God will not dwell with an unclean people, but He has cleansed His loved ones by the blood shedding of His Son Jesus. Now He promises He will dwell with His people one day literally in the New Jerusalem.
We are wrong to think that we can build a city in which God will dwell, because we cannot keep out those who are not the Lord's. All our political, social, and religious schemes to organize such a city are doomed to fail.
Jerusalem, it turned out, was full of "not God's people." That is why God departed from it.
God declared toward the end that Israel was "not His people," and He would not be their God.
Indeed, Paul compares physical Jerusalem with Hagar - not the Lord's chosen people at all.
Only God's elect people will be admitted into His city where He dwells. We cannot build such a city, but the Lord can, because He knows every one of His people!
Jesus said that "all that the Father gives Me will come to Me!" He declared that He had kept safe all that the Father had given to Him. He promised to raise up all His people unto everlasting life one day.
Jesus knows all His people, because He died for them. He knows us because His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. He knows who are not His people, because they refuse to follow Him.
Better still, the Lord Jesus knows all His people by name!
Who, then, are the citizens of the New Jerusalem? Even the self same whom Jesus knows and loves and has redeemed.
These days, with all the coming and going, it's not clear who are the proper citizens of our towns and cities.
But the citizens of God's city are all written down.
They are recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life, all those He died to save! |
