Revelation 21:22: And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

In Revelation 21:12-21, John used earthly objects to symbolically describe the attributes of the future celestial city called the holy Jerusalem.¹ There was, however, a remarkable omission in his description.² John saw no temple therein.³ This must have surprised him because John had already envisioned God's heavenly temple several times in prior visions,⁴ and he knew that God's earthly temple is a type for God's heavenly temple.⁵ John now discovers that in the celestial kingdom on this earth, the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple.⁶ Their actual physical presence on the new earth⁷ is the antitype for their spiritual presence in earthly temples.⁸ Thus, the entire earth becomes a celestial temple.⁹ This gives added meaning to Revelation 21:3, which states that "the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them."¹⁰

Temples are built on this fallen telestial earth so that required gospel ordinances can be performed for the living and the dead.¹¹ Gospel ordinances cannot be performed for resurrected people,¹² and those in the celestial kingdom will all be resurrected and perfected before the earth's celestialization.¹³ Therefore, in John's vision of the celestial earth, he saw no earthly objects of gold or precious stones to symbolize an earthly-type of temple.¹⁴ Instead, he saw the glory of God and the Lamb.¹⁵ Their glory personifies the celestial temple on the resurrected earth¹⁶ in a way that earthly objects of gold and precious jewels cannot begin to describe.¹⁷ Thus, John describes the entire celestial earth as a temple with reference to the perfect and glorified attributes of the Father and the Son.¹⁸ In like manner, Paul and others equate the human body in mortality with an earthly temple,¹⁹ saying: "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"²⁰ Christ spoke of the temple of his body when he said in John 19: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."²¹

Saints that receive their exalting ordinances in an earthly temple²² will, if worthy, enter the celestial kingdom on the new earth where their own glory will be like unto the glory²³ of the Father and the Son.²⁴ As the Son is glorified in the Father,²⁵ exalted saints will be glorified in the Father and the Son.²⁶ They will thus receive a fulness of joy.²⁷ The glory manifested to John in Revelation 21:22 is the glory that Christ prayed for²⁸ during his intercessory prayer²⁹ that he offered on the night of his atoning sacrifice in the Garden of Gethsemane.³⁰ Christ's atonement imparts his glory to others and creates the at-one-ment of God and Christ with all exalted saints³¹ in the temple that is this celestial earth.³²