What made the difference? What made cowards bold, a scattering body of individuals into a cohesive force, a disillusioned following into evangelists? Only one thing accounts for it: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
What made the difference? What made cowards bold, a scattering body of individuals into a cohesive force, a disillusioned following into evangelists? Only one thing accounts for it: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In the same way we too have a living Redeemer, the same Redeemer, who is Jesus. This is the thrust of our testimony on Easter Sunday, and indeed on every other Lord’s Day also. We testify that Jesus rose from the dead and that He ever lives to help all who call upon Him. The evidences for this fact are overwhelming.
As we think about the resurrection on this Easter Sunday, I want to take you to a very special verse from the Old Testament. It is Job 19:25, which reads, “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.”
The appearance of this city of God, the new Jerusalem, is in a certain sense the culminating point of the entire Bible. This is the destiny for which we were created. But unless, by the work of Christ, you are a new creature, you can take it on the authority of the Word of God that you will never enter that city. So we need to search our hearts. We need to make our calling and election sure. We need to say: “Lord Jesus Christ, am I really yours? Have you really changed me? Have I been made a new creature?
John begins to describe some of the other details, and he talks about this great wall all the way around it. A wall would symbolize protection, and so you have an image there of our eternal security and safety. He talks about the twelve foundations. Why twelve? Well the reason is that they relate to the twelve apostles of the Lamb in verse 14. And the reference to the twelve apostles goes along with the twelve gates in the city, which represent the twelve tribes of Israel. This shows us the kind of base upon which this heavenly community is established.
When John begins to describe this in chapter 21, the thing that impresses him most about Jerusalem is that God dwells there. He writes, “I saw the Holy City,” he says, “the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’” (vv. 2-3).
It’s really not possible to come to this chapter at this point in the Bible, right at the end, without realizing that when John has this vision of the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, this is in contrast to practically all of the great themes preceding this that have to do with our normal, earthly expectations. Jerusalem is certainly contrasted with Babylon, which is mentioned just a few chapters before. Babylon stands for everything that is human in opposition to God.
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