If Revelation 21:26-27 reflects John’s discomfort over
the possible entry of Gentiles into the new Jerusalem, what is the rhetorical
function of John’s list of excluded and morally depraving individuals in
Revelation 22:15 (“dogs, sorcerers, fornicators, murders, idolators, and
everyone who loves and practices falsehood”)? . . . this proscription is
distinct from John’s prohibition of the profane, i.e., Gentiles. Furthermore,
it is nearly identical to the list of vices of those who will suffer the second
death of the lake of fire (Revelation 21:8): “But for the cowardly, those
practicing abominations, the murders, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the
idolaters, and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire
and sulfur, which is the second death.” Who are these sinners and why do
they still exist in the era of eschatological celebration?
Returning to the specifics of Revelation 21:27, John has excluded both the profane as well as those who may be morally impure, i.e., members of his Jewish audience who may fall short of John’s high ethical standards. In this way, Revelation 21:27 is a paraphrase of Isaiah 52:1: “Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy (αγια) city; for the uncircumcised and the impure (ακαθαρτος) shall enter you no more.” As Christine Hayes has argued, Isaiah is referring to two distinct sorts of people: the uncircumcised/profane and the impure/unclean. (Gentile Impurities, 232 – 33 n. 50) Thus, similar to Isaiah’s prohibition against Gentiles and the impure, John (21:27) has also prohibited Gentiles but he has further elaborated what sources of impurity were especially illicit (i.e., blasphemers and liars). The rhetorical impact of this is that John has warned his Jewish brethren of some of the moral expectations of those who wish to dwell within the holy city of the new Jerusalem.
Consequently, although Revelation 22:14-15 introduces
another list of excluded individuals through the disjunction of those “inside”
and those “outside,” I think it incorrect to deduce that John conceived of
those “outside” to mean those dwelling on the new earth; instead, it
appears that John was deploying the hortatory rhetoric of “two ways” (a way of
life vs. a way of death) to reinforce ethical uprighteness among his putative
community of Jewish readers. In this way, there is no remedial salvation for
those Jews who might morally err from time to time. John has remained his
audience of the fire consequences awaiting those who might fall short of the
moral uprightness required to belong “inside” the heavenly new Jerusalem: those
Jews who are outside John’s community are destined for the lake of fire and the
second death.
Ultimately, Revelation tells the ethical and
soteriological story of five groups of people: Jewish martyrs and the priestly
elect, Gentile converts and priests, remedially saved Jews, saved Gentiles, and
all the rest who are destroyed. For John these groups were established
characters in the drama of salvation history, with some (e.g., Gentile
converts) holding a more theoretical than practical place in John’s conception
of the end times. Thus, John reconciled expectations for Gentile salvific
inclusion with complex spatial and temporal subordination while all the while
underscoring that Gentile salvation is not primarily about saving the Nations
but was rather part of Israel’s restoration. In this way, according to
John, salvation history will conclude with higher and lower levels of salvation
and different roles for different types of the saved. (Alexander Kocar, “In
Heaven as it is on Earth: The Social and Ethical Dimensions of Higher and Lower
Levels of Salvation” [PhD Dissertation; Princeton University, January 2016], 83-84)
