Revelation 21:9-10 says, “One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, Come here; I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And he carried me away in spirit onto a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” Christ will be the Husband, and the holy city, Jerusalem—the aggregate of all the saints—will be the bride, the wife of the Lamb. This will be the universal couple living a universal married life for eternity.
The New Jerusalem is the holy city (vv. 2, 10). As the holy city of God, the New Jerusalem is sanctified, fully separated unto God, and thoroughly saturated with God’s holy nature to be His habitation. Thus, the holy city is a constitution in life of the processed Triune God mingled with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite elect.
Holiness is the nature of God. Love reveals God’s heart, righteousness is God’s way, and holiness is God’s nature. Only God Himself is holy (15:4), for only God is separated and uniquely different from everything else. The New Jerusalem is a city that is absolutely saturated and mingled with God; therefore, it is absolutely holy. It is entirely different from all other things. Whenever we experience the mingling of God with us today, there is a real separation, a real holiness. In anything we do, if we have some experience of God in Christ being mingled with us, we experience holiness in that thing. Holiness signifies a separation from common things. The more we are mingled with God in Christ, the more we will be holy. We will be different and separated from all things common. To be holy means to have something of God mingled with us. Holiness is not a matter of action but a matter of nature; it is not a matter of what we do but of how much we have been mingled with God. An aloofness from everything is not holiness. Holiness is determined by how much we have experienced being mingled with God. Hebrews 12 says that God disciplines us that we might partake of His holiness (v. 10). This means that He disciplines us that we may partake of His nature by being mingled with Him. The New Jerusalem is absolutely and thoroughly mingled with God; therefore, it is the holy city.
In the New Testament the word holy does not only mean separated unto God but also saturated with God. In the Old Testament to be made holy is to be separated unto God. There is no saturation of God in the Old Testament, and the holiness, or sanctification, there is only positional, not dispositional. In the New Testament, though, we see both the objective, positional holiness and sanctification and the subjective, dispositional holiness and sanctification. Romans 6:19 and 22 indicate that sanctification is something subjective and dispositional. In the Old Testament a piece of gold could be made holy and sanctified by changing its position, by placing it in the temple. Yet the church today is made holy not only positionally but also dispositionally. Eventually, both the positional sanctification in the judicial aspect and the dispositional sanctification in the organic aspect of God’s complete salvation will ultimately be manifested in the New Jerusalem as the holy city (Rev. 21:2, 10; 22:19).
In 1 Thessalonians 5:23 Paul prays that our whole being, spirit and soul and body, may be sanctified wholly. This is dispositional sanctification in which the holy God is saturating us with His holy nature. In positional sanctification there is only a change of position, but in dispositional sanctification there is the transformation in nature and in element. Therefore, the New Jerusalem is holy not merely in the sense of the Old Testament but also in the sense of the New Testament. Based upon this principle, we can see that the holy city, the New Jerusalem, could never be a physical city since a physical city could never be saturated with God. This city is composed with living persons who can be and who are saturated with God. In the old Jerusalem and in the old temple we can see the separation but not the saturation with God. In the New Testament, however, the church is God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16), and this temple is not only separated unto God but also saturated with God. The New Jerusalem is not the Old Testament city but the New Testament city—a city saturated with God.
The New Jerusalem is called the holy city because gold, which signifies God’s holy nature, is the site of the New Jerusalem. In the whole universe, only God is holy in nature. The New Jerusalem is built on gold. The city proper of the New Jerusalem is gold, and its street is gold (Rev. 21:18, 21). On this gold the foundations are laid and the gates and wall are built.
God sanctifies us so that we may be established in His holy nature. God’s sanctifying us is a very important and particular item in God’s organic salvation. Not only is God Himself holy, but He also wants to make us holy. Eventually, He wants to make us the holy city, New Jerusalem. In the universe God is holiness; whenever people touch God, they touch holiness (cf. Isa. 6:2-3; Rev. 4:8). Hence, in His organic salvation God’s intention is to constitute us with His holy nature so that we may become the Body of Christ and ultimately be manifested as an established holy city, New Jerusalem. Since all the believers will be the components of the holy city, all of them should be sanctified to be as holy as the holy city. Unless we are made holy, we will not be qualified to be a part of the New Jerusalem. As the holy city, the New Jerusalem is composed of holy believers.