The idea of this chapter, which
is speaking of the heavenly Jerusalem, the holy Jerusalem, holy meaning
set apart, something unique, something special, the whole
idea is perfection, safety, security, and absolute assurance. that everything is going to be
fine, sinlessly perfect, first of all, as we who are saved stand
in Christ legally, but also in the end as we'll go through that
great change of being glorified, this vile body being shed, and
we are risen with glorified bodies. And I've often said, There's
not a whole lot that we can say about the glorified body. We
have more questions than answers on that subject. And the reason
is, is because the Bible is very specific in its revelation. In
fact, the chapter that you go to to find out about the glorified
bodies of the saints would be 1 Corinthians 15. And in the
book, What is Salvation? I deal with that in the last
part of that, the glorified realm of salvation. And what I try
to do in that book is not answer all the curiosities that people
have because that would just be speculation. What I try to
do is just stick with the scripture. Here's what the Bible says, and
that's all we can know. And anything else is speculation.
But there is a perfection. The perfection in this section
of the Holy Jerusalem has to do with the number 12 and multiples
of 12. I think I brought this out last
week. If you want to talk about numbers, some people get so bogged
down in numerology that it takes them away from the scripture,
but there is a significance to the numbers in the Bible. God
didn't put anything in here by accident or by chance. The number one has a specific
meaning. The number two is, you know,
one obviously is the number of unity, two is the number of witness,
and three is the perfection of deity, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. So when you talk about the three
in one and the number three, that's talking about God and
his perfect, he is complete in himself. And then four is the
number of the earth, north, south, east, west, you know, all that. Five is the number of grace.
That's four plus one, the one being Christ. And so when we
speak of that, six is the number of man because it falls short
of seven, which is the completed work of Christ. we could go on. But anyway, 12 is the perfection
of God's church, the perfection of God's government. When you
see the number 12 or multiples of 12, for example, the 144,000,
that's a multiple of 12. That's 12 times 12 plus 1,000.
And what that's talking about, it's not talking about the exact
number of 144,000 people who are going to be in the inner
circle. with God, as some kind of imply. It's just simply saying that
in heaven, in this, in God's new heavens and new earth, in
the holy Jerusalem, there will be no vacancies. There'll be
no empty seats. every one of God's chosen people
will be there. God chose them, Christ redeemed
them, the Holy Spirit calls them, and they will be glorified. So
that's what this is about. Well, look at verse 14. He says,
and this is Revelation 21, the wall of the city had 12 foundations. What does a wall mean? Especially
back then in these days, you know, when it was dog eat dog,
kill or be killed, conquered. You know the Roman hordes The
barbarians, you know all of this, you know, this this was a this
was a violent time You know a lot of people look back at the Old
Testament and they say well God was a different God back then
No, he wasn't He was dealing with a nation of rebellious people
called Israel and And they were in the midst of a terrible, violent
time and a land which it was kill or be killed. And he dealt
with them in a way that would cause them to survive by his
power and goodness until he was finished with them, which is
when the Messiah would come. So a wall, a city, was a place
of what? A place of safety. The bigger
the walls, you know, they bragged about the walls of Jericho. What
happened? God brought him down through
Joshua. Impregnable city, you know, that kind of thing. Well,
that's what this is. The walls of Jerusalem were broken
down several times in their history. But the walls of this city stands
on 12 foundations. And it says here, and in them
is the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. Now, why the 12
apostles? Now, you know, you say, you think of the 12 apostles,
Peter and James and John and all them. Now, is it talking
about the strength and the goodness of these apostles? Well, absolutely
not. What it's talking about is the
message of the apostles, which is the Lamb, who is the foundation
of the church. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2.
What is an apostle? He's a messenger. He has a message. And the key
to understanding what it means by the foundation of these apostles
is to find out what their message was. They didn't point to themselves. Paul, in fact, you remember when,
Ephesians chapter two, we're gonna look at verse 19 to begin
with. But Paul, you remember when they
were dividing over preachers in Corinth? And in 1 Corinthians
one, Paul said, what in the world are you doing? Are you people
crazy? Some say I'm of Paul, some say
I'm of Apollos, some say I'm of Cephas, that was Peter's Greek
name. Some say I'm not of anybody,
I just follow Jesus, you know, I don't listen to anybody. I
know a couple of guys on the internet who'll say that, they
don't listen to any preacher, they just listen to Jesus, you
know, that kind of thing. And that's silly too. You don't
elevate these pastors and preachers and apostles and saints, you
don't pray through the saints or to the saints. You know, they
say, well, this guy, he's the saint of lost causes. This guy,
he's the saint of... No, that's not biblical. That's
man-made religion that takes people's eyes off of Christ and
what he accomplished on Calvary to establish righteousness. So
when it says the 12 foundations here, it's not talking about
the apostles themselves as people. He's talking about their message,
which is Christ, the Lamb. And look at it in verse 19 of
Ephesians 2. He's talking about Gentiles having
been brought into the kingdom and are equal citizens because
of the blood of Christ. We all stand before God justified
in His righteousness imputed. And he says in verse 19 of Ephesians
2, he says, now therefore you are no more strangers, which
means foreigners. Strangers and foreigners. but
fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God,
and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets."
Now don't stop there. What's the next word? Jesus Christ
himself being the chief cornerstone. That's the foundation. He's the
one that holds it all together. The cornerstone means that he
is the foundation, he is the one that holds it all together,
and he's the one by which all things are measured. We're going
to see that over here in the New Jerusalem. He says, and what's
he talking about? He says in verse 21, in whom
all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy
temple in the Lord, in whom you also are builded together for
an habitation of God through the spirit. That's the church.
Now over here in Revelation 21, there's another metaphor, another
symbol for the church. And what it is, it's the New
Jerusalem. It's the glorified church. Look at verse 14 again. The wall of the city, Revelation
21, the wall of the city had 12 foundations. This is a completeness
now, this is a perfection. And nothing's missing, that's
what that means. The perfection of God's covenant,
the perfection of God's government, the perfection of God's city,
the perfection of God's church, all of that, see? And he says,
and in them the names of the 12 apostles of the land, the
messengers of the land, who pointed sinners to the land. Behold the
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. And so
they witnessed to Christ, you see. And verse 15. And he that
talked with me had a golden reed or rod to measure the city and
the gates thereof and the wall thereof. Now what is the golden
reed? You remember back in Revelation 11? Turn back to Revelation 11. And this kind of language, I've
got a couple of Old Testament references you can go to. Ezekiel
40 and Zechariah 2. But look at Revelation 11. Talking
about the golden rod, the golden reed, the measuring rod and all
of that. Look at verse one of a Revelation
11. There was given me a reed like unto a rod and the angel
stood saying, rise and measure the temple of God. That's the church. How are you
going to measure the church? The altar. What's the altar? That's the place of sacrifice,
isn't it? He says, and then that worship therein. But he says
in verse two, but the court, which is without the temple,
leave out and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles.
And the holy city shall they tread underfoot forty and two
months. You go back and get that lesson for that, I'm not going
into all that, but what that is a reference to, in the temple
in Jerusalem at this time, well I say at this time, it was gone
by this time. I happen to believe that John wrote Revelation after
AD 70. probably close to AD 90, but
that's neither here nor there. But he's referencing, you know,
back in the last temple before it was destroyed, you had an
inner court for the Jews and an outer court for the Gentiles.
And that's why Paul spoke of that in Ephesians chapter two
about breaking down the middle wall of partition, that wall
that divides us, it's no longer there. There is no division of
Jew and Gentile in the kingdom of God. It's 12, that means it's
complete. And every sinner saved by grace,
Jew or Gentile is equally saved, equally justified, equally sanctified,
equally regenerated, and they'll be equally glorified. And there'll
be no big I and little you. Somebody said, well, so-and-so
is going to be closer to the throne of heaven. That is so
opposed to salvation by grace. I think somebody asked one preacher
one time, will you see this certain preacher in heaven? And the preacher
said, I don't think I will, because he'll be so close and I'll be
so far away. Boy, that's sentimentality, and
it tugs at the old heartstrings, but it's not biblical. I'm standing up here preaching,
and I've been doing this for quite a long time now. I'm not
going to be any closer than you, who never open your mouth in
preaching. We're equal citizens in the kingdom.
That's what he's talking about. So there's not gonna be that
middle wall partition. But what he's saying there, the
Gentiles there in Revelation 11 refers to the heathen. It's
a way of referring to unbelievers. Okay? But Jew and Gentile, there
is no Jew nor Greek. There is no Jew nor Gentile.
We're all equal in God's sight by, and why is that? It's because
there's not one of us in this building today who deserve or
earn salvation. I haven't earned it, and I don't
deserve it. And if God were to say, well,
now, Bill, now I'm going to give you what you've earned and deserve,
you know what it would be? Be damnation, eternal. So that's
how we come at this thing. Now, that was the message of
the prophets. Well, this golden reed, golden because that means
divine. This is a message from God. Paul
told the Galatians, he said, the gospel that I preached to
you, I didn't get it from man. It came from God. This is the
gospel of God. So it's golden. That's what that
means. And the reed, the rod, the measure, it's the gospel.
That's how we measure the church. We preach the gospel. We don't
measure it by what you wear. or what you don't wear, what
you eat, or what you don't eat, or what day you decide to worship,
or anything like that. We measure it by the gospel.
What thank ye of Christ. That's it, isn't it? Who is he? What did he do? Why did he do
it? Where is he now? That's how we measure this thing.
We preach Christ. It's foolishness to those who
are perishing, but it's the power of God to those who are being
saved. power of God unto salvation? Do you have the conviction and
assurance of Christ that His blood washes us clean from all
our sins, that His righteousness alone, freely imputed, is our
whole justification before God and nothing added to it or mixed
with it, that He's all in all? That's what this is. That holy
city, that new holy spiritual Jerusalem, is measured out to
its dimensions so that we can know without doubt who measures
up to the standard of God's requirement. Do we measure up? Think about
it that way. Well, you look at yourself and
you'd probably say, no, I don't measure up, even at my best.
But I do measure up, how? By the imputed righteousness
of Christ. I'm in him. God, Christ is the standard.
How many times you hear me quote Acts 17, what is the 31? God
has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he hath ordained and that he hath given assurance
unto all men that he hath raised him from the dead. That's it.
The only way you and I are gonna measure up in this thing is to
stand in Christ. The only thing that matters at
judgment, the only thing that matters in eternity is how we
stand in Christ. And that's the key. The walls of this Jerusalem will
never be breached. That's what he's talking about.
That we're safe and secure in Christ. And so when he measures
in verse 15 the city and the gates, what's he talking about? He's talking about our safety,
our security, in Christ and the assurance that we are in Him.
How do I know I'm a citizen of the King? How do I know I've
come through one of these gates? Now, they're all the same. It's
not like when it says it has 12 gates, it's not like the mountain
theory or the mountain theology. You know what the mountain theology
is? There's one God, He's at the top, and there's many roads
up to Him. That's a lie. That's pluralism. It's not grace. It's not salvation. It's pluralism. You go your way
and I go mine. You've got your own path, I've
got mine. Some people are going the long
way around. Some people are going straight
up. No, that's not what it means. The 12 gates, the foundations,
all are the same gate. The 12 simply means complete. Everybody who's going to be there,
everybody whom God chose, whom Christ redeemed in the Holy Spirit,
they'll be there. No vacancies at all. Now they
do come from all directions. He's got some that live up north.
He's got some that live down south. He's got some that live
out east and some that live out west. That's the world in the scripture.
God has a chosen people all over. Look at verse 16 now. He says, in the city lies four
square, that means it's a perfect cube, and the length is as large
as the breadth. There's a perfect cube. This
is perfection, say. That's what this means. And he
measured the city with the reed 12,000 furlongs. 12,000 furlongs. Again, you have
multiples of 12 there. This is the standard and measure
of righteousness. Somebody said that 12,000 furlongs
is about 1,500 miles. And what it's just talking about
is how enormous this thing is, the vastness of it and the perfection
of it. You can read, a lot of people
try to read more into it than what I think they should. But as long as what you read
into it doesn't deny the gospel, I mean, that's okay. Have your
opinion. But you know what opinions are. All right? Everybody's got
one. All right. The length and breadth
and the height are equal. Again, that's the perfection.
That's the equality of each member within the church. That's the
perfect cube. There's no vacancy. You see it? There's the perfection
of it. There's the completeness of it.
In Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you
are what? Complete in Him. So this is all,
listen, none of this points to the glory of man. Because man
has no glory. It all points to the glory of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The glory of God
in Christ. And then look at verse 17. He
measured the wall thereof, and hundred and forty and four cubits,
now again there's multiples of twelve, twelve times twelve,
according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. Now who
is that man? Who is that angel? That's not
an angel by nature, that's a messenger, the angel of the covenant, that's
Christ, according to the measure of Christ. And so this wall is
Christ who is the salvation of his church. He's the completeness
of His church. The man referred to as Christ
the God-man. He is the man. There's a man
in glory. There's one God and one mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. That's not denying
His deity. That's emphasizing His humanity
without sin as God-man, God manifest in the flesh. And so the issue
again comes back, and it never goes away in the Bible. It'll
go away in so-called churches, but the issue never goes away.
It's how do we stand in Christ? Paul summed it up beautifully
in Philippians 3, and of course we know he was inspired by the
Holy Spirit, so it's the word of God. When he said, all that
I may know him, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness,
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness of God, which is by faith. That's
what we want. That's what this whole city is
about. And so the only way that this
can apply to me and apply to you as a citizen is to be found
in Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness,
Singing one of my favorites. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. All right.