TWO WOMEN — TWO CITIES
"In our previous studies on this subject we have seen that in John’s visions in the book of Revelation two women and two cities are clearly presented. One of the women is a pure virgin, clothed with the resplendent glory of Christ (Rev. 12:1-6). The other woman is a harlot, gaudily attired with scarlet and purple, and decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls. One of the cities is the holy city, New Jerusalem. The other is called Mystery Babylon the Great. In the symbolism of prophecy a “woman” signifies a church and a “city” signifies a religious or spiritual government. Thus, the virgin woman represents the true church, the bride of Christ, and the harlot woman represents the false church, the fallen, corrupt, apostate church systems of man. The “holy city, New Jerusalem” is the symbol used to represent the established rule and government of God composed of the perfected and holy bride of Christ and the overcoming sons of God. The city is the woman, the bride of Christ, whereas the throne in the midst of the city signifies the manchild, the sons of God who rule the nations with a rod of iron (Rev. 12:1-5). But as with Adam and Eve in the beginning, it is a joint dominion. “Mystery Babylon” can be nothing else but a church which is also a religious government over men’s lives, a great ecclesiastical kingdom, backed by the power and influence of the world — the carnal church systems of man exalted to power and dominion in the earth. This is why God will judge, throw down, and utterly destroy the Great Babylon; and this is why God is building up His holy city. the pure bride of Christ and the holy sons of God, New Jerusalem, to shine with His scintillating light of life to lighten all peoples and all nations, filling the whole earth with His glory!"
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"There is another point I must mention in passing and then return to this thought of the two Jerusalems. There of two sets of “two cities” in the New Testament. Paul speaks of the two cities as the two Jerusalems, the bond city and the free city, the earthly city and the heavenly city. But then in the book of Revelation we have two cities — but they are not two Jerusalems — rather, there is one Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem, and the other city which is an harlot, Mystery Babylon. Now what can this mean? Is the earthly Jerusalem and Mystery Babylon one and the same thing? Not at all! The two Jerusalems were two covenants, but Mystery Babylon and New Jerusalem are two churches. Can you not see that this is a different symbol altogether! Mystery Babylon has never been a covenant nor has it had a covenant! You see, in A.D. 70 the old Jerusalem with its government, temple, priesthood, and sacrifices was destroyed never to exist again as a covenant. It is all gone. There is a city, yes, but no theocratic government, no Mosaic law, no temple, no priesthood, and no sacrifices. But following the destruction of the old Jerusalem there arose another city, and another woman in the earth which grew right alongside the people of the Jerusalem which is above, becoming rich and powerful and glorious throughout all the earth and over the nations as the Revelation reveals. The old earthly Jerusalem in New Testament times never did occupy a position of prominence and power either among or over the nations and the kings of the earth. Jerusalem was just a dusty little province in a remote corner of the world of that day. So these are the two cities and the two women of the Revelation — quite distinct and different from the two women Paul spoke of in chapter four of Galatians."
"Two women. Two cities. Two covenants. Two seeds. And while the earthly Jerusalem with its law system was destroyed, the seed of that old covenant remains with us to this day in the midst of the Lord’s people! The covenant of Hagar, the Law of mount Sinai, with its darkness, tempest, and lightnings still swirls and blows and thunders in the lives of many. It makes people servants, fearing the wrath of God. How sad that so many churches today still major in that covenant! 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” (Gal. 4:30). The bondwoman, the old Jerusalem, is the bondage of legalism, ritualistic religion, external forms and sacraments, traditions of the elders, man-made rules and regulations. The Jerusalem which is above, the freewoman, is the new covenant. It is free in the pure Spirit of the Lord , and is our mother. She gives birth to our being, our sense of reality, bringing us out of the natural sense and into the spiritual, out of the strength of our fleshly identity and into the strength of our spiritual identity, out of our earthly consciousness and into the heavenly!"