THE NEW JERUSALEM EXPLAINED.
“I
will write upon him that overcomes the name of New Jerusalem, the city of my
God.”—Jesus.
Referring to
Revelation 22: 2, 15, a correspondent inquires, “Now, provided the Sin-power be
destroyed, and we have all the blessings described in the fourth verse of the
chapter before, why do we need the Tree of Life; and why are dogs, sorcerers,
&c., said to be without?”
The direct answer to this is, that we have no need; and that dogs, and
sorcerers, do not then exist without. This answer, however, is on the hypothesis
that “the Sin-power is destroyed,” and that “the blessings”
indicated in Revelation 21: 4, are possessed by all the dwellers upon earth,
when “the throne of God and of the Lamb” exists in the Age to Come.
But this hypothesis cannot be sustained. The Sin-power is not destroyed
until a thousand years after the appearing of the Son of Man in power. It is
bruised and chained at his appearing, but not destroyed; as is evident from the
prediction that, “when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed
out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the
four quarters of the earth, the Gog and the Magog, to gather them together for
war; the number being as the sand of the sea.”
“The blessings” referred to are postmillennial. It is true, however,
that the saints who possess the kingdom will enjoy those blessings during the
thousand years. But then Revelation 21: 4, is not the passage that predicts
their consolation. The prophecy relating to them reads thus—“I beheld,”
says John, “and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all
nations, and kingdoms, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands: and they
cried with a loud voice saying, ‘The salvation (be ascribed) to him who
sits upon the throne of our God, even to the Lamb!’ These are they that came
out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve
him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell
among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall
the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb who is in the midst of the
throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters;
and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes”—Revelation 7: 9-17. This
multitude, whose representative number is 144,000, and their representative
measure 12,000 furlongs square about, 12,000 furlongs high, and walled in by an
altitude of 144 cubits, are the gold, and silver, and precious stones, tried in
the fire, of whom Paul speaks in part in 1 Corinthians 3: 12, as “built upon
the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief
corner”—Ephesians 2: 20—“a living stone, chosen of God, and precious”
to them that believe—1 Peter 2: 4, 7. These are the Lord’s in that day when he
makes up his jewels—Malachi 3: 17—the sapphires, agates, carbuncles, and
pleasant stones—the children of Jerusalem in her exaltation—Isaiah 54: 11-13,
who is the mother of them all—Galatians 4: 26.
These sons and daughters of faith and tribulation are those, who, in the
days of their probation, love Jerusalem, and believe the “glorious things
God has spoken” concerning her. Believing these promises, they become “the
children of the promise who are counted for the seed,” who are to inherit
the Gentiles. They therefore stand related to the metropolis, or mother city of
their kingdom, as mother and offspring—all of whose children shall be taught of
God, and great shall be their peace.
This great multitude has a twofold existence—first, as flesh and blood
suffering tribulation; and secondly, as palm trees flourishing in possession of
the kingdom of God. In the former state their fortunes, or rather misfortunes,
are concurrent with those of Jerusalem as “a woman forsaken and grieved in
spirit.” Hence they are described in the Book of Symbols as “the Holy
City trodden under foot of the Gentiles forty-two months”—Revelation 11: 2.
But, when Jerusalem becomes “free,” and she who now “drinks the dregs
of the cup of trembling, and wrings them out,” shall awake and put on her strength,
and be endued with her beautiful garments, and the uncircumcised and the
unclean come into her no more—Isaiah 51: 17-23; 52: 1—then will the great
multitude John beheld awake also, and put on their strength, and beauty, and
rejoice in the prosperity of the Holy City, for her glory will be also theirs.
Jerusalem is then exalted, and become “the joy of the whole earth.” Well
may the poet say on view of this, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my
right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy”—Psalm
137: 5.
“Jerusalem a rejoicing and her people a joy,” compared with
anything pertaining to her on former days, is a new Jerusalem—he ano Hierousalem,
“the higher, or more exalted, Jerusalem;” and by virtue of her being the
theatre of divine manifestations, and “the throne of the Lord,” she is
styled, “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,” to which
even now all believers come by faith, and rejoice in hope of her glory, of
which they are joint-heirs with her “Great King.” This being their
relation to her, every one that inherits the glorious things spoken of her, is
inscribed with her name; as saith the Lord Jesus in these words, “Upon him
that overcomes I will write the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem,
which descends out of the heaven from my God.” Each of this great
multitude, then, is named after the Free Woman subsequently to his
resurrection; for it is not till then that their acceptance as those who have
by their faith overcome the world’s enticements, is declared. Now Paul teaches
that this multitude of resurrected and glorified saints will be caught up to
meet the Lord in the air—1 Thessalonians 4: 17; 2 Thessalonians 1: 8. John saw
them there in vision, and represents them as those who had gained a victory,
standing on a sea of crystal, mingled with fire, and rejoicing—Revelation 15:
2. But these citizens of the New Jerusalem do not always remain “in the
air;” for in another vision John saw them as “the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming down from God out of the heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband.” But before he saw this, an angel said to him, “Come
hither, I will show thee the Bride, the Lamb’s wife.” So “he showed me,”
says John, “that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of the
heaven from God.” It is clear from this, that the New Jerusalem John saw
was not a city of architecture, but a polity made up of glorified saints. The
phrase “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,” applied to the descending city,
proves this. In the nineteenth chapter and eighth verse, she is represented as
being “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white;” which white raiment is
said to be representative of “the righteousness of the saints;” which is
equivalent to saying that the Bride is the aggregate of the saints. They are
collectively the Lamb’s wife, according to the teaching of Paul, who says that
they are “members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones;” which
was Eve’s relation to the first man.
This city, or body corporate, of Jehovah’s glorified sons and daughters,
is representatively exhibited and described in Revelation 21: 11, to 22: 5. It
is set forth as a city having a great and high wall of Jasper, in which are
twelve gates of as many pearls, with wall-foundations of choice stones, each
one of the twelve being decorated with all manner of precious stones. These
rare and brilliant insets, which highly adorn the State, are worked into pure
crystal-like gold, by which the city-multitude of its street, or broadway—hee
plateia tees poleoos, is represented. In the midst of this polity is the
throne of God and of the lamb, from which issues a life-inspiring stream that
flows along the plateia, refreshing and invigorating all the members of the
State. There also stands “the Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of
God,” nourished by the river which streams amid its roots; “bearing
twelve fruits, through one month yielding its separate fruit, and its leaves
for the healing of the nations.”
Such is the municipality of the Kingdom represented by most expressive
symbols, which I shall now briefly explain. First, then, of the “great and
high wall of Jasper.” The wall is representative of a federal person; and
the material, of that person’s preciousness. That “wall” is used of
person in Scripture is evident from these texts—“What shall we do for our
sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build
upon her a palace of silver. I am a wall, and my breasts like towers: then was
I in his eyes as one that found favour.” This is a Bride that has found
favour; and she is styled a wall. The Lord said to Jeremiah, “I will make
thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall, and they shall fight against thee,
but they shall not prevail.” Speaking of Jerusalem delivered from her
desolators, Jehovah says, “I will be unto her a wall of fire round about,
and will be the glory in the midst of her.” “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of
Zion; for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.”
The Bride, then, is a wall, and the Lord is a wall to her likewise; for being a
wall of fire to the city standing on Mount Zion, he is also a wall to that
glorious city’s corporation. The Lord as the wall of the Kingdom’s municipality
encloses all its members, who, having been “baptised into the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” are “in God the Father and in the Lord
Jesus”—walled or enclosed in him, which is the idea represented by the
symbol.
The enclosure of the New Jerusalem community—the wall; and their “light”—the
glory of God—are both represented by transparent jasper stone. “I will be the
glory in the midst of her, saith the Lord;” that is, “I will be a stone
most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal unto her.” And
this interpretation of the jasper-light of the commonwealth, is sustained by
the words of the angel, who says, “And the city had no need of the sun,
neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God lightens it, and the
Lamb is the light thereof.” This is taught without symbol in the prophets. “The
man whose name is the Branch,” says Zechariah, “shall bear the glory,
and sit and rule upon his throne.”—“Then,” says Isaiah, “the moon shall
be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign on Mount
Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.” These “ancients”
are “the City or State, that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is
God,” and whose Prince is Christ the Lord, its everlasting light and glory.
The relationship of the Lamb and the Bride in regard to the City Wall,
will exemplify the idea of “no temple being there.” The wall of a house
or temple is the building itself; for no wall, no building. Believers in Christ
in the present evil world are styled in scripture, “the house of God,”
and “the temple of God.” “Know ye not,” says Paul to the
Corinthians in Christ, “that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit
of God dwelleth in you?” “Ye are God’s building;” but without the Lamb,
that is, not being built into him, they were neither house, temple, nor builded
wall. Individually, they were separate and distinct elements, like unconnected
stones accumulated for building purposes. While thus, they were neither wall
nor temple. But when cut and polished, and built in by the Spirit, through Paul
as “a wise masterbuilder;” that is, “constituted the righteousness of
God in Christ Jesus,” who became to them “wisdom, and righteousness, and
sanctification, and redemption,” they became “One Body,” having him
for their head; and therefore, one wall, one temple, and one building with, and
inseparable from, him. This being so, such a society needs no temple, being its
own temple. This is not to say, that there is no temple in Jerusalem at the
time. John’s instructor is not speaking of things unsymbolical pertaining to
men in mortal flesh; but to Saints immortalised. Ezekiel treats of the unfigurative,
which become symbols in the construction of the Apocalypse. The temple he
treats of is the house of prayer for Israel and the nations; but the temple
constituted of the Lamb and his Bride, is for them who are “pillars in it,
and shall no more go out.”
The Twelve Gates of pearls in the wall represent the relationship
subsisting between the New Jerusalem Municipality and the Twelve Tribes of
Israel. The names inscribed on the gates show that they are representatives of
the tribes; and that, consequently, the members of the New Jerusalem community
became such by adoption into the Commonwealth of Israel, on an angel-principle,
and so “entered in through the gates into the city.” The twelve angels
stationed at the gates represent twelve messengers, by whose message, believed
and obeyed, the gold and precious stones of the polity came to “enter in
through the gates.” The names of these angels or messengers are inscribed
upon the twelve foundations of the wall, being “the names of the twelve
apostles of the Lamb.” These are the angels of the pearly gates of this
glorious city, sent by the jasper-light of it to turn men from darkness to
light, and to invite them to God’s kingdom of glory. This they did by preaching
the gospel of the kingdom for “the obedience of faith;” by which
obedience a people were separated from “all nations, and kindreds, and
people, and tongues;” and adopted as citizens of the Commonwealth of
Israel, in the hope of that remarkable and favoured nation. They thus became a
part of Israel, and therefore styled by Paul “the Israel of God;” which,
in its glorified state, with Israel’s God and King in the midst of them, was
displayed in vision descending from the air to Mount Zion, before the mind of
the apostle John.
The organization of the Israel of God has relation, therefore, to the
foundation of the Hebrew Commonwealth in the twelve sons of Israel, and their
own engraftment into Israel’s Olive, through the ministration of the twelve
apostles, who issued from the tribes. Hence, in other parts of the apocalypse,
they are represented by twenty-four elders wearing crowns of gold, who, with
the four living creatures full of eyes, explain their own representation in the
songs ascribed to them. When exhibited as a city, the twenty-four are divided
into twelves, whose names are inscribed on the gates and foundations of the
wall; and the eyes of the living creatures become the garnishing precious
stones of each apostle-foundation. They are “the servants of God sealed in
their foreheads”—the “144,000 of all the tribes of the children of
Israel,” become “Israelites indeed” by that which is sealed upon
them: for in relation to the glorified inheritors of Israel’s kingdom, “the
flesh profiteth nothing.”
Each foundation-stone of the city wall is a great precious stone, “a
living stone”—and represents an apostle. Each polished gem would be
beautiful alone; but how much more beautiful when decorated by all manner of
precious stones beside! The meaning of this symbol is expressed in Paul’s words
to those whom he had “sealed on their foreheads,” and brought into
fellow-citizenship with the Saints of Israel. “What is our hope, or joy, or
crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at
his coming? Ye are our glory and joy.” They were not “wood, hay, and
stubble,” but gold, and silver, and precious stones. There is no use for
destructible materials, such as wood, hay, and stubble, in God’s municipality;
it is only those who stand the fire can be admitted there. Such were many of
the apostles’ converts to the faith. They will rejoice together in the presence
of the Lord; and those who have been brought to the obedience of the faith by
an apostle, will be to him the garnishment of precious stones in the holy city.
The elements of the wall and the precious stones, are built upon the
foundation stones. The idea incorporated into this symbol is found in the words—“Ye
are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ
himself being the chief corner; in whom all the building fitly framed together
groweth into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together
for a habitation of God through the Spirit;” which in the New Jerusalem
association, issues from his throne, and flows through every member of it, as “
a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal.”
The idea of “a great multitude which no man can number”
constituting the New Jerusalem society, is represented by the symbolical
magnitude of the city. Twelve is the radical number, and multiplies by twelve.
Twelve thousand were representatively sealed, and identified as a tribe of the
Israel of God. Twelve times twelve thousand give the 144,000 on Mount Zion with
the Lamb. Each 12,000 occupies a definite space, which is 4000 furlongs square;
and for all the thousands representatively stated as 12,000 furlongs square for
the whole city, 48,000 furlongs the four square; giving 144,000 furlongs for
its sectional contents. The symbolical height of the city is equal to its
length and breadth. The height of the wall is twelve times twelve cubits;
sufficiently high to indicate the impossibility of “any thing entering into
it to defile it,” or that is “not written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Here is multitude innumerable symbolically represented, by 1500 miles length
and breadth, and altitude besides; showing, doubtless, that this glorious
polity is the medium of connection between the nations of the earth and
heaven.
Such a community
as this can need no lamp, or sunlight, to enlighten it; for “there shall be
no night there.” Every individual of it will “shine as the brightness of
the firmament; and those of it who have turned many to righteousness as the
stars for ever and ever.” Being righteous, they shine as the sun; for “the
Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.”
This saying proves that the New Jerusalem is a community of kings—“they
shall reign for ever and ever”—eis tous aionas ton aionon, to the ages of the
ages. Over whom shall they reign, and where? “He that overcometh and
keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations; and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron:”—“He shall sit with me on my throne,
even as I overcome and sit with my Father in his throne.” In view of these
promises the heirs of the kingdom sing in their new song, “Thou wast slain,
and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we
shall reign on the earth.” And when the time comes for this to be
fulfilled, John sees “thrones,” and he says, “They sat upon them, and
judgment was given unto them—and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand
years.” “And the nations of them that are saved (survive the judgment of
the saints) shall walk in the light of it (the New Jerusalem
government), and the kings of the earth (the victorious saints) bring
their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by
day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and the
honour of the nations into it.”
“And judgment was given unto them;” that is, says Daniel, “to
the saints.” This is their honour. “Let the high praises of God be in
their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; to execute vengeance upon the
nations, and punishments upon the people: to bind their kings with chains, and
their nobles with fetters of iron: to execute upon them the judgment written:
this honour have all his saints”—Psalm 149. But the sword only prepares the
way for the world’s regeneration. It hews down embattled hindrances to the
improvement of mankind; but it adds nothing to the spirituality and
intelligence of them that escape. The mission of Christ and his brethren, the
saints, is to regenerate the world, as well as to “break in pieces the
oppressor;”—to heal the nations of all their maladies of soul, spirit, and
estate.
The agency by which this great work is to be accomplished is the Spirit
of God operating through Christ, the Apostles, and the rest of the Saints—the
New Jerusalem association of God’s kings and priests. This idea is represented
by the pure river of living water, the Tree of Life, the twelve fruits, through
one month yielding its separate fruit; and the Leaves of the Tree for the
healing of the nations. That “a pure river of water of life, clear as
crystal, issuing from the throne of God and the Lamb,” is the symbol of the
Holy Spirit may be perceived from these words: —“I will pour water upon him
that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my Spirit upon thy
seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring: and they shall spring up as among
the grass, as willows by the water courses.” “If thou knewest the gift of God,
thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”
“He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of him shall flow rivers
of living water. This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him
should receive.”
What the Tree of Life represents may be learned from the following
texts. “Wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her.” “Blessed
is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall
be as a tree planted by the waters, which spreadeth out her roots by the river,
and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not
be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”
“What is the vine tree more than any tree?” This text from Ezekiel shows
that in the scripture style, the vine is regarded as a tree. “I am the true
vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not
fruit, he taketh away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that
it may bring forth more fruit. I am the Vine,” continued Jesus to his
apostles, “ye are the Branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the
same bringeth forth much fruit: for severed from me ye can do nothing.”
“In the Word was life; and the life was the light of men.” That Word was
made flesh, and named Jesus, who proclaimed himself the resurrection and the
life. Hence, as the true vine, he is the Tree of Life, watered by the Spirit,
which he received without measure. He is “a tree of life to them who lay
hold upon him;” for he is “the power and wisdom of God unto them which
are called.” In the book of symbols, Christ on the throne of his kingdom,
and encompassed by the 144,000, is represented as “the Tree of Life in the
midst of the Paradise of God.” “I am,” said Jesus, “the bread of life
which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. If any man eat of
this bread he shall live—eis ton aiona, in the age.” Hence, one of the
inducements set before the faithful to overcome, is, in the words of Jesus, “I
will give him to eat of the Tree of Life, which is in the midst of the Paradise
of God;” and “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may
have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the
city.”
To eat of this tree is to become one of the leaves of it; and to
partake, consequently, of that nourishment which rises from the root through
the stem and branches thereof. This life-sustaining and invigorating principle,
is that “pure water of life” which issues forth from the throne, and
maintains the tree in everlasting freshness and beauty. It is the Tree of the
Kingdom to which Jesus referred when he said, “The kingdom of heaven is like
to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which
indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown it is the greatest among
herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
branches thereof.” The birds of the air are the chiefs of the nations,
which saved-nations seek its fruit from one new moon to another ministered to
them by its healing leaves.
The Leaves of the Tree for the healing of the nations. That is, the
water of life is health-imparting to the saved-nations through the Leaves of
the Tree of Life. The apostles being the branches of the true vine-tree, those
who are ingrafted into that vine by the obedience of faith through their
testimony, are the leaves, or breathing organs, of the tree. The Spirit that
issues from the throne of God and the Lamb will breathe upon the conquered
nations through the Saints, who then “possess the kingdom, and dominion, and
the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven.” He breathed upon the
3000 Pentecostians through the Apostles; and the result was, their acceptance
of Jesus as King of the Jews, raised up from the dead to sit on David’s throne;
and obedience to the kingdom’s gospel in his name. “He breathes where he
pleases.” He breathed in Jerusalem of old; he will breathe thence anew; not
upon a few thousand Jews only, and through twelve men of Israel; but through “a
great multitude which no man can number,” upon all the millennial nations
of the earth; so that as a consequence, “the knowledge of the glory of
Jehovah shall fill the earth, as the waters cover the sea.” Then “shall
the Gentiles come unto Him from the ends of the earth, and shall say, ‘Surely
our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no
profit.’”
That “a leaf,” or leaves, when used metaphorically in Scripture
signifies a person, will appear from the following texts. Job, in his reasoning
with God concerning his hapless condition, says, “Wherefore holdest thou me
for thine enemy? Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro?” That is, “I am
a leaf, as it were, driven to and fro, wilt thou break me?” as it were, that
is, metaphorically. Isaiah addressing the transgressors in Israel, who
practised idolatrous rites in gardens and under oak trees there, says to them collectively,
“Ye shall be ashamed of the oaks ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded
for the gardens ye have chosen. For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth,
and as a garden that hath no water.” In this, apostate Israel in church and
state is likened to a withered oak, and a parched-up garden, the very opposite
similitude to that in the apocalypse, where the government of their nation is
likened to a tree of life; that is, to one whose leaf shall not fade; and to a
well-watered garden, “the Paradise of God.” The dried leaves of Israel’s
withered oak have done nothing for the nations, which are unhealed to this day;
and will so remain for ever, unless their olive tree do “blossom and bud,
and fill the face of the world with fruit.” But, let the reader mark the
figure, how that trees are used in Scripture sometimes as representative of polities,
good or bad according to the nature and condition of the trees.
There is a notable instance of this in Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar in a dream
that he had, describes a tree he saw, saying, “I saw, and behold, a tree in
the midst of the earth, and the altitude thereof was great. The tree grew, and
was strong, and the height thereof reached unto the heaven, and the sight
thereof to the end of all the earth: the leaves thereof were fair, and the
fruit thereof much, and on it meat for all; the beasts of the field had shadow
under it, and the fowls of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all
flesh was fed of it.” This tree was representative of “the kingdom of
men,” on whose Chaldean throne Nebuchadnezzar reigned as king. Hence,
Daniel said, in showing the significancy of the tree, “It is thou (or
thy kingdom), O king, that art grown and become strong: for thy greatness is
grown, and reacheth unto heaven, and thy dominion to the end of the earth.”
The stump of the tree when felled, banded with brass and iron, was the kingdom
of Babylon during the seven years of its king’s dethronement, made sure to him
on the recovery of his reason. The fair leaves of this tree which were shaken
off, were the nobles and dignitaries of the kingdom detached from all connexion
with Nebuchadnezzar during the days of his calamity.
The passage already quoted from Jeremiah shows that a person is likened
to a tree as well as a kingdom; and that his excellency is manifested in the
condition of its leaf, and fruit-bearing quality. When a tree represents a body
corporate, its foliage is generally expressed by the plural “leaves,”
but when only one person is meant, the singular is used, as “leaf.”
Thus, it is written in David, speaking of the man who is blessed, “He shall
be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in
his season; his leaf also shall not fade: and whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper.” This is predicable of the blessed men when he is a leaf among the
leaves of the tree of life—whatsoever he doeth then shall prosper. By
synecdoche, a leaf for a tree represents a man; as an eye in the apocalyptic
living creatures symbolises an individual; the rule being, a part for the whole
for the decorum of the symbol. A multitude of eyes, and a multitude of leaves,
are a multitude of people, constituting a community, incorporated into a divine
polity in that represented by the tree-stock, and the cherubic creatures—fire,
light, and spirit, the symbols of the God-head in manifestation through body,
styled “God manifest in the flesh.”
I trust that the reader will now be able to answer the question
scripturally and rationally, “What is represented by the apocalyptic city of
gold and precious stones? And what by the throne, the river, and the tree of
life?” They are all things representative of Christ and his breastplate-Saints
* in their governmental relations to the millennial nations. There is one
point, however, I have only hinted at in my exposition, which I will briefly
notice here. The common version reads, “the tree of life which bare twelve manner
of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month.” The words in bold type were
inserted by the translators to make out what they conceived to be the sense.
Their rendering, however, is not satisfactory. The words are, a tree of life,
producing twelve fruits, through one month yielding its separate fruit. In this
rendering no supplemental words are introduced. But what is the meaning of it?
I believe that it is symbolical of something already declared by the prophets;
for the whole book of the apocalypse is a symbolical representation of “the
mystery of God as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.” In these
writings he has promised blessedness and saving health to all nations; and we
read of them saying in their convalescence, “Come and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of
his ways.” Who will teach them? He who is the tree of life in the Paradise,
or Garden of God. He will then produce, or reveal knowledge, pertaining to “his
ways,” which knowledge is contained in “the Law” and in “the
Word,” which are to go forth from Zion and Jerusalem. The law and the word
of God will issue from his throne through his king, through stated times, or “from
one new moon to another.” The “twelve fruits of the tree of life,”
are the knowledge of good tending to life, being made known in all the year. Fruit
is anything produced. It is not produced to all the world at once; that is, in
a single month: but at every new moon of the year’s twelve shall strangers
present themselves in Jerusalem for instruction, “and from one Sabbath to
another.” The tree produces the knowledge, the leaves yield it to the
nations, according to the administrative institutions of the new constitution
and order of things; which I understand to be represented in the text before
us.
It will hardly be necessary, I think, after this exposition, to say much
about the “dogs and sorcerers without”—the Gentiles and teachers which
they have heaped up to themselves after their own lusts. It must be obvious to
every one that there can be none such within: but that the words are strictly
true in the very nature of things, that “there can in no wise enter into it
anything that defileth; but only those written in the book of the Lamb’s life.”
The Lamb’s life-community is the world’s unchangeable government for a thousand
years. Flesh and blood cannot be a constituent of that government. It is “without;”
and until that government is triumphantly established, it is in open rebellion,
cursing, and wailing, and gnashing its teeth. But of this hereafter at a more
convenient opportunity.
EDITOR.
* Aaron under his foursquare breastplate of judgment, the Urim and
Thummim, the ephod, gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen in the
most holy place, was a type of the New Jerusalem; that is, of Christ and his
Saints in glory. Compare Aaron’s foursquare with the foursquare of the
Apocalypse, Exodus 28. Concerning Christ as the precious seven-eyed stone “like
a jasper and sardius to look upon,” Jehovah says, “I will engrave the
graving thereof,” which graving is represented in the workmanship and names
engraved on the gates and foundations of the city.