Ask Pastor Mike Live

Guest (Female): Hi, Pastor Mike. Well, you said no questions are too stupid, so here we go. I think about heaven and the New Jerusalem. I was listening to one of your series recently and you said the New Jerusalem is going to be about 1,400 miles cubed or a pyramid, something like that. That's like half the country. My question is, what about the rest of the earth?

Focal Point Ministries: Okay, let's get it. Right, that's correct. Just like in the millennial kingdom, though the eternal state has a really big Jerusalem, I think the rest of the world is going to be populated. I think there are going to be nations, ethnicities, and distinctions between people that are all beautiful and good and various. There will be something special about the New Jerusalem, but we just don’t have enough information in the last two chapters of the Bible to go beyond that.

If you look at the millennial kingdom, there is a lot of discussion about Jerusalem. Even in Isaiah, it calls it the New Jerusalem, even though it’s not the new New Jerusalem or the ultimate Jerusalem at the end of time in the eternal state. Before the world is remade, there is a Jerusalem that is the headquarters of the whole world. It is there in the piece of land that we know of when we fly into Tel Aviv.

At the end of time, this particular city is described as a cube, and it’s 1,200 to 1,400 miles cubed. I think the reason for that is because the Holy of Holies was described as a cube; it was a cube-shaped room. It's trying to be symbolic in its dimensions to show us that it is exactly where God’s greatness dwells. It's not like you’re not in heaven—as some people like to call the eternal state—because you’re outside of that. It would be like saying, "I'm in the holy place, but I'm not in the Holy of Holies." I think everybody on the earth is going to be going—

Guest (Female): Oh, I thought we would all only live there.

Focal Point Ministries: It’s like a giant capital city where a lot of people can live, but I believe the rest of the earth will be inhabited. Remember this: when God remakes the new earth, I’m assuming it’s the same size as the earth we have now, but I don't know. It could be bigger; it could be three times the size or Saturn-sized. All I know is He remakes the world without any trace of sin, and then in the center of it is a place described as 1,200 to 1,400 miles cubed.

I think the whole earth is going to be inhabited. The whole earth will be full of God’s glory in a very specific way, but we don’t have enough information. If you go to Randy Alcorn’s book on heaven—one of the bestsellers ever—he does the best we can do. He spends hundreds of pages taking the material we have and thinking through what it means.

One thing I love that Alcorn does at the beginning of the book is say not to think of it as something so radically different that it has no correspondence to the earth we know now. That’s a great thing because most people think that we’re floating around on cotton ball clouds in see-through bodies, but none of that is going to be the case.

This is going to be real. We were designed to be enmeshed in physical bodies, and we are going to be. We’re going to eat, hug, have hair, have eyes that are shining, and teeth that are white. It’s going to be earth, and it’s going to be a great earth without any reference to sin. I wish we could answer all those questions, but one day we'll get together on the other side. We’ll get around to chatting and saying, "Wow, look how big it is. Look at the difference between the New Jerusalem and the other side of the planet." We’ll figure this all out when we get there. Does that help?

Guest (Female): Well, the animals have to stay somewhere, too.

Focal Point Ministries: There are going to be animals. I believe so. All of that is a good example of what Alcorn is trying to say. When I get questions about the eternal state, I have to look at how God made the Garden. It’s a city and not a garden, but the whole earth is filled with God’s glory in the creation He made: different kinds of trees, fruit, plants, animals, and fish. All of them reflect God’s glory.

People still pay a lot of money to go out on a boat and see dolphins and whales. This is just something that we see God’s greatness in and enjoy. God is going to create a world where everything is for our enjoyment. At the right hand of God, there are pleasures forevermore, according to Psalm 16. We’re going to have an amazing place.

If someone says, "I don’t know if I'm going to like it because it doesn’t have X, Y, or Z there," I think you’re going to like it even without X, Y, or Z. I can't prove that a lot of things won't be there just because they are not mentioned. The absence of something in Revelation 21 and 22 does not mean it won't be there. Although there is no discussion about animals in those last two chapters, I believe animals will be a part of it for sure.