Wiki: Jerusalem as an allegory for the Church

In Christianity, Jerusalem is sometimes interpreted as an allegory or type for the Church of Christ. There is a vast apocalyptic tradition that focuses on the heavenly Jerusalem instead of the literal and historical city of Jerusalem. Christians have not controlled the actual city of Jerusalem since the time of the Crusades and have mostly relied on biblical symbols and metaphors that describe the Church as if it were the true living Jerusalem. This view is notably advocated in Augustine's The City of God, a popular fifth century Christian book that was written during the fall of the Western Roman Empire.

Jerusalem as Heavenly City
Zion - City of the Living God - Faithful City

Jerusalem as Historical City- Temple | Jerusalem as Prophetic Focal Point | Jerusalem as Babylon | Jerusalem as Heavenly City

"do you think that this is the city of which I said: On the palms of my hands I have carved you?  It is not this building that is in your midst now; it is that which will be revealed with me that was already prepared from the moment that I decided to create paradise." (II Baruch 4)

HEAVENLY JERUSALEM AS THE TRUE CITY
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Isaiah 33:20-22
” Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.”

Isaiah 4:3-4
“ And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remained in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.”

Jeremiah 3:17
"At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.”

 Zechariah 14:8
“And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem, half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.”

IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Galatians 4:21-31
"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free."

Hebrews 12:23-29
“ But ye are come unto mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.

See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifies the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and Godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.”

Revelation 21:2, 15-17
"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God... The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long."

Revelation 21:10-11, 21
"And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal... The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass" 

Revelation 22:1-5
"Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever."

H.B. Swete
"There are no words that can prove more clearly the purely spiritual nature of the viewpoint of John regarding the New Jerusalem." (The Apocalypse of St. John, 295)

Origen
"Jerusalem, according to what is often said, is interpreted as the Church, which is the city of God built from living rocks,..."  "...you come to Zion, the observatory, the Church, to announce in Zion, that is, the church, the vengeance of the Lord our God,..." (Homilies on Jeremiah)

Baruch, Apocalypse
"You, however, if you prepare your minds to sow into them the fruits of the law, he shall protect you in the time in which the Might One shall shake the entire creation.  For after after a short time, the building of Zion will be shaken in order that it will be rebuilt.  That building will not remain; but it will again be be uprooted after some time and will remain desolate for a time.  And after that it is necessary that it will be renewed in glory and that it will be perfected into eternity.  We should not, therefore, be so sad regarding the evil which has come now, but much more distressed regarding that which is in the future.  For greater than the two evils will be the trial when the Mighty One will renew his creation." (2 Bar. 32:1-6)

Babylonian Talmud
"Rav Nahman said to Rav Yitzhak: What is  meant by, "The Holy One in your midst, and I will not come into the city" [Hosea 11:9]?  Because the Holy One is in your midst, I will not come into the city?  He replied to him:  Thus said Rabbi Yohannan:  The Holy One blessed be He has said, "I will not come into the supernal Jerusalem until I come into the lower Jerusalem."  And is there [in fact] a supernal Jerusalem?  Yes, as it is written, "Jerusalem, built as a city which is bound firmly together" [Ps 122:3] (b. Ta'an. 5a; b. B. Bat. 75b)

Ethiopian Book of Enoch
"Then I stood still, looking at that ancient house being transformed: all the pillars and all the columns were pulled out; and the ornaments of that house were packed and taken out together with them and abandoned in a certain place in the South of the land.  I went on seeing until the Lord of the sheep brought about a new house, greater and loftier than the first one, and set it up in the first location which had been covered up -- all its pillars were new, the columns new; and the ornaments new, as well as greater than those of the first, (that is) the old (house), which was gone.  All the sheep were within it." (I En. 90:28-29)

Testament of Dan
"and the saints shall refresh themselves in Eden, the righteous shall rejoice in the new Jerusalem, which shall be eternally for the glorification of God." (Test. Dan 5:12)
 

MISTAKEN METHODS WHICH REJECT THE HEAVENLY REALITIES

Rivka Nir (2003)
"Unlike the development of a belief in the existence of a heavenly temple, there is no image of a heavenly Jerusalem in the early Jewish sources.  The eschatological expectations of the Jewish people, as expressed in Scripture, give expression to the hope for the restoration of the temple, the return of the scattered ones of Israel, and the transformation of Jerusalem as a magnet for all nations; these were the three components of national hopes in Israel, all of which were connected with the historical Jerusalem.  A heavenly Jerusalem does not appear in Second Temple literature; the same holds true for the early talmudic sources, that is, in the Mishnah, the Jerusalem Telmud, or in the Palestinian midrashim." (The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, p. 26)

Jerusalem Talmud 'Amidah for Tishab'Av
"Have mercy, O Lord our God, with Your great mercy and Your faithful kindness, upon us and upon Your people Israel and upon Jerusalem Your city and upon Zion the resting place of Your glory, and upon the city, that is mourning and ruined and destroyed and desolate, given over to the hands of strangers, trampled with arrogant hands; and it was inherited by legions, and profaned by idolators, and to Israel Your people you have given it as a portion, and to the seed of Jeshurun you have it as an inheritance, for with fire you have burned it, and with fire you shall in the future build up, as said "For I shall be to it, sayeth the Lord, as a wall of fire around it, and I shall be for glory within it" (y. Ber., 4.3 [8a.]).

"(Hadrian) found the entire city devastated and the temple of God trampled down, except for a few houses and the church of God, which was small, where the disciples, after they returned when the savior was taken up from the Mount of Olives, went up to the upper room. For there it had been built, that is, in the part of Zion that was kept from the destruction, and the blocks of houses around Zion itself, and seven synagogues, which stood alone like huts, one of which remained until the time of Maximona the bishop and Constantine the king, "like a booth in a vineyard," as it is written. Therefore Hadrian decided to build the city, but not the temple." (Koester 1989:93. - On Weights and Measures)

HYMNS AND SONGS

"O Heavenly Jerusalem"

O heavenly Jerusalem,
of everlasting halls,
thrice blessè are the people
thou storest in thy walls.

Thou art the golden mansion
where saints for ever sing,
the seat of God's own chosen,
the palace of the King.

There God for ever sitteth,
himself of all the crown;
the Lamb, the Light that shineth
and never goeth down.

Naught to this seat approacheth
their sweet peace to molest;
they sing their God for ever,
nor day nor night they rest.

Sure hope doth thither lead us;
our longings thither tend;
may short-lived toil ne'er daunt us
for joys that cannot end.

To Christ, the Sun that lightens
his Church above, below;
to Father and to Spirit
all things created bow.

Words: Latin, eighteenth century;
trans. Isaac Williams, 1839

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Date: 22 Oct 2006
Time: 09:36:37

Comments:

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