The New Jerusalem and the Eternal Glory
Unknown Author
Table of Contents
The New Jerusalem and the Eternal Glory
The destiny of the believer is to be "forever with the Lord." His everlasting home is the New Jerusalem, the consummation of his hope the eternal glory of God and the Lamb. Like the pilgrim patriarch of early days, he passes through the world as "a stranger and sojourner," with his eye on the "city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God." There the pilgrim pathway ends; the land of his possession is reached; he is at home. Even now his longing spirit is in love with the place, and he sings as his feet press on—
"My heart is onward bounding,
Home to the land I love;
Its distant joys and pleasures
My longing passions move.
Fain would my thirsty spirit
Its living freshness breathe,
And wearied feet find resting
Its hallowed shades beneath."
The first stage of this pathway of glory will be at the descent of the Lord Jesus into the air to meet His saints. "The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." The immediate response to this shout of the returning Lord will be a resurrection from among the dead of all the sleeping saints. The graves will yield their ancient charge; the dead in Christ shall be raised incorruptible, in bodies of glory, in the image of their Lord. At the same moment, "in the twinkling of an eye," the living saints on earth shall be changed, their bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ's, mortality swallowed up of life, and both caught up together to meet the Lord in the air. Gathered together thus around Himself, He will lead them in triumph to the Father's house. This translation will end the pilgrim pathway of the living saints who, like Enoch of old, shall "go without dying," and it will also sweep the graves of all who have fallen asleep, and whose unclothed spirits have been resting in paradise with Christ.
Now they receive that fullness of salvation, that redemption of the body, for which in the days of their faith and hope they longed and sighed. Now their sighs are turned to songs, their expectations to realization. They have been awakened in His likeness, and they are satisfied—fully, perfectly satisfied. So also is their Lord, for looking upon His gathered flock, His blood-bought Bride, He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul and "shall be satisfied." His saints are with Him now, He has presented them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, and their cup runneth over. Goodness and mercy hath followed them all their earthly days, and now they have come to "dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
"To find each hope of glory gained,
Fulfilled each precious word:
And fully all to have attained
The image of our Lord."
Glorified!
The next glance that we get of this glorious company is within an open heaven, seated, clad in priestly robes, with royal crowns upon their head: (Rev. 4:4;5:8-10), far above and beyond the rising storm that sweeps the guilty earth, and calls forth the righteous ire of heaven. Here it is that Christ's Beema or judgment-seat will be set, and here He will bestow His rewards for faithful service during earthly days, and appoint to His servants their places of honor in His coming kingdom. Later still (Rev. 19:4-9), the marriage of the Lamb is celebrated in the heavens, and then He is seen returning with His saints in glory to the earth (see Rev. 19:11-14; Zech. 14:4, 5).
It is not our present purpose to dwell on these events, blessed and glorious as they are, nor to trace along the line of Scripture the various stages that usher in the glorious reign of Christ over a restored and peaceful earth. Stretching far beyond the thousand years of millennial blessedness, there lies the eternal glory; the everlasting rest of God and His redeemed; the new heavens and the new earth in their eternal beauty, fresh from the hand of their Creator; the paradise of God, into which no lurking serpent shall ever steal; the peaceful abode of the last Adam and His Bride; that sinless, tearless, unending Sabbath, where "God shall be all in all." Thrice blessed as will be the thousand years of millennial rest and peace, they will not be the final rest of God with His people. Sin, although suppressed, will still lurk there. Death, the last enemy, will not have been destroyed: Satan will not have met his doom. The thousand years of Immanuel's reign, and of the beams of His glory on the earth, will not alter the heart of unregenerate men, and so we find the millennium will be followed by an outburst of man's wickedness and hatred to God, more terrible and daring than any that had preceded it—an open attack on the glorified Christ upon His throne. But, unlike that hour of His sorrow when He hung on Golgotha, in which His enemies gathered like ravening and roaring lions around Him and were allowed to vent their wrath upon Him unavenged, is this the day of His power. Swift judgment falls upon the assailants. So it is written—"fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." Rev. 20:9. This is followed by the final doom of Satan and his hosts, the judgment of the great white throne, and the passing away of the present heavens and earth. Then there shines out in bright and blessed splendor the new heavens and the new earth "wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2 Peter 3:13), the fair eternal home and rest of God and His redeemed, into which the new Jerusalem is seen descending "as a bride adorned for her husband." (Rev. 21:2). And, beloved fellow-saints, surely we should accustom our souls to think and meditate often on this ever-blessed vision, this divine description of our eternal home. When we are absent from our earthly dwelling-place, where our friends and loved ones are, we often find our thoughts and affections turning thither. We cannot restrain them if we would. Unwittingly, shall I say, we find ourselves humming "there's no place like home." And if it be so with our earthly tent and those we love below, how much more ought it to be our habit to turn, with longing eye and heart, to that home and mansion which "eternally shall stand." As the late beloved Robert Chapman sang—
May not an exile, Lord, desire
His own sweet land to see?
May not a captive seek release,
A prisoner, to be free?
A child when far away may long
For home and kindred dear;
And she that waits her absent Lord
May sigh till He appear.
Yet alas! how seldom do we hear its "glories confessed" with an ardor worthy of the theme. Saints of earlier and less-enlightened days, who knew less of the world than we do, had more to say about it. It may be they were behind us in their general knowledge, but it often occurs to me, as I read their utterances and listen there, as it were, to the breathings of their hearts, that they were miles ahead of us in their aspirations after heavenly things, and in their enjoyment of them. They were less at home on earth, and better acquainted with the city to which they were going. It was of this city that the aged Bernard so sweetly sang—
"Jerusalem the glorious! the home of the elect!
O dear and future country! our eager hearts expect,
E'en now by faith I see thee, e'en here thy walls discern:
To thee my thoughts are kindled, and strive, and pant, and yearn."
To view this fair city, the exiled John was led by an angel "to a great and high mountain." Surely we may gather from this, that in order to have this glorious scene revealed to our hearts now, we need to be on the mount of God, in communion with Him in spirit, far from that world in which everything is so utterly opposed to Him. He sees the holy Jerusalem "descending out of heaven from God" toward the earth. The first eight verses of Rev. 21 give a view of the city in its relation to the eternal state, the new heaven and the new earth: the following verses give a retrospective view of the city in its relation to millennial times, as we judge. The contrast between the restored heavens and earth of millennial times, and the freshly created heavens and earth of the eternal state, is plainly marked. In the millennial earth sin remains in the flesh of those inhabiting it, although not as now in manifested form: in the eternal state every trace of the fall, all "the former things" will have passed away. The leaves of the tree of life will be used for the "healing of the nations" during the millennium, whereas, in the eternal state their shall be "neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain."
The New Jerusalem During the Millennium
The New Jerusalem is first seen descending toward the earth, but during the millennium it will not descend into the earth, but rather appear over it, the abode of Christ and His heavenly people, the seat of His government and glory. As one has said, "the Adamic earth is not adapted to its glory. It remains therefore throughout the millennium connected with the earth, but not in the earth, and it is not until the first heaven and earth have passed away, and new heavens and a new earth created, that it descends again, and finds a home suited to its glory." During the thousand years of Christ's reign it would appear as if it occupied a place between the heaven above—the dwelling place of God—and the earthly Jerusalem, the metropolis of the world of that time. It will be filled with the glory of God, and hung as a lamp to lighten the earth below with its holy light. "The nations shall walk amidst the light thereof" (Rev. 21:24, R. V.).
The earthly Jerusalem, "the City of the Great King," will be lit up by the beams of glory from the heavenly city, as it is written: "Arise; shine! for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee." Isa. 60:1. That glory will fill the temple (Ezek. 43:5.) and be a defense and a shadow to Jehovah's earthy people (Isa. 4:5). "The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it" (Isa. 40:5).
The transfiguration scene on the mount was a foreshadowing of this blessed time. In the heaven of heavens, high above all, God the Father is heard speaking. Lower down, and within the vision of those who stood upon the earthly mount, Christ is seen transfigured, shining in heavenly glory, in company with Moses and Elias, fit types of the sleeping saints who have been raised and of the living changed without tasting death, while the earthly people, like Peter, James and John, basking in the light of that face which did "shine as the sun" are well able to see and hear the converse of the heavenly company. So shall it be when the glory of God—now shining in the face of Jesus Christ, but hidden to the world—shall beam forth in all its brightness in the Heavenly City, and radiate through its crystal walls to the earth beneath.
The New Heavens and New Earth
"We, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter 3:13. This, although not the proximate hope of the Church, is the great end of the purpose of God: the final consummation of all His dispensational workings. Blessed and glorious as the millennial kingdom will be, it falls short of absolute perfectness; it is not the "eternal glory" to which the saints have been "called" (1 Peter 5:10); it is not the eternal rest of God and His redeemed. This rest will only be reached when every trace of sin and sorrow has been done away, when every mark of the fall and the curse has been wiped off: the last enemy destroyed, and the whole of God's redeemed-including those who will live on the earth in mortal bodies during the millennium-have been brought into the perfectness and glory of the new creation. Then it is that all that connects itself with the first Adam and the first creation disappears forever, the old heavens and earth pass away, and new heavens and a new earth appear, in which God will be all in all; the fair Paradise of God; the eternal home of the last Adam and His bride, into which neither Satan, nor sin, nor sorrow shall ever enter.
The glory of the new heavens and new earth we can at present but feebly apprehend. The first creation was glorious ere sin had marred it: even now, amidst its groans for deliverance, there are traces of its great Creator's hand, which proclaim His wisdom and His might. But the beauty and the glory of the new creation will exceed the old, as the glory of Christ the second man exceeds that of the first Adam, who was of the earth.
With this glimpse of the eternal state the curtain drops and the Scripture ends. The Book of God had opened with an account of the creation of the first heavens and earth, and with a view of the first Adam and his bride amid the beauties of an earthly paradise, with its tree of life and flowing rivers: and the Book of God now closes with a view of the new heavens and the new earth, and of the last Adam and His bride amidst the eternal glories of the Paradise of God. Fair scene! over which no cloud shall ever roll, or day of sorrow come. Full well may we sing: Beneath Thy touch, beneath Thy smile New heavens and earth appear, No sin their beauty to defile, Or dim them with a tear."
The New Jerusalem in the Eternal State
John sees the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. Her thousand years of millennial blessedness, during which she had flooded the earth with her glory beams, are past, but her freshness and beauty are still the same. She appears as a bride adorned, clad in her bridal robes—in the fair, unfading loveliness of resurrection—descending now as the tabernacle of God: His eternal dwelling place among glorified men, whose capacities for the enjoyment of God, and for abiding in His presence will be perfect. His will shall then be done on earth as it is in heaven. Heaven and earth will no longer be at variance as they now are, but in blessed unison, courts of the same glorious dwelling place of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Triune God of Light and Love—"All in all."
A VIEW OF THE HOLY CITY
Surely it was of grace that God's lonely witness was allowed to see this glorious sight of the heavenly city and the calm, eternal Sabbath of rest that lay beyond the sorrows of his earthly lot. The sight of that eternal city would never be forgotten. It would ever be present to him in his lonely Patmos. If we by grace have the vision made plain to us, our hearts shall be so won by it, that the world with all its tinsel glory, will fade and die. It will have no charm, no attraction, by reason of the glory that excelleth. Holy Jerusalem! Perfection of beauty! how our groveling spirits need thee!
"Yes, I need thee, heavenly City,
My low spirit to upbear;
Yes, I need thee; earth's enchantments
So beguile me with their glare
Let me see thee; then these fetters
Break asunder—I am free;
World! thy pomp no longer charms me,
Faith has won the victory.
The Book of the Revelation abounds in symbols, and this description of the heavenly city is chiefly symbolic in its character. Without attempting to expound these symbols—for we only know in part—surely we may gather from them the character of that heaven and home to which God is leading us.
"The city was pure gold like unto clear glass"—divine righteousness, absolute purity. "The building of the wall of it was cf jasper," a perfectly transparent medium; nothing to sully the divine glory, as, alas there is in us now. "The street [or broad-way) of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass." No spot or stain contracted there! No more need of the laver or brazen sea! All is purity, perfectness, holiness there. "The city lieth foursquare; the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal," a transparent cube, fifteen hundred miles each way: perfect alike above, around, below. "And had a wall great and high"— perfect security: no roaring lion, no subtle serpent there. Watchfulness no longer needed; the day of the sword and shield is past. "The gates of it shall not be shut at all"—perfect freedom; yet "there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth." Solemn words for the sinner and the unclean.
"The charms that woo the senses
Shall be as pure as fair,
And all, while breathing o'er us,
Shall tell of Jesus there."
"The city had no need of the sun"—"the glory of God did lighten it"—"the Lamb is the light thereof." "The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it." All divine: all of God and the Lamb. "The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel's land."
"God and the Lamb—'tis well,
I know that source divine,
Of joy and love no tongue can tell,
Yet know that all is mine.
God and the Lamb shall there
The light and temple be;
And radiant hosts forever share
The unveiled mystery."
"I saw no temple therein." In the earthly city there will be a temple (Ezek. 41), but in the heavenly city all are priests, and all abide equally near, in the holiest. "The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple." And, better than all the glory, "they shall see His face." 0 blessed sight! Not a brief glance, but a long, eternal gaze. "Thou settest us before Thy face forever," and there, forever like Thee and with Thee, and with all Thy redeemed, glorified in Thine image, we shall behold Thy glory and gaze upon Thy face throughout eternity. This shall be Thy people's heaven, and this their everlasting home.
What is that for which we're waiting,
Is this glittering earthly toy?
Heavenly, glory, holy splendor,
Sun of grandeur, sun of joy.
Not the gems that time can tarnish,
Not the lives that dim and die,
Not the glow that cheats the lover,
Shaded with mortality.
Heir of glory,
What is that to thee and me?
Not the light that leaves us darker,
Not the gleams that come and go,
Not the mirth whose end is madness,
Not the joy, whose fruit is woe;
Not the notes that die at sunset,
Not the fashion of a day;
But the everlasting beauty
And the endless melody.
Heir of glory.
That shall be for thee and me.
Soon where earthly beauty blinds not,
No excess of brilliance palls,
Salem! City of the Holy,
We shall be within thy walls.
There, beside you crystal river,
There, beneath life's wondrous tree,
There, with naught to cloud or sever,
Ever with the Lamb to be!
Heir of glory,
That shall be for thee and me.
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