Room in Heaven?

HOW MANY PEOPLE COULD FIT INSIDE THE NEW JERUSALEM?

An excerpt from a course on the Book of Revelation

In the previous post "Will the Heavenly City On Earth Really Be A Cube?" we learned that the New Jerusalem is in fact going to be in the shape of a cube - a really big cube!  We also learned that the New Jerusalem will be the central place of worship on the new earth.  So, if it will be the central place of worship, one might wonder just how many people might fit into the city.

This is really not a silly question.  I have often been ask how many people I think there will there be in heaven.  I am also aware of the negative ridicule by sceptics that there would not be enough room in heaven to accommodate all of the so-called redeemed, plus all the babies born and unborn who died, plus all the children who died before reaching the age of accountability, plus all of those who lived and died without the capacity for moral accountability.

Of course, sceptics usually don't believe in heaven anyway, so trying to convince them is probably a waste of time.  Even so, I am not a sceptic, I do believe in heaven - and that includes the eventual new heaven and the new earth - and even I am intrigued by the question of how many people could fit inside of the New Jerusalem.

So, how do you answer such a question?  You answer it using the most logical method - mathematics.  Since we are given the size of the New Jerusalem, why not put the size to a mathematical test?  Perhaps we might discover that the sceptics are right - there would not be enough room for everyone who makes it to heaven.  What would we say to that? 

Applying Mathematics to the Size of the New Jerusalem

Let's apply basic logic and math, then show the results in a simple bullet list:

• In John 14:2 Jesus told us that His Father's house had "many rooms."  Was Jesus referring to His Father's current house (heaven) or future house (the new heaven)?  It doesn't matter.  The Father's house could never be bigger or smaller since God does not change (Malachi 3:6).  So, there must be many rooms (mansions if you prefer).
• How much room for how many rooms?  Cavet - I will do the overall math, then divide it up abritrialy (it could be divided many ways), but the total amount of room will remain the same.
• The city is between 1,400 and 1,500 miles cubed (Revelation 21:16).  Why "between?" Just because of the uncertainty of the actual measurement of a "furlong" (old English) or as it is called in New Testament Greek a "stadia."  So, we are going to be as conservative as possible and take the smaller measurement of 1,400 miles.
• 1,400 square miles = 54,641,664,000,000 square feet and that's just the ground floor!  If we allow for the ground floor to have a ceiling of say 12 feet (totally arbitrary), then on the ground floor there is enough space for a 3,000 square foot room with a 12 foot ceiling - are you ready for this - for 18,213,888,000 persons to have their own private room!
• But wait!  That's only on one level.  Since the New Jerusalem is in the shape of a cube we have a lot of upward space. So let's just take 1/2 of the upward space for rooms (mansions?), and reserve the other half for the throne of God, the heavenly hosts, meeting rooms, public space, walkways, etc.  How much room does that leave us to work with?
• By using only half the height (700 miles) we have enough space to give that same 3,000 square foot room with a 12 foot ceiling to this many people: 5,609,877,504,000,000 - that 5.6+ quadrillion persons!  WHEW!
• When Jesus said that in His Father's house there were many rooms, He was not kidding!

So, what is the answer to the question of how many people could fit inside of the New Jerusalem?  The answer is that there is enough room for everyone who has ever been conceived, born, and redeemed plus a hundreds of billions more!

Or, in the words of Ira F. Stanphill's great hymn "Room At the Cross:"

Tho millions have come, There's still room for one
Yes, there's room at the cross for you.

Finally, is heaven going to be too crowded?  No, not at all.  We will, of course, be spiritual beings living in our resurrected bodies - a body just like the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:21).  There will be a great crowd, but we will not be crowded - we will be free - free indeed!

In our final micro course from the Book of Revelation we will identify eight things that will be absent from the new heaven and the new earth - eight things to which we will be able to say "Good riddance!"

For a deeper study, you are encouraged to consider enrolling in one of our 3 credit-hour academic courses on the Book of Revelation.  You can check out all of our regular academic programs by clicking this link:  PROGRAMS.

Thank you for sharing time with me.  I hope to meet you someday in this life, but for sure when we are both living in and around the New Jerusalem!

Dennis D. Frey, Th.D.,