n e w c h u r c h l i f e : m ay / j u n e 2 0 1 5
It is a holy city – not
holy because it has a
temple in it where ritual
sacrifices are performed
in the right way, but holy
because God is truly
present there, protecting
and comforting His
people, and illuminating
the whole city.
doesn’t really answer the question but
it does make sense that if there was
going to be a vision at the end of the
Bible of some location, it would be the
one mentioned most often in the rest
of the Bible.
But what will really help us to
understand why Jerusalem is used at
the end of the Bible is to get a sense
of the different ways it comes into the
story.
The name Jerusalem means
foundation, or city of peace – the salem
part is like the word shalom for peace –
so Jerusalem is dwelling place of peace.
Jerusalem is first mentioned, however,
as the city of an enemy people. (Joshua
10) The people who lived in Jerusalem were the Jebusites. They were tenacious
enough that the people under Joshua weren’t able to drive them out of the
land, so they stayed there. (Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21)
They were able to do this partly because of where Jerusalem was. It
was located in the southern part of the land of Canaan but fairly centrally
overall. It was built on two mountains and was a difficult city to attack. And it
had a spring that supplied it with water, which meant that it could last longer
under siege than other cities. When David became king he conquered it and
made it his capital city, (2 Samuel 5) and it became the largest city in the land
of Canaan.
Then David brought the ark of the covenant into it, making Jerusalem
the place where all the people would come to worship. (2 Samuel 6). David’s
son Solomon built the temple there, fully establishing that Jerusalem, with the
temple in it, was God’s dwelling place with the children of Israel. (1 Kings 6-7)
Then, when the kingdom split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the
southern kingdom of Judah, it was the capital city of Judah.
It had good times and bad, largely dependent on the character of the king
at the time and whether he was following the Lord or following other gods.
Jerusalem and the temple in it were eventually destroyed by Babylon and
the people taken into captivity. (2 Kings 24-25) Eventually they returned and
rebuilt the temple and Jerusalem.
During that period many psalmists and prophets of the Lord spoke about
Jerusalem: its holiness and its special place in God’s care; its corruption and its
profaneness; its restoration and its beautiful future.
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