The future heavenly Jerusalem
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, �If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace�but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side.� They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God�s coming to you. (Luke 19:41-44)In the Book of Revelation we have a glorious picture of future Jerusalem.
�Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father�s name written on their foreheads.� (Revelation 14:1)
But this is not the earthly city revived. It is a new city, the new Jerusalem, a heavenly one.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband� I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.� The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.� The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.� On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there.� The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.� Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb�s book of life*(Revelation 21:2, 22-26).
In this one all consuming vision, God�s people now embrace all peoples, God�s land encompasses all nations, and God�s holy city has become the eternal dwelling place of all who remain faithful - the Bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb (Revelation 21:9). And what of the Temple? John writes, �I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.� (Revelation 21:22).� And yet it is here that the contradiction between the flow of New Testament revelation and contemporary speculation is most sharply brought into focus. The expectation of a future Jewish Temple is probably the most controversial issue uniting Zionists and their Christian friends � and that is our subject for next week.��
4 - Battle for Jerusalem: The Eternal Capital of the Jews