THE SYMBOLISM IN THIS PICTORIAL DIAGRAM OF THE HEAVENLY CITY IS POWERFUL AND ILLUMINATING

Some of the insights that we can get from this symbolism is as follows:

Rev 4:5 says that the 7-fold Spirit was in front of the throne of God and the seven folds were seven lights.  Rev 4:3 says that a rainbow shone around the throne of God.  The lights were likely producing the rainbow.  That might mean that each of the seven lights produced one of the seven colors of the rainbow.  From Isaiah 11:1-5 we have a description of the Spirit of the Lord which rests on the Branch, representing Jesus.  It further says that the Branch will produce fruit, just as the tree of life does.  The passage goes on to describe the seven characteristics of the 7-fold Spirit.  If we put this symbolism from Rev 4 and Isa 11 together we could conclude that the rainbow of colors, represented by ROY G BIV, or Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet represents the seven vehicles that Isa 11:1-5 tell us the Spirit uses to do the work of Jesus.  We have represented this as follows:

The Spirit helps us through the following vehicles

R      Righteous judgment

O      Outstanding counsel

Y      Your fear of the Lord

G      Godly wisdom

B      Building understanding

I        Increasing knowledge

V      Victory through strength

We see that the rainbow around the throne may be from the light of the Spirit.  We also see the tree of life standing on both sides of a river of  the water of life which flows from the throne of God, Rev 22:1-2.  The river flows down the middle of the great street of gold in the heavenly city.  The tree of life on each side of the river produces fruit.  The river produces eternal life and the tree produces continuous love and cooperation among those in heaven.  The fruit of the trees in Zech 3:8-4:14 are olives which are crushed to produce oil.  From the symbolism in Zech we see the oil being collected in a bowl which has seven outlet channels for distributing the oil.  This represents the 7-fold Spirit of Isaiah 11:1-5.  We are told in Zech 4:6 that this whole symbolism represents the way in which the Spirit works in the world.  We are also told in John 7:39 that streams of living water represents the Holy Spirit.

Continuing with the symbolism, the oil represents the Spirit.  The Spirit overflows from the giant bowl surrounding the throne and produces a rainbow falls which creates a continuously flowing river.  It is continuous since the fruit is continuously being produced.  It flows toward the walls of the city and there is an opening in the street which goes under the walls of the city and comes out from under the city.  Zech 14:8 says that “in that day” there will be a stream of “living water” that flows out from under Jerusalem and flows to the east to the Dead Sea and to the west to the Mediterranean.  We can see that from there it can be distributed all over the world, to all people groups, to provide a continuous source of the healing power of the Spirit.  Can you imagine the beauty of the light surrounding the throne and the rainbow falls overflowing from the river of the water of life.  Note that this city will be on a huge new earth in the new order.  Whew!!

I have concluded that the sea of glass around the throne in the middle of the city is likely the raptured saints.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, Daniel used the word sea to represent a multitude of people in his book in Dan 7:3, 17.  Second, we see a very large number of tribulation saints being raptured to heaven in mid-tribulation in Rev 6:9, 7:9, 13-17.  They are before the throne of God, being led to living water, and have been washed pure by the blood of Jesus.  Thus, they are around the throne day and night, are pure and seem to fit the definition of the sea of glass.  See the symbology dictionary on my website for much more discussion on this topic.

The streams of living water flow to the Dead Sea and he Mediterranean for very good symbolic reasons.  The living waters revive the dead represented by the Dead Sea.  There are no dead in the new order.  The Mediterranean Sea provides an outlet to all of the waters of the world, signifying that the living waters are sufficient for everyone living in the new order.

Many scholars believe that the original Garden of Eden was centered in Jerusalem and extended to the fertile crescent.  The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were both in the original garden.  In the symbology of the garden the tree of life represented Jesus and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented Satan.  Notice that the tree of Life is still in the Garden of Eden in the new order while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is now in the lake of fire for eternity.  Note again from Hebrews that things on earth are often copies of things in heaven.

NOTE: In the snapshot diagram of the eternal heavenly city shown on above, you might note that all of the saints are gathered around the throne of God and the Lamb and seen as a sea of glass. They would all be gathered around the throne like this from time to time, for instance after a rapture event as in Rev 6:9 or 4:6. At other times they are obviously in their rooms within the walls or in a myriad of other places. I did not have space to show the angels and 24 elders, etc. which would also be around the throne at times.