The Heavenly City and the Good News

 "Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for a city that is to come." Hebrews 13:14

You can get at the Gospel through that text. this world is not my home, we say. True, but someday it will be! The broadest take on the gospel is this: God is making all things new, all of creation will one day be renewed, reconstituted, the home of God and of his people. 

Here we have no lasting city . . . but then think of John, the aging apostle, exiled to Patmos, dreaming his dream:

"And then I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God . . " Rev. 21:2

Even Jerusalem itself, in which we have put so much hope, is not that city. One day, Jesus observed, all its magnificent architecture would be tumbled in a heap. Matthew 24:2

But on one other day, there will be a New Jerusalem, and it will be more than a city, it will be a world.

How we get there, that's the question that any rendition of the good news must answer. John saw that city come down from the heavens, perfect and beautiful, but what of it? That was a long time ago.

The way between here, this mortal city, and there (an everlasting metropolis), is the way of Jesus. 

"I am the way, the truth, and the light." He might have added, no one gets to the new Jerusalem but by me. 

So if we are gospelizers, gospel people, we carry this vision, a vision than spans the Bible from garden to garden, and that has Jesus at its center. Draw near to Jesus, and you find yourself on the way with him, and that means you will have to deal with the cross, you will have to come to Golgotha with him, and yet also, with the help of guides like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, to see beyond it. There will be a dark night, but then a momentous morning!