In this chapter I wish to show you a contrast, a comparison, between two cities, the mysterious Babylon and the holy New Jerusalem. As we pointed out in the previous chapter, the intention of God is to build up a corporate Body, a corporate vessel, with humans mingled with God Himself to contain God and express God. However, the enemy of God came in before God did to work himself into the human nature, so that humans have become the materials for Satan to build up an evil, sinful, corporate vessel to contain and express Satan instead of God. The whole history of the human race is a history of this evil, sinful, satanic building. From the time of Cain, the second generation of the human race, Satan began his building. He built a human society as a corporate vessel to contain himself and express all his sinful aspects.
In the Scriptures a city is a sign of the human community built up with humans as its materials. It is a sign of a living community, either of Satan to contain Satan or of the living Body of Christ to contain God. Today, the human community as a corporate vessel contains Satan with all his sinful aspects, and Satan is expressed through it. Whether in the Far East or in the West, whether in Europe or in Africa, all the human communities are parts of the satanic building as a corporate vessel to contain and express Satan. We can see Satan expressed, for example, in the night clubs and movie theaters in many places. After the fall of man, Satan utilized the human race as materials to build up human civilization as a vessel to contain him and to afford him a resting place, a habitation. Human civilization, the human community, is a satanic dwelling place, a resting place for Satan to have his satisfaction and rest.
After the city of Babel and its tower were built to contain and express Satan, God chose Abraham from that region and brought him out to an elevated land, the land of Canaan, which represents the heavenly realm in resurrection. God’s intention was to make Abraham a house and a kingdom with a people as the materials for God’s divine building. However, the children of Israel were brought down to Egypt through the subtlety of the enemy Satan. Instead of building God’s divine building, the children of Israel built cities for Pharaoh, the enemy of God. However, immediately after God delivered them out of Egypt, He commanded them to build a tabernacle. For forty years in the wilderness they were always for this building. Then, when they entered the land of Canaan, after they subdued all the enemies, they built a temple in the city of Jerusalem as a more solid habitation for God.
The city that Satan built up with the second race of humans was first called Babel and then Babylon. God chose a people as a new race to be another people, the heavenly people, to build up another city, that is, Jerusalem. The history of the Old Testament is a history of the fighting and struggling between these two cities, Babylon and Jerusalem. These two cities represent two corporate bodies, two corporate vessels. Babylon represents a satanic vessel, and Jerusalem represents a divine vessel. Babylon represents a civilization, a community, of the human race as a container to contain and express Satan, while Jerusalem represents a chosen people as a container to contain and express God. These two cities always opposed each other. Eventually, Babylon came to destroy Jerusalem with the temple and capture all the vessels in the temple for the worship of God, placing them in the temple of idols. Later on, when the people of Israel returned to Jerusalem, they brought all these vessels from Babylon back to Jerusalem to restore the worship of God in the temple and in the city. This is the history of the Old Testament.
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