A Tale of Two Cities, Part 3: Archetypal and Ectypal Jerusalem

As with Babylon, so with Jerusalem—except to an even greater degree. There is a “Jerusalem above.” And there is a sense in which this is easier to see. That is because the Bible is a specified word to God’s people and therefore from and within His city. Augustine spoke of a threefold meaning of the prophecies of that city which is relevant here. These are to be referred sometimes to the earthly, other times to the heavenly Jerusalem, and sometimes again to both.1 Most notably, of the disruption of the kingdom of Israel, there was the perpetual division of the spiritual and the carnal Israel prefigured.2

God is always invading this world through His city.

Jerusalem was a beachhead for the divine invasion. From the blessing in Genesis 12:2 to the nations, to the more explicit preistly dimension of that in Exodus 19:5-6, to the eschatological vision of that in Isaiah 2:1-5, this invasion was always a good outpouring of blessing for the nations. Naturally they will resist it. Under the domain of darkness, the unbelieving world will see God’s righteous rule as oppressive. So the normal godly life of Zion will be wickedly cast as “violence” by the devil. The call of Isaiah 2:5 (and Jesus’ repeat of that in Matthew 5:13-16) recalls the principle that you can’t give what you don’t have. If the church itself neglects the light, then those outside will not see it. What follows is the trampling of Jerusalem by the Gentiles every time.

Even when Abraham first sought it out, it was at least understood that the ultimate city would not be of this world:

“For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God … they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:10, 16).

Even when Jerusalem was established in earthly splendor, it was recognized as a type of something greater by the Psalmist; and, in fact, receiving the source of God’s life from its heavenly archetype:

“In the city of our God, His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great King” (Ps. 48:1-2).

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High” (Ps. 46:4).

God often caused the pagan to rise as Jerusalem falls. That Rome was founded when the Assyrian kingdom perished, at which time Hezekiah reigned in Judah. This is Augustine’s subject matter in XVIII.22 of the City of God. That the line of both cities can be traced out simultaneously in history shows that the earthly kingdoms (of which there are always many more than two) are always a manifestation of the larger war between only two cities.

What about the New Testament fulfillment? Recall that believing Gentiles are brought into “the commonwealth of Israel” (Eph. 2:12; cf. Rom. 11; Gal. 6:18). Anyone following the basic threads of the covenant theology argument is prepared to see the city element of the same biblical narrative. It was to a Gentile church besieged with the bad news that they become more Jewish in the old world fashion in order to become Christian—it was to that church that Paul said, No, “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother” (Gal. 4:26).

Jerusalem in Revelation

She (Jerusalem) too is depicted as a female, just as we saw about Babylon. We see it about the woman of Revelation 12. As Bauckham summarizes,

“She is the mother of Jesus and Christians — Eve and Mary, Israel, Zion and the church all combined in an image of the spiritual essence of the covenant people of God. She is the female figure corresponding to the holy city of 11:2.”3

Then there are those two witnesses as the church. They are identified as “lampstands” (11:4) just as the earlier seven lampstands (1:12, 20). So why two? And why also as “olive trees” (11:4)? This imagery in from Romans 11, where the church is compared to an olive tree—but the one entity is comprised of what was previously two peoples: Jews and Gentiles. Bauckham suggests that the signifcance of two has to do with the law of two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:15); and they are witnesses afterall.

But Jerusalem does not just prepare the clothes of a bride. Moving through history, Jerusalem sheds its old world skin.

In any given snapshot, she can be seen as both faithful bride and unfaithful harlot. Ezekiel 16, Hosea 1-3, and many other passages in the Prophets bring the Sword of the Spirit down as a scalpel on Jerusalem, as she passes through time. She is constantly called by the Word unto God; and she is constantly turning toward other gods. It is significant that Baal was the fertility god of the Canaanites, whose name alternatively meant lord, master, and husband. But all of this suggests—just as not all Israel is Israel—that this She in heaven is not identical to the “she” on earth.

In in the same sort of snapshots, she reveals the simultaneous themes of apostasy and remnant. These do not go away in the New Testament. The church is still a mixed body. There are tares among the wheat. There is explosive growth and health over here, and seeming extinction over there.

What follows from these dualities is the paradox that the nerve-center of Jerusalem in one era becomes the center of Babylon’s power in the next. So Old Jerusalem most opposed Jesus in the first century and was judged, Rome assumed all power in Christendom to itself and became a den of robbers to the faithful of the Middle Ages, and the West which came out of her then is now the layer of the dragon oppressing the church worldwide and building its global Satanic superstate. So, Old Jerusalem always becomes next Babylon.

Fulfillment of Jerusalem’s King and Kingdom in Revelation

There was the old battle cry, to be heralded by Zion herself back in Isaiah 40. What was the message? It was “Our God reigns.” Hendriksen wrote,

“Chapters 4 and 5 teach one main lesson. Unless we clearly grasp this point, we shall never see the glorious unity of the Apocalypse. We shall lose ourselves in allegorization. That one main lesson may be expressed in the words of the Psalmist: ‘Jehovah reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits above the cherubim; let the earth be moved.’” (Psalm 99:1)4

How does this ground the whole vision of John? This is the seat of power. This is the only final control-center of any combination of secondary causes that anyone wants to talk about. Hendriksen adds that, “The term ‘throne’ occurs seventeen times in these two chapters. That throne is not on earth but in heaven.”5 So the war between Jerusalem and Babylon is not between two equal and opposite powers, but Jerusalem’s true King, Jesus, is overseeing and bringing to their end, even the worst of Babylon’s main movers (cf. Rev. 1:5; Col. 1:17).

This does not mean that Christ is a distant mover. For instance, the rider of the fourth horse, the white horse, is generally agreed to be Christ. Hendriksen gives seven reasons:

(1) Harmony with the preceding context—the Lion and Lamb going forth to conquer. (2) Word study of ‘white,’ being the color of His horse, the rider receiving a crown, and “whenever in this book the word ‘conquer’ occurs—with two exceptions—it refers to Christ or to believers.” (3) It is consistent with the parallel passage in 19:11. (4) All of these ideas are most consistent with the purpose of the whole book. (5) Matthew 10:34 speaks of Christ coming with a sword, like Revelation 19:11. (6) Psalm 45:3-5 is Messianic, and in the LXX is adds “bend the bow,” which parallels Revelation 6:2. (7) Zechariah 1:8 is another parallel passasge.6

There is finally the vision of Jerusalem descending from heaven.

“And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2).

Note that she is new, but that she is also coming down out of heaven. This is the realization of the archetype.

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1. Augustine, City of God, XVII.3.

2. Augustine, City of God, XVII.7.

3. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 128

4. William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), 84

5. Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors, 84.

6. Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors, 94.