(5) The constituent spiritual characteristics of the glorious new Jerusalem--21:22-27.
According to Webster the word constituent is indicative of elements that form, or compose, or make up an existing thing; and characteristic is defined as distinctive, or serving to constitute the character of anything. On the high mountain outlook the vision not only exhibited to John the outward glories of the Holy City but displayed also the inward spiritual peculiarities of the City of the Lamb. In it there was no temple (verse 22), for there was no veil between God and the Redeemed, as in the temple that had been taken away (Matthew 27:51); and because the church itself is the temple of God. (Ephesians 2:21; Revelation 7:15) The old temple had been a type of the new, and there was no place in the vision for a symbol of that which had passed away.