LECTURE IV
HOLINESS AND CATHOLICITY IN THE CHURCH
"This is the law of the house: upon the top of the mountain the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house."—Ezekiel xliii, 12.
"And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof."—Revelation xxi, 22.
The Bible gives us two elaborately conceived pictures of the perfected life of man. The first is that which occupies the closing chapters of Ezekiel's prophecy; its leading feature is the immense separation which is insisted upon between the Temple and the secular City. The Hill of Zion has become a very high mountain; upon the top of it the Temple is set, and there is a wide space, at least two miles, between it and the City of Jerusalem, which has been moved away by that distance to the south.
Indeed, if we take the description as intended to be complete, the City seems to exist chiefly to provide a congregation for the Temple's services, and the Prince only to offer representative worship on behalf of His people. All attention is concentrated upon the place of the worship of God, and the holiness which is to be characteristic of that place. By thus keeping the Temple holy, through separating it from the body of the City and its secular life, the Prophet attains no doubt the end he has in view, but he also, of necessity, though probably unintentionally, leaves the suggestion that the secular life itself cannot be wholly consecrated.
In sharp contrast with this is St. John's picture in the Book of Revelation; here there is no specific place of worship at all, for the whole City is the Temple of God; more than that, the whole City is the very Holy of Holies, for it is described as being a perfect cube, and the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple was a perfect cube.
"And the city lieth four square, and the length thereof is as great as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs; the length and the breadth and the height thereof are equal. And he measured the wall thereof, and it was one hundred and forty and four cubits."[#]
[#] Rev. xxi, 16, 17.
The City thus corresponds in symbolic form with the Holy of Holies. It is become the dwelling place of God. No special shrine is needed, no place to which men draw apart, because their whole life is an act of worship, and God dwells among them in their daily activities.