From Eden to the New Jerusalem: An Introduction to Biblical Theology

by T. Desmond Alexander

Babylon is the antithesis of the city that God himself desires to construct upon the earth.

History witnesses to the ongoing existence of Babylon, as one nation after another has used its power to grow rich at the expense of others. We live in a world where economic power dominates national and international politics.

Yet, if we want to identify the greatest enemy of the Christian faith, we must look closely at Babylon and observe its obsession with consumerism. There is nothing that stands more effectively as a barrier to people knowing God than the desire for wealth that comes through capitalism.

They go on to argue that affluenza causes overconsumption, ‘luxury fever’, consumer debt, overwork, waste, and harm to the environment. This leads to ‘psychological disorders, alienation and distress’,11 causing people to ‘self-medicate with mood-altering drugs and excessive alcohol consumption’.12 Affluenza may not be a genuine class of illness, but we all recognize the symptoms. This is what living in Babylon does to some people.

‘The deepest reason why God is concerned with monogamy and faithfulness is that our arrangements here must shape the form and intensity of our relation to him.’14

The lovers in the Song are portrayed as making love in a garden, which has links to both Eden and the temple. To quote Jenson again: The Song’s poesy of sheer bodily delight, invoked in order to speak of the Lord and his people joined passionately in the temple, simultaneously evokes human love as it would be, were we lovers in Eden or in the garden the temple depicted: it would be the joyous image of God’s love for Israel.15

The New Jerusalem promises holiness, wholeness and love in the presence of God. While our inheritance still lies in the future, we must claim our citizenship now.

As we move from Genesis to Revelation, a consistent and coherent pattern emerges, centred on the idea that God created this earth with the intention of constructing an arboreal temple-city.

Thereafter Genesis traces a unique line of descendants that moves initially from Adam to Noah, and then from Noah to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

First, God’s relationship with Abraham will result in the creation of a unique nation that will inherit the region of Canaan. Secondly, blessing will be mediated by one of Abraham’s descendants to the members of other nations.

This international dimension looks beyond the merely national dimension associated with Israel/Judah in the Old Testament and anticipates something that will have universal significance: the creation of the church and ultimately the New Jerusalem.

Although there is external opposition and internal failure, the Israelites eventually settle in the land of Canaan, in time establishing Jerusalem as the temple-city of God.

Bringing to fulfilment a series of interlocking expectations that link to the royal line of David, Jesus Christ, as the perfect man, overcomes Satan through his death, resurrection and ascension. As a result of his sacrificial death upon the cross, Christ brings about a new exodus that delivers people from Satan’s control, and bestows on them a holy and royal status.

John’s vision of the New Jerusalem reveals that life’s ultimate experience is closely linked to this present world.

For this reason, we can begin to appreciate our future hope only by understanding how human history moves from the first creation of the earth to its future recreation.