God's Eternal Purpose and Our Eternal Hope (Part 2 of 3)

In the last post, I talked about God re-creating everything, just as we are a New Creation in Christ, so Heaven and Earth will become new a the completion of all things.  Why does God make everything new?  Let's continue reading Revelation 21:1-7:

I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 

I elaborated on this in my last post, but in summation, this New Jerusalem is the dwelling place of the saints, who are according to First Peter, the building blocks of the city.  And John sees Her coming down prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

Throughout Scripture, this metaphor, of a husband and wife, is used as the relationship of God and his people. In Hosea God’s people are seen to be an adulterous wife... Paul tells the Corinthians that he is going to present them to Christ as a spotless bride. This bride is the culmination of the work of God. The virtuous wife of David’s Son spoke of in Proverbs 31. A helper suitable for God the Son. As in Genesis, when God made a companion suitable for his son Adam from Adam’s side. So the Father makes a helper suitable for the Second Adam, from Christ's side.

After Christ had died on the cross, his side was pierced, and out flowed the water to baptize and cleanse his bride and the blood by which he bought her. And it is from his side that God fashioned his Bride... the Church... You and me. Cleansed by the water, bought by the blood and confirmed by the Spirit. As John says there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood and these are in agreement. Do we accept this testimony? And this is the testimony God has given us eternal life and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. How wonderful it is to be included in God’s eternal purpose as the companion of His Son.

You see God’s eternal purpose is to bring glory to himself. His purpose is triune as He himself is triune in nature. God is a relationship between Father, Son and Spirit that has existed for all of eternity. And He seeks to share that relationship with that which he has made and purchased. That brings him ultimate glory! Here John sees this in his fullness and uses three examples to demonstrate this. We have seen the first one: Husband and Bride... A companion for His Son, one with which he will be equally yoked. We see how that relationship is “here, but not yet...” in the relationship between husband and wife. Husbands are to love their their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Right now that relationship is damaged by sin, but here John of Patmos sees it in all it’s glory! How glorious it is.  

I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.

As human’s isn’t there something special about where we dwell? We say that we want a liveable space, but what we really mean is something more relational than that. A place where we can live with the ones we love,

and converse, and eat meals together. A place of relationship is where we dwell. This is also what God desires as well. This dwelling is the restoration of what was lost in the Garden. The very dwelling of God with man, where Man and God could walk with one an other in the cool of the day.

The Holy Spirit, the Third person of the trinity Lived in the tabernacle in the wilderness, and lived among the people. And the Holy Spirit Tabernacles with in you and I, and with among us as the Church. For the Holy Spirit is the working of God among men.

Yet with this dwelling the Lord says by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool, where is the house you will build for me? And where shall my resting place be?”

It is no coincident that John uses the same word here for dwell, which is literally tabernacle, as he does in his Gospel where he says that the Word dwelt among us. Yet even in flesh, the Word, very God from very God, Light from Light, could not find a place to rest. For He says, “Birds have nests and foxes have holes, but the Son of man has not a place to lay his head”.

The second person of the trinity tabernacled with us and identified with our weakness. But here the fullness of the Godhead is dwelling among men, and instead of identifying with our weakness, we are identifying with God’s glory and righteousness. In the dwelling of God, we shall rest, as we do now, but he shall also rest and commune with us. We will walk with him in the cool of the day, as Adam did with him in the Garden.

This Heavenly city... the place of God's people, of restored relationships is certainly the place the Psalmist speaks of when he says "For the Lord has chosen Zion, he has desired it for his dwelling... this is my resting place for ever and ever, here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it"