According to Revelation 21, the New Jerusalem will be the wife of Christ (vv. 2, 9-10) and also the tabernacle of God, His habitation (v. 3). Revelation 21:7 indicates that the wife of Christ is composed of sons. As the sons of God, we are the components of the New Jerusalem, which is the wife of Christ. Since we are the components of the New Jerusalem and since the New Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above, is our mother, we, the sons, are the components of the mother. Hence, the New Jerusalem is Christ’s wife and our mother. On the one hand, we have been born of this mother; on the other hand, this mother is composed of us as the sons.
The mother of the believers is the city for which Abraham was looking. “He waited for the city which has the foundations, whose Architect and Maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). This city is identified in Hebrews 12:22, which tells us that we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem, the wife of Christ and the mother of the New Testament believers composed of the sons of God, who have been born of her. The wife of Christ is thus the city for which Abraham was waiting and to which we have come.
Abraham certainly was not waiting for a physical, material city. A material city could not be the wife of Christ or the mother of the believers. Furthermore, a material city could not be composed of all the saved ones as the sons of God. If the New Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above, were a physical entity, how could this city produce us as her children? How could our producing mother be a physical city built with actual gold, pearls, and precious stones, which are not organic and which cannot produce anything? This, of course, is impossible. We should not understand the New Jerusalem in a physical, material sense, for it is altogether a spiritual entity. Only the natural, uneducated mind, a mind that lacks adequate biblical knowledge, understands the New Jerusalem in this way. If our mind has been enlightened and renewed and if we have been adequately educated spiritually, we shall not have the mistaken understanding that the New Jerusalem is a material entity. Rather, we shall realize that the New Jerusalem as the wife of Christ and the mother of the New Testament believers is a spiritual entity.
In eternity past God had a plan according to His good pleasure. In the New Testament this plan is called the economy of God. According to His plan, God created the heavens, the earth, and billions of items. He then created man as the center of His creation. God’s intention in His creation of man was that man would be His expression and His representative. Therefore, man was created in the image of God. Then man was given dominion over all created things, especially the things on earth.
The man created by God was deceived by the enemy and fell again and again until his situation became hopeless. In a sense, after Babel God gave man up, but He did not do this absolutely. God chose one of the fallen men-Abraham-to be the head and father of a new race. In the Bible this new race is considered the chosen race. Adam was the head of the created race, which was given up by God, and Abraham was the head of the new race, which was chosen by God.
God’s choosing Abraham to be the father of the new race is related to the New Jerusalem and to our understanding of it. In choosing Abraham it was not God’s intention simply to restore fallen man to his original, God-created condition. Rather, in choosing Abraham God’s intention was to carry out His economy. God’s economy is to produce, to bring forth, many sons. Therefore, God’s intention in choosing Abraham was not to restore man to man’s original condition in God’s creation but to bring forth many sons. All that God did with Abraham from the first step to the last was according to this principle.
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