The Holy City

He took me in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. . . . The city wall was broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. There were three gates on each side —east, north, south, and west. The wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were written the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Revelation 21:10, 12-14

THE APOSTLE JOHN described how the new Jerusalem will descend out of heaven from God. For the meaning of that to sink in, we need to think for a minute about the old Jerusalem. David captured Jerusalem from the pagan Jebusites before dishonoring it with adultery and murder. This was the city that later became infamous for its child sacrifice and unlawful sorceries. This was the city that mocked the integrity of Jeremiah and turned a deaf ear to the preaching of Isaiah. Jerusalem is the city that rejected and crucified Jesus. Isn’t this the most unlikely of places to serve as a model for our eternal home? What insight does this give us into the nature of heaven?

This tells us that God is making a holy city out of our idol-loving, God-defying, Christ-rejecting city of man. God is taking moms and dads who worship idols of pleasure and pride, sons and daughters who love to hate God, families who continually reject the riches of Christ for the trinkets of the world, and he is remaking us into a city he intends to live in.

The foundations of this city are built on the twelve sons of Israel and the twelve apostles. In other words, this Holy City of God is being built on the foundation of the grace of God at work in the lives of ordinary, fearful, unfaithful, inconsistent human beings. This means that there is nothing so evil or unredeemable, nothing so obscure and unworthy in our lives that it cannot, even now, be fashioned into the foundation stones of the new city of heaven.

Lord, you really are making all things new! Your Holy City will be filled with flagrant but forgiven sinners. And that gives us hope.