I have been working through some dispensational commentaries on the book of Revelation, especially in chapters 20-22, to see how the distinction between Israel and the Church plays out in the minds of various dispensationalists.  I am looking at both recent writers as well as older ones going back to John Nelson Darby.  I need to review this issue for the sake of my paper for the upcoming Council on Dispensational Hermeneutics and for my commentary for the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary.

One issue that intrigues me is the interpretation that the New Jerusalem, the holy city, of  Revelation 21:2 is part of the millennium and not the eternal state beginning at the end of the millennium.  This is not my view, but I have heard it and read it in the literature.  Many prominent men have held to it.  Darby seems to be one of them.  In his Synopsis of the Books of the Bible 5:560, when he gets to that point in the book of Revelation, he comments, “What follows is the description of the heavenly city, as before we had that of Babylon.  Its heavenly character and millennial connection with the earth is revealed” (emphasis mine).  I hope to eventually write an article on this topic showing the history of interpretation of this passage within modern dispensationalism.  I think it is something that is needed.