The recovery of the church is also typified by the rebuilding of the temple of God, the house of God, in Jerusalem after the return of God’s people from Babylon. Ezra 1:3 says, “Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.” Verse 5 goes on to say, “Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.” These verses indicate that the recovery is not only a matter of going back to Jerusalem with the vessels of the temple of God but also of rebuilding the temple of God, which had been destroyed.
Finally, the recovery of the church is typified in the Old Testament by the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:11, 17). After the recovery of the building of the temple, there was still the need to build up the city. Without the city, there would have been no protection for the temple. The temple, the place of the Lord’s presence, needed protection. The wall of the city was the defense to the temple.
This also is an aspect of the type that we must apply in the New Testament. Ephesians 2:19 and 1 Timothy 3:15 speak of the church as the house of God. But in the last two chapters of Revelation, there is a city, and in this city there is no temple (Rev. 21:22), because the city has become the enlargement of the temple.
In order to understand the relationship between the house and the city in the New Testament, we need to realize that the church is the enlargement of Christ and the increase of Christ. All the believers are parts of Christ and members of Christ. All these parts put together are the increase of Christ. The church, therefore, is the fullness of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23) because Christ has been increased and enlarged into so many members. The first step of the enlargement of Christ is the church as the house. The second step of this enlargement is also the church, not as the house but as the city. The church as the house must be enlarged to be the church as the city. Eventually, the whole church becomes the city. Because the temple has become the city, Revelation 21:22 tells us that there is no temple in the city of New Jerusalem. The city is the tabernacle, the dwelling place (Rev. 21:2-3). Hence, the city is the enlargement of the temple, the development of the house, to the uttermost.
The building of the house and the city is the center of God’s eternal purpose. This building is actually the mingling of God with man. The church, therefore, is the mingling of divinity with humanity. When this mingling is enlarged and consummated to the fullest extent, that is the city. The city, then, eventually becomes the mutual building, the mutual habitation, of God and man, for God dwells in us and we dwell in God. This is the universal, eternal mingling of God with man. On a small scale, this is the house, and on a large scale, it is the city.
Christ’s first coming had very much to do with the return of God’s people from Babylon to Jerusalem. Christ came a little over four hundred years after this return from captivity. Christ was born of Mary, a descendant of those who had returned to Jerusalem. If none of God’s people had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem, there would have been no one to carry out Christ’s first coming. However, according to the New Testament, there was a number of holy people, including Mary, Zechariah and Elizabeth (the parents of John the Baptist), Simeon, and Anna, all of whom were descendants of those who returned from captivity. All these were very much used for the first coming of Christ.
The principle is the same with Christ’s second coming. If there is no recovery of the church life, that is, no return of God’s people from Babylon the Great to the church life, there will be no way for Christ to carry out His second coming. This is the reason that the Lord, at the end time, is working to have a recovery. I believe that this recovery will be a preparation and a base for Christ’s coming again. There will be many Marys, Zechariahs, Elizabeths, Simeons, and Annas to prepare a base for Him to accomplish His second coming. Therefore, for Christ’s second coming there is the need of the recovery of the church.
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