1. Here is safety from all outward enemies. As long as the city obeyed and trusted God it was impregnable, though all the nations stood round about it, like dogs round a sheep. The fulfil- ment of the promise has passed over, with all the rest that characterized Israel's position, to the Christian Church, and to- day, in the midst of all the agitations of opinion, and all the vauntings of men about an effete Christianity and dead churches, it is as true as ever it was that the living Church of God is eternal. If it had not been that there was a God as a wall of fire round about the Church, it would have been wiped off the face of the earth long ago. If nothing else had killed it the faults of its members would have done so. The continuance of the Church is a perpetual miracle, when we take into account the weakness, and the errors, and the follies, and the stupidities, and the narrownesses, and the sins of the people who in any given day represent it. That it should stand at all, and that it should conquer, seems to be as plain a demonstration of the present working of God as is the existence still, as a separate individuality amongst the peoples of the earth, of His ancient people, the Jews.
When the Eomans had cast a torch into the Temple, and the streets of the city were running with blood, what had become of Zechariah's dream of a wall of fire round about her ? Then can the Divine fire be quenched ? Yes. And who quenched it ? Not the Eomans, but the people that lived within that flaming
ZECHARIAH n. 4, 5 407
rampart. The apparent failure of the promise carries the lesson for churches and individuals to-day, that in spite of such glowing predictions, there may again sound the voice that the legend says was heard within the Temple on the night before Jerusalem fell : " Let us depart," and there was a rustling of unseen wings, and on the morrow the legionaries were in the shrine. " If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee."
2. But there is inward defence too. " A radiance will I become in her midst." It was that symbolic Light that spoke of the special presence of God, and went with the children of Israel in their wanderings, and sat between the Cherubim. There was no " Shechinah," as it is technically called, in that second Temple. But yet the prophet says, " The glory " — the actual Presence of God — " shall be in the midst of her," and the meaning of that great promise is taught us by the very last vision in the New Testament, in which the Seer of the Apocalypse says, " The glory of God did lighten it (evidently quoting Zechariah), and the Lamb is the light thereof." So the city is lit as by one central glow of radiance that flashes its beams into every corner, and therefore " there shall be no night there."
The God who wards off all enemies gives light and warmth to those within the circle of His embracing love. It was a happy thing for the shepherds that the fires which they lighted to drive away beasts of prey also afforded to themselves a cheerful light and a comforting blaze. Even so it is that, while God's light is a terror to the impure, it is a joy to the good. The first thing created was light ; and Christ came, as the Light of the world, to shed " a marvellous light " over its darkness and sin. Night and darkness flee at His coming. " In thy light," says the Psalmist, "shall we see light." And one of the most delicate of Scotch " Paraphrases " has this stanza —
Our hearts, if God we seek to know,
Shall know Him, and rejoice ; His coming like the morn shall be,
Like morning songs His voice.
3. The only means by which a Christian community can fulfil its function, and be the light of the world, is by having the presence of God, in no metaphor, the actual presence of the
408 THE CITY WITHOUT WALLS
illuminating Spirit, in its midst. If it has not that, it may have anything and everything else — wealth, culture, learning, eloquence, influence in the world — but all is of no use; it will be dark- ness. We are light only in proportion as we are " light in the Lord." As long as we, as communities, keep our hearts in touch with Him, so long do we shine. Break the contact, and the light fades and flickers out.
The ancient Israelite would hardly have dared to take these great words as personal. They applied to the country and the city, but not to the individual ; but since Christ came, and since in the faith of Christ we learnt the value of the individual, we have come, and rightly come, to take these great prophetic ideas as personal experiences ; and every man who is a Christian, who has faith in Jesus Christ, may have the wall of fire round about him and the Glory in the midst. And when we take the words in this personal sense, we cannot help feeling how aptly and even exquisitely they describe the relation between the soul and God. How could those two complementary facts, the transcendence and the immanence of God, be more suitably described than by this image ? The wall of fire round about represents the transcend- ence, and the Glory in the midst represents the immanence of God. The inward life is of this character, that by the faith of Christ your inward being becomes filled with God. The Spirit of God dwells there. Harmony, purity, and love are within you. And that inward light becomes a guidance and a power in every action of the day. You do not walk at random; you are led. Whatever the world around you may be, within you there is peace. The Kingdom of God is established there.