THE CITY OF GOD

W. McKillop

Revelation 22: 14; Psalm 46: 4; 48: 1–3; Leviticus 25: 29

I want with the Lord’s help to speak further about the thought of the city. Revelation 21 gives us the most extensive description of it. The fact that the Spirit of God has set down in detail the description of the city, including its measurements, is to affect us, to impress us with how great the assembly is viewed as the holy city. In verse 15 of chapter 21 the person who spoke with John had a golden reed as a measure that he might measure the city, and its gates, and its wall. It was an angel, of course, but for us it would be the Spirit of God who would impress us that He is measuring things using the divine standard, the golden reed. As He measures, it is to impress us with the greatness of this city. We may not have thought about it, especially those who are younger, but the construction of this city has been going on now for nearly two thousand years. That divine Persons should take such an extended period of time to build this city would indicate how important in the divine mind this city is. It is important because it is to be the capital of the universe, and in every part the city has to answer to the divine standard as set out in Christ. The golden reed would allude to that; in fact it says it is a man’s measure; that is to say, the building of this city relates to the manhood of Christ and it is to answer in every part fully to Him. There will be no discrepancy between Christ and the city as they both come out in the world to come. That is no doubt why the city is called the holy city, for Christ is the Holy One of God, no doubt why it has such a place in the world to come. The Lord will be over all, everything being put in subjection under His feet, but He will have this vessel with Him. God has given Him to be “head over all things to the assembly, which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all”, Ephesians 1: 23. There is no disparity between Christ and the

assembly, whether viewed as His counterpart or His body or as the city.

So I have remarked that divine Persons have been patiently building this city over a very long period of time. Generation after generation, divine building has been going on and the full result will, be seen in what comes down out of heaven from God. In the meantime, the city is available to us now, it already exists. The question therefore is—How do I have part in it?

How do I have part in the life of this city? Because it is marked by life; it is the city of the living God and therefore it is replete with every feature of the life of Jesus. So we have this word, “Blessed are they that wash their robes”; there are persons who are not washing, as is said earlier in this chapter, “let the filthy make himself filthy still” (v.11). There are persons, perhaps even professing the name of Christ, who are not washing and the time will come when the Lord will say, Let those persons remain as they are, which is a most sobering thought. But blessing attaches to those who wash their robes; as a consequence of that, they can go in by the gates into the city and have right to the tree of life. See how accessible God makes the city to those who wash their robes, for there are twelve gates; so wherever I am in relation to the city, there is a gate that is available to me; if I wash my robes I can go in by that gate, whichever one of the twelve it is, and find that the tree of life becomes available to me as food. Outside of the city, we might say, all other food is the husks which the swine eat, and it is not the divine thought that any person here should deprive himself or herself of the food that the tree of life provides. So washing one’s robes is the means of having access to the city. The Spirit of God would encourage all of us to be washers of our robes, and He would stimulate anyone who has not been doing it to begin doing it, in order to come into the city and feed on the fruit of the tree of life. Earlier in the chapter we have the position of the tree of life. It is in the midst of the city. It is Christ as wholly heavenly in

the very centre of things in the life of this city. So it would be a great opportunity for anyone who has neglected washing their robes to begin to do so now, and find that the way is open to come right in and take up your right to eat of the tree of life and be in the very centre of things according to God.

Another wonderful feature of the city is what we have in Psalm 46, “There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the sanctuary of the habitations of the Most High”. “There is a river” is a typical allusion to the Spirit of God. There is a river in the world of course; the prophet says about Pharaoh, “My river is mine own, and I made it for myself”, Ezekiel 29: 3. Every large city in its commercial activity and other things shows what that river is; it is a river that men have made for themselves to enable them to be independent of God. The first man who built a city went out from the presence of Jehovah and he called it after the name of his son. He had no thought of God or of God’s son; he went out with his sins on him and set up an order of things independently of God. That will all come under judgment as the book of Revelation shows. Babylon is to be thrown down and every feature of Babylon removed from the universe of God. But there is a river, not Pharaoh’s river, but the river of God. It says elsewhere, “the river of God is full of water”, Psalm 65: 9. How full the blessed Spirit is as having come into the assembly, into the city. There is no reduction of that water supply and the streams of this river make glad the city of God. The streams allude, beloved brethren, to you and me, that is how the streams come out. The river can be viewed by itself. We can reverently view the Holy Spirit objectively by Himself. But the streams involve persons in whom the Spirit is acting. You remember how, according to John 7, in the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7: 37, 38). So

I would ask, Am I a channel for one of these streams to flow out which make glad the city of God? Am I a person who is a source of life and refreshment in my locality? Do I stimulate the hearts of the saints by what flows out through me?

The apostle took account of certain persons and he said of them, “now I tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ”, Philippians 3: 18. I should not want to be such a person. My desire, and I trust the desire of every person here, would be to come to the Son of God and drink and find that out of my belly is flowing rivers of living water. What a stimulus it is for us in our localities as we see the flowing out of these waters.

The same water we can say that is in this river, there is no difference, it is the same Holy Spirit, but acting subjectively in persons who are making way for Him; and these streams make glad the city of God. What a privilege to gladden the city of God; that is where God is.

So it says, “the sanctuary of the habitations of the Most High”. It is a sanctified area. These are persons who have washed their robes, they are girded with the linen ephod as we had in the reading, and they have drunk of what Christ provides, and these streams make glad the city of God, the sanctuary. That is where the service of God is carried on; they make glad that area, the sanctuary of the habitations of the Most High.

You notice that this psalm, as the other one we read, is of the sons of Korah; it is a song showing that there is exaltation in the souls of the writers. We are all sons of Korah in that sense. We have to acknowledge that God in His mercy has delivered us from the great failure of the priesthood according to what has happened in the religious systems about us. They represent, alas, the rebellion of Korah, and God has dealt with them governmentally in that there is no light and no food there except in a very limited sense, but there is no river there.

We have been delivered from that, so we are

among the sons of Korah. That God has had mercy on us would gladden our hearts in spite of what our histories may be. Whatever we have been attached to, He has delivered us from it, He has had mercy on us. The Lord told one He healed to go to his own home and to his own people and tell them that the Lord had had mercy on him (Mark 5: 19). That is how a son of Korah is formed; he comes into touch with Christ, he is healed and his soul is filled with divine mercy, so he is singing.

Psalm 48 is a song and a psalm. Psalm 46 in its heading says, “On Alamoth”; the footnote says, ‘Probably ‘voices of young women’’. That is very interesting, showing how the Spirit of God is thinking about persons in detail and in what stage of life physically they may be,

‘voices of young women’. Psalm 48 says, “Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the hill of his holiness”. We are now in an elevated area characterised by the divine nature, the hill of His holiness. We were speaking in the reading about the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit; the love of God is a holy love. There is a very perverted thought as to the love of God abroad, that God can love persons regardless of what they are morally and how they are going on lawlessly. But the love of God is a holy love. You can understand therefore why it says it is shed abroad by the Holy Spirit; that is the character of the divine Person who is shedding this holy love abroad in our hearts.

Then it says, “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth”. The earthly Jerusalem in a sense will be that; but the holy city, the heavenly Jerusalem, will really be the joy of the whole earth in the world to come. It is already the joy of every lover of Christ; every one who loves Christ as typified in David and loves the city of David is rejoicing in what this city is; it is the city of our God. We sang in the hymn we began with about the name of God (Hymn 258). Think of that, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit—that is

our God! It is said also, “on the sides of the north, the city of the great King”. It is the sphere where Christ has absolute sway, “the city of the great King”. How we rejoice that God has given Him a name that which is above every name. That name brings out His greatness. He is not exactly King to us, He is Lord to us individually and Head to us collectively, but it is the same great Person. So “God is known in her palaces”, that is, these are the dwelling-places of the saints in the city of our God, places that are spiritually spacious, spiritually ornamented.

They are not ornamented with any features of the first man, but ornamented with all the features of Christ, the second Man, out of heaven.

In verse 12 it says, “Walk about Zion, and go round about her”. It is well worth taking a walk around the assembly to see what is there. I read the other day about a man who walked around the entire island of Manhattan and he described what he saw. But have you taken a walk recently around the assembly so that you can describe what you see? You count the towers; it is a military position still because Christ is in rejection. Outwardly Absalom is coming into power, he is coming into Jerusalem, but Hushai is already here. We are here in that sense; it is Hushai in the saints, David’s friend. You can take account of this from the military point of view. And “Mark ye well her bulwarks”, or as the footnote says, ‘Set your heart on’ her bulwarks. What a comfort it is to find in our localities that there are bulwarks against evil, bulwarks against lawlessness, and therefore bulwarks against the growing tide of apostasy. “Consider her palaces”; it is a wonderful matter to take account now of the habitations of the saints, for the palaces allude to spiritual royalty. These are dignified, wealthy persons who are in the city of our God. They are not beggars in the streets here, these persons are all dignified by sonship and the palaces are well worth considering. I would encourage every one of us to consider the palaces and see whether I can come into that area and feel at home.

I referred to the passage in Leviticus because it brings up the thought of a walled city. A city without walls is unprotected. One thing that stands out in Revelation 21 is the measurement of the wall of the city; it says, “having a great and high wall” (Revelation 21: 12). Thank God that the city is characterised by that. In Leviticus you have this thought as to redeeming a dwelling-house in a walled city. Notice it is not a dwelling-house in a village, or on a farm, or in the country, it is in a walled city. If there is anyone here who has lost the enjoyment of having a dwelling-house in a walled city, I want to show you that according to this passage we are still in the time when you can redeem that. We know, of course, that if we apply this in its primary interpretation, the Jew lost the opportunity to redeem the dwelling-house in a walled city because he rejected the testimony of Christ, and of the Spirit and of the apostles.

But I want to bring it down to some individual who may have lost the enjoyment of having a dwelling-house in a walled city, “if any one sell a dwelling-house”. You might wonder why would anyone sell a dwelling-house in a walled city. Why would anyone give up a habitation in the assembly as a walled city? What could there possibly be that is worth surrendering that for? I can tell you that there is nothing on this earth that is worth selling your dwelling-house in a walled city for. But what I want to impress you with is that we are in the time of grace; so it says, “he shall have the right of redemption up to the end of the year of the sale thereof”.

That year is still running on.

We often speak about the year pointing to the period in which the gospel is preached to men, the acceptable year of the Lord, and that is a blessed fact to consider. But I want to bring it closer home than that, to someone who has sold a dwelling-house in the walled city. You still have the right of redemption. Peter says, “and account the longsuffering of our Lord to be salvation”, 2 Peter 3: 15. Peter is speaking to Christians, not to unconverted people. So this passage would be in

accord with that. You can count the longsuffering of the Lord salvation. He has waited for you day after day, week after week, month after month, and it may be, alas! year after year for you to redeem your dwelling-house in the walled city. He is saying to you again at this time. It is not too late yet, you can still redeem your dwelling-house in the walled city. I would encourage anyone who has sold the dwelling-house to redeem it. We are in the time of redemption, in that sense, and you can again resume your place in your dwelling-house in the walled city. All that is contrary to Christ and to God is shut out. Every feature of the first man is excluded from the walled city and the dwelling-house. What a blessed thought that is, where you come and you are just thoroughly at home and you can have the saints in your dwelling-house. I am not referring to what is physical now but to the moral thought. The life of the city involves this, that there is an area where you can sit down and enjoy with others who have dwelling-houses in the walled city what they have acquired from Christ and from the Spirit.

Well, that is all I had to say, beloved brethren, but I am urgent that if there be someone who has sold the dwelling-house, that now is the time to redeem it because it is still the year in which the sale has taken place. You can recover it in divine grace and resume your place morally and spiritually in the walled city. I assure you there is nothing outside of it that is worth surrendering this dwelling-house for; but there is every reason, every encouragement from the Lord and from the Spirit, to redeem what is yours. What you sold, not valuing it perhaps, but now you can redeem it and see what its value is. There is nothing in one sense morally greater than a dwelling-house in a walled city. Think of being there in spiritual peace and joy knowing that you are in the place that divine love would have you in. You are at home in the city of our God, in the city of David, and the city is full of persons. You remember when Naomi and Ruth came back it says, “all the city was

moved about them”, Ruth 1: 19. What release of affection and joy there would be among the brethren as somebody says, I want to redeem my dwelling-house. The Lord will give grace for it. May God bless the word.

Address at New York
22 August 1998