I enjoyed your article – “Thy Kingdom Come”. My question is regarding Rev 22 and Ezekiel 47. The river is flowing from the throne in Rev 22 and from the temple or the house in Ezekiel 47. If there is no temple in the New Jerusalem (because God is) but the river flows out of the midst of it – does that mean the river in Rev 22 is not in the New Jerusalem? Will there be a temple in the Jerusalem on earth that the river flows from? I was thinking that the River of Life was in the heavenly city? Maybe I was wrong on that. Could you help clarify that for me?
Rev. 21:22 tells us there won’t be a temple in the New Jerusalem because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its Temple. Ezekiel 43:6-7 tell us that God’s throne will be in the Temple in Israel on Earth. Therefore, Ezekiel 47:1 and Rev. 22 agree that the river flows from the temple on Earth, where God’s throne is.
The Temple on Earth won’t be in Jerusalem, but in Shiloh, a few miles north. A careful plotting of the land distribution in Ezekiel 48 will reveal this. The current Temple mount in Jerusalem will be destroyed by the Earthquake described in Zechariah 14:4. You’ll find another description of the river in Zech. 14:8 which describes living water flowing east and west through the valley created by the quake, half to the Mediterranean and half to the Dead Sea, on Earth.