IT may appear, at first sight, that the doctrine contained in this text is in opposition to the great fundamental truth of Scripture, viz., that “by the deeds of the law no living flesh shall be justified.” The difficulty, however, is easily explained. Man must lay aside for ever his high looks and lofty pretensions, and appear before the gate of the Jerusalem above arrayed in the garment of a Redeemer’s righteousness, if he would hope to enter and enjoy the favour of Him who dwelleth there. But sanctification is as essential as justification—an inherent holiness wrought by the Spirit of God—a likeness to Christ, the great First-born from the dead; and it is in reference to this that the text says, “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”
The text divides itself into two parts—
I. Future blessedness is here set forth under emblems—”a city,” “the tree of life.”
It is unnecessary here to state that the doctrine of future blessedness is one of the most prominent contained in Scripture. Without this, a revelation would be altogether unmeaning. It is because within every man there is an immortal soul, which may become possessor of endless glory when the walls of this prison-house shall crumble into ruins, that God has manifested such anxiety about man since the time of Adam’s fall. The existence of revelation at all, as well as all the means of grace and observances which have been instituted by God since the day when He parted with Adam at the gate of Eden, would be meaningless from first to last, unless there be supposed the existence of future and endless glory; and, therefore, upon that general subject it is unnecessary to make any remarks. It will be more to our present purpose to make some remarks on the imagery employed here by the sacred writer in speaking of future blessedness. It is, so far as we know, absolutely necessary to speak of heaven in figurative language, inasmuch as its precise nature cannot at present be understood. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”—a statement which, although it referred at first to the great truths of revelation, refers also to the great realities to which those truths related. The “eye” of man has seen much—the wonders of every land and age—the riches of blest Arabia—the glories of the court of Solomon—the wonders of heaven above, of earth beneath, of the boundless, trackless deep. The “ear” has heard more; for all the strange tales of the past, and the marvels of distant lands, have reached the mind by this avenue of sense. And who can say how much “the heart of man can conceive?” for its musings are strange in the hours of solitude. It can conjure up many fair pictures of felicity, which, if they were only permanent and substantial, and not the fleeting dreams of a moment, might form, one would sometimes think, all the happiness of which our nature is capable. But all these glorious dreams of fancy, added to all the accumulated ideas of delight which have reached the mind by all the avenues of sense—cannot give us an adequate idea of the joys of heaven; and, therefore, it is necessary to speak of future blessedness in the language of figure.
There is another reason. Figures often call up a whole crowd of high recollections, which make an instantaneous impression on the mind, and one far deeper than could have been made by the longest, most minute, and elaborate statement; and that often when the figure is only glanced at, and not fully developed. The effect is at once like that of a flash of light over the whole horizon. Hence the numerous figures employed by our Saviour. Hence the sacred writer before us does more to give us an idea of the joys of heaven, by referring to the tree of life and the city of eternal joy, than if he had indited a whole chapter of minute description. The one figure recalls to our minds the original paradise in all its glory; the other, the city of Jerusalem, which of old was a joy in the whole earth.
Ever since man was driven out of Eden, he, when enlightened by revelation, has always looked back to its joys with high admiration. Wherever the place of his habitation has been, in whatever age he has lived, whether he has understood the true nature of the felicity enjoyed in that holy place where Adam’s soul was pure as the spirit of an angel, and where he enjoyed sweet fellowship with God amidst the trees of the garden, or imagined the glories of Eden to consist merely in its shady bowers and glorious rivers, in the absence of toil and pain, and of that hideous death by which men are now terrified—whatever his views, still all have agreed in regarding paradise with rapture, and regretting that they were not born amidst its joys. Even from infancy we all remember these feelings. Amidst all the clouds and darkness of the days that have passed over us, we have looked back with delight to the first bright, though short, day of man’s existence, blaming our first parents for its sad and abrupt termination. And if, in those lands of the East, where the sun is still bright and the soil exuberant, we could yet find the traces of that primitive paradise, have we not thought that we would gladly go a pilgrimage thither, to see whether some traces of its first glory, some rays of its departed beauty, might not be discovered even amidst its ruins? To such universal sympathies the sacred writer appeals. By no surer method could he have conveyed to the minds of men enjoying revelation a conviction of the surpassing glories of heaven, than by referring to the tree of life, which constituted the joy of the first paradise, and which shall constitute one of the distinguishing features of the second. “The first paradise is past, ye hapless sons of men; ye look for it now in vain; ye seek the living amongst the dead; its beauty is gone for ever; even the place of its former glory is scarcely known. But lift up your eyes, ye strangers and pilgrims upon the earth, for beyond the dark river of death there is a far more glorious Eden, whose inhabitants are never tempted, and shall never fall—whose glories shall never decay. The tree of life is there also, bearing twelve manner of fruits, and yielding her fruit every month, and its leaves are eternally for the healing of the nations; for the nations of them that are saved do walk there in the light of the Sun of Righteousness, and God, the Lord, shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Blessed is he that overcometh; he shall eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” Such is the force of this striking figurative expression.
Passing from this, let us attend to the other figure here employed, and we shall find it equally fitted to call up before the minds of those acquainted with the Old Testament history a high idea of the joys of heaven—we say those acquainted with the Old Testament history, for such a knowledge is taken for granted by the writers of the New Testament. You must keep in view the truth, that the city of Jerusalem was an object of especial joy and pride to the Jews, both because adorned with the collected wealth and magnificence of nations, and because the pavilion of the residence of the living God was fixed there. There the prophets had preached—there all the sacrifices had been offered—there the martyrs had died. It was the city of their fathers’ sepulchres. Wherever any Jews were under the whole canopy of heaven, they performed their devotions with their faces thitherward (hence Daniel, vi. 10); for the oracle of God was there; and man might search the whole world round, without finding any other voice proceeding from his Maker. The Lord had chosen Zion; that was His rest; there did He stay; for He had desired it. And as every feast came round, the rejoicing descendants of Abraham went up from Dan even to Beersheba to enter the gates of that holy city, to record the wonders of the past, and anticipate the joys of the future.
With that city, therefore, their holiest earthly associations were associated. But the sacred writers had taught them to look forward to a city more glorious still, when that in which their fathers dwelt was destroyed and its gates burned with fire, “a city” beyond the eternal mountains, where the spiritual children of Abraham should be, and where God should be in the midst of them, not figuratively, but really; for “Jerusalem above” was the chief seat of His especial presence—the pavilion of His unspeakable Majesty. The prospect of this better and more enduring city bore up the minds of the Jews amidst all the changes which befell the first Jerusalem. When they wept because that city was laid waste by the spoiler, saying, “How can we but weep when the city of the place of our fathers’ sepulchres is laid waste, and the gates thereof are burnt with fire? How can we sing the songs of Zion in this strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning,” their prophets could tell them that though they never should be restored from the land of their captivity, though the walls of Jerusalem should never be rebuilt, and the plough of the alien should turn up the soil on which the temple of God had stood, the city above could never be moved, its walls being guarded by Omnipotence, and salvation being their sure and eternal bulwark. No sepulchres were there—no emblems of death. All their fathers who had kept the faith had gone on thither before them, and were waiting the arrival of their children. Even when their hearts melted within them, as they saw the cruel sons of Edom standing upon their hills, and cheering on the men of Babylon who were ruthlessly laying waste that holy and beautiful house in which their fathers worshipped, and all their pleasant things, the ancient Church could still sing, “God is my refuge and strength. I will not fear, though the earth be removed, though the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea. There is a river, the streams of which shall eternally make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of our God! Thy foundations are upon the eternal mountains; He that is Most High shall Himself establish thee. Go ye round this glorious Zion, high above all ruins and all decay; tell her towers—mark well her bulwarks—that ye may tell posterity; for this God is our God for ever and ever; He will be our guide even unto death.” Such hopes, cheering the believing Jews amidst all the gloomy passages of their singular history, were only confirmed and rendered more vivid by our Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles. The New Testament pointed still to heaven and under the same emblem of a city—”a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God;” and, especially in this book of Revelation, the Apostle, in vision, was made to see, as from a great and high mountain, that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God and her light like unto a stone most precious. That city had a wall great and high, and twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; it lay four-square; every several gate was one pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold as it were transparent glass. And, says the sacred writer, I saw no temple therein (as in the first Jerusalem); for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple in it. And the city hath no need of the sun; and there shall in nowise enter into it any thing that defileth. There shall be no night there. This is the city referred to in the text, and thus the first point set before us is fully explained and confirmed by the concurrent testimony of Scripture. “There is a land of holy and eternal rest, a city of everlasting habitations; it lies above the uncertainties of time, the clouds and darkness of this changing scene. These sayings are faithful and true! if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father’s house are many mansions. There is no old age, no infirmity, no toil, no disease, no death. There glory is never clouded, peace never diminishes, joy never ends; the inhabitants are all righteous; the region is filled with the voice of eternal singing. All the cities on earth shall vanish—they, with the earth which contains them, shall be burnt up with fire—all the names written in earthly registers shall be blotted out; but the city above shall never change; and the names of its inhabitants are written in the book of life. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”
II. It is intimated that this city can only be “entered by its gates;” and that sanctified Christians are in the way which leadeth to the New Jerusalem.
The first of these may appear an unimportant remark, but only attend to the great majority of men around you. Whilst they appear to admit the truth, that there is future blessedness, they seem to think that they will be suffered to enter heaven in utter disregard of the Divine method of salvation. Take any man at random from the midst of the mighty mass—you will find the love of pleasure deeply seated in his breast; and if you can only prevail upon him to ponder seriously upon future misery—agony of fearful, never-ending duration—you will see him turn away, with strong, instinctive aversion; his soul pants after joy, as the hart after the water brooks; and yet, unless he be really under the decided influence of personal Christianity, if you ask him how often he has thought of the way to heaven—whether he has ever sat down, even for one hour, and meditated upon its glories; in all likelihood he has done neither of these things. He stumbles on from day to day; “in the morning saying, When will it be evening? and in the evening, When will it be morning?” He loses his soul before he is aware; loves happiness, but chooses misery; talks and dreams and then, alas!—goes to perdition. If from any place of elevation you cast your eyes over men at large, you will find, that, with the exception of the comparative few who are seeking the gate of heaven, in God’s appointed way, and striving to secure an entrance, they are divided into two great classes—the one caring for none of these things—the other labouring to secure salvation by methods different from those prescribed by God. The first saying, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die;” the sun drives hard, let us enjoy life whilst we may, and shut out all thought of the future; ‘a little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep.'” The second are hoping to take heaven by storm, in virtue of their many observances, or to climb over the wall by the aid of some powerless deity. Both, unless awakened by the Spirit of God, will be found miserably deceived, when the trump of the archangel shall shake a world from its security. “Let no man deceive you with vain words,” saying, “No matter by what various roads we go—we shall all be found in heaven at last.” Though we, or an angel from heaven, should swear this, let him be accursed. Heaven is surrounded by a wall, great and high; by its gates only can entrance be found. Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father but by Him.” Instructions have been sent forth by the Eternal King, to guide us to the gate of heaven. Every Christian minister is an “ambassador for Christ.” Time is allotted us—God waiteth to be gracious—His Spirit striveth with men; but if, at the time of our death we are found, not at the gate of heaven at all, with the warrant of admission ready to present to the angel who sits there, but in the open fields of sin and folly, or labouring in the vain attempt to break through or climb over the wall by our own efforts, we shall be miserable for ever and ever. “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.” “Neither is there salvation in any other.”
We have departed from God, and can only return by the way of the cross; but the voice which proceeds from that cross is not merely, “Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee”—but, “Walk in love; be a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Hence the second truth implied in the text, viz., that sanctified Christians only are proceeding towards heaven. By nature we are spiritually dead, and our works are “dead works,” but whom the Lord justifies, them He also sanctifies—He creates them anew in Christ Jesus unto good works, and thus there are two faithful sayings spoken of in Scripture. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus died to save sinners, even the chief of sinners; but this is also “a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works.” In the future sentence of the great Judge both are recognised—the free gift of God and the holiness of man. “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” This teaches the absolute, free grace of God. Before ye were born, before the foundation of the world, this kingdom was “prepared for you.” But does that exclude their personal holiness? No, for, says the Judge, “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat,” &c. And therefore, when the Apostle says that they “may have right to the tree of life,” he means, “that they may manifest their right;” as if he had said, Cast your eyes abroad in the world, and if ye wish to know who are proceeding towards heaven, turn away from the worldly, the idolaters, the blasphemers, the Sabbath-breakers, the disobedient to parents, the covetous, the slanderers, in a word, from all those that are in a state of nature and destitute of living, personal Christianity; single out the men who manifest the spirit of Christ, and are born from above; who are ready to every good work; lovers of God and of their brethren; meek, merciful, without partiality and without hypocrisy. They have their Father’s names written already legibly on their foreheads, and they shall “see the King in His beauty, and the land that is afar off.” Such we apprehend to be the substance of the assertion in our text.
Sanctification is as important as justification; and, as a test of Christianity, of our being justified, it stands alone, as all-important. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” The Scriptures, as in the case before us, almost always fasten upon some feature of holiness in speaking of the servants of God. Is it Abel? His “deeds were righteous.” Is it Abraham? He is represented as presiding, in wisdom and holiness, over a mighty tribe; “commanding his children and household after him to walk in the ways of the Lord.” Moses was “the meekest of all the men that lived on the earth;” Caleb “followed God fully;” David was “a man after God’s own heart.” God says of Job, “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him, a perfect man?” Jeremiah was “sanctified from the womb.” Of our Lord Jesus Christ it is said, He “went about continually doing good;” of one centurion it is said, that “he loved the Jewish nation, and built them a synagogue;” of another, that he was “a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, and that his prayers and alms came up for a memorial before God;” of Dorcas, that she was “a good woman, and made clothes for the poor;” of Paul, that he laboured more abundantly than all the apostles, and suffered more, being in stripes often—in perils by land and sea, in the city, and amongst false brethren; of the whole Church on earth, that it is a holy nation, a royal priesthood, offering sacrifices of righteousness continually—a peculiar people; of the Church in heaven, that it consists of “the spirits of just men made perfect” like the angels of God; the very garments in which they are arrayed are declared to be white—the emblem of spotless purity; the crowns they wear are called “crowns of righteousness,” and the very land in which they live is called “the land of uprightness.” It was most meet, therefore, to hold up holiness, purity in heart and life, as the essential prerequisite for heaven. If the king of vast dominions, residing in a glorious city in the midst of his wide territory, has a small and distant region, the inhabitants of which have risen up in arms against him, trampling under foot his authority, and treating his servants with contempt; and if a few loyal men are still found amidst this crowd of rebels, who boldly lift up the standard of their king, and bear it aloft in the midst of the scorn and contempt of their brethren; and if their fortitude is tried during many years, the king being all the while absent, and instead of failing, they become more devotedly true to his cause, more steadfast to each other, and in resisting the common enemy; will not that king, when he goes forth to ride his circuit of judgment, and to punish that colony of rebels, single out, as the objects of his love, this little devoted band—carrying them back with him to the city where he dwells, that they may stand near his throne, and eat bread for ever in his presence? God is such a mighty King; heaven, the city where He dwells; the universe is His vast dominion; the earth is the small rebellious province, which has long stood out a strange exception to the universal holiness—all the spirits of darkness hovering around it, as the eagles hover around the prey; but still, amidst the wide apostasy, there have always been a chosen few, “plucked as brands from the burning,” regenerated and inspired by God, and scattered through various lands, raising the standard of the King of kings, and resisting to the face the headlong enmity of their brethren. They have done this, and are doing it, in the face of every difficulty and danger; and when the King of Heaven shall at length rise to judgment, and come forth terribly to shake the earth, and fearfully to punish its inhabitants, He will single out these chosen servants, and spare them, “as a man spareth his son that serveth him.” When all the impenitent wicked, and the earth on which they dwell, shall be driven away from the face of Infinite Purity, the redeemed shall be carried back, amidst the acclamations of angels, into the eternal city. Its gates shall be thrown open, to admit the returning Judge and His glorious retinue—with gladness and with joy shall they enter the eternal palace, and drink for ever of the streams of celestial blessedness. “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”
In prayerful dependence, therefore, on the promised grace of Him who “hath the key of David,” and is able to make you “more than conquerors,” go on from strength to strength, ye followers of the Lamb! The battle may be protracted, but victory is sure; the way may be long, but the triumph shall be glorious. “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” As sure as God hath inspired any love to Himself in your hearts, so surely hath He loved you from dateless ages; as surely as He hath enabled you to exhibit any of the fruits of righteousness, the graces of the Spirit—hath He written, as with His own finger, upon your brow, that you are His, and that He shall carry you through armies of difficulties to heaven; as sure as you have taken one step on that highway whose name is “The way of holiness,” so surely shall you, in the strength of God, proceed to its termination—for “the path of the just is like the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day”—and there shall you find the gate of heaven, and all the saints of God waiting to meet you at your coming. “Hold fast that which ye have—let no man take your crown;” for “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.”