When John recorded the absence of a temple, he was referencing a physical temple located at a specific address (to which worshippers might go). The absence of a spatial temple in the New Jerusalem, however, did not imply that he who dwelt in the (Old Testament) temple was also absent; on the contrary, the God who used to fill the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34) and the temple (1 Kings 8:10–11) now filled the New Jerusalem. The temple was never about stone and timber and gold; it was always about her heavenly Inhabitant. He is so present in the New Jerusalem that he is himself the temple. Here “temple” and “God” conflate to become one and the same as the symbolism of the Old Testament temple gives way to its fulfillment in reality, a fullness of Immanuel. The implication is that there is no longer any distance between God and his people; they are united as Bridegroom and Bride are one.
22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.