Galatians 4:25–26 talks about the new Jerusalem being our mother; in Hebrews 12:22 as a meeting place, and in Revelation 21 as a bride. Could you comment upon those three distinctive verses?
At first sight, it seems a little confusing. But it's important to remember that when these terms are used, they are being used metaphorically. It is possible to have metaphors that on the surface appear contradictory, but are not contradictory in the truth they represent. So Christ is a stone, but he's also a bridegroom and he's a shepherd, and in addition to that, he is a whole host of things. Now at first sight, how can you be a bridegroom if you are a stone? But these are different aspects of his character, expressed in those different metaphors.
Now when Paul says the Jerusalem that's above is the mother of us all, he is using Old Testament and taking the story of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac as a prototype. He says that Sarah represents the Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all and is free. How does that make sense? How can Sarah be the mother of us all? In Hebrew thinking, you could use the term 'son of' to represent somebody 'who shows the same character as'. So a son of Abraham is a person that shows the same kind of faith as Abraham showed. A child of Sarah would be somebody who shows the same kind of faith as Sarah showed. Abraham and Sarah were the two people in whose lives God hammered out the principle of justification by faith, daring to believe the word of God, the promise of God, as distinct from trying by your own effort to produce the promise of God, instead of trusting God to do his work.
And Paul says that when Abraham and Sarah concocted that scheme of trying to fulfil God's promise themselves, by Abraham's taking of Hagar the slave girl, the product was not a freeborn child, but a slave. He was a child of a slave woman, who was a slave technically in the family. That wouldn't do for God: God wants a child born of a free woman. And the child Isaac was born of the free woman, Sarah. Because Sarah corrected her former mistake and, instead of trying by her own effort to effect the promise of God, she learnt to trust the God of the impossible, and eventually produced Isaac by God's own power. In that same sense, those who insist on trying to keep the law for salvation and rely on their own merit, only produce in themselves slavery; whereas those who follow Sarah and Abraham and learn to put faith in him who justifies the ungodly, their faith is counted for righteousness. Forthwith, they form part of the great community that shall inhabit eternity. A community of all, like Abraham and Sarah, whose very foundation is that same faith in God.
So that's one aspect of the community. All who are there will be built on that foundation. But secondly, Hebrews 12 says, yes, it is a meeting place where God himself shall dwell. It is interesting to notice in passing that the writer to the Hebrews doesn't say we shall come to it, but he says we have come to it. We have already come to it. We are already citizens of heaven—'our citizenship is in heaven' (Philippians 3:20). While we don't indulge in mysticism, we have a certain amount of communion—at least I do, I hope you do—with Abraham and Sarah. For instance, I say to myself as I read Genesis, 'Good old Abraham, I know what he's talking about. I've had that experience.' We've already come to that glorious city. One day we shall be literally, physically there. So these are different aspects. On the other side, of course, we're not there yet and, like Abraham, we are pilgrims still looking for the city whose builder and designer is God.
