which hath foundations" (Heb. 11:10)—the city which cannot be
former things having passed away, and all things above and beneath having come forth, like gold from the furnace, purified seven times, out of the hands of Him who says, "Behold, I make all things new."
It is called "holy"—the "holy Jerusalem" (chap. 22:10)—the "holy city" (chap. 22:19); for into it "nothing that defileth shall enter." "Holiness to the Lord" is written on all that it contains. They who dwell in it are holy; and all that is seen, or heard, or done in it is holy too. Sin is but a story of the past; and not a shadow of evil shall ever flit through its streets, or attempt to enter in by its gates of pearl.
It is called "heavenly" (Heb. 12:22), both because of its difference from the "earthly" city, and because in its plan, and materials, and architecture, it is of heaven, not of earth. It does not rise up out of earth like one of its mountains, but is let down like one of heaven's stars. It is not reared by human hands upon the plains of earth, like Babylon, or on the hills of earth, like Rome: its architect is divine, and it "comes down out of heaven from God" (chap. 21:10), bringing down with it the beauty and the blessedness of the land from which it comes.
It is called "the Bride, the Lamb's wife" (21:9), not, as if it were a mere symbolic picture of the Church, and not a true city; but because its inhabitants form "the Bride." The old Jerusalem was spoken of as a woman (Lam. 1:1, &c.), and a Bride (Is. 62:5), without thereby losing its reality; so the "New Jerusalem" is something more than a mere figure for the congregation of the saints. It may fitly be called the Bride, because it is the city of her habitation—the "many mansions of the Father's house," the place which the Lord went to prepare for his own (John 14:2; Heb. 11:16), the bridal city, the royal dowry which she received as her portion when she "forgot her own people and her father's house," that so "the King might greatly desire her beauty" (Ps. 45:10, 11).
2. Its foundations.—In number they are twelve, for it is "the city which hath foundations" (Heb. 11:10)—the city which cannot be