in the eternal city.

There will be a physical temple in the millennial kingdom while the only temple in the eternal city will be The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.

The throne of God and the Lamb will be in the eternal city and everybody can come face to face with both. The millennial city will have only the throne of Jesus in it.

The curse will be relaxed in the millennium but it will be completely erased in the eternal city.

There will be eternal light everywhere in the eternal city provided by God while in the millennial city there will still be day and night.

The sin nature will still exist in the millennial city, but it will be kept under control, while in the eternal city there will no longer be any sin or any desire to sin.

 There will be no sadness, pain, death, crying or mourning in the eternal city, while all will still exist in the millennial city.

The millennial city will principally be made of gold, silver, bronze and iron, Isa 60:17, while the eternal city will be made exclusively of precious jewels of all types, pearls, gold, etc. The eternal city will also have spiritual aspects to its construction.

Each of the twelve gates of the eternal city, the new Jerusalem, will be made of a single giant pearl, Rev 21;21, with the names of the twelve tribes if Israel written on them. The church of Jesus Christ was referred to as the pearl of great price in a parable in Matt 13:46. A pearl was not kosher to the Jewish people. Thus we can conclude that the Jewish people must go thru something that was offensive to them in order to get into the eternal city. In fact since the pearls bear their name they must themselves become something not kosher. What do they become? They become a church, a body of believers in Jesus Christ. They become an integral part of the eternal city, the bride of Christ. Nobody, including Jewish people, can ever enter heaven without going through Jesus.

Heb 12:22-26 says the following about the heavenly Jerusalem, the eternal city:

It is the residence of the living God,

The city resides on the heavenly Mount Zion, (this also means that it likely resides on the earthly Mount Zion since Hebrews tells us that things on earth are copies of things in heaven),

Thousands upon thousands of angels will joyfully assemble there, and

The church of the firstborn will be there; this is those made perfect by the blood of Jesus, those who have their names written in the book of life.

The millennial city will be a renewed Jerusalem on a renewed earth while the eternal city is a new city on a new earth. The old will pass away. The promises made by God to his people saying that they would reside in the land and in their city forever “in that day” will be fulfilled in that the eternal city will be on a physical earth made perfect forever in an expanded likeness of the original earth. However it will also be significantly different since it will also be a part of a unified physical/spiritual universe. Man was originally created in such a place but lost his access to the spiritual dimension when he submitted to his sin nature, to the temptations presented by Satan. We look forward to the new order. As John said, “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

As a closing thought, Jesus tells us in Rev 3:12 and other places that when we receive our glorified bodies we will have several things written on our foreheads, one of which is the name of the new eternal city. We have several clues concerning what the words describing the city may be including (1) the city no longer deserted, (2) the city of God, (3) the city of the Lord and (4) the Holy City, the new Jerusalem. Simply put, God will live in us, we will live in him and we will all live together in a glorious new city, the new Jerusalem in the eternal order.