While we wait upon Thee—on Thee, O Lord, we wait. And while we do plead with Thee to bless us, and ask Thee to bless us, while we wait on Thee, we would rise even higher and say, “Lord, satisfy Thyself. Get to Thyself the reward of Thy suffering, the travail of Thy soul.”
Lord, find Thine own satisfaction. Ours will follow. We shall not lose anything if the Lord gets what He wants. And so may we find our blessing in Thy preservation, for Thy name’s sake. Amen.
The letter to the Hebrews. We are this morning coming to the concentration of the whole letter in one section: Chapter 12.
You will note that this concentration of the whole letter is governed by the two words, “not” and “but.” Verse 18:
Ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched,
and that burned with fire,
and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest,
and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words;
which voice they that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them;
for they could not endure that which was enjoined,
If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned;
and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake.
But ye are come unto Mount Zion,
and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to innumerable hosts of angels,
to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven,
and to God the Judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant,
and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel.See that ye refuse not Him that speaketh.
Not—but.
We shall not dwell upon the various details gathered under the “not,” simply to say that this does represent a tremendous changeover from one whole system of divine activity and methods in the past. That system was of the nature of the tangible, the temporal, the palpable: what you could see with your natural eyes, handle with your hands, and register by all your natural senses of soul and body.
That comprehends the past system, and over it is written, “Not.” Not any more. That kind of thing is left behind.
Mark you very carefully: it is because that has been overlooked, or not recognized, that Christianity is in the poor state that it is in today. Christianity is built upon this “not,” very largely. You will see that perhaps more as we go on to the positive side.
But register this: “Ye are not come unto”—take it clause by clause in its significance—“Ye are not come unto” a system that can be appropriated and known by natural senses.
That is very comprehensive. That is a very great deal, is it not? That is finished. The Cross has cut in between that “not” and this “but.”
But ye are come.
Now, I want to be very explicit and careful. Did they really come to Sinai? You see, the description—the Holy Spirit through the writer—is making it very definite, positive, and emphatic that there was something very real.
So real that even Moses, who had such access to God, such fellowship with God, with whom God did speak face to face as a man to his friend—even this man said, “I exceedingly fear and quake.” Was that real? Was that imaginary? Was that just abstract? No, this thing was very real.
People cried out, “Stop! We cannot bear this. We cannot endure this.” Very real—that is what they came to. Had you been there, no doubt you would have said, “There is no imagination here. This is something terrific.”
But ye are come. Do you mean to say that the “but” is less real than the “not”? This that we are come to is abstract, while that was concrete? Oh, no. I am sure this is even more real after its own kind, in its own realm.
Dear friends, that is the point upon which we must focus everything: the reality of what we are come to.
When you go on and break this all up into detail, you are, in your own senses—senses of mind and soul—just completely baffled. It seems so idealistic, or imaginary, so ethereal, so unreal.
You see, to the natural, the spiritual is unreal. To the natural man, the man of soul, what is essentially and intrinsically spiritual is unreal. The reaction is, “Oh, let us be practical. Let us come down to earth. Let us get out of the clouds and get our feet solidly on the terra firma.”
The Irishman said, “Terracotta.” Let us get down to the real. That is the reaction, is it not, of the natural man to the spiritual?
But to the spiritual, spiritual things are more real than the tangible. This that we are come to, to say the very least, is as real as what they came to at Sinai, if after a different order.
Now, I want you to attend to the tense, because it is very important to get the tense. “Ye are come unto Mount Zion.” Not, “Ye are coming.” Not, “Ye are going.” Not, “Ye shall then arrive.” Ye are come.
I know you will go on singing it: “We are marching up to Zion.” Do you know what you mean? If you want one of the most hilariously comic things, try to march to the tune of that hymn.
I remember many years ago there was a conference of Christians, and they decided that at a certain time in the conference they would have a procession around the town. They all formed up in procession, had a brass band to lead, and the leader, who was neither a musician nor a soldier, shouted, “Hymn so-and-so: ‘Come, ye that love the Lord, let your joys be known; we are marching up to Zion.’”
The band started, and the people started to try to march. You never saw anything so funny in your life. If you do not understand what I mean, take that tune outside some time and get a dozen people to try to march to it. Can you imagine it now? You know the tune.
Well, I only put that in for a little bit of humour, but it has the point. We are not marching up to Zion. The Word says, “But ye are come.” Zion, present tense: we have supposed to be there, as I am now. Have you got that?
There is, of course, a contrast between Sinai and Zion. But it is not only contrast. Note, in keeping with what I have just said, it is more than contrast: it is consummation.
Zion was on the horizon for Israel right at the beginning. I think it is an impressive and amazing thing. You find the people through the Red Sea, on the far side, and then you look at Exodus 15. Before they had marched into the wilderness, or gone anywhere other than to the other side of the Red Sea, you have this:
Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,
the place, O Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
the sanctuary, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.
Right at the beginning, Zion is in view as the end, the consummation, of their journey and their experience during the next forty years or more. Zion is on the horizon from the beginning.
Zion is not the beginning. Zion is the consummation of everything.
This is the letter to the Hebrews. All that time they were on the journey: stage by stage, phase by phase, step by step. Remember that chapter in Numbers which is almost smothered with that word: “and they journeyed, and they journeyed, and they journeyed.” I think it is forty times in one chapter: “and they journeyed.”
All that time. The letter to the Hebrews says, “We have arrived.” We have arrived. How? Because all the bits and pieces, phases and stages, steps and movements, have come to their consummation in Jesus Christ.
We have arrived. We are come to the end of God’s movement in His Son. He is the consummation of all.
Now then, still this word “Zion,” which it says we are come to, remains a little abstract so far as our mentality is concerned. We must therefore get down to see what this Zion is that we have come to.
We have said, consummation; comprehension, or comprehensiveness. But what is it? What makes it up? What is the constitution of Zion as God’s end?
First of all, we say Zion is an inclusive and comprehensive term. In other words, we are come to the all-inclusive and all-comprehending thought and intention of God when we have come into the Lord Jesus.
We may have to grow in our apprehension and understanding of what we have come to, but God has nothing whatever to add to what we have come to. We have got it all in Christ. We have all.
God has reached His end in His Son, finished His new creation in His Son, and entered into His rest. And so the letter says, “We who have believed do enter into that rest.”
It is a comprehensive term. Zion is coming into all that God has placed in His Son for us. Christ is the sum total of all God’s work, over which is written, “It is finished.”
That does not mean merely that it has come to an end. It is all completed. It is all perfect.
You know the formula. When the priest brought the sacrifice for atonement and placed his hands upon the head of the sacrifice, he uttered a formula which in Greek is tetelestai. It is perfect.
They had gone with their trained eye over that sacrifice, turning up every hair to see if there was one of another colour—any minute point of contradiction or inconsistency. Through and through, opening its mouth, examining its teeth, every part gone through by the trained eye of the meticulous priest.
When he finished his examination—the sacrifice having been put up for ten days under scrutiny to see if there would be any development whatever, any inconsistent or imperfect element—at the end he brought it forth, put his hands upon it, and said, “It is perfect.”
That is the letter to the Hebrews, is it not? “By one offering He hath perfected for ever” (Hebrews 10:14)—made complete.
When Jesus cried, “It is finished,” it was the cry, as a verdict, of an offering perfect, without spot or blemish. God says, “It is perfect. It is complete.” His work and His Person are in right standing with God.
The sum of all God’s work is represented in the symbolic name Zion. Zion. That Zion is seen to be not only Christ personal, but a corporate thing: the people of Zion as well as Zion itself. A corporate thing.
Zion, then, is a people who are in the good of the complete and perfect work of Christ—a people who are the vessel of that work of the Lord which is complete. Zion.
It is so easy to say things like this, is it not? This is Bible teaching, you might say good Bible teaching. But, oh, my friends, we have got to see before we get through this week that it is not just as simple as that.
You will discover almost every day of your life that this position of standing in and being in the good of the finality of Christ’s work is not a simple matter. It is challenged uphill and downhill all the way along. We should be moved from this position of the perfected work of the Lord Jesus.
That is what I mean when I say we are not marching up to Zion. We are come to something perfect, and we should be the people embodying that perfect work of the Lord Jesus.
I do not mean that we are perfect, but His work is perfect, and He who is perfect is with us, and enough.
The time will come when that perfection will be manifest. I think that is a wonderful fragment in 2 Thessalonians 1:10: “When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed.” And I suppose we shall marvel more than anyone else.
That is Zion: Christ, and Christ collective—Christ corporate. The foundation of everything is His perfect work, as His perfect Person. That is Zion.
I am keeping, of course, very close to the symbolic and typical background of the Old Testament, because while the things of the Old Testament have gone, the meaning and the spiritual principles are eternal.
The spiritual meaning and principle of Zion is taken over and applied here. That is why the very name is taken out of the Old Testament and brought here into the New Testament.
The next thing about Zion is that it is the very symbol of His absolute victory.
Do you remember the beginning of Zion? After they had brought David back from his exile and made him king, the Jebusites occupied this site. They sneered at David from Zion and said, “Thou shalt not come in hither.”
They fortified it with the blind and the lame, saying, “These are enough to keep you out of here. This is an impregnable stronghold—so much so that the weakest can hold it safe. If the weakest, the blind and the lame, can do it, then the strongest, of course, it goes without saying, can do it.”
The Jebusites considered Zion to be absolutely impregnable—the last word in unassailable and uncapturable. “Thou shalt not come in here. Indeed, it is quite impossible for thee to do so.”
“All right,” says David. “I accept the challenge. We take up the gauntlet.” We know what he did: he broke through, broke in, took the stronghold, and destroyed its erstwhile impregnability. It became the city of David.
The city of the great king. His great victory—His immense victory—is centred in, registered in, and established in Zion. Zion is the very symbol and synonym of the great prowess of God’s King, of God’s Anointed.
Now bring it over: “Ye are come unto Zion, the city of the living God.” What have we come to? We have come to the supreme victory of the Lord Jesus Christ over the erstwhile impregnable.
And what was that? We quote from Matthew 16:18:
I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
What have you heard as the exposition of the gates of Hades? I am sure that in early days I made this mistake. Gates in the Bible, of course, in Old Testament cities, were the place of the councils of the elders, where they came to their decisions by discussion and counsel, and made their decisions for the city and the land.
So we have said, “The gates are the councils of hell.” Do not you make that mistake. It is right, but that is not what it means.
What is the otherwise impregnable stronghold of the prince of this world? It is death. It is death.
The Lord, in the presentation of Himself in the book of the Revelation, right at the beginning, says:
I am He that liveth;
and I became dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore,
and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
These spiritual strongholds into which the Lord Jesus broke—that impregnable stronghold of him who had the hold of death—were the realm in which he could say, “Whatever you take from me, you cannot wrench that out of my hand. In the end, I will have you. I have the hold, the power, the authority, of death.”
Spiritual death is a tremendous thing, terrifically so. The Apostle Paul almost exhausts the vocabulary in this connection. He says that we should know “the exceeding greatness of His power” (Ephesians 1:19)—the exceeding greatness of God’s power.
Think of that. The psalmist would say, “Selah.” Think of that: God—the exceeding greatness of His power, which is to us-ward who believe, according to the working, the energy, of the strength of His might, which He wrought, or energized, in Christ when He raised Him from the dead.
What language! What language! It is beyond Paul’s expressions. He had a very good vocabulary, but he found himself put to it to express and explain what it meant to raise Jesus from the dead—to overcome death.
Oh, it is so easy to say, “God raised Him from the dead.” But do you see what it meant? The illustration, of course—and illustrations always fade in the presence of reality—is Egypt and Pharaoh and the gods of the Egyptians.
See how God is, shall I say, spelling out His power in those ten judgments. First, a great power; second, a greater power and more; the third, more; and on to ten. You know the symbolic meaning of ten in the Bible. We will not stop with details. It is increasing power, steadily breaking down something—steadily, steadily breaking down Pharaoh.
When you come to the consummation, what is it? It is life and death: the death of all the firstborn in Egypt. When that is registered, the people are free. Out they go—resurrected.
It is an illustration. Types are always poor things in the presence of reality. The reality is the raising of Jesus Christ from the dead by the glory of the Father, by the exceeding greatness of power.
That is to us-ward, dear friends. I do not think we have begun to understand what it cost and what power lies behind our being born again—our being brought from death unto life.
We are come to Zion. That Zion is the immense victory of the Lord Jesus in the realm that supremely challenged God and heaven: the realm of death. Death.
You have in this letter, especially in the first chapters, so much about death, have you not? “He tasted death for every man.” “He delivered all those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Underlying death is in those early chapters because it is basic to all that follows. When you come to the end of the letter, you have that great note struck again:
Now the God of peace,
who brought again from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep
with the blood of an eternal covenant,
even our Lord Jesus,
make you perfect in every good thing.
“Brought again from the dead.” There is the potential; there is the dynamic of our being made perfect. The death which put a period to all spiritual perfection before has now been broken by the great Shepherd of the sheep.
You remember that Aaron and all his sons, the priests, could make nothing perfect because they died. Death put a period to their work. Nothing was perfect. But He has perfected forever. Why? Because He lives forever.
“I am alive unto the ages of the ages.” Therefore that is the hope and dynamic of your being made perfect. Oh, thank God, the exceeding greatness of His power is going eventually to present us before the presence of His glory without spot, in exceeding joy—a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
Presented! Oh, what a word. Faultless! What a sweep of the board that is—faultless. My, we down here now are just obsessed with one another’s faults and with our own faultiness. You are looking for the perfect assembly, the perfect church, and the perfect Christian, and all the time you are occupied with what is not perfect—the fault.
“He is able to present us faultless before the presence of His glory in exceeding joy.” Why? Because He has conquered death. This is the stronghold.
He has plundered the stronghold of Satan. He plunged in His imperial strength the gulfs of darkness down; He brought His trophy up at length, the foiled usurper’s crown.
The crown of Satan is death. The crown of Christ is life.
I will give unto thee the crown of life.
Are we spending too much time on details about Zion? This is what we have come to—or are supposed to have come to. May we be given strength and faith to apprehend what is being said and to enter into the marvellous joy of it.
Number three: Zion was, and is, in its spiritual meaning and reality, the centre of His dwelling. His dwelling.
The Lord dwelt in Zion. The Lord was found in Zion. You notice the words from Exodus 15:17: “Thy sanctuary. Thou shalt bring them in unto Thy sanctuary, to the mountain of Thy sanctuary.”
We know historically that it was there that God had His own sanctuary. Without dealing with details, in Hebrews 12:18 onward Jerusalem and Zion look like synonymous terms, so that they are interchangeable. They are not exactly the same thing, but I dare not stop to deal with the difference that there is.
Here is “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.” We come, then, to this place of His dwelling—the place where the Lord is.
If you were asked where you would find the Lord, I wonder what you would answer. Well, for one week in the year, at any rate, it was somewhere. Or you might mention other things. “If you want to find the Lord, you come to our meeting. You come to our company, our place of worship. Or you go to so-and-so. You go to so-and-so, and you will find the Lord there.”
And so you localize the Lord.
I know in the Old Testament they had to go to the place where He caused His name to be. That, in the geographical and literal sense, is no longer the case. You understand it.
Here is a great danger into which Christendom has fallen, and we are all in danger of localizing the presence of God. I mean literally. “You have to come here. That is where you have to go if you want to find the Lord.”
Do not be deceived. Not true.
We have passed from that system. That is under the “not.” Let it remain under the “not.” It sweeps away all that conception of things.
There are no sacred Ephesuses, or Philippis, or Thessalonicas. If there were, they would be today where they were two thousand years ago. They are not; they have gone.
The Lord was met there, but you will not meet Him there any longer—not in that way. No, not even in Jerusalem. Not in Rome.
But bring it down. Where is the Lord? The Lord Jesus has given us—is it a formula, a prescription?—
Wheresoever two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them.
There I am. That is the only localization—I hesitate to use the word “locality”—that is the only localization of the Lord now.
Any place where you may have met the Lord, any company of the Lord’s people where people may have met Him, as soon as they cease to be spiritually Zion—what Zion really is spiritually—the Lord leaves that, just as He left the tabernacle at Shiloh.
It is not sacred. The tabernacle is not sacred, or it would be preserved for today. No places on this earth are sacred to God.
The place where the Lord is, and is to be found, is in Zion. Ah, but what Zion means; what Zion is; what we have been seeing Zion to be—that is what we have come to.
You can go and put up a building, get a congregation, and put something over the door. No, no, no. This is the mentality, you see. Zion is a spiritual thing—a spiritual people.
The great thing about them is that you meet the Lord there. When you meet them and are with them, you just meet the Lord. You are not meeting a technique, or ritual, or a doctrine of teaching and interpretation, and all that. You are just meeting the Lord.
“We are come unto Zion.” Oh, let that be a test as well as a statement. We can let everything go—buildings, places, all our constitutions—let it all go, if people are not finding the Lord when they come where we are.
Or bring it down to the individual: “Ye are a sanctuary of the living God.” That is an individual application—a temple.
This place of His dwelling is the place where Christ is in the finality of His work, the fulness of what He has done, where things are according to Christ. That is Zion.
Number four: Zion is the seat of divine government. The background again, of course: Zion, city of the great King.
Out of Zion shall the government go forth.
Out of Zion shall He rule the nations.
Zion is the seat of His sovereignty and government, where His throne is.
I hinted a few minutes ago at the difference between Jerusalem and Zion. Zion, as I understand it, is what Jerusalem ought to be—and Jerusalem is not always so—but it is what Jerusalem ought to be: the governmental centre.
I am trying to get myself into a lot of trouble if I follow that on. However, courage!
Oh, all the people of God are not the seat and centre and expression of this government.
In the Revelation you have something more than the holy city, the New Jerusalem. You have nations walking in the light thereof. You have an outer circle. Yes, they are in the kingdom.
Now, I am not discriminating between the church and the kingdom; that is not my point. But I am saying that there are overcomers.
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My throne.
Jerusalem does not always conform to that, as far as the Lord’s people are concerned. I think I had better leave it there.
You see, it is just like that. This is a great difficulty with many. You present the ultimate full thought of God for the church—what God’s mind is about the church, the heavenly Jerusalem. Yes, you present it. But look at all these Christians, one foot in the world and the other foot in Christianity. All these Christians—you mean to say they are in the church? They are in the church.
When we think of what church really is, we say, “Oh, well, do not make a technical doctrine of it.” But remember, there is such a thing as God having a governing people.
It is one thing to be a citizen of a country, or even of a city; it is another thing to be a member of the royal household. You know what I mean.
Zion is the very epitome, the very essence, of God’s thought for His church as a whole. Not all approximate to it, but it is this governmental thing.
At the beginning it was like that. The literal Jerusalem in Judea was, as a whole, the centre of the government of the land. Come into your New Testament and you find that things move from Jerusalem. You say Antioch becomes the new centre, taking the place of Jerusalem. That is the way expositors put it. They make a geographical movement of it.
Well, all right, you can have it if you like, but it is not true. Let us go to Antioch, then, and have a look and see what business they are doing in Antioch.
There were certain brethren in Antioch, and they fasted and prayed, and the Holy Spirit said.
They are up out of the earth. They are out of the world. They have left things here. They are linked with heaven by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven. The heavenly government is in operation. The heavenly throne is governing there.
Now, it is not a board meeting.
I do not know whether any of you know the cartoons of E. J. Pace years ago in the Sunday School Times. He had a very good one—I think it was a humorous one, but they were good—and he called it “The First Board Meeting of the New Testament.”
Here is Jerusalem, and all the believers are gathered in a congregation in Jerusalem. There are two big hands with a big board in them, big nails, and a huge piece of timber smashed down on that building. They are all scattered—scattered throughout all Judea, throughout all Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth. He calls that the first board meeting.
No, not in Jerusalem literally; and no, not in Antioch literally. Zion is where heaven is governing and not men; where the heavenly counsels are operating, and the Holy Spirit says, “The Holy Spirit.”
That is what we have come to, or ought to have come to. I hope I have not offended any of you board members, committee men, or church directors.
No, no, we are coming to reality. Zion is testing, challenging, our whole system.
At this point, Zion means that where heaven rules; the ascended Christ governs through the Holy Spirit, makes the decisions, gives the direction, directs the course, and separates for the work whereunto He has called.
So the board meeting has a point, you know. I have not finished with it. So heaven actually—and that is fruitful, is it not?
Number five about Zion: Zion is the place of secured and established fellowship.
This is rather interesting and instructive. Go back to your Old Testament. When the heart of the men of Israel turned from Saul to David, to bring him back and make him king, what happened?
The first movement was to Hebron, and there they stayed for seven years at Hebron. What is Hebron? You know, Hebron means fellowship. Fellowship. What has happened?
You can put that over a fellowship, if you like—call it Hebron—but let it be true. However, they brought David and first made him king in Hebron. It was a partial thing; it was a movement unto fulness. But seven years in Hebron—seven years spiritually interpreted—was securing fellowship.
After the seven years, up to Jerusalem, Zion. The values of Hebron are now centred in Zion. That is, Zion is that in which the true fellowship of the Spirit is established.
You have got to read the rest of this section of Hebrews. See the marvellous fellowship that is there. What do we come to? Even to the spirits of just men made perfect. I do not think I shall ever get to that in this conference.
We are come. Marvellous fellowship in heaven, is it not? Fellowship with angels; fellowship with the spirits of just men made perfect; fellowship with Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant; fellowship with everything. It is fellowship that is in Zion—heavenly fellowship.
You know quite well, if you just get a little taste of heavenly fellowship, it is heaven. Some of you have come from far places where you have little or no real spiritual fellowship.
Whatever other values there may be about convocation, I have always found that one of the greatest values—even more than the ministry—has been these lonely pilgrims coming from far and near, in the spiritual sense up to Zion, and finding that heart-refreshing fellowship which has sent them back to their lonely places feeling, “Well, I am not alone after all.”
“I thought I was alone. I was an Elijah, looking for a juniper tree, saying, ‘It is enough, O Lord; take away my life. I am the only one left.’ But I have discovered that there are seven thousand in Israel.”
Fellowship is a marvellous thing. That is Zion truth. “Ye are come.” Oh, that we might live in the good of that always, in our loneliness and isolation and exile, knowing that our fellowship is in heaven.
All right, I must just mention these things and go on. Seven years to get it, and then established in Zion. What is it again? It is the fellowship of Christ being in His right place and His full place.
David is now in his right place and in his full place, for which God chose and anointed him. Our greater David is in His place—right place and full place. Wherever that is true, there is Zion. It is not Zion unless it is like that.
We are near the end, friends. I have a quarter of an hour.
Number six: Zion is the ground of our festivities. I have almost said this in what I have just said. What does it say? “Zion, the city of our solemnities.” That is the phrase in Scripture: the city, the place, of our solemnities.
What would that mean? Well, it was the great feasts and festivals of the people which they had in Zion. God had ordained that this people should be a festive people. Now, there is a portion in Hebrews that says that is what we have come to.
We have come to innumerable angels—innumerable angels in festal array. The city of our festivity.
Need I say any more? I believe this; I know this: that if you have anything that approximates to Zion spiritually, anything that is really a truly spiritual Zion, however small it is, you will have a feast of good things.
Where these things that I have mentioned are true, you will never be hungry—spiritually hungry. The Lord will see to it. There is plenty there. You will not be miserable. You will be full of joy.
We need something more than religious picnics. We need Zion’s spiritual festivity.
“Innumerable angels in festal array.” I do not know that I understand that altogether, but I think I can glimpse it. My, when the angels see Zion, how happy they are, how glad they are. There is a certain joy amongst the angels when you have things like this.
They look at a spiritual Zion and put on their festival garments. “This is it. This is it.” The angels rejoice. Perhaps that is an imperfect interpretation; I do not know. But I am sure it is part of it.
We register this, do we not? When we have anything that approximates to Zion in this way—Zion’s fellowship, the King really in His place governing—we register heaven’s feeling about it and say, “My, this is good.”
We no longer condemn poor old Simon Peter. We fall into the same wonderful and glorious path: “It is good for us to be here. Let us never go away from here again. Let us build three tabernacles.”
We sang just before this ministry this morning about “the weary world below.” We have got to go back to it, but may we go back with something of the joy of Zion—the city of our solemnity, spiritual festivity.
I must leave that. Then we come to the last thing about Zion. This is only the first fragment in the whole section. There is another one which will probably take the whole of our time tomorrow, but that is not coming now.
Number seven: Zion is the place of our spiritual franchise.
Is that a difficult word or idea? Well, if you do not know what I mean, I remind you of Psalm 87:
The Lord loveth the gates of Zion
more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
Then the psalmist picks out those places in the world that men boast of. “I was born in Philistia. Think of that. I was born in Tyre. Think of that. I am a Tyrian. I am a citizen. I was born in Ethiopia. Think of that.”
The psalmist, you can almost hear him say:
This one was born there.
It shall be said of Zion, “This man was born there.” Something absolutely superior: this man is a citizen of Zion. He was born there. His name is registered there.
The psalmist concludes that comparison and contrast with all their worldliness and boasting: “All my springs are in thee.” Oh, my springs are in the place of my franchise. I am registered in heaven. I am a citizen of heaven.
“Our citizenship,” says the apostle, “is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour” (Philippians 3:20). “Our life is hid with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).
Not only have we been born from above—you are familiar with all that, are you not, in John? Born from above. I always correct the translation: not merely born again, but born from above. That is something more than being born again.
Born from above, and names written in heaven, in the Lamb’s book of life. Not only that—that is glorious—but you have the franchise. Paul boasted of his freemanship: “I am a free man born.”
They all had to yield to that, even the Roman Empire had to bow to that: a free man born. The centurion captain had a bad time when he heard that. My word, his life was at stake for having put chains on a free man.
Our citizenship is in heaven. Our franchise is important. We are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. This one was born there. That is Zion. In Zion.
I must leave that with you. I do trust it is not just a lot of interesting, or even fascinating, Bible teaching. This is a challenge: “Ye are come unto Zion.”
Lord, help us to see what we have come to, what we really are in the divine thought. Lord, make this true of us wherever we may be, and of the little companies with which we may be related and connected, that it may be, in this true spiritual sense, Zion indeed.
Lord, make this more than teaching, doctrine, truth, and Bible exposition. Put the challenge into every one of our hearts. Is this true with me? Am I a citizen of Zion? Are these things real in my life?
Help us to attend to it. Answer our prayer for the sake of Thine own glory and satisfaction in Thy Son. Amen.