The Religious Significance of the City of Jerusalem

¶ … Jerusalem

Located east of Jordan River, the holy city of Jerusalem and its historic sacred atmosphere rest on the hills of the City of David. Its significance has spanned centuries -- millennia, in fact. Today it is viewed as a spiritual home to Christians, Jews, Orthodox and Muslim religions. Wars have been fought over it, and God Himself has been condemned to death there by a Roman prelate and the mob that called for His blood. It was the scene of the birth of a proud people and the scene where the gates of Heaven were opened.

Jerusalem is known as the Holy City because it is where so many important events related in the Old and New Testaments took place. For instance, it is where the Davidic Covenant was made between God and David, in which God made a series of promises to David and to Israel -- the greatest of which was that the Messiah would come through lineage of David: "I will be his Father, and he shall be My son," are the words that God conveys to the prophet Nathan to deliver to David (2 Sam 7:14). Jerusalem is also where David wished to build a temple for the ark. When God said that David's son would be King, He was making a two-fold reference, to both Solomon and to Christ. The dwelling place of the Holy of Holies was to be both the tabernacle of the church of Christ, where Christ becomes bread and wine, and the temple that Solomon built, which prefigured the Christian temple (Sheen 577). David's house had a spiritual significance that was matched in the physical by the temple that houses the ark. David's house was Christ's kingdom, a spiritual kingdom. All of this makes Jerusalem significant -- but most importantly it was where Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate and where He died on the cross at Calvary.

Christ should rightly be called the King of Jerusalem -- as the placard above His head on the cross read "King of the Jews" -- but going back to before Christ, one finds that God chose Saul, song of Kish, to be king of the region and after him David. Solomon followed, who finished the Temple, but after Solomon, the region was split and a number of kings reigned over Jerusalem, from Rehoboam to Abijam to Asa to Jehoshaphat to Jehoram and on from 1000 BC to the 6th century BC when the dynasty of the House of David ended in Babylonian captivity (Nir).

Today, Jerusalem has a new dynasty at its head, and that consists of the Prime Ministers of Israel, from David Ben-Gurion in 1948 to Benjamin Netanyahu today. The demographics of the city today consist mostly of Jewish and Muslim persons with a small minority of Christians inhabiting it ("Israel Central Bureau of Statistics"). Israel became a Jewish state when it was first recognized by the UN in 1948 after the land was taken by Zionists following a long-running plot with the British government, who took the land from the Ottoman Turks following WW1 ("Balfour Declaration").

The religious significance of Jerusalem is evident in the fact that it served as the focal point of Jesus' ministry. According to the Gospel of Matthew, which was written for the Jews of the Palestine region (modern-day Israel), Jesus acts in the capacity of a Teacher for the Jews in Jerusalem during the time of his life (Powell 76). Nearly half of all references to faith are given in the Old Testament, establishing its importance, so much so that when Our Lord first speaks of faith in Matthew 6:30, He speaks of His followers as having "little faith" as though He were disappointed to find them without it, in spite of all the admonitions and emphasis placed on faith in the Scriptures of the Jews. In fact, His people have less faith than the Centurion, the Roman pagan, of whom Jesus says in Matthew 8:10, "Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith." What a shock it must have been for anyone reading the Bible for the first time to learn that the outsider, the non-Jew, the Roman pagan, had greater faith in the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ than His own followers and people. Yet Matthew emphasizes this point to show how what matters most to Jesus is not an earthly kingdom such as the Romans had and the Jews wanted, but rather the possession of faith -- of belief and trust in Him. Our Lord's praise of the Centurion serves as a rebuke to His disciples: they are fearful and suspecting, whereas this Centurion is humble and trusting. This is Matthew's main message to his Hebrew readers throughout the whole Gospel -- and the main thrust of Jesus' ministry in this region -- to show the Jews that He is the Messiah Who has come to save them.

Thus, leading up to the Last Supper is all preparation for the event of His death at Calvary. Even the Last Supper is significant as it is His last meal with His disciples before he goes to pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he is arrested and taken to trial. The Last Supper itself is a reenactment of the Passover, in which Christ serves as the unspotted Lamb, who saves the Hebrews from the Angel of Death -- in this sense, Christ is saving them from sin by His own blood, which he shares with His disciples at this supper, turning the bread and wine into His Body and Blood. Matthew mentions that the blood of Christ is being shed for the sins of man -- and makes this point especially clear for his audience, the Hebrews. Matthew wants the Hebrews to know that Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Law, of the Old Testament, of the Passover Theme. Christ forgives sins because He is God -- which is the point he sees the Jews as needing to accept. In this sense, Christ becomes the Divine sacrificial lamb -- the Real Paschal Lamb, the fulfillment of the Passover Promise (Brown).

Following his death at Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem, Christ is buried in a stranger's tomb. Three days later He resurrects from the dead and spends forty days with His disciples. These days are spent teaching with His Apostles before He sends them out to evangelize the world. Then, after the days are finished, He ascends into Heaven to prepare His kingdom for His faithful followers there, promising to return to lead the way for the faithful into the kingdom of life everlasting. All of this occurs in this most significant of cities -- Jerusalem.