SOURCE: Lambrecht, Jan. “Final Judgments and Ultimate Blessings: The Climatic Visions of Revelations 20,11-21,8.” Biblica 81, no. 3 (2000): 362-85.

In the following essay, Lambrecht focuses on two sections of Revelation, initially dealing with the final judgment and second death and then with the visions of the new creation and the new Jerusalem.

Rev 20,11-21,8 can hardly be called a self-contained pericope, nor even a text unit. Within the major section 16,17-22,5 (seventh bowl and completion) the passage 20,11-15 concludes the text unit of the final judgment which deals with the destruction of the beast, the false prophet and the dragon, and with the judgment of the dead (19,11-20,15), while the new Jerusalem passage 21,1-8 is clearly connected with the description and explanation given by the interpreting angel in 21,9-22,5. These two passages, however, can be taken together. They constitute the final two visions of John the prophet in which something...