Lovely As A City
I have lately had my vision of heaven dramatically altered. You see, I have always imagined myself in heaven living in a beautiful palace and walking around on streets of gold. Every now and again, I might journey to the center of the city to visit Jesus, reigning on a throne of light with this Father.
But then I actually read Revelation 22. Notice carefully:
9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
Now, verse 9, I understood. The Church of Jesus gets called a “Bride” throughout the New Testament. And that particular truth has always been deeply gratifying. Along with the rest of believers throughout history, we constitute Jesus’ forever love, his spouse. And the angel invites John to come take a look at her. But what does he take him see? A city! The text does not say that the Bride dwells in a city, but that she IS a city. John’s visions in the Apocalypse are full of mixed metaphor, and the glory of the New Jerusalem is not that the Church will live out her days IN it, but AS it.
Now I suspect that I’m safe in assuming that very few gentlemen readers of Common Grounds Online have ever found themselves gazing into the eyes of their beloved, awash in affection, and said something like, “My darling, you are as lovely as…as…as a city!”
But I have to confess that since I discovered this little exegetical nugget, the passage has a new power over me. First, John describes the precious jewels with which she is constructed. God is promising not simply to adorn me in precious jewels, but will make me to be like a precious jewel. This would not have moved me before I was married. For over eleven years now, I have occasionally caught my wife staring at her engagement ring, still fascinated at its brilliance. The sands of time have made my wife’s glances at me quite rare. But if this passage is true, Jesus will never tire of looking at the beauty he will make me to be.
John also goes into quite a lot of detail about the massive height of the walls of the city. Commentator Dennis E. Johnson explains how silly is would be to assume John is talking about a literal city wall, whose further reaches would extend into the path of many orbiting space satellites. No, John is talking about us, Jesus’ Church! I have come to see that John here describes the vast expanse (a number no one can count, cf. Rev. 7:9) of God’s people on the one hand, and the unshakable security of them on the other. What an image! I am destined to be a living stone in a living city, gathered with an innumerable host of others saved by the same blood of Christ. And my existence in that state will be eternally and unchangeably safe. No more threats, from within or without. No more insecurity and fear of the future.
All that to say, I think I am happy now to give up my former dreams of streets of gold and gem-studded palaces for a picture of a Savior who, by his own merit, looks at me that way!
But then I actually read Revelation 22. Notice carefully:
9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,
Now, verse 9, I understood. The Church of Jesus gets called a “Bride” throughout the New Testament. And that particular truth has always been deeply gratifying. Along with the rest of believers throughout history, we constitute Jesus’ forever love, his spouse. And the angel invites John to come take a look at her. But what does he take him see? A city! The text does not say that the Bride dwells in a city, but that she IS a city. John’s visions in the Apocalypse are full of mixed metaphor, and the glory of the New Jerusalem is not that the Church will live out her days IN it, but AS it.
Now I suspect that I’m safe in assuming that very few gentlemen readers of Common Grounds Online have ever found themselves gazing into the eyes of their beloved, awash in affection, and said something like, “My darling, you are as lovely as…as…as a city!”
But I have to confess that since I discovered this little exegetical nugget, the passage has a new power over me. First, John describes the precious jewels with which she is constructed. God is promising not simply to adorn me in precious jewels, but will make me to be like a precious jewel. This would not have moved me before I was married. For over eleven years now, I have occasionally caught my wife staring at her engagement ring, still fascinated at its brilliance. The sands of time have made my wife’s glances at me quite rare. But if this passage is true, Jesus will never tire of looking at the beauty he will make me to be.
John also goes into quite a lot of detail about the massive height of the walls of the city. Commentator Dennis E. Johnson explains how silly is would be to assume John is talking about a literal city wall, whose further reaches would extend into the path of many orbiting space satellites. No, John is talking about us, Jesus’ Church! I have come to see that John here describes the vast expanse (a number no one can count, cf. Rev. 7:9) of God’s people on the one hand, and the unshakable security of them on the other. What an image! I am destined to be a living stone in a living city, gathered with an innumerable host of others saved by the same blood of Christ. And my existence in that state will be eternally and unchangeably safe. No more threats, from within or without. No more insecurity and fear of the future.
All that to say, I think I am happy now to give up my former dreams of streets of gold and gem-studded palaces for a picture of a Savior who, by his own merit, looks at me that way!