designate both phases.  A similar two-foldness is seen in many lines of truth.  In Heb. 12:22, 23, we are represented as dwelling in the city of God in this dispensation; yet verse 27 of this chapter and the fourteenth of the following chapter plainly show our entrance into the city at the end.  The Scriptures represent God as dwelling on earth in his church, which, of course, is considered in a spiritual sense; but his actual throne and place of abode is in heaven.  A new creation brought about by Christ in his first advent is set forth by various texts; still, it remains a fact that a new creation will actually be brought to view after the present world is no more and that the same will be our eternal home.  We obtain spiritual life through Christ now, hence have right to the tree of life; yet in another sense our access to the tree of life is at the end and we then enter in through the gates into the city.  Chap. 22:14.  Hence it is proper to speak of the city of God as both present and future, by observing the proper distinction, just as the Scriptures speak of the church in a twofold sense as being both on earth and in heaven, or of the spiritual kingdom in the present and the eternal kingdom in the end.  It is Scriptural to speak of God’s throne as being on earth in the midst of his saints in a spiritual sense and also of its being located in heaven.  The tree of life is a present realization spiritually and also a future reality.  We dwell in the city of God now—­in the suburbs, as it were—­but we shall “have a right” to it in the future state when we are ushered into the very heart of the great metropolis and stand before the actual throne of the Deity, in the presence of his August Majesty.

In the New Testament dispensation the heavenly elements of the New Jerusalem have descended to earth in the form of the new covenant, and God’s people obtain a foretaste of heaven’s glory and are made pure even as Christ is pure, and are therefore represented as having “come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb. 12:22, 23); and God dwells with them in a very important sense. 2 Cor. 6:16.  They are one with the redeemed above, and together they constitute one “family in heaven and earth,” all loving the same Father, adoring the same King, drinking from the same fountain of life eternal, and all basking in the same divine light that beams from the throne of God.  In another sense, however, there is a difference between them; for they are separated by the line of mortality, one phase being located on earth and the other in heaven.  But when at the last day the redeemed of earth have access to the tree of life in its perfect sense, there will be henceforth only one phase to the New Jerusalem, or church of God, which will be in its relation to the new earth, as specially described in the prophecy under consideration, when “all things” are made new and “the former things are passed away.”