“And the Holy Jerusalem had A GREAT AND HIGH WALL”.

The Wall of the Great city is the most conspicuous element of it. It is representative of the Deity in federal relation to all the priests, lords and kings of whom it is composed; and the material of it, of His preciousness. That “wall” is used of persons in Scripture, is evident from these texts. “What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver. I am a wall; and my breasts like towers: then was I in his eyes as one that found favor”. This is a Bride that hath found favor: and she is styled a wall.

Again, the Spirit said to Jeremiah, “I will make thee to this people a fenced brazen wall, and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail”. Also, as quoted before, He styles himself a wall of fire round about Jerusalem. The Bride, then, composed of them who find favor in the resurrection-epoch, is a wall; and the structure of that wall is jasper-like spirit. The Yahweh-Spirit, as the wall of the legislative and executive body of the kingdom, encloses all its members; who, having been “baptized into the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” are “in the Deity the Father, and in the Lord Jesus;” and being in him, “walk in him” faithfully and are born from above — are walled or enclosed in him with a wall so lofty and great in dignity and power, that nothing can enter within it that is not of the same structure intellectually, morally, and materially, as itself.

The relationship of the Lamb and the Bride in regard to the City Wall, will exemplify the idea of “no temple there”. The wall of a house or temple is the building itself; for no wall, no building — no Spirit, no New Jerusalem in “the time of the dead”. The mixed multitude of believers constitutionally in Christ, in the present evil world, are styled in Scripture, “the house of the Deity,” and “the temple of the Deity”. “Know ye not,” saith Paul to the Corinthians in Christ, “that ye are the temple of the Deity, and that the Spirit of the Deity dwelleth among you?” “Ye are the building of the Deity;” but without the Lamb; that is to say, if not built into him, they were neither house, temple, nor builded wall. Naturally, they were separate and distinct crude elements, like unconnected stones accumulated for building purposes. While thus they were neither wall nor temple. But when cut and polished, and built in by the Spirit, through Paul, as “a wise master builder;” that is constituted the righteousness of the Deity in Christ, “who became to them “wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,” they became “One Body,” having him for their head and therefore one wall, one temple, and one building with, and inseparable from, him. This being so, such a society needs no temple being itself a temple. This, however, is not to say that there is no temple in the architectural Jerusalem at the time. Jerusalem in the hands of the Turks, though it should be utterly demolished, and rebuilt from the foundation, would not therefore be “Jerusalem above, the mother of us all,” or the New and Holy Jerusalem. The angel is not speaking to John of things unsymbolical and pertaining to men in mortal flesh; but of saints immortalized and glorified. Ezekiel in treating of the temple speaks of the unfigurative, which mortals will help to build (Zech. 6:15), and which become symbols in the construction of the Apocalypse. The temple he treats of is the house of prayer for Israel and the nations; but the Apocalyptic temple constituted of the Lamb and his Wife, both in the Deity, is for them who are “pillars in it, and shall no more go out”.