By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out into a place which he would later receive as an inheritance. He went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the promised land, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same promise, for he was looking for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
-Hebrews 11:8-10
Most believers are familiar with this passage. I'd like to briefly look at this city in light of its counterpart, both from the account in Genesis and its realization in the Revelation. Because of the enormity of both Genesis and the Revelation, we will have to try to maintain a big picture view.
In Genesis, we see a city in chapter 11 (Babel), a promise of a tower that would reach the heavens (Hebrew: shâmayim, plural), and the promise that they would thus make a name for themselves to avoid being scattered by God. Men looked to the heavens above. They would have no concept to build something that would reach into the far above the heavens where God sits (Eph 1:20; 4:10).
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
-Genesis 11:4
The builders had in their memories the worldwide flood. The flood did not reach the firmament (Ps 19:1; etc.). They either did not know or they did not believe God's promise to Noah that he would never flood the earth again (Gen 9:11).
Abraham (Abram) is introduced into scripture at the end of Genesis chapter 11 after God confused the language of the people of Babel and did indeed scatter the people. They forsook the tower, but they took their hubris with them in the scattering. Men, still locked into an Adamic nature at enmity with God, took their rage, superstitions, and lack of an understanding of the will and plan of God wherever they went. It was out of this chaos that Abraham was chosen.
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel [Babylon] — because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
-Genesis 11:8-9
Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.
-Genesis 11:31
Abram is chosen by God to be his conduit for blessings for the earth. We are solidly in the hope for the earth in this calling. The earthly plan was first disrupted by Adam's sin and Paradise was lost to men. In Cain we see murder and peace was lost to men. Eventually we see the incursion of the angels who took wives of human women and corrupted the human race. This all led to God choosing Noah (and Noah alone, not his sons, not us) to give his plan for the earth going forward.
We note dispensationally that just as God chose Noah God also chose Abraham. That is, for his purposes, God gave commands and promises to Abraham that he did not give to us. This may seem obvious, but if we can understand that truth in interpretation here, it will help us understand that we must handle all scripture this way. That is, just because we see a command or a promise in scripture does not mean we can take it for ourselves.
- I am not commanded to build an ark.
- I am not promised to become a great nation which will bless the earth.
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”
-Genesis 12:1-3
Abram's nephew, Lot, entered the land which God had shown Abram. He chose to live in the wicked city of Sodom. Abraham dwelt in Canaan and waited on the Lord.
Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the valley and pitched his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the Lord. After Lot had departed from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. All the land that you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever [for the ages]. I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered. Arise, and walk throughout the land across its length and its width, for I will give it to you.”
-Genesis 13:12-17
God told Abraham to look with his eye as representative of all he could see, but he defines this promised land later as going from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River (Deut 11:24). This is very real promise of a very real land in the very real covenant on a very real earth. Men have tried to rob Abraham and his descendants of this future promise and claim some sort of "spiritual Israel" for themselves. This thievery and denial of God's promises is from the same Adamic nature that built the Tower of Babel and the city of Babylon.
The Lord pointed Abraham to the full land he would one day give to him and to his descendants (this is a future, literal promise which will be fulfilled as part of God's plan and hope for the earth). Abraham knowing this promise had a future fulfillment, built no city there, rather he lived in a tent and he built an altar to the Lord ("So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar to the Lord there" Gen 13:18).
This points us back to our passage in Hebrews. Abraham dwelt in tents and looked for a city with foundations (Hebrew: themelios) whose builder and maker is God himself. This is quite a contrast from the city of Babylon which men built to make a name for themselves. God will build a heavenly city and he would make Abraham's name great. What God has declared, let no man deny, even if he has a seminary degree.
The earthly Jerusalem wherein God would have his people Israel build the temple was an imperfect picture of a future hope (just as the sacrifices in that temple were a pale picture of the future perfect sacrifice of Christ). Scripture shows us an earthly Jerusalem (the city of the earthly King David) and the promise of a New Jerusalem and the reign of the greater son of David, Christ Jesus our Lord.
This latter city will have no temple. This city is connected to the promise to Abraham. From Israel (Jacob) God created the 12 tribes of the priestly nation and from Israel God chose his Apostles to the Circumcision.
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came to me and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, her light like a most precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were written: three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb... I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall never be shut by day, for there shall be no night there. They shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. No unclean thing shall ever enter it, nor shall anyone who commits abomination or falsehood, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
-Genesis 21:9-14; 22-27
This city comes down from heaven to the new earth. It is part of the God's plan for the earth. This, we see the plan for the earth being realized. Paradise is restored. Healing has come to undo the curse of sickness. The final enemy, death, is destroyed.
We should not miss the Bride here. This is not some Gentile bride, this is "Virgin Israel" (Jeremiah 31:4,21) cleansed and restored as God had promised. This is the divorced nation united again with and through her Messiah.
The New Covenant of Jeremiah 31 is part of the realization of the plan for the earth. We recognize that the Revelation covers the millennial reign of Christ (the greater Son of David sitting on his throne) as well as the culmination of the full plan as seen in the new heavens and the new earth. These are part of the hope of Israel (Acts 28) and the hope for the land and the earth. This is separate from the hope of the Body of the current calling which is the hope of the far above the heavens (Ephesians).
"At that time, saith the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people" (Jeremiah 31:1). The Loammi ["not My People"] sentence of Hosea 1:9 will be forever repealed, for it is written: "Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not My people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God" (Hosea 1:10).
“Thus saith the Lord: The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest" (Jeremiah 31:2).
The faithful remnant in the latter day are doubtless referred to. By Ezekiel a similar message is given:
"I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people" (or nations), "and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: and I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 20:34-38).
-Excerpt from Ironside's Commentary on Jeremiah 31
The restoration of a literal Israel and a literal Kingdom has been covered elsewhere. This is an enormous topic, so we will have to leave it here as understood because we believe God is true to his word. But if we do not recognize that the restoration of the Kingdom in Israel as revealed to the 12 Apostles of the Lamb (as taught by the risen Lord in Acts 1) and that the New Covenant itself in Jeremiah 31 are earthly promises to a real Israel, we will never see our true calling in the current age.
If you haven't read the New Covenant directly from Jeremiah 31, here is how the Lord introduced it:
Surely, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.It will not be according to the covenantthat I made with their fathers
in the day that I took them by the hand
to bring them out of the land of Egypt,
because they broke My covenant,
although I was a husband to them,
says the Lord.But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put My law within them
and write it in their hearts;
and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people.They shall teach no more every man his neighbor
and every man his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,”
for they all shall know Me,
from the least of them to the greatest of them,
says the Lord,
for I will forgive their iniquity,
and I will remember their sin no more.
-Jeremiah 31:31-34
We can no more find a Gentile "church" in there than we can find ourselves in the promises to Abarham in the Book of Genesis or the promises to David and his royal descendant. Apart from that, we surely can't find the conditions present in that covenant in our day. Do we have no need to tell our neighbor of the Lord because all already know him (for they all shall know Me)? And who is "all?" All is the "they" of the passage: Israel. This passage (let alone the whole covenant) work only in the context of a future promise and blessing in a restored and cleansed Israel.
When we look into the Revelation we see there are two cities: Mystery Babylon (the great Mother of harlots and abomination on the earth [land], Rev 17:5) as well as the New Jerusalem (which comes down out of heaven from My God... adorned as a bride for her husband, Rev 3:12; 21:2,9).
Then he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filth of her sexual immorality. On her forehead a name was written:
MYSTERY,
BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her, I marveled greatly. Then the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast, which you saw, was, and is not, and is to ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to destruction. Those who dwell on the earth whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will marvel when they see the beast that was, and is not, and is to come. “Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. They are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. Concerning the beast who was, and is not, he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to destruction.
-Revelation 17:3-11
We will not endeavor to parse the text and interpret each point here. Suffice to day this city is juxtaposed to the New Jerusalem and the restoration of the earth. It is not a Bride, but a harlot. It is as Babel and Babylon. That is, it is in contrast with faithful Abraham and the cleansed nation of Israel. As Babylon took Israel into captivity and placed the prophet whose prophecy is connected to the events in the Revelation (Daniel) into the Lion's den, so Mystery Babylon will rise to persecute Israel again.
But as God protected the three young Hebrews from the fiery furnace and Daniel himself from the lion's den, so will God protect and deliver Israel from Babylon. Both the judgment and restoration passages in the prophets are for Israel. We make a grave error when we attempt to pull these from their contexts, grab a single verse, and try to claim it as our own promise or future. Not only is it error on its own, it will cause the believer to miss the greater heavenly hope and plan God revealed to Paul for the current age.
The call on Israel will be to come out from Babylon once again. But even as God deals with his own, he warns the nations to not touch the apple of his eye.
Deliver yourself, O Zion, you who live with the daughter of Babylon. For thus says the Lord of Hosts: He has sent Me after glory to the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye.
-Zechariah 2:7-8
