Christ did not die for Babylon, Rome, or Charlotte (where I live), he died for the City of God, the Church, and for that city alone. We are now citizens of this new city, this new kingdom, being built up as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

(Read Part 1)

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. (Heb. 13:14)

Part II: The City we should love.

In fact, the greater problem with the idea of loving our cities per se, is that the Bible is clear that there is only one city we are to love, the City of God, and not the City of Man. In the Bible Babylon often represents the City of Man—unholy and rebellious against God—while Jerusalem, Zion, is the earthly manifestation of the heavenly City of God, particularly when she was not in rebellion.

We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed. Forsake her, and let us go each to his own country, for her judgment has reached up to heaven and has been lifted up even to the skies. The Lord has brought about our vindication; come, let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. (Jer. 51:9–10)

In the Bible we do find a call to love this one earthly city, Jerusalem, which is the Old Testament placeholder for the future reign of Christ on earth in the new Jerusalem:

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they be secure who love you!” (Ps. 122:6). Yes, we are to love the City of God: “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her” (Is. 66:10).

Jesus demonstrated his love for the City of God, represented in the earthly city Jerusalem:

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34).

He longs for her to become the true City of God, that welcomes rather than kills the prophets. But his love for the City of God is apparent in his desire to redeem her children by gathering them under his wings.

Jerusalem was to be replaced by the heavenly City of God

While Jesus showed love for earthly Jerusalem as the earthly manifestation of the City of God, he also recognized that with his coming, the actual earthly city would no longer occupy such a place in God’s plan of redemption. For earthly Jerusalem itself would fall and be supplanted in God’s divine plan.

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41–44)

Augustine, too, recognized that the earthly city, Jerusalem, was a place holder, a symbol, a foretaste, of the heavenly city to come, and so, Jerusalem would eventually be replaced by the true City of God.

There was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a symbol and a foreshadowing image of this [heavenly] city, which served the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be, rather than making it present; and this image was itself called the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though not itself the reality. (Augustine, City of God, 15.2)

The City of God is found in heaven today

So then, if we are to flee Babylon—the City of Man—and the earthly manifestation of the City of God—Jerusalem—was to be supplanted, then what city are we as believers to love?

Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. (Gal. 4:25–26)

What is the Jerusalem that is above? Simply put: heaven. Or to put it more completely: all those who are the subjects of God, all the elect saints above, along with all the angelic hosts. We will see this perfect City of God finally when the new heavens and the new earth are recreated.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Rev. 21:1–2)

It is the holy city, the new Jerusalem that we are to love, long for, serve, and adore. The City of God is most fully realized in heaven and so our longing and love are rightly directed heavenward. This is a theme that is missed when we focus our love on the earthly city. Our attention is to be fixed upon heaven, the City of God.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:1–3)

We are to long for and anticipate with joy this heavenly city, our eternal home. The author of Hebrews makes this clear:

By faith he [Abraham] went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Heb. 11:9–10)

This city whose designer and builder is God, was not earthly Jerusalem, but the city that is above.

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Heb. 11:13–16)

It is to this heavenly city, first, that we belong, for we are already its citizens: “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). It is there in that City of God that we are to carefully amass our treasure: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:19–20).

Our hope is not finally in how much we may do in service to God on earth, but that our names are securely established in heaven itself: “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:19–20).

Why should we not primarily love any earthly city? Because here there is no city that will last, and as citizens of the heavenly city we are to seek that one: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14). We do not create the new city, the heavenly city, but we do wait for it expectantly: “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13).

John Calvin would persistently drive home the theme that we must fix our minds and attention on the heavenly city, the future life, and not on this life only, our natural tendency.

But if you examine the plans, the efforts, the deeds, of anyone, there you will find nothing else but earth. Now our blockishness arises from the fact that our minds, stunned by the empty dazzlement of riches, power, and honors, become so deadened that they can see no farther. The heart also, occupied with avarice, ambition, and lust, is so weighed down that it cannot rise up higher. In fine, the whole soul, enmeshed in the allurements of the flesh, seeks its happiness on earth. (Institutes 3.9.1)

Rather than basing our hope upon life here, rather than loving the City of Man, we are to love the City of God, the heavenly city: “But when we understand our inheritance to be in heaven, while we are strangers upon earth, then we put off that clinging to the life of this world to which we are too much devoted” (Calvin, Commentary, Dan. 3:19).

Paradoxically, the Reformer, Martin Bucer, pointed out that it is loving the heavenly city, not the earthly city, which allows us to really love our neighbors: “Faith, finally, takes away from us love for the present life . . . which hinders so many from exercising a true love and service to their neighbor . . . . Because through Christ, faith shows the heavenly and eternal Father so gracious towards us” (Bucer, Instruction in Christian Love, 47). The very struggles of life within the City of Man, this present world, are to encourage us to seek that better city: “Grant, O Almighty God, since thou wishes us to be subject to so many changes, that we cannot settle on earth with quiet minds—grant, I pray thee, that, being subject to so varying a condition, we may seek our rest in heaven” (Calvin, Commentary, Ezek. 1:16).

The City of God is also found on earth today, as the Church

But the City of God does not exist only in the perfection of heaven. The City of God is today found, although imperfectly so, in the Church, that people over whom Christ rules: “Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior” (Eph. 5:23). Christ came not simply to save individuals but to establish a new society, the Kingdom of Heaven: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (Matt. 4:17).

This Kingdom of Heaven, is the Heavenly City of God, made manifest on earth in our age as the Church.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.  (Matt.16:18–19)

Augustine understood that the City of God is present today with us in the visible church on earth: “For a house is being built to the Lord in all the earth, even the city of God, which is the holy Church” (Augustine, City of God, 8.24. Cf., 13.16, 16.2. 20.9). Indeed, the City of God is not found in one place, but over the entire world, wherever the church is found.

The words, “And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” [Rev. 20:9] do not mean that they have come, or shall come, to one place, as if the camp of the saints and the beloved city should be in some one place; for this camp is nothing else than the Church of Christ extending over the whole world. (Augustine, City of God, 20.12)

The Holy City is found today in the church, for it is in and through the lives of God’s people, the church, that the reign of Christ, his kingdom, is to be found: “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:22–23).

We are to love the City of God today, the Church

It is true that we are to love the city—our city—but our city is the City of God, that is, the church, while we wait for the heavenly city to arrive. Christ loves the church. He loves this city so much he gave himself for her.

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  (Eph. 5:25–27)

Christ did not die for Babylon, Rome, or Charlotte (where I live), he died for the City of God, the Church, and for that city alone. We are now citizens of this new city, this new kingdom, being built up as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. (Eph. 2:19–22)

It is this city, this society, that we are to lovingly build up: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph. 4:15–16). It is the people of this city that we are to love first and foremost: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34).

Where the saints of the Old Testament consistently professed their love for Jerusalem, we see that in the New Testament, that this “city-love” is wholly transferred to the new City of God, the church. It is to this church, this city, that its citizens dedicate themselves: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). It is for this church that the Apostles labored with such zeal: “For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God” (1 Thess. 2:9). This explains in part the lack of New Testament exhortations to love the cities of the first century such as Rome, Corinth, Thessalonica, Antioch, or Ephesus.

Augustine draws this same conclusion; we are to love the City of God.

“There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of our God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.” [Ps. 46:4–5] From these and similar testimonies, all of which it were tedious to cite, we have learned that there is a city of God, and its Founder has inspired us with a love which makes us covet its citizenship. (Augustine, City of God, 11.1)

We are to love our city, the City of God, above us as heaven, and on earth as the church. This is the proper focus of loving the city that every Christian should have.

Dr. Thomas D. Hawkes is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America; he resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.