A gate in relation to the imagery of a walled city is the barrier or door of the gateway as a whole. Walled cities have gateways that can be imagined as passages like a tunnel through the thick walls that therefore had at least an outer gate and sometime an inner gate too on either side of the passage or gateway. Basileia incorporates the imagery of four gates into its logo. This is rooted in Scripture passages like Genesis 28:17, where Jacob says, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” This place, Bethel (which means, “House of God), served as a gate between heaven and earth where Jacob saw that “a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Gen. 28:12). This vertical movement between heaven and earth made Bethel a beachhead or colony outpost of heaven on earth from which Jacob’s descendants would expand outward. As the Lord said to Jacob, “Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 28:14). The Church, as the House of God in the form of a City, is the gate of heaven in both of these vertical and horizontal senses. The Church is the true gateway that Hades only parodies. It is therefore against the Church and the Church only that the gates of Hades will not prevail (Matt. 16:18). Just as the Church is symbolically portrayed as a City, the New Jerusalem, with gates, the great counterfeit is Babylon, whose tower named Babel in the Babylonian language means “gate of God.” The Fallen World System copies the Church by establishing temples (e.g., the Tower of Babel) in the midst of a city (e.g., Babylon). Such fallen cities become colonies of Hades on earth. Jesus declares that His kingdomcultural mission is not merely to destroy the gates of Hades, but also to build His Church. These two actions go hand in hand and result in the replacing of the Fallen World System with the Kingdom of God. The destruction of Hades as pictured in the Icon of the Resurrection, for example, is happening at the same time that Adam and all mankind are being raised from the dead to reenter Paradise through the very gate that was closed to Adam as a result of His sin (Gen. 3:24).
Also see Colony of Heaven on Earth, Ecclesial City, Gateway, Icon of the Resurrection, and Logo.