By Faith We Have Come Forward
Hebrews 12:22-23a: “you have come forward to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to myriads of angels, to the universal gathering; and to the church of the firstborn.”
Galatians 4 reveals that the mother of the believers, who is the Jerusalem above, the New Jerusalem, is the new covenant of grace symbolized by Sarah. To come to the new covenant is to come not only to the New Jerusalem but also to the church (Heb. 12:23). To keep the new covenant is to remain in the New Jerusalem. This indicates that we are not going to the New Jerusalem but that we are in the New Jerusalem already. The tense of the verb in Hebrews 12:22 is the perfect tense, “have come,” not the future tense.*
With our human senses and feelings we don’t consider that we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem. But our coming is in faith. Believe God’s word! Our receiving the Lord Jesus is by faith; we are sons of God through faith (Gal. 3:26), and we have our daily living by faith (Gal. 3:11).
Let us follow the example of the witnesses in Hebrews 11 by “Looking away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith” (12:2). Even if He disciplines us through sufferings (12:5-11), it is for our perfecting with the goal that we fully partake of the blessings of New Jerusalem.
* Life-Study of the New Testament, Conclusion Messages: The Church, the Kingdom, and the New Jerusalem, message 255, p. 2674, by Witness Lee. Published 1998 and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, California.
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Posted by Don on September 27, 2024
https://newjerusalem12.wordpress.com/2024/09/27/by-faith-we-have-come-forward-6/
