The Everlasting Covenant

Restoration of Israel

With these few outlines well fixed in mind, the reading of the prophecies both of the Old and the New Testament will be a delight, for we shall be spared much confusion, and many seeming contradictions will be seen to be plain. When we read of the restoration of Jerusalem, so that it will be the joy and praise of the whole earth, we shall know that the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, to take the place of the old. If a city on this earth is burnt entirely to the ground, and men build a new city on the same site, the city is said to be rebuilt, and it is called by the same name. So with Jerusalem, only the city is rebuilt in heaven, so that there is no interval between the destruction of the old and the appearance of the new. It is as though the new city sprang at once from the ruins of the old, only infinitely more glorious. EVCO 427.1

So also when we read of the return o Israel to Jerusalem, we know that it is not the return of a few thousand mortals to a mass of ruins, but the coming of the innumerable, immortal host of the redeemed to the ever new city where their citizenship has long been recorded. Mortal men will not rebuild the city with brick and stone and mortar, but God Himself will rebuild it with gold and pearls and all manner of precious stones. “When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in His glory.” ¹ He says to Jerusalem, “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” ² These are the stones in which her children take pleasure. (Psalm 102:14). EVCO 428.1

Here will be rest, perfect eternal peace. The promise is, “in righteousness shalt thou be established; thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear; and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.” “In that day shall this song be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.” God Himself will be with His people for evermore, “and they shall see His face,” and therefore they will have rest, for He said, “My presence,” literally, My face, “shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.” EVCO 428.2

Why will men nullify all these glorious promises, by reading them as though they taught merely the temporal possession of a ruined city on this old sin-cursed earth? It is because they limit the Gospel, not realizing that all the promises of God are in Christ, to be enjoyed by none except those who are in Christ, and in whom He dwells by faith. Would that God’s professed people might speedily receive “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation” in the knowledge of God, that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened, that they might “know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” and that it is to be gained only by “the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places.” ¹ EVCO 428.3