What will become of the “Age-to-Come” City when the New Jerusalem comes down?
By R. F. C.
To this question I have never been able to get a satisfactory answer. If, during the thousand years, Jerusalem is to be re-built by human hands, it seems to be a question of no small importance, what will become of it when the City which Abraham looked for, “whose builder and maker is God” shall descend. Will it be destroyed? or will the two stand side by side as specimens of human and divine workmanship? I asked a believer in the Age to Come, in Buffalo, and he said that the city built in the thousand years, would, finally, “head up” in the New Jerusalem state. But I was no more enlightened in regard to it after receiving this answer than before. I have lately come in contact, for the first time, with the pamphlet on this subject, by J. Marsh, in which, speaking of the Restitution belonging to the thousand years, he says, “It will end up in the new earth and New Jerusalem state.” Still I am no wiser. But I find, upon examination and comparison,37that I have the father of the “Age to Come,” in a work entitled, Illustration of the Prophecies, by Elias Smith, published in 1808. On this point however they seem to differ. Perhaps it is only because the father is more explicit. He says, “Notwithstanding the glory of the thousand years, when Christ will be king over all the earth; when all nations will meet at Jerusalem from year to year, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts; yet it must have an end, and will close; and awful scenes will follow it; by which the way will be prepared for the eternal overthrow of all the wicked, and to bring all the followers of the Lamb to behold his glory in the New Jerusalem, world without end. . . . When we look over this glorious state of the nations for one thousand years, and view their glory under the MESSIAH, when Jew and Gentile shall all unite in love, when wars shall cease to the ends of the earth; when all nations being of one language, shall meet at Jerusalem from year to year, to pay their homage to their King, and to be taught his ways; at first thought we cry out, ‘O that this state might continue forever.’ But whoever reads and believes what is to follow all this, when the new heaven and earth are created, will see why this glorious state must expire. . . . How can I leave the delights of the thousand years to attend to a subject where rebellion, terror and destruction are its consequences? But these things follow after this glory; I must wade through it to higher, greater and more lasting glory, which shall never end.” pp. 168, 169. Now the great difficulty is, that almost every passage of scripture describing future glory, which these writers apply to the thousand years, most clearly declare that glorious state to be everlasting, that it shall have no end, but shall endure forever—that there shall be no more utter destruction, but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited. But one of these writers declares plainly that this future glory shall have an end; and the other, apparently to avoid so palpable a contradiction of the Scriptures, says, “It will end up in the new earth and New Jerusalem state”—an expression which, to me, is utterly unintelligible. I cannot see how one state can be succeeded by another without an end of the first. Still it is possible for the earthly city to remain while the heavenly City comes down and takes another locality. But it looks more like the truth that the Jerusalem which is to be safely inhabited, is no other than the heavenly. On p. 113, the author of The Age to Come quotes Isa. lxv, 20, 22, and applies it to the thousand years; and on p. 123, he quotes the 17th verse of the same chapter to prove that a new heaven and new earth will be created at the close of the thousand years, when the present will pass away or be changed. Now if the 17th verse applies to the time when the new earth is created, how does the 20th apply a thousand years before? A comparison of this passage with Rev. xxi, will show that it applies to the new earth. Behold I create new heavens, and a new earth. The former shall not be remembered I create Jerusalem a rejoicing. The voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first . . . were passed away. I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Neither sorrow, nor crying. There is a perfect agreement between the two witnesses, except that Isaiah says, The child shall die an hundred years old; while John says, There shall be no more death. All is harmony but this. Therefore it is reasonable to believe that a just translation will harmonize this apparent contradiction. Paganini translates it as follows: “There shall be no more carried out thence to burial an infant of days, or a youth, or an old man who hath not filled his days; for the man of a hundred years shall be as a youth.” This harmonizes the whole—both witnesses agreeing that there will be, in the state of which they speak, no more death.