The Holy City

The New Jerusalem?

Q. Thank you for taking time to answer questions and working so hard with your website! I have something I have been wondering about: when you say that the new city of Jerusalem will probably orbit just above the earth, what scriptures can you find to show this point of view? I can remember one about John saying that the city came down from heaven but he never said that it landed on earth. Can you help me find some more please?

A. The verse that describes the Holy city coming down out of heaven but doesn’t mention it landing (Rev. 21:2) is the only one. The rest is deduction. Rev. 21:16 says the city is 12,000 stadia square and just as tall. 12,000 stadia is roughly equivalent to 1,400 miles. That means if it landed on Earth it would have a footprint bigger than all of Israel. In fact it would cover most of Western Europe. And 1,400 miles in height would make it 4,000 times taller than the next tallest building on Earth. If it was shaped like a ball, it would be 1/6th the size of Earth. (Most scholars believe it will be shaped like either a cube or a Pyramid.)

Since the Earth spins on its axis at the rate of about 1,000 miles per hour, something that big simply couldn’t sit on its surface without causing it to spin off into outer space and fly apart.

So, John saw it coming down out of Heaven, the Kings of Earth bring their splendor into it, and its light illuminates the Earth (Rev. 21:24) But nothing impure can ever enter it (Rev. 21:27) That tells me it has to be close enough to be near Earth, but far enough away to prevent it from de-stabilizing Earth’s orbit. To me that describes a low orbit satellite, but that’s just my opinion. We’ll all be truly amazed when we see what it’s really like.

Website: www.gracethrufaith.com