You Can Know You Have Eternal Life
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691 – Man's Search for Inner Peace (105)
The Christian and the New Jerusalem (3)
by Jim Mettenbrink

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     Jerusalem is a very old town.  The Old Testament reveals its existence in antiquity, even before Abraham.

     The founder was Jebus, the great-great grandson of Noah, at least four generations before Abraham was born (Genesis 10:16).  Jebus was later identified as Jerusalem, thus informing us more of its antiquity (Joshua 15:8; 18:28).
     During the time of Abraham, not only did Jebusites live there but, Melchizedek the priest of God to whom Abraham gave a tithe was the king and priest of Salem (Genesis 14:18-20).  The Psalmist poetically revealed Salem (aka Zion) as God’s dwelling on earth — “
In Judah God is known; His name is great in Israel.  In Salem also is His tabernacle, And His dwelling place in Zion” (Ps 76:1, 2).
     Jerusalem is prophetically referred to as Zion as the town of Jesus triumphal entry (Zechariah 9:9; cf 1 Kings 8:1; 2 Kings 19:21, 31; Zech 8:3).  The prophet Micah uses Jerusalem, Zion and the house of God (temple) as the same location (Micah 4:2).  Jerusalem is appears to be a combination of Jebus and Salem — Jeru-salem.
     Most significantly Jerusalem was the location of God’s temple during the last 1000 years of the Old Covenant.  The city and the temple were destroyed in AD70.  But what is the oft referred to “New Jerusalem?”  Does it refer to the 21st century city in Israel?

     Often in Bible class the answer to that question is the New Jerusalem is heaven.  But is it?  The New Jerusalem is noted two times in the New Testament — only in Revelation (Revelation 3:12; 21:2).  The New Jerusalem is called a city.  The faithful Christian will be a pillar in God’s temple (3:12).  God and the Lamb (Jesus) are its temple (21:22).  But what and where is this New Jerusalem?

     Jesus continues His revelation via the apostle John “...the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband....‘Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb’s wife’” (21:2, 9).  So the New Jerusalem is Jesus (lamb) bride.  The context (Revelation 21) shows the bride is Jesus church — “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27).

     The New Jerusalem consists of the faithful Christians and those faithful who lived during the Old Testament period, (before the New Testament established by Jesus on Pentecost [beginning in Acts 2]).

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      © Jim Mettenbrink; used by permission. rev.170113
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