Continuing here with part 2 of this article, this week Malcolm looks at further places Jerusalem is talked about, what it means that Jerusalem is “the church”, the new Jerusalem is the new church, and where we fit into that. Find part 1 here -Editor.
Last week we looked at some of the places that Jerusalem is mentioned in the Old testament. The word “Jerusalem” occurs 806 times, and together they paint a varied and contradictory picture of the city’s meaning. This week we continue on to look at some of the places it’s mentioned in the New Testament, Writings, and where we belong in this holy city.
On the one hand Jerusalem is the place where Jesus was presented as an infant in the temple and where, as a 12 year old He impressed the scholars with His knowledge and questions (Luke 2). But mostly Jerusalem was the stronghold of the enemies of Jesus. He rode into Jerusalem as a king on Palm Sunday. He went to the temple and drove out the people who were buying and selling there (Mark 11:15). He preached there. He healed there. He was put on trial there and crucified just outside of Jerusalem. One of the most poignant moments was when Jesus wept over Jerusalem. In Matthew He says,
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks un-\der her wings, but you were not willing! (23:37)
In Luke He says,
If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation. (19:42-44)
Just like the prophets He prophesied another destruction of Jerusalem. After He was crucified and rose on the third day He told His disciples “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47). And He told them to wait in the city of Jerusalem until they were given power from on high (Luke 24:49). And then Jerusalem is mentioned a number of times in the Acts and Epistles of the Apostles, as a location where they were working.
Finally we come to the vision of the New Jerusalem in Revelation:
2 Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. 4 And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” 5 Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” …. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls: each individual gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. 22 But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but on-ly those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Revelation 1:2-5, 21-27
Now that we’ve got the history of Jerusalem in our minds we can see the contrast between the old Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem. Jerusalem was always meant to be the dwelling place of peace—where God could be with His people. This new Jerusalem is the fulfillment of that. This is a pure Jerusalem—one that cannot be corrupted or defiled. It is open to people of all nations and yet safe from all enemies. This is a Jerusalem that will never be destroyed. It is a holy city—not holy because it has a temple in it where ritual sacrifices are performed in the right way, but holy because God is truly present there, protecting and comforting His people, and illuminating the whole city. A beautiful vision.
The teachings of the New Church say that Jerusalem in the Bible means “the church” and the new Jerusalem means the New Church (True Christianity §§107, 782; Apocalypse Revealed §880). If we don’t think about it carefully we can think, “The New Jerusalem is the New Church. We are the New Church. The New Jerusalem is perfect and the best. Therefore we are perfect and the best. Rah, rah New Church Day!”
But I want to just slow down a bit and think it through carefully. What is a church? When are we part of the New Church?
What is a church?
The Greek word and the Latin word is ecclesia. It doesn’t have anything to do with a building or really even a formal organisation. It means an assembly of people, a gathered group—literally those called out. So the church means the group of people called out by the Lord to follow Him.
When we look at the history of Jerusalem we are looking at the history of those who have been called out by the Lord to follow Him. And the New Church is the new group of people who are called out by the Lord to follow Him.
When are we part of the New Church?
Here’s an explanation from the teachings of the New Church about what it means to be part of the church:
There are some people who believe that they belong to the Church because they have the Word, read it or hear it read by a preacher and know something of the sense of the Letter, although they do not know how certain passages in it are to be understood….The Word is the Word according to the understanding of it with a person, that is, as it is understood. If it is not understood, the Word is indeed called the Word, but with the person it does not exist. The Word is truth according to the understanding of it; for the Word may not be truth, as it can be falsified. …. Through the understanding of the Word and according to it, the Church is a Church—a noble Church if it is in genuine truths, an ignoble Church if it is not in genuine truths, and a Church destroyed if it is in falsified truths. ….The Lord… is present with a person through the reading of the Word; but He is conjoined with him through his understanding of truth from the Word and according to it; and in the degree that the Lord is conjoined with a person, the Church is in him. The Church is within a person. The Church that is outside of him is the Church among the many people within whom the Church exists. Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture §§76-78
People in the church are people who have the church in them. People in the New Church are people who have the New Church in them—in their minds, in their hearts, in their lives.
So, are you part of the New Church? Is the New Church in your mind and in your heart? If you were going to picture your relationship with the Lord as a city, what sort of Jerusalem do you have within you? Is the Jerusalem of Solomon’s time—a city following the Lord but mostly focussed on just the external actions of going to church and doing the religious rituals? Is it a corrupt Jerusalem where the temple is run down but unused and the king and people are worshiping the gods of self-gratification? Or is it the Holy City New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven where the Lord Himself is the temple and the light of your mind?
Now, I’m not trying to talk everyone out of thinking that they’re part of the New Church. When we really understand what it means to be part of the New Church it feels arrogant and presumptuous to say that we know that we are part of it. We’re running into the challenge of ideals vs. reality. We want to hold onto and believe in ideals for ourselves and other people and we also want to be realistic and understanding of the fallibility of ordinary human beings. We run into difficulties when we look at our man-made natural world organisations and compare them with the ideal of what the New Church is meant to be. Or when we look at the actions of other people who “call themselves New Church” but don’t measure up, in our minds, to that glittering ideal. Or we look at ourselves and think the same thing. “Who am I to call myself New Church when my marriage is like this or when my children are doing that?”
Part of the benefit I see in understanding the whole history of Jerusalem is seeing that the Lord gets it. He created us. He understand us.
And when we’re not measuring up to the ideal—that’s nothing He hasn’t seen before. That has been the history for literally thousands of years. It’s unlikely that we can mess things up worse than other people already have. You name it, people have done it—greed, promiscuity, deceit, human sacrifice.
But still God wanted to be with His people, still God was reaching out to them—calling them to turn back to Him, promising restoration and comfort and rebuilding. No matter what you’ve done or where you are in your life, the Lord wants you to be part of His new church.
The church has always been for real people. The New Church is for real people. It’s not something out there. Yes the Word and the teachings of the New Church are perfect and beautiful and Divine. But if nobody reads them and thinks about them and tries to live them then they’re just a pile of dead trees and ink. Or like the most beautiful church ever built with nobody inside it. The church does not exist apart from people.
As soon as we try to read and think about and live the teachings of the church we run into difficulties. We battle to understand things. We battle even more to apply even basic things we understand. We get conceited and self-righteous about the little that we do know. And so we have to get over ourselves and get back on our feet and keep going back to the Lord to try again.
And in no other way does the New Church become something real in us and real in the world in general. This is what it means to be part of the Lord’s church—to be part of the people called out by the Lord to follow Him—to be part of the New Jerusalem.
In the final vision at the end of the Bible, the Lord could have just called it “The holy city” with no name attached or with some new name that we’d never heard before. But instead He chose to name it Jerusalem—a city with all its history, good and bad.
But it was the New Jerusalem. “He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new’” (Revelation 21:5). It is a city and a church for God’s imperfect people that He will make new if they will let Him. Jerusalem’s past was corrupt but He made it new. Our own pasts have not been perfect but we can be made new. And the Lord is working for this with incredible energy if we will only let Him. As He said in Isaiah
For Zion’s sake I will not hold My peace, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, Until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, And her salvation as a lamp that burns. (62:1)
Malcolm is about to become the head pastor of New Church Westville in South Africa. He enjoys having a job that involves digging into the richness of the literal sense of the Word and getting to share what he finds with other people.