NEW JERUSALEM...

[peacefulbeliever]

Sounds like a real city to me:

And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city; and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it were equal. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel. And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass. And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; The fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an ameythyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. (Rev. 21:15-23)

Oh, well some day we will KNOW!

 

[crosspreacher]

I believe that the new jerusalem is the bride of Jesus who represent His body and Jesus is the head of the bride.
Mat. 8 vs 20: But Jesus said, " Foxes have dens and birds have nest. but I, the Messiah, have no home of my own to lay My head".

 

[kardiaoangelous]

The New Jerusalem is the place that Jesus went to prepare for the saints that He told to His disciples.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea(Revelation 21:1).

The Bible does not say that the New Jerusalem comes down to earth and the Bible says that the old heaven and earth shall pass away and not be remembered anymore,and God said He is making a new heaven and earth.The old earth will be gone before the New Jerusalem comes down.

The old heaven and earth has been tainted with sin and must be done away with.

The New Jerusalem will be a place where sin has never been and sin will never be,so the New Jerusalem is not a renovated earth.

It will be spiritual although there is the tree of life there and a river but no more sea.

For a minute I thought you sounded like a Jehovah's Witness but for the part where you said, "The old heaven and earth has been tainted with sin and must be done away with."

Of course, I see you are mistaken about that part, also. Sin is what must be destroyed, nothing else, that death, as death pertains to man who was created to be God's image, may be brought to nothing.

In this life we see all around us that people always understand and take things to one extreme or the other. And if we have pondered that enough as we have matured, we come to realize that is what keeps men for seeing the truth which usually lays somewhere in the middle.

Either extreme is caused of a sort of pride.

Jehovah's Witnesses teachings have infiltrated and permeated the teachings of the Christian faith world-wide. That is often true in very subtle ways which people mostly do not even recognize are not ideas of their own origination.

Now, I do not believe that Jehovah's Witnesses are correct concerning everything they teach and believe, but none-the-less I see their having shaken up the entire world like as a plague of locusts as a good thing even though Joel 2:20 speaks of that army being dissolved (which by the way, they themselves claim they are the locusts of Joel's prophecy; just ask them).

When we are looking at things spiritually it can be true that Christ remain living in God's abode and yet also be here with his 144,000 elect.

Have you seen Christ with your physical eyes lately? You see, you can read this following verse and see it as Jesus literally coming back, John 14:23 "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

Or you can understand what Jesus there told Judas (not Iscariot) by reading Jesus' prior words: John 14:18-21 "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."

Similarly, the fact that Jehovah's Witness may have been used of God by virtue of their pride making them ripe for the task (as God is said to have called that army in Joel to wake up his spiritually sleeping people), that does not mean they as individuals will not be saved. It is on the basis of individual repentance even as for the remnant of the flesh and blood Israel.

 

[kardiaoangelous]

You can bet there will be a literal Jerusalem here on earth.

My guess is that it will consume within it's borders the entire earth of humans left living at the end of the thousand years.

I have reason to believe that it acquaints with the garden of Eden had it been expanded to envelope the earth. And no one will even desire ever again to go outside it's gates.

 

[Tintin]

I've never before heard the theory that the New Jerusalem and the Bride of Christ are one and the same. Interesting but I don't see it as plausible.

 

[kardiaoangelous]

I've never before heard the theory that the New Jerusalem and the Bride of Christ are one and the same. Interesting but I don't see it as plausible.

And are you willing to bear with me long enough to understand? If so, I will explain in two parts, for there are two parts, (1) earthly Jerusalem acting as the surrogate mother on behalf of heaven, and (2) the kingdom which is born of God's heavenly kingdom as a stone cut from out of the side of God's mountain. That stone is the New Jerusalem, the child of heavenly Jerusalem.

Part One: The true Jerusalem is God's heavenly uncorrupted realm which always has been. Galatians 4:26 "But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all." Genesis 3:15 is a reference to God's surrogate fleshly woman Jerusalem.

Heavenly Jerusalem's womb had been barren of human children due to sin keeping men out of God's heavenly kingdom. But God in his mercy toward humans set up earthly Jerusalem as a surrogate mother on behalf of heavenly Jerusalem.

Galatians 4:27 "For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband."

Galatians 4:30 "Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman."

Galatians 4:25 "For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children."

Galatians 4:28 "Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise." (Not children by law or fleshly inheritance.)

Galatians 4:31 "So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free."

At Galatians 1:15 Paul is speaking not about his natural birth mother but the womb of earthly Jerusalem as the surrogate mother in whose womb he was first shaped to God. Compare not only the context in Galatians chapter 1, but also 1 Corinthians 15: 1-10, verse 8 of which says, 1 Corinthians 15:8 "And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." (a late or overdue birth) That clearly was Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

Part two: As compared to God's main kingdom, Christ's kingdom was added to deal with the needs caused of sin and is like a child born of the heavenly Jerusalem, thus "New Jerusalem", and that stone cut out of God's mountain which mountain represents God's eternal heavenly untainted kingdom.

Daniel 2:44 "And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed (note: obviously meaning a kingdom for mankind and thus the fulfillment of the promise to David for an everlasting throne): and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.
45 Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure."

That stone is Christ and his elect, the New Jerusalem, the child of heavenly Jerusalem, born to deal with the needs caused of sin.

1 Corinthians 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.