"And
he that spake with me had for a measure a golden reed to
measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall
thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length
thereof is as great as the breadth; and he measured the
city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs: the length
and the breadth and the height thereof are equal" (Revelation
21:15,16).
For the
sake of friends who have not been with us before let me
just give this word of explanation. We are considering in
these days the meaning of this new Jerusalem, this holy
city, which the Apostle, in a vision, saw coming down
from God out of heaven. We have pointed out that this is
not a literal city, but a symbolic representation of
Jesus Christ and His Church as God is going to have it at
the end.
So now
we come to the greatness of the city. The Apostle says
that in his vision he saw an angel, in whose hand was a
golden reed with which he was measuring the city, and
then the Apostle tells us that the measurement was given
by the angel - twelve thousand furlongs high and twelve
thousand furlongs on every side. And the city was made of
transparent gold. That, of course, is something that you
have never seen on this earth! The reed with which the
city was measured, and the city itself were of the same
material: the measurement of the city was by a reed of
pure gold, and the city itself was of pure gold. In the
Bible gold is always the symbol of the Divine nature, and
the supreme thing in that nature is love. It is this same
John who says: "God IS love" (1 John
4:8), and everything that is of God is measured according
to the standard of Divine love. When we approached this
city earlier in the chapter John told us that he saw
"the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven
from God, having the glory of God", and the supreme
thing about the glory of God is the love of God.
THE GREATNESS OF HIS LOVE
Now look
at the size of this city. The measurement is given as
twelve thousand stadia. I don't know whether any of you
have worked that out, but in English that is one
thousand, three hundred and seventy-nine miles, and in
metres it is two million, two hundred and twenty
thousand. Do you recognize what that represents? That is
many times higher than the Jungfrau, and, indeed, many
times higher than the highest mountain in this world,
Mount Everest. Do you understand now why I say this
cannot be a literal city? It is as high as that, as long
as that, as wide as that, and is as great as that on
every side. This is impossible of literal interpretation,
and must therefore represent spiritual principles.
Now
understand that we are speaking about the love of God in
Jesus Christ expressed in a redeemed people and
manifested in its fullness in eternity. If this
measurement is something beyond all natural conception,
the love of God in Christ Jesus toward us is completely
beyond our imagination, and this immense city is a symbol
of the immensity of the love of God. The Apostle Paul
mentions this in one place, when he prays that the Church
may be "rooted and grounded in love", and that
it "may be strong to apprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and
to know the love of Christ which passeth
knowledge..." (Ephesians 3:17,18). The love of God
surpasses knowledge, just as this symbolic city is
something altogether beyond knowledge. That is why we
sang that hymn which is all about that Divine love:
"It passeth knowledge, that dear
love of Thine...
Oh, fill me, Jesus, Saviour, with Thy love!"
It will
require all eternity to understand that love.
Do you
remember what the Apostle Paul says about this love? His
description of how great this love is is that it is
beyond the greatest things that are known in our human
life. He says, in the eighth chapter of his letter to the
Romans: "Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?" (verse 35), and here are some of the big
things in human life: "Shall tribulation?"
Perhaps you do not know very much about tribulation, but
there are some of God's people in various parts of the
world who do know the meaning of that word, and for them
the second greatest thing in life is tribulation.
"Or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword?" These are all very
big things! If you know anything about them you know that
they are bigger than anything else except the love of
God. But the Apostle has not yet completed his list. He
goes on like this: "I am persuaded, that neither
death..." Is death a big thing? "...nor
life" - and life is a big thing, for it can hold a
great many big things - "nor angels..." Well,
now, you will have to have a good Bible study with that
word! Read all the great things that angels did. On one
occasion the earthly Jerusalem was beseiged by a great
foreign nation, who came with their chariots and their
horses, and their men in armour, and they spread
themselves like locusts over all the land. The servant of
God prayed, and God sent one angel. In the morning, when
the men of Jerusalem awoke, that whole army consisted of
dead corpses. Only one angel - and a vast and mighty army
lay dead! Shall angels separate us from the love of God,
whether they be good or bad angels? "Nor
principalities..." They are the spiritual
authorities that govern the nations of this world, and
you must remember that they are SPIRITUAL forces.
They are evil forces, and today you are seeing what they
are doing in the nations of this world. They are doing
very terrible things: but the Apostle goes on: "Nor
things present..." and there are plenty of things
present today, enough to frighten anyone. It would not do
for me to begin to speak of all these terrible things
which are now present. We have read in our papers today
of the assassination of the Prime Minister of South
Africa, and that within the last few years twenty-six
world rulers have been assassinated. These are only a few
of the things which are now present. "Nor things to
come..." - and the Bible tells us of terrible things
that are going to come on this world. On he goes:
"Nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creation..." Think of anything that would be
terrible and great, and the Apostle says: 'Put them all
together and they will NOT be able to separate us
from the love of God.' How great is the love of God!
This
same John wrote in his Gospel: "God so LOVED the
world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting
life" (John 3:16). How great is His love!
It takes
something that man cannot measure even to consider the
love of God. These measurements of the city are only
symbolic of the greatness of the love of God toward you
and toward me in Jesus Christ, and when God has done His
work in His people eternity will show how great His love
was. We may not be able to grasp it or understand it now,
but then we shall fully understand, and I think that the
thing about which we shall all be talking for all
eternity will be: 'Oh, how great was His love!'
Presently
the Apostle will tell us who are outside of the city, for
he says that there will be many outside. These are the
people who never accepted God's love, and for all
eternity they have lost this wonderful thing - the
immense love of God. What a great thing, therefore, it is
for us to accept God's love!
THE STABILITY OF HIS LOVE
If these
measurements represent the greatness of God's love, this
immense city must be a very, very stable thing. It would
be a very big thing to be able to move the Jungfrau, but
if you put a hundred Jungfraus on top of one another, no
Samson would be able to lift that! Here we come, year
after year, year after year, and the mountain is still
just in the same place. When I was a little boy I lived
where there are some mountains, and I go back there now -
and I won't tell you how long it is since I was a little
boy! - and see the mountains in exactly the same place.
They have not moved nor changed one little bit. You see
what I am coming to - how reliable is this love of God!
"They that trust in the Lord", said the
Psalmist, "Are as mount Zion, which cannot be moved,
but abideth for ever" (Psalm 125:1). One of our New
Testament texts says: "Ye are come unto mount Zion,
and unto the city of the living God the heavenly
Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22), and in spiritual
language that just means: 'You are come to the love of
God, which is unchanging and immovable.' Stability is a
characteristic of Divine love.
The Lord
Jesus has given us a picture of this in His well-known
parable of the Prodigal Son. That son was a son of his
father's love, but he despised it and packed up, and went
right away from where that love was. He spent all his
father's resources in sinful living and brought shame and
dishonour upon his father's name. Then, at last he
remembered his father's love and said to himself: 'I will
arise'. He did not say: 'I will arise and go home', but:
'I will arise and go unto my father'. So he turned his
footsteps toward his father again, and Jesus gives us the
picture of the father on the top of the house looking to
the horizon. I suppose that father had been praying every
day: 'Lord, bring my son home.' So every day he went out
to see if his prayer was being answered - and then this
wonderful day arrived. He saw a black spot on the horizon
and said: 'Someone is coming.' He watched, and then he
said: 'It is my son!' He did not wait for the son to
arrive. Down the stairs he went and out on to the road.
The boy began to make some excuses and give explanations,
but the father smothered it all and he could not get it
all out. It says: "He (the father) fell on his neck,
and kissed him" (Luke 15:20). He brought the son
back into the house and said: "Let us eat, and make
merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found." Now Jesus was saying: 'That
is the love of God for man, for sinful man, for man who
has gone away from God. God's heart just longs to have
that man back again.' The unchanging love of God! The
father did not say: 'He is a bad boy. He has not
appreciated my love. I wash my hands of him and will have
nothing more to do with him!' Oh, no, God's love does not
change when we go wrong. How strong is this city! How
immovable is this city! How unchangeable is this city!
And all that is true of the love of God.
THE EQUALITY OF HIS LOVE
One more
thing: I did not expect to be preaching the Gospel in
this way this evening, but I have the feeling that this
is what the Lord wanted said, and I think He wants us all
to have a new understanding of the greatness of His love.
It says
that this city is equal on all its sides. It is all the
same on the east, on the west, on the north and on the
south. The love of God is not bigger for people who live
on the east than it is for people who live on the west.
It is not different for those who live on the north from
what is for those who live on the south. There are the
people who have everything that they need and want. We
say that they were born with a silver spoon in their
mouths. On the other side there are the people who have
nothing, the poor, miserable people of this world. There
are the people who live in the sun of the east and the
people who live in the cold winds of the north. There are
all kinds and conditions of people in this world, but the
love of God is equal to them all. God has no favourites.
There is no partiality about the love of God. It does not
matter what we are, or where we are. On every side the
love of God is the same. How equal is the love of God!
Are you not glad that it is like that? There are those
people who have all the advantages. They have godly
parents and grandparents, were born into a Christian home
and brought up in a Christian atmosphere. There are those
people who never had any godly parents or grandparents.
They were born into very sinful homes and families. You
know, General Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army,
said a very strong thing about those people, and used a
word that we don't like using: 'My work is for the people
who were damned into this world!' Well, it does not
matter which side it is. God's love is no greater for the
people who have all the advantages than it is for those
who have none. God's love is a very righteous love. It
just levels everyone out, and in eternity it will not
matter what we were here - we shall have to say: 'It is
the love of God that got me here.'
The
greatness of His love; the stability of His love; the
equality of His love - how wonderful is the love of God!
And you and I are called by that love that we, through
eternity, shall show it forth to the whole universe.