^ Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society ^ 1906. * G. Campbell Morgan, in The British Weekly,
The Citizens of the City.
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Literature.
Aitchison (J.), The Children's Own^ 214.
Campbell (R. J.), Thursday Mornings at the City Temple^ 284.
Johnston (J. B.), A Commentary on the Revelation, 258.
Lushington (F. de W.), Sermons to Young Boys, 15.
Matheson (G.), Sidelights from Patmos, 319.
Milligan (Q.), Lamps and Pitchers, 183.
Oosterzee (J. J. van), The Year of Salvation, ii. 315,
Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 30.
Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, xi. 161.
Scott (C. A.), Revelation (Century Bible), 151.
„ (J. J.), The Apocalypse, 140. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881), No. 1590. Swete (H. B.), The Apocalypse of St. John, 52, 297. Thomas (J.), The Ideal City, 199. Vaughan (C. J.), Lectures on The Revelation, 505. Waddell (R.), Behold the Lamb of God! 287. Wilson (J. M.), Sermons Preached in Clifton College Chapel, ii. 28. Woods (H. G.), At the Temple Church, 148. Christian World Pulpit, xxiv. 257 (J. Aldis). Church Pulpit Year Book, 1911, p. 233. Expository Times, xxi. 347. Good Words, 1861, p. 126 (A. P. Stanley).
The Citizens of the City.
And there shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie : but only they which are written in the Lamb's book of life.— Rev. xxi. 27.
1. The New Jerusalem, as seen in the vision of the Book of Revelation, is a city differing in many respects from cities in the modern world. There is no night there, no curse, no temple. It Ib to be, not, as are many modern cities, for the troubling of the nation, but for its healing. It is to be the source of light and health and glory to all mankind. There is no relapse into heathenism or barbarism, no dark ages yet to come. The new city has an eternal day. The light of God's Presence never wavers. The translucent buildings and walls transmit all the light of life that is concentrated in her to the nations and peoples without. Her gates are ever open — everything that is of value, every talent, every power, every gift in the sum of human per- fections is concentrated here to the Divine service. All the nations offer their glory and honour, not as captives robbed of their freedom, and despoiled of their treasures in a Eoman triumph, but as free and loving subjects, as those who hate false- hood and immorality, and order their conduct in obedience to the laws that bind the citizens of the kingdom of the Lamb.
2. This ideal city which St. John depicts is not heaven, except in so far as heaven is already latent in the earth and shall finally be realized in it. The indications of the path of interpretation are clear. The ideal city is the Holy Jerusalem, and stands in con- trast to the great city Babylon. Whether we take them separately, or oppose them to one another, their meaning is obvious. It is certainly not heaven and hell that they represent, but rather the forces and dominions upon earth of good and evil. Jerusalem re- presents here, as it does in ancient prophecy — upon which the
pictures of this book are almost entirely based — the people of God
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332 THE CITIZENS OF THE CITY
upon earth, in their holy character and their organized force. If there were any doubt of this, the added picture of " the bride, the Lamb's wife," would remove all uncertainty. For, whether we turn to the Old Testament or to the New, the metaphor is con- sistently applied to the covenant people of God. The ideal city, therefore, represents the Church of Christ in its ideal meaning and its ideal attainment. It is not a "jeweller's shop," as some have called it in supercilious and ignorant scorn. It is a symbolic picture of the spiritual power and grandeur which God has destined for the earth.
3. The text speaks of its citizens. And it tells us that there is nothing but moral disability that excludes from citizenship, as there is nothing but moral power that can entitle to its privileges. It is not the wise and the prudent, the opulent and the mighty, that have a right to the seats of the blessed in the City of Life. No key of gold can open the gates of the New Jerusalem, or secure an entrance therein. For the strong angel at the gate esteems the riches and the honours of men as nothing and less than nothing. But the gates are ever open to the pure in heart, and the angel knows no title to the glory of the city except the title of the pure. Only " they which are written in the Lamb's book of life" can find that holiness of spirit which shall admit men through the gates of the city of God.
Those who may not Enter.
" There shall in no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie."
1. The first description of those who may not enter the city of God involves simply the assertion of moral unsoundness. Herein lies the germ of all the possible developments of sin. In the words, " anything unclean," the reference is to the blemish that detracts from perfect soundness, to the defiling characteristics that distinguish the unclean from the clean, the common from the holy. This moral unsoundness is the elementary fact in the history and progress of sin, and a universal fact in human experi-