03.07. The Holy City
The Holy City
"And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." — Revelation 21:9-11. The Bride the Lamb’s Wife. — Having the Glory of God. — The Wall of the City. — Four Square, and ever-open Gates. — The Street of Gold. — God is the Light and the Lamb the Lamp. — The Pure River of the Water of Life. — The Tree of Life. — The Lord God giveth them Light. THE BRIDE OF THE LAMB.
"I will show thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife."
We have considered the church as the wife of the Lamb — what it is to Christ, how it will fill His heart with a satisfaction and joy which will be eternal.
Now our subject is the same church as the holy city — not so much what she will be TO Christ, but what she will be FOR Christ. In the first aspect of the church the great thing is LOVE, the love of Christ fully known by the church, and responded to without reserve; but the church as the New Jerusalem, the holy city, is not so much LOVE as LIGHT — light for the nations. It is love, divine love, filling it with a wonderful radiance, but shining out as light for all. The nations are to walk in the light of the holy city, but the city is the bride, the Lamb’s wife. There is love Christward — there is light manward.
Notice how this holy city is introduced. The angel said to John: "Come, I will show the bride, the Lamb’s wife. . . . And he showed me that great city, holy Jerusalem." When the church is all that she ought to be to Christ, for this is what the bride, the Lamb’s wife, indicates, then she will be all she ought to be as light to man — the city under the administration of which men will live — and the measure of her love to Christ will be the measure of her light to men. I want to give these things a present and practical application. It follows, if this is true, that just in that measure in which we love Christ now, are we really witnesses for Him here below. Our light in the midst of the prevailing darkness is measured by our love to Christ, and our love to Christ is measured by our knowledge of His love to us. If we keep ourselves in His love, if we keep ourselves near to Him, separate from those things that can mar us for His pleasure, we shall enjoy His love, and we cannot enjoy His love without responding to it, and just in that measure that we respond to His love shall we be witnesses for Him in the world. Our light manward is measured by our love Christward.
HAVING THE GLORY OF GOD
"Her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal" (Revelation 21:11).
First we are to enter into the glory of God; for us it is the Father’s house, and we are made meet for it by the Father’s grace and the blood of Jesus, and then we are to come out of it all radiant with the light that fills it, to shed that light upon the earth during the millennial reign of Christ. The church is to be the vessel of the glory of God. What is the glory of God? The glory of God, in the moral aspect of it, is the display of His own blessed nature; He has revealed Himself. How has He done that? He has done that in the Person of His beloved Son, and having done it the great fact has come into evidence that GOD IS LOVE. That is the glory of God. You would not know it by simply scanning the heavens. They declare His handiwork, His wisdom, His divinity, His power. Men did not learn this great fact at Sinai, for there in the presence of the thunderings and fire of that dread mount they were filled with terror. This great and blessed revelation was made by the beloved Son when He came into the world and passed through it to the cross of Calvary. The light that He brought into the world is to be contained in the holy city, and that light will radiate from it to the utmost bounds of creation, and all creation will rejoice in the fact that God is love.
"Each heart its praise outpouring,
To Him all praise above,
Each voice in strains adoring,
Re-echoes — ’GOD IS LOVE.’" This is our testimony to-day, for it is this fact that has changed, enlighted, and blest us. But how has it been manifested towards us? "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10). The love of God has been made manifest in relieving us of our liabilities and removing the load of sins that oppressed us, and by bringing us into love and light and liberty. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." This is the gospel that we have to preach. This is the light we have to bear in the darkness. This is the glory that will shine from the new Jerusalem, and in the light of which the nations will walk. They will get an entirely new conception of God, even as we did when first we were enlightened and learned that God is love. They will learn what wisdom and righteousness in administration are, and every national and international question that can arise will be solved in the light in which they walk. This will be the glory that excelleth: GOD IS LOVE. THE WALL OF THE HOLY CITY "And had a wall great and high."
It is remarkable that more is said of the wall of the Holy City than of the city itself (Revelation 21:1-27); there must be an important reason for this. Why is it there? The wall is not there to exclude from that city a single saint of God; for "they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life, shall enter in." The wall will be an inclusive wall; everyone whom sovereign grace has chosen and called to heavenly glory, everyone who has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, will be enclosed in its shining embrace. "A GARDEN ENCLOSED IS MY SISTER, MY SPOUSE," says the Bridegroom, in the Song of Songs, meaning, that she was all for Him, and it is this that the wall of the city, great and high, teaches us. If it includes all whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life, it also indicates that the city is exclusively for God. When a man purchases an estate and puts a wall about it, he says, "That is mine; I want that for my own pleasure" — and so it is. The city will be for God’s pleasure in the first instance without restraint and in perfect complacency He will walk in its golden street, and though its gates are opened wide to every point of the compass, and will never be closed either night or day, there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth. The wall indicates that there will be, even in that millenial age, some reserve on God’s part. No wall will be needed to encircle the city in the eternal state, when God will be all in all. Then He will dwell with men, and His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven, and no fresh invasion of sin will ever cause Him to retire behind a veil. But in the millennial age sin will not be wholly banished from the earth, and while God will be active towards men in goodness and blessing, there will still be reserve as far as His relations with them are concerned. His temple and dwelling-place will be walled about. But within the wall all will be as He would have it — holy and unblameable before Him in love. The wall will not be a frowning battlement, grimly reared for defence or defiance, raised against great foes and manned by intrepid warriors, for from those heavenly places in which the city will appear, the foe will have been cast down, and the devil chained in the bottomless pit (Revelation 12:1-17, Revelation 20:1-15). The city will be the church triumphant, and nothing that defiles will threaten the peace of it, and it will fear no attack from without, and will be free to enjoy the riches of God’s grace within. It will be God’s enclosure, within it He will show His glory, and every created intelligence will learn from it what pleases Him. And through the wall the glory will shine; it will not obscure the glory or hide its beauties. And in the foundation of it will be every manner of precious stones, cut by the supreme art of the Divine Lapidary; the all-varied wisdom of God will radiate there, not to repel, but to attract all nations in admiring worship to it.
How great the glory of the city will be — THE GLORY OF GOD. How great is the grace that has given us a part in it — THE GRACE OF GOD.
FOUR SQUARE, AND EVER-OPEN GATES "And the city lieth foursquare . . . and had twelve gates." The city will be four-square, facing without fear or shame every point of the compass. It will be equal on every side, and on every side there will be three gates, gates that shall not be shut at all by day, and there is no night there. I must link together the four-square city and the twelve gates in the wall of it. It is the city that is equal in every part of it that can open its gates to every quarter of the wide earth. But what for? A great city like London keeps its gates open perpetually, for it is dependent upon every part of the earth for its very life. From north, south, east, and west, supplies are continually pouring into it; but the gates of the holy city will be opened, not for supplies to flow into it, but for blessing to flow out of it, blessing for the whole earth. This city of God will look out in every direction, and wherever it looks it will pour out its blessing. Our aim must be this four-squareness now. What we are to be according to God’s own purpose must affect us now. But, alas! how often it is otherwise with us. A man may be intelligent in the Scriptures, and even prominent in ministry and in service, and be anything but Christ-like in his home or business. He is not four-square and just in that measure in which he lacks in this he is enfeebled in his testimony, and as a channel of blessing to men.
Suppose I act in an unchristian, ungracious way in the home or business, or in the presence of unconverted men, or I am harsh and ungracious with my brethren; on that side in which I have failed of the grace of God the gate is shut and the blessing cannot flow out, for I am ashamed, and my mouth is closed. But if I keep myself in the love of God and maintain a conscience void of offence before God and man, then am I four-square, unashamed, and can face men and bless them. This our Lord was in all the holy perfection of His Person. He was all that He said, and none could convict Him of sin, hence wherever He went the blessing flowed in divine freeness. The names of the twelve tribes of Israel are upon the gates, because according to promise, Israel is to have the honour of administration on earth, and all the blessing that flows to the nations from the heavenly city will flow through Israel as the channel of it to the nations. AND EVERY GATE IS PEARL. The pearl is not an Old Testament figure, it does not belong to Israel. It is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament.* It is a New Testament figure, and is a similitude of the church taken out of the sea of the nations (Matthew 13:1-58). The merchantman sought goodly pearls, and finding one of great price, sold all that he had to possess it. Christ is the merchantman and the pearl is His church. In His eyes it is pure, precious and one. The church is to have this character in all her outgoings in witness and blessing. The gates of pearl emphasize what I have already stated, that when the church is what Christ would have it to be — pure, answering to His thoughts of its preciousness to Him, and undivided — then it will be the channel and the centre of blessing for all.
{* Job 28:18 should really read "crystal."} THE STREET OF GOLD "And the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." Not streets of gold, as some of our poets have sung, but one street, a street of gold like unto transparent glass. Here is gold of a new sort. There is nothing so opaque, nothing so blinding to the eyes as the gold that men crave and labour for how devious are the ways by which they get it. But this street will be transparent gold, there will be nothing shady in it, no double dealing, no defilement there. And who will walk on this street? It will be laid for the feet of God, and where He walks the street must be of gold. His way must be a way of righteousness which is of Himself and where He can display His character in all His ways, for this surely is the meaning of the street of gold. A man is known by the way he walks, and where he walks, and God will make known His character when He walks in this street, and there will be nothing hidden and dark in it, it will be like unto transparent glass.
It has always been His desire to walk with men. He came down into the garden to walk with Adam in the cool of the day. But there was no street of gold there, and Adam hid away in his fear of God behind the trees of the garden. He was a sinner and God could not walk with him. And when God gathered Israel out of Egypt and brought them to Himself in the wilderness, He desired to walk in and with them, but there was no golden street in the midst of them. His commandments were on their lips but not in their hearts, and He could only be with them in the angel of His presence behind the veil of the Tabernacle — there was no liberty there either for Him or for them. But when we come to the New Testament, we have the revelation of God in Jesus; God was in Christ, and walked in Him displaying all His grace; and God’s intention is that the life of Jesus should be continued in His saints. We have some wonderful words at the end of 2 Corinthians 6:1-18. The saints of God are commanded to be separate from evil things, to come out from among evil men and their ways; for what communion can there be between the believer and the unbeliever, between light and darkness, Christ and Belial, between the temple of God and demons. Then come the wonderful words, "God hath said, I will dwell in them, and WALK IN THEM." Not only dwell in them, we often stress that, but walk in them — He would form and find within them a street of gold where He could walk and show His character through them.
We may know little of this now — alas, that we should know so little — but in the day of which this vision of glory speaks it will be known in its fulness, for God shall walk in the holy city, and we shall walk where God walks, for we shall be holy as He is holy. A street is for common use, and in holy communion with God, Himself delighting in the display of His own character, and in us, and we delighting in Him, we shall walk with Him.
"There in effulgence bright,
Saviour and Guide, with Thee
I’ll walk, and in Thy heavenly light
Whiter my robe shall be."
GOD IS THE LIGHT AND THE LAMB THE LAMP
"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof" (margin).
God gives light to the city, but all that light is in the Lamb, for He is the lamp, as the word should be. There is no light, no knowledge of God apart from the Lamb of God. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. So John tells us in the first chapter of his Gospel. Yes, but when public witness was borne to Him in that Gospel it was, "Behold the Lamb of God." He was the Light of the world, but to be this, and so that the light could reach us, He had to come as the Lamb.
What blind fools men are when they refuse the cross of Christ. They desire a gospel without a sacrifice, without the blood. God has no such gospel for men. He can give no light or blessing apart from the Lamb. The Lamb is the lamp — all the light of God abides in Him and shines forth from Him, and that light is for blessing of men. THE PURE RIVER OF THE WATER OF LIFE "And He showed me a pure river of water, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb."
There is to be blessing unrestrained in the power of the Holy Ghost, but it flows from the throne of God and the Lamb. The throne indicates God’s supremacy, but the Lamb is there. What a sight it will be for the world which crucified the Lamb when He appears in the throne of God! The cross of a malefactor on earth, the throne of God in heaven! But that cross and His place on that throne secure blessing for men. The pure river will flow forth from the throne, but that were impossible apart from the Lamb, and its streams will carry refreshment and life and healing wherever they flow. God in the supremacy of His grace, as the redeemer God, enthroned in righteousness for man’s blessing, will be acknowledged as the Source of all good. And if any ask how God who is eternally just can bless from His throne a world that had sinned so foully against Him, the one and only answer is — the Lamb is there. THE TREE OF LIFE
"In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." (Revelation 22:2). The tree of life is Christ — and the fruit is God’s portion in Him, the food of the privileged dwellers in that city. He is enough for God and He will be enough for them. None shall hunger there, nor will they tire of that heavenly food, for there is no monotony in Jesus for the heart of one that knows His love and walks in the Spirit. And He is enough now. He brings forth His fruit in His season now. He is able to meet every fresh need, every fresh longing of the soul now. He is enough the heart and mind to fill. We shall not tire of Him there. May we be satisfied with Him now, and sit under His shadow with great delight and find His fruit sweet to our taste.
Fruit is God’s food, it is ever so presented symbolically in Scripture, it is for His delight. We are to share God’s thoughts of Christ, and this will yield us joy and satisfaction for ever.
Then there will be no more curse, for the Lamb bore the curse. Thorns the earth was to bring forth when man sinned, and thorns were placed upon His sacred brow. He bore the curse that He might remove it. And His servants shall serve Him — they shall see His face and His name shall be in their foreheads. What a prospect! Especially for those of us who feel how feeble our service here is! But there His servants shall serve Him. Love cannot be satisfied unless it is serving, and the Lord will give His servants the joy and opportunity of serving Him in all the power of the Holy Ghost — without any faltering or failure. THE LORD GOD GIVETH THEM LIGHT
"There shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither the light of the sun; for the Lord giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever."
We shall have no need of either natural light or artificial light in that holy city — God will be enough. The light of our lives for ever will come from God Himself. It is what God is that will fill that scene with radiance and fill our hearts with joy. And He would do that now. The sun symbolizes God’s natural mercies, and so full of tenderness and mercy is He, that He gives us these things richly to enjoy; for having spared not His own Son, will he not with Him freely give us all things? And these natural gifts in a certain way are light to us. But, suppose these things were taken from us, what then? Suppose every natural joy, every comfort, every earthly ray of light were removed, and suppose we lost everything that we have devised for ourselves, of which the candle would speak, could we say, "The Lord God giveth us light — He is enough"?
I heard of a Christian who was in very affluent circumstances. Suddenly, with one sweep, he was beggared, and in explaining his experience afterwards, he said, "When I was well-to-do, I saw God in everything, and now that I have nothing, I HAVE GOT EVERYTHING IN GOD." I heard of a wealthy American who was very glad he had wealth, not for his own sake, but for the sake of his wife whom he idolized. This lady was a Christian of a meek and gentle spirit. Her husband did not understand the secret of that quiet, happy life, but he greatly admired it, and was glad he could give her the comforts of life, for she was a delicate person. As time went on, the wheel of fortune turned and left him with scarcely a penny. He was very distressed about it. He had to leave the mansion and go into a somewhat mean flat, and he wondered how it would go with his wife. But he found she was able to sing, "Oh! The peace my Saviour gives," just as sweetly without the grand piano. The Lord God was her light. Oh! is it so, that He is able to do that for us? Were every earthly light removed and every prop gone and every comfort taken away from us, would He be enough? Yes, we should find Him to be enough. The Lord God is our light. Beloved Christians, what a God we have got! And the day is coming when the vast number of those who inhabit that holy city will find everything in God, and when they find everything in God, there will be no night. The best things on earth change, they wax and wane, rise to their zenith and set. But when God is everything there is no night. The Lord Himself speaking to His servant, says, "These sayings are true and faithful." Let us lay hold of them and cherish them. Let us hold to them as the very sayings of God, true and faithful — not the fallible words of men, the fruit of a darkened imagination, but the true and faithful sayings of God. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this Book. If we keep the sayings of this Book, we shall be kept from the pollution of this world, and be those who are ready and watching and saying in unison with the Holy Ghost," Even so, come, Lord Jesus."