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CHAPTER IV.

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

HAVING intimated his discovery that the heaven and earth now presented before his mental eye were new, and had replaced the old, the apostle proceeds to describe a fresh and magnificent emblem which met his enraptured gaze (v. 2.): And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.' His imagination appears to have been so completely captivated by this splendid vision, that he does not at first stop to narrate the manner of his seeing it, and the accompanying circumstances. These he indicates at a later period; but in this verse he, as it were, hastens to tell that he saw the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven. The introduction of his name, and I John saw,' &c., appears intended merely for impressiveness. Griesbach considers it of doubtful authority.

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That the city thus presented to the mental vision of the apostle, is an emblem, few will be disposed to doubt. The very terms in which it is afterwards described exclude the possibility of its being a real city, either now existing, or that ever can exist. At the same time it may not be disputed that St. John accurately describes what he saw, and that the spiritual idea intended to be symbolized was actually presented before him in the form of this emblematical city.

Then comes the question, of what is it an emblem? On this point we are not left to conjecture; for we find the city afterwards called the bride, the Lamb's wife,' which was the well-known appellation of the redeemed church. This city is thus pointed out as being that building fitly framed together,' which is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,' and of which Christ is the head corner-stone.' The representation of the universal church of the redeemed in the future state, under the emblem of a city, was so familiar to the minds of the apostles, that we find frequent allusions to it in their writings, and there can therefore be no reasonable grounds for doubting that this is the true meaning of the emblem here employed. The new Jerusalem is accordingly to be regarded as a type, not of the future abode of the redeemed, but of the redeemed themselves viewed as a corporate body-a great and holy structure composed of living stones.

The point that first demands our attention is the circumstance of the apostle's seeing the symbolical city coming down from God out of heaven. This metaphor has not improbably a twofold meaning. It may denote that all the gifts and graces by which the members of the redeemed church are distinguished from the lost, come down to them from God out of heaven, they being thus 'born again, not of corruptible seed, but by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever. These gifts and graces, having come from God, may, by a figure, be replaced by those who possess them, and who are accordingly said to have themselves come down from God out of heaven-being, as it were, heaven-born.

There is, however, another more literal, yet more recondite sense, in which the corporate body of the redeemed may be accurately described, as coming down from God out of heaven; but in order to understand the

allusion, it is needful to refer to St. Paul's description of the general resurrection, as given in 1 Thes. iv. 14 to 17: 'For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not come before them that are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.'

It will be observed that St. Paul here speaks of that portion of the redeemed who were dead at the time he wrote, as being not in heaven, in the active enjoyment of the immediate presence of Christ, but as being asleep in Jesus. They are asleep-quite unconscious of their existence-but still asleep in Jesus, under His protection and care, and sure of a blessed resurrection at His final coming. These he says God will bring with Him. When He comes in the person of Christ to judge the world, then all who are asleep shall awake to new life and come with Him.

The persons of whom the apostle here more immediately speaks are those who had died before Christ came into the world, and concerning whose fate the early Christian converts appear to have entertained strong doubts and misgivings. St. Paul writes to reassure their minds. He intimates to them, that notwithstanding their dear friends had died before the coming of Christ, yet if their characters were such as he describes in Romans ii. 13, 14 and 15, they might be confidently regarded as being asleep in Christ.

St. Paul then contrasts their position with that of

himself and those whom he is addressing. In the original the meaning of the phraseology he employs is clearer than it is in our translation. He says: "For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we, those living, those surviving unto the manifestation of the Lord, shall not have precedence over those who are asleep.' When we render the passage thus literally, it is plain that the apostle speaks of himself and of those whom he addressed as being then alive, and having survived the period of the manifestation of the Lord, in allusion not to His second, but to His first advent. Had it been to Christ's second coming he had referred, he would have used the future tense and said, 'We who shall be alive, and who shall survive unto the coming of the Lord.' But he uses the present tense as applying to himself and those to whom he wrote, who were then alive, and so had remained to see the day of the manifestation of Christ, as contradistinguished from those who had died before that great

event.

It cannot be supposed that the apostle should have fallen into such an error as to imagine that either he himself, or those whom he addressed, should be alive at the time of Christ's second coming. On the contrary, there is evidence in his own writings to show that he was fully aware that he himself should glorify his Master by a martyr's death. Nor will it do to suppose him to have written these words in ignorance; for he expressly states that he speaks them by the word of the Lord.' To say therefore that St. Paul imagined that the second coming of Christ was to take place during the lifetime of himself or of any of those whom he addressed, would be to undermine his authority as an inspired teacher, and to reduce all that he has said on the subject of the resurrection to mere expressions of his private opinion, as likely to be wrong as right. He claims divine authority for this

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averment more pointedly than for most others which he makes.

Neither will it do to imagine St. Paul to have believed that he and those to whom he wrote shall re-appear on the earth, so as to be alive at the second coming of Christ. His language expressly excludes such a notion; for he says that he himself and those whom he addressed shall not come before those who were asleep; while of such he affirms, that God shall bring them with Him.

There is thus left no reasonable interpretation that can be put on the words We, those living, those surviving unto the manifestation of the Lord,' save that already given-namely, that they refer to the first advent of Christ; and that the apostle speaks of himself and those whom he addressed as being, at the moment he wrote, alive, and as having remained till after Christ first came into the world.

St. Paul then proceeds to describe the manner of our Lord's descent from heaven; and in doing so he confirms the views previously propounded, that we are not to be removed to some distant locality in order to our union with Christ, but that He is to descend from heaven to us, that we may be ever with Him.

The apostle then intimates that on our Lord's making his appearance in the heavens, but before He actually reaches the earth, those who had already died in Christ shall rise first; next we living and remaining'—that is, allwe who are now on the earth.1 He thus indicates that each man shall rise in the order of his decease; but the succession may be so rapid as to be almost equivalent to simultaneousness.' Then all the redeemed in one great

1 In the mean wave of light, there are 500 billions of successive vibrations in a second. This shows how rapid may be a s ccasion without absolute simultaneousness.