Revelation 21:2: And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

John gives his personal witness¹ that the new Jerusalem built on the American continent² will come down from God out of heaven³ as a holy city.⁴ This holy city is the glorified celestial city of New Jerusalem⁵ that descends out of heaven after the millennium⁶ and after the earth dies and is resurrected.⁷ Ether, a Jaredite prophet on the American continent from the Book of Mormon,⁸ also foresaw this event⁹ hundreds of years before the birth of Christ.¹⁰ Ancient prophets and religious leaders on the eastern hemisphere also looked forward to this future event with great anticipation.¹¹

Scholars interpret the return of the holy city in Revelation 21:2 differently.¹² Some believe the imagery is purely symbolic.¹³ However, the celestial city of New Jerusalem will literally come down from heaven¹⁴ with her exalted inhabitants at the end of the earth.¹⁵ New Jerusalem will literally descend twice from heaven,¹⁶ once before the millennium as the city of Enoch,¹⁷ and once after the millennium as a celestial city.¹⁸ The two events are sufficiently similar that some people incorrectly say or imply that Revelation 21:2 describes the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven before the millennium.¹⁹ However, more than a thousand years separate the return of the pre-millennial and heavenly city of Enoch (New Jerusalem) from the return of the celestial city of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:2, as the following history shows.

The ancient city of Enoch is called Zion.²⁰ God took this city and its translated (terrestrial) inhabitants to heaven during the days of great wickedness before the universal flood in the days of Noah.²¹ This same Zion, which is also called New Jerusalem,²² will come down with the people of Enoch as a heavenly city²³ at Christ's Second Coming to merge with the earthly city of New Jerusalem that will be built in Jackson County, Missouri during the Great Tribulation.²⁴ When these two cities merge, the New Jerusalem in Missouri will become one of two world capitals on earth. Old Jerusalem will be the other world capital during the millennium.²⁵

When the millennium ends and the little season begins,²⁶ wickedness will again prevail on earth as in the days of Noah.²⁷ At that time, the resurrection of the just will end as all celestial and terrestrial people are resurrected in their order and taken up from the earth.²⁸ God will also take the millennial city of New Jerusalem (Zion)²⁹ to heaven with all her inhabitants at that time,³⁰ much like he took Zion to heaven in the days of Enoch with all her inhabitants. When the millennial city of Zion is taken up, only telestial people and sons of perdition will be left on earth to fight the battle of the great God (Gog and Magog) during the little season.³¹ The little season will end when after the telestial resurrection and all remaining mortal sons of perdition are destroyed by fire as the antitype for the destruction of all the wicked inhabitants of the earth by water in the days of Noah.³² When the earth is resurrected to celestial glory in Revelation 21:1,³³ the New Jerusalem (Zion) that is taken up as a millennial city will then return to earth again as a celestialized holy city.³⁴

When New Jerusalem returns to the resurrected and celestialized earth, the city of Old Jerusalem will also descend from heaven as a second celestial city.³⁵ The two cities will co-exist as two world capitals on the celestial earth in the same way they will co-exist during the millennium.³⁶ This suggests that Old Jerusalem must be taken to heaven before the earth dies so that it too can return to earth with New Jerusalem. Since Old Jerusalem can only come down from heaven as a celestial city after it is first taken up, it will logically be taken up when all telestial people are removed from the earth during the telestial resurrection at the end of the little season.³⁷ When all telestial people and Old Jerusalem are taken up, the only mortal people left on earth will be sons of perdition who will be destroyed very soon thereafter when the earth dies by fire.³⁸

After New Jerusalem and Old Jerusalem are both taken into heaven before the earth dies, both will separately and sequentially return. John describes the return of New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:2 as the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven. In Revelation 21:10, John describes the return of Old Jerusalem as "the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God."³⁹ Some people say that these verses describe the same city and the same event,⁴⁰ but that is not the case. John's visions are chronological and they do not repeat except to add new or different details.⁴¹ Therefore, the two celestial cities will both return as separate events.⁴² In order of their appearance, Revelation 21:2 describes the celestial city of New Jerusalem from America coming down from God out of heaven, and Revelation 12:10 describes the celestial city of Old Jerusalem.⁴³ After their return, these sister cities will be so much alike that John's symbolic description of Old Jerusalem in Revelation 21:9-21 effectively describes New Jerusalem as well.⁴⁴

In Revelation 21:2, the glorified citizens of New Jerusalem⁴⁵ will descend with their holy city ... as a bride adorned for her husband.⁴⁶ Jesus Christ is the husband.⁴⁷ John used similar imagery to describe the same marital relationship between exaltation-worthy saints and Christ at Second Coming in Revelation 19:7-8.⁴⁸ Some people say the pre-millennial bride in Revelation 19:7-8⁴⁹ is the same post-millennial bride in Revelation 21:2 and they treat the two separate events as a single event. Once again, this contradicts John's chronological description of events⁵⁰ and the thousand years of separation between the two brides of Christ before and after the millennium.⁵¹

Both brides of Christ represent exaltation-worthy celestial saints.⁵² At the Second Coming, the bride of Christ includes Enoch's pre-millennial city of Zion that will come down from heaven in Revelation 19:11-14.⁵³ In addition to the people of Enoch, the bride that descends with Christ at the Second Coming will include all exalted people already resurrected and all exaltation-worthy people as of that point in time.⁵⁴ This imagery from the Second Coming foreshadows the post-millennial city of New Jerusalem that will come down from God out of heaven as a bride in Revelation 21:2 more than 1000 years later. The later image represents many more exalted people who are the bride of Christ compared to the fewer number of exalted saints at the time of Christ's Second Coming.⁵⁵

John also used the symbol of a bride to describe exalted saints who will descend from heaven with the city of Old Jerusalem in Revelation 21:9.⁵⁶ The two brides in Revelation 21:2 and Revelation 21:9 collectively symbolize the return of all exalted saints⁵⁷ of the resurrected earth⁵⁸ from every age of the earth since the time of Adam.⁵⁹ Since many more people will receive their exalting temple ordinances during the millennium and will be exalted by the end of the millennium, the two brides identified metaphorically in Revelation 9 and 21:2 represent many more exalted people at the time the earth is resurrected than the one metaphorical bride of Christ at the time of his Second Coming.⁶⁰