Hebrews Chapter Thirteen, The City To Come

 

Hebrews 13:13 Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. [14] For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.

 

Where our Lord is, His children follow. Christ suffered outside the gate, we are told. He was unjustly tried, sentenced to death, and the verdict was swiftly carried out at Golgotha, outside the city walls. On the cross the Father fulfilled the curse He issued in Deuteronomy, making Jesus a curse for us, suspended between Heaven and earth. For three hours darkness covered the earth while Jesus cried out to the Father, having been separated from Him for the first (and only) time in history and eternity, Matthew 27:45, 46.

Our Lord’s reproach was the stigma of the cross and all that it entailed. The religious leaders of the day mocked Him for His plight, Matthew 27:41-43. The robbers crucified with Him, being justly sentenced, mocked Him as well, Matthew 27:44, Luke 23:39. The common people were not exempt, mocking alongside the religious leaders, Luke 23:35. Even the Roman soldiers joined in, making their coalition of hatred and contempt toward the Son of God complete in its unity, Luke 23:36. His reproach was more than just the kangaroo court He endured, but the rejection of His claims to the title of Messiah, and the rebellion of His people Israel who had been trained for centuries to await the Coming One, and what signs to look for involving His advent.

 

Paul, quoting from Psalm 69:9, writes of Jesus, “For even Christ did not please Himself; but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell on Me,” Romans 15:3. Israel’s leadership reproached the living God whom they claimed to worship. Jesus called them out for their hypocrisy many times, personally insulted that the Father’s name was so besmeared. The term reproach can mean, “criticism, accusation or censure.” The people collectively revealed their lack of knowledge of God’s character by murdering His Son, because, as the Son warned, they replaced God’s word with man’s and followed a deluded and perverted doctrine, Mark 7:13. The reproach the Son suffered for the Father, and that His followers may bear with Him is that of rejection. The world Satan has contrived rejects the unsullied word of God because it will liberate souls and bring peace to men. But that peace and liberty is 100% on God’s terms: an insufferable insult to human dignity so Jesus—that is the biblical Jesus—is rejected wholesale because His gospel brings an end to boasting and self-esteem. One may not esteem self when one realizes that self is what put Christ on the cross to die for us. Not because we were worth the purchase price, but because our sin was leading us to death and God, motivated by love and grace (God’s unmerited favor) strove to redeem us back to Him.

 

Here, on this earth in which Satan rules the government and minds of fallen man, we have no home. The Hebrew Christians were reminded that we are sojourners on this earth. Peter addressed his body as a tent, something temporary one dwells in while traveling that can be plucked up and moved from locale to locale, 2 Peter 1:14. This imagery hearkens back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were given no place to build a home in Canaan, because Israel would not yet come into their inheritance. But when the time would come, Joshua would lead the people over the River Jordan and into the Promised Land where they would receive land to build houses and plant themselves. Israel entered into the covenant land God promised. For the Christian, the covenant land of promise is not Israel. The Church universal is not Israel and does not share in their covenant-specific promises. Israel is described as a historical, geographical ethnicity, whose descendants enjoyed, “the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises,” Romans 9:4.

 

No, the church Jesus Christ is building seeks the heavenly city, which is above and the mother of us all, Hebrews 11:13-16, Galatians 4:26. What is the city to come? If the saints reject the allegorical interpretation of Scripture and embrace the literal, historical sense, Revelation explains in amazing detail. “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride for her husband,” Revelation, 21:2. John witnesses the arrival of the new heaven and new earth, after the old had fled away from the presence of Him who sat on the Great White Throne of judgment, Revelation 20:11, see also Isaiah 65:17. The spiritually dead are consigned to eternal fire before the inception of the new universe God prepared for those that love Him, so they do not get to lay eyes on the good things God provides for His children. The NASB gives this reading about the scope of the new Jerusalem, “The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal,” Revelation 21:16.

 

A pause must be given to appraise and appreciate the gravity of this quick detail to fully grasp what John just related. The city is a square, or a cube. How do we know this? John informs the readership that its length, width, AND height are equal. That means it is 1,380 miles long, wide, and tall. To compare, the United States, from the north to the south is about 1,650 miles across. The city is nearly as long, wide, and protrudes into the sky! This gives greater detail, awesome detail to the verse that reads, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him,” 1 Corinthians 2:9. Paul once more appears to be quoting from the Septuagint, from Isaiah 64:4, which reads, “From of old we have not heard, neither have our eyes seen a God beside thee, and thy works which thou wilt perform to them that wait for mercy.” The Septuagint was the popular Old Testament in the time of Christ, though in our KJV and NKJV the Masoretic Text is used for the OT in its stead.

 

 Imagine the scope of this city! It reaches 1,380 miles into the sky. It, the New Jerusalem, can cover two thirds of my country. Its streets are gold, and its twelve gates are made of pearl. The cubical nature of the city, says Henry Morris, may be made to reflect the Triune nature of God, comprising equal measures of height, width, and depth: three measurements that create what we term as space.

 

Indeed, the Hebrew Christians were being reminded that a Christian belongs to Christ. The world rejected Christ, and He went to Calvary bearing His reproach. They were to fix their minds on following their Master. Jesus affirmed that where He is, we will also be, John 14:3. If we are associated with Him in glory, we must first be associated with Him in His shame. Solomon wrote, “before honor is humility,” Proverbs 18:12. Jesus told His disciples, “It is enough for a disciple to be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household!” Matthew 10:25. The world ultimately rejected Jesus, and its rejection continues today. Even professing Christians reject their Lord by not submitting to His rule. The reproaches of those considered His friends must hurt the most. We, His ransomed children, must not heap further reproach upon our Lord, but join Him in bearing His reproach by associating with the name of Jesus of Nazareth. If we truly belong to Christ then we know that this world offers us nothing of genuine value; it is a transient place where pleasure is mingled with grief and everything good is tainted by sin’s corruption. Satan offers his finest, but it utterly pales in comparison to what the saint waits for: namely the city to come and the inheritance that places all things under man’s feet, Hebrews 2:8.