Why CUBE?

The quick, boring answer to that question is that it’s an easy to remember acronym that summarises what this blog is about: Christianity, Urbanism and the Built Environment. But there’s more to it than that, and the point of this post is to highlight just how appropriate a name it actually is.

An odd shape for a city

It may be fairly common knowledge among Christians that the Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city, but what will that city actually be like? Its descriptions in Revelation chapters 21 and 22 are dripping with symbolic meaning: “a bride adorned for her husband”, “the wife of the Lamb”, “having the glory of God” like a “rare jewel”. The city, its walls and gates are all made from the most precious of materials. And then there’s the preoccupation with the number twelve: 12 angels guarding 12 gates, which are for the 12 sons of Israel; 12 foundations for the 12 apostles, walls 144 cubits (12×12) high (or deep).

This city, New Jerusalem, is often imagined or depicted in art as a place of grand buildings with soaring spires. And yet these chapters don’t mention any of its buildings; in fact, John doesn’t even say if it has buildings! What he does tell us, however, is striking:

The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal.

Revelation 21:16

While some suggest otherwise (an interesting alternative perspective can be found here), I’m convinced that what’s being described here is a city that’s a perfect cube! And while the numbers are clearly symbolic, if we take them literally (who says the two have to be mutually exclusive?), we have a city that’s immense! If 12,000 stadia is the length of each side, then that’s 1,380 miles cubed! That’s roughly the distance from London to Kyiv in Ukraine, or more than half the way across Australia, and over six times the altitude of the International Space Station!

But why a cube?

Well it has 12 edges … that continues the number symbolism. But perhaps a more important clue comes from what the city doesn’t have, and why:

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

Revelation 21:22-23

In the Old Testament, an unlimited, omnipresent God chose to dwell in one place: a temple in Jerusalem. Within that temple there was an inner sanctury filled with God’s presence and glory – a ‘holy of holies’:

The inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high, and he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid an altar of cedar.

1 Kings 6:20

Notice anything? Yep, we have another cube. This room, about 9 meters cubed, is the one place on earth where God chose to dwell. But why confine his glory to a box? Why not put it on display for all to see? Well, there was a problem: God is perfect and nothing impure or sinful can come into his presence and live. That’s unfortunate since the Bible tells us that everyone is sinful, because all have turned their backs on and disobeyed God. This was therefore a place completely, and necessarily cut off from all humanity, including God’s own people, the Jews. There was just one exception: a single high priest, who could enter but once a year, and only after purifying himself, and never without the blood in his hands of a slaughtered animal, offered as a sacrifice both for his sins and those of the people.

But the New Jerusalem has no temple, and so it has no inner sanctury. Why? Because that single 9 by 9 by 9 meter room has been transformed into a 1380 by 1380 by 1380 mile gigalopolis! That sanctury has become a city of epic proportions; New Jerusalem is the holy of holies! Just like the temple sanctury it is filled with God’s presence, and just like that first sanctury nothing unclean can ever enter (Rev 21:27). And yet, far from being cut off from the world, it is a place where all God’s people see and worship him face to face. And far from conceiling his glory, it’s a place from which it shines out and fills the world:

By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.

Revelation 21:24-26

So what changed?

The book of Hebrews tells us that in the Old Testament temple “every priest [stood] daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (10:11).

So something had to have changed to get us from the exclusive ‘Holy of Holies’ in 1 Kings to the world illuminating ‘Holy City’ of Revelation 21. But what was it? A new high priest:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Hebrews 4:14-15

All the priests who came before were as flawed and sinful as the rest of us, but Jesus was different. Fully God and yet fully human, tempted like us and yet sinless. Jesus Christ “entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:12)

Unlike those animals Jesus blood can and does take away sins, since he took the punishment of death that we deserve. And by his resurrection he defeated death meaning those of us who trust in him can “have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” (Heb 10:19). This makes us:

[…] members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19-22

In God’s new creation there is no physical temple; God will not confine his glory to a box, he won’t need to! Instead, by his Spirit, God’s people are his temple!

Will that New Jerusalem be a physical city: literally over a thousand miles high, wide and deep, literally built of gold and precious jewels? Or is all that just symbolic language to describe a spiritual reality? Well it clearly is the latter, but I see no reason why it can’t be both. What we do know, however, is that whatever else that city is, it is “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb” (Rev 21:9); that whole city, whether physical or not, is Jesus’ bride, the Church (Eph 5:22-33).

Two cubes: two realities

In a way these two cubes, the sanctury and the city, represent two realities:

The first shows us how we all are by nature: sinful human beings who can never enter God’s presence on our own merits. He has to shut us out or we’ll die. And yet, without him – the source of life – we cannot go on living. So without a way to be reconciled to him, we face eternal separation from God – eternal death.

But, Jesus death and resurrection offers us a new reality. One in which, by his blood, we can come freely into God’s presence. We can receive eternal life by his Spirit in us, and, together with the rest of his church, he will build us into a magnificant holy temple-city that gives light to the entire world.

The cube-shaped future

That’s the deeper, and more significant meaning of CUBE. Yes, this is a place to discuss all things urban; a place to think from a Christian perspective about the built environment, planning, architecture, design, transport etc. But more importantly, I hope it is also a place that will help us to look forward and point others to that glorious cube-shaped urban future that is the inheritance of all who put their trust in Christ.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:1-4