John’s final, most detailed and most important vision of Christ’s parousia is of a new heaven and a new earth, the Holy City, and the new Jerusalem where the dwelling of God is with men and the old order of things has passed away. Following the return of the Lamb, after his last battle and millennial reign, after the destruction of Satan, of his evil kingdom, and finally of death itself, the vision of the eschatological city of God “may be viewed as the climax not only of the book of Revelation, but of the whole story of salvation embodied in the Bible” (Beasley-Murray, Revelation, p. 305). With typical eloquence, Caird adds that “Here is the real source of John’s prophetic certainty, for only in comparison with the new Jerusalem can the queenly splendors of Babylon be recognized as the se…