[Abram] was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
St. Augustine of Hippo wrote a famous, classic, culturally and historically influential book called “The City of God.” It was written in the 5th century, and was written “against the pagans.” Augustine lived in the heart of a world called the Roman Empire, and this empire sometimes confused itself with Christianity. In fact, Emperor Constantine in the Edict of Milan in 313 declared not only tolerance of Christianity, but it also became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 392 when Theodosius I declared pagan religions to be illegal in the Edict of Thessalonica. Augustine, living in this supposedly post-pagan empire, was experiencing a distressing hypocrisy, not unlike what Jesus experienced with the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jerusalem. Augustine wrote the City of God to give a picture of the New Jerusalem, the new spiritual city in which God would truly reign. We read in Scripture that God promises in his covenant to “be God to you and to your descendants after you,” to rule and to reign as the true King.
This is one of the great themes of the Bible, and we see it in this little verse above. God is building a Kingdom, and at the center of that Kingdom is a people, and at the center of the people is the Lord, God. We see this picture later in the book of Numbers when the camp is geographically designed with the tabernacle (representing God’s presence) at the center, and the altar as the center of the tabernacle. We see it again even more profoundly in the book of Revelation where we see the city of God coming down to be with people.
I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. – Revelation 21:2
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. – Revelation 21:10
In it, in the midst of people in revelation, in the midst of the city is Jesus the King seated on the throne ruling over the city. It is here that we read these words, “They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” This is reminiscent of the promise of God when he speaks to Abraham, promising to be his God, and that he and his descendents will be his people.
So, even at this point early on in the Bible, Abraham is seeking the City of God, the true city of God in which the world would be righted, sin would be overcome, goodness would prevail, and God would be the ruler and the King. We are a people longing for a city not made with human hands, but one whose architect and builder is God.
