True Christianity #782
782. The New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven (Revelation 21) means the new church. For one thing, Jerusalem was the largest city in the land of Canaan. The Temple was there. The altar was there. The sacrifices were performed there. It was a center for divine worship. Three times a year every male in the entire country was commanded to come worship there.
Another reason is that the Lord was in Jerusalem and taught in its Temple; it was there that he glorified his human manifestation. For these reasons Jerusalem means the church.
The fact that Jerusalem means the church is abundantly clear in what the prophets of the Old Testament say about the new church that the Lord is going to establish, which they refer to as Jerusalem.
[2] I will present only passages in which the fact that Jerusalem means the church is easy to see for anyone who has the ability to reason inwardly. We will limit ourselves, then, to just the following.
Behold, I am creating a new heaven and a new earth, and the earlier heaven and earth will not be remembered. Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a rejoicing and its people a joy, so that I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take joy in my people. Then the wolf and the lamb will feed together; they will not do evil anywhere on my holy mountain. (Isaiah 65:17-19, 25)
For Zion's sake I will not be quiet, for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until its justice goes forth as brightness, and its salvation is like a burning lamp. Then the nations will see your justice and every monarch will see your glory. You will be called by a new name that the mouth of Jehovah will announce. You will also be a beautiful crown and a royal miter in the hand of your God. Jehovah will be pleased with you, and your land will be married. Behold, your salvation is coming, and his reward is with him. They will call them "a holy people" and "those redeemed by Jehovah. " You will be called a sought-after city, and not a deserted city. (Isaiah 62:1-4, 11-12)
[3] Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion. Put on your beautiful clothes, O Jerusalem, holy city. The uncircumcised and the unclean will not come to you any more. Shake yourself from the dust; arise. Sit down, O Jerusalem. The people will recognize my name in that day; I am the one who is saying, "Behold, it is I. " Jehovah has comforted his people. He has redeemed Jerusalem. (Isaiah 52:1-2, 6, 9)
Shout, O daughter of Zion. Be joyful with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The king of Israel is in your midst. Do not fear evil any more. He will be glad and joyful about you. He will rest in your love. He will rejoice over you with shouting. I will give you a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth. (Zephaniah 3:14-17, 20)
Thus said Jehovah, your Redeemer, speaking to Jerusalem: "You shall be inhabited. " (Isaiah 44:24, 26)
Thus said Jehovah, "I will turn back to Zion and I will live in the center of Jerusalem. Therefore Jerusalem will be called the city of truth, and the mountain of Jehovah Sabaoth will be called a holy mountain. " (Zechariah 8:3, 20-23)
Then you will know that I am Jehovah your God, living on Zion, the holy mountain, and Jerusalem will be holy. And on that day it will happen that the mountains will drip with new wine and the hills will flow with milk. And Jerusalem shall remain from generation to generation. (Joel 3:17-21)
[4] On that day the branch of Jehovah will be beautiful and glorious. And it will happen that the people left behind in Zion and remaining in Jerusalem will be called holy - everyone who is written down as alive in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 4:2-3)
At the end of days the mountain of Jehovah's house will be established on the top of the mountains. Teaching will go forth from Zion and the Word of Jehovah from Jerusalem. (Micah 4:1-2, 8)
At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of Jehovah, and all the nations will be gathered together to the name of Jehovah, to Jerusalem. No longer will they go toward the obstinacy of their evil heart. (Jeremiah 3:17)
Look toward Zion, the city of our appointed feasts. Your eyes will see Jerusalem, a peaceful dwelling place, a tabernacle that will not be taken down. Its stakes will never be removed and its ropes will not be broken. (Isaiah 33:20)
Not to mention other passages, such as Isaiah 24:23; 37:32; 66:10-14; Zechariah 12:3, 6-10; 14:8, 11-12, 21; Malachi 3:4; Psalms 122:1-7; 137:5-6.
[5] Jerusalem in the passages just quoted does not mean the Jerusalem where Jews once lived, but the church of the Lord to come. This is clear from every detail of the description in the passages: for example, the point that Jehovah God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth, including a Jerusalem; that this Jerusalem is going to be a beautiful crown and a royal miter; that it is going to be called "holy," "the city of truth," "the throne of Jehovah," "a peaceful dwelling place," "a tabernacle that will not be taken down"; that the wolf and the lamb will feed together there; and we are told that the mountains there will drip with new wine, the hills will flow with milk, and it will remain from generation to generation. This is also clear from what we are told of the people there, that they are holy, they have all been written down as alive, and they are to be called "those redeemed by Jehovah. "
What is more, all these passages indicate that only at the time of the Lord's Coming, especially his Second Coming, [but not before,] will "Jerusalem" be the way these passages describe it. Before that, Jerusalem is not married; that is, it has not yet become the bride and wife of the Lamb, which is how the New Jerusalem is described in the Book of Revelation.
[6] In Daniel, Jerusalem means the church of today, the former [Christian] church. The beginning of this church is described in the following words.
Know and understand that from the going forth of the Word even to the restoration and building of Jerusalem, to the time of the Messiah's rule, is seven weeks. After sixty-two weeks the street and the moat will be rebuilt and restored, but in troublesome times. (Daniel 9:25)
The end of the church of today is described in the following words from the same chapter:
In the end desolation [will fly in] on a bird of abominations; even to the close and the cutting down, it will drip steadily upon the devastation. (Daniel 9:27)
The final stages of the church of today are also what the following words of the Lord in Matthew are referring to:
When you see that the abomination of desolation foretold by the prophet Daniel is standing in the holy place, let those who read note it well. (Matthew 24:15)
Evidence that Jerusalem in the passages above does not mean the Jerusalem where Jews once lived is found in the passages in the Word in which we are told that Jerusalem has already been completely destroyed or is going to be in the future. See Jeremiah 5:1; 6:6-7; 7:17-18, and following; Jeremiah 8:5-7, and following; , and following; Jeremiah 13:9-10, 14; 14:16; Lamentations 1:8-9, 17; Ezekiel 4:1 to the end; Ezekiel 5:9 to the end; Ezekiel 12:18-19; 15:6-8; 16:1-63; ; Matthew 23:37-38; Luke 19:41-44; 21:20-22; 23:28-30; besides many other passages. See also the passages where Jerusalem is referred to as Sodom (Isaiah 3:9; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46, 48; and elsewhere).
Isaiah 37
1
It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh's house.
2
He sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.
3
They said to him, "Thus says Hezekiah, 'This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth.
4
It may be Yahweh your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.'"
5
So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
6
Isaiah said to them, "Tell your master, 'Thus says Yahweh, "Don't be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.
7
Behold, I will put a spirit in him and he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."'"
8
So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.
9
He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, "He has come out to fight against you." When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
10
"Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, 'Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, "Jerusalem won't be given into the hand of the king of Assyria."
11
Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?
12
Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?
13
Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?'"
14
Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh's house, and spread it before Yahweh.
15
Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying,
16
"Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
17
Turn your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and behold. hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God.
18
Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,
19
and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.
20
Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you only."
21
Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria,
22
this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you.
23
Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.
24
By your servants, have you defied the Lord, and have said, "With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field.
25
I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt."
26
Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps.
27
Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown.
28
But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me.
29
Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore will I put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.
30
This shall be the sign to you. You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.
31
The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
32
For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this.'
33
Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, 'He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it.
34
By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city,' says Yahweh.
35
'For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake.'"
36
The angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies.
37
So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there.
38
It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.
