The race of Israel, and also the Christian people, have resisted marriage to the Lord. The Lord's anointed priests desire to be part of the world and to give the Lord's blessings, the precious gifts that He offers to His beloved, to the world. This is Babylon (man-directed Christianity), the great prostitute.

God's people refuse to be separated from the world. As soon as they have relief from persecution and tribulation they become involved with the world.

But all through the history of the elect, from the days of physical Israel and continuing with the Christian Era, there have been people who have sought the Lord and who have kept themselves from the world. It is those who are chosen as the Bride of the Lamb.

The Lamb and His Wife will govern the nations of saved peoples of the earth forever. The union of the saints with God will increase throughout the timeless ages of eternity until they are one with God. Thus will God increase His own Being in love.

Each of God's creatures will have access to God through a saint whose personality is well adapted to the needs of that particular creature.

One can understand from this how misleading is the concept of the new Jerusalem as a group of golden mansions sent down from Heaven. The new Jerusalem is the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb. The holy city consists of the saints—those who have become one with God and the Lamb. The light of God shining from the Wife of the Lamb will illumine the nations of saved people forever, revealing the ways of God in which the nations are to walk.

Through the saints the nations will have access to the eternal life that is in Christ, who will be dwelling in His fullness in the saints.

What is true today will be true in glorified form in the better world that is to come. God is in Christ in the saints today, and God's Presence and ways are revealed to the world through the saints. But the Presence and ways of God are obscured because of the sin and self-seeking of the believers.

God is in the process of removing the sin and self-seeking from the saints. As He does, what will be true in the ages to come is revealed. Many of the essential aspects of the new age already are in existence, although in immature form.

The last two chapters of the Scriptures are describing the descent from Heaven of the perfected Church and of God and the Lamb in the Church. Saved mankind will enjoy the Presence and Glory of God in the Lamb and His Wife throughout the ages of ages.

Many times Israel was rebuked by the Lord for spending the Lord's favors on the surrounding nations.

And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God. But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was. (Ezekiel 16:14,15)

To be continued.