The City Without Walls
A. Maclaren, D. D. Zechariah 2:5 For I, said the LORD, will be to her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the middle of her. Zechariah was the prophet of the returning exiles, and his great work was to hearten them for their difficult task, with their small resources and their many foes, and to insist that the prime condition to success, on the part of that portion of the nation that had returned, was holiness. And that exuberant promise was spoken about the Jerusalem over which Christ wept when He foresaw its inevitable destruction. When the Romans had cast a torch into the Temple, and the streets of the city were running with blood, what had become of Zechariah's dream of a wall of fire round about her? Then, can the Divine fire be quenched? Yes. And who quenched it? Not the Romans, but the people that lived within that flaming rampart. "If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee." I. "I WILL BE A WALL OF FIRE ROUND ABOUT HER." I need not dwell on the vividness and beauty of that metaphor. These encircling flames will consume all antagonism, and defy all approach. But let me remind you that the conditional promise was intended for Judea and Jerusalem, and was fulfilled in literal fact. So long as the city obeyed and trusted God it was impregnable, though all the nations stood round about it like dogs round a sheep. The fulfilment of the promise has passed over, with all the rest that characterised Israel's position, to the Christian Church, and today, in the midst of all the agitations of opinion and all the vauntings of men about an effete Christianity and dead churches, it is as true as ever it was that the living Church of God is eternal. If it had not been that there was a God as a wall of fire round about the Church it would have been wiped off the face of the earth long ago. If nothing else had killed it, the faults of its members would have done so. The continuance of the Church is a perpetual miracle, when you take into account the weakness and the errors and the follies and the stupidities and the narrownesses and the sins of the people who in any given day represent it. It does not become any Christian ever to have the smallest scintillation of a fear that the ship that bears Jesus Christ can fail to come to land, or can sink in the midst of the waters. But do not let us forget that this great promise does not belong only to the Church as a whole, but that we have each to bring it down to our own individual lives and to be quite sure of this, that in spite of all that sense says, in spite of all that quivering hearts and weeping eyes may seem to prove, there is a wall of fire round each of us, if we are keeping near Jesus Christ. Only, we have to interpret that promise by faith and not by sense, and we have to make it possible that it shall be fulfilled by keeping inside the wall, and trusting to it. As faith dwindles, the fiery wall burns dim, and evil can get across its embers, and can get at us. II. A GLORY "IN THE MIDST" OF US. The one is external defence; the other inward illumination, with all that light symbolises — knowledge, joy, purity. There is even more than that meant by this great promise." For notice that emphatic little word "the" — the glory, not a glory — in the midst of her. Now, you all know what "the glory" was. It was that symbolic Light that spoke, of the special Presence of God, and went with the children of Israel m their wanderings, and sat between the cherubim. There was no "shekinah" —as it is technically called — in that second Temple. But yet the prophet says, "the glory" —the actual presence of God — "shall be in the midst of her," and the meaning of that great promise is taught us by the very last vision in the New Testament, in which the seer of the Apocalypse says, "the glory of the Lord did lighten it" (evidently quoting Zechariah), "and the Lamb is the light thereof." So the city is lit as by one central glow of radiance that flashes its beams into every corner, and therefore "there shall be no night there." Now, this promise, too, bears on churches and on individuals. On the Church as a whole it bears in this way — the only means by which a Christian community can fulfil its function, and be the light of the world, is by having the presence of God, in no metaphor, the actual presence of the illuminating Spirit in its midst. The same thing is true about individuals. For each of us the secret of joy, of purity, of knowledge is that we be holding close communion with God. III. "JERUSALEM SHALL BE WITHOUT WALLS." It is to be like the defenceless villages scattered up and down over Israel. There is no need for bulwarks of stone. The wall of fire is round about. The more a Christian community is independent of external material supports and defences the better. Luther tolls us somewhere, in his parabolic way, of people that wept because there were no visible pillars to hold up the heavens, and were afraid that the sky would upon their heads. No, no, there is no fear of that happening, for an unseen hand holds them up. A Church that hides behind the fortifications of its grandfathers' erection has no room for expansion; and if it has no room for expansion it will not long continue as large as it is. It must either grow greater or grow, and deserve to grow, less. The same thing is true about ourselves individually. Zechariah's prophecy was never meant to prevent what he himself helped to further, the building of the actual walls of the actual city. And our dependence upon God is not to be so construed as that we are to waive our own common sense and our own effort. We have to build ourselves round, in this world, with other things than the "wall of fire," but in all our building we have to say, "Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." "Except the Lord keep the city, the watchers watch in vain." But yet neither Jerusalem nor the Church nor the earthly state of that believer who lives most fully the life of faith exhausts this promise. It waits for the day when the city shall descend, "like a bride adorned for her husband, having no need of the sun nor of the moon, for the glory...lightens it." (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I, saith the LORD, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her. WEB: For I,' says Yahweh, 'will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be the glory in the midst of her.