The End Times in Chronological Order: A Complete Overview to Understanding Bible Prophecy

by Ron Rhodes

The heavenly city measures approximately 1500 miles by 1500 miles by 1500 miles. Though some interpret these big numbers symbolically, allegedly carrying the idea that “saved people are never crowded,” I think the dimensions are intended to be interpreted literally. The eternal city is so huge that it would measure approximately the distance from Canada to Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rockies. That is a surface area of 2.25 million square miles. (By comparison, London is only 621 square miles.) Put another way, the ground level area of the city will be 3623 times that of London. If the city has stories, each being 13 feet high, the city would have 660,000 stories. That is huge! A city that high might seem to present a formidable challenge to city travelers. We must not forget, however, that our resurrection bodies will likely have amazing capabilities. Some expositors believe our new bodies will have the ability to fly and get places fast. That would be very exciting! Someone calculated that if this structure is cube-shaped, it would allow for 20 billion residents, each having his or her own private 75-acre cube. If each residence were smaller, the city would have room to accommodate one hundred thousand billion people with plenty of room left over for parks, streets, and other things you would see in any normal city. The eternal city could either be cube-shaped or pyramid-shaped—and there are good Christian scholars on both sides of the debate. Some prefer t...