What is the church to come? What will it look like? And how are we to behave during the interim? Well, the choice today is go there or Ps 119: and Ps 119 makes my head hurt even more than this. For to deal with the issue of the church to come we need to deal with symbolism, and to deal with the interaction with Peter we need to know that the two-drachma tax was for the Temple then standing on Jerusalem. It is also worth noting that there were more than 4 drachmas in a shekel.

And with symbolism and metaphor and apocalypse the meaning is always a bit unclear. Having said that, the second text has more difficulties.

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at made he gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed—on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

(Revelation 21:9-14 ESV)

As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.

When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

(Matthew 17:22-27 ESV)

Let us deal with the new Jerusalem. It is built of a foundation of the 12 apostles: their teaching is paramount: The walls have gates named after the 12 tribes: the law of Moses and the old Testament is also given to us.

The city is made perfect, glowing, and true. it is large. It comes fully made to the new earth. It is not our work. It is the work of God. Indeed, in the second passage, we are called sons, and the temple tax for the subjects of the (by then, decayed) Maccabean theocracy need not apply.

What shall we take from this?

1. The Church is the work of God. He will make it perfect, true, and honourable. He will restore it. He will reform it. It is not our work.
2. We can therefore have confidence in the preservation of the church, regardless of how corrupt it becomes, or how persecuted it is. Christ will destroy all his enemies, death included.
3. The source of our faith is Christ, and our secure guidance for this faith is the teaching of the apostles: the twelve, not those who came after — allowing that Paul replaced Judas the betrayer. Our traditions are less valid. And the modern fashions of theology have no validity whatsoever
4. We therefore are better to associate with confessional churches, that respect in reality and practice the teachings from the first time. The Orthodox and Catholic have accretions to this: the reformed and Lutheran are a branch of the Western Catholics that were cast out when they tried to restore validity in a time of corruption. We should accept that there are differences in many things, but one faith, one hope, one God and one set of creeds
5. The foundation is not Moses. We need to respect our Jewish friends and know they are truly loved by God, and there will those of the tribe in the new city. But Christ is greater than Moses, and Christianity is greater than Judaism, which, as Peter said, could not save the most observant Jew
6. There will only be one new Jerusalem. There will not be multiple ones. It will be the end of this creation, and the beginning of a new one. So look not for perfection in this life, or give up the good in a fruitless search for perfection
7. It is better, therefore, to good and avoid offence than stand on the perfection of your rights and drive people away from Christ

Above all, have hope. The times are bleak. But this is not the end. We are not even sure if is the beginning of the end but in one aspect: we have hit peak multiculturalism. Even though the elite and the nations rage against us, the new Jerusalem will arrive.

And not many of the elite will be in it. Pray you are.