Joel 3:17

God Himself wondrously joins on His own words to those of the prophet, and speaks to His own people; “so (literally, and) ye shall know,” by experience, by sight, face to face, what ye now believe, “that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain.” So He saith in the second Psalm, “Then shall he speak unto them” Psalms 2:5 (the enemies of His Christ) “in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure; And I have set My king on My holy hill of Zion;” and, “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God” Revelation 21:3, dwelling with them and in them, by an unvarying, blissful, hallowing presence, never withdrawn, never hidden, never shadowed, but ever shining upon them. “Your God,” your own, as much as if possessed by none besides, filling all with gladness, yet fully possessed by each, as though there were none besides, so that each may say, “Thou art my Portion, O Lord” Psalms 119:57; Lamentations 3:24; my “Lord, and my God” John 20:28, as He saith, “I am thy exceeding great Reward” Genesis 15:1.

And Jerusalem shall be holy - Literally, “holiness” as John saith, “He carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God” Revelation 21:10.

And there shall no stranger pass through her anymore - “Without,” says John, “are dogs and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie” Revelation 22:15. None alien from her shall pass through her, so as to have dominion over her, defile or oppress her.

This special promise is often repeated. “It shall be called the way of holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it” Isaiah 35:8. “Henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean” Isaiah 52:1. “The wicked shall no more pass through thee” Nahum 1:15. “In that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts” . “And there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth” Revelation 21:27. These promises are, in their degree and in the image and beginning, made good to the Church here, to be fully fulfilled when it shall be “a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish” Ephesians 5:27. Here they do not pass through her, so as to overcome; “the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.” However near, as hypocrites, they come to her, they feel in themselves that they “are not of her” 1 John 2:19. There they shall be severed from her forever. : “Heretics came, armed with fantastic reasons and deceitful arguments; but they could not pass through her, repelled by the truth of the word, overcome by reason, cast down by the testimonies of Scripture and by the glow of faith.” They fell backward to the ground before her. They “go out from her, because they are not of her” 1 John 2:19. They who are not of her can mingle with her, touch her sacraments, but their power and virtue they partake not. They are inwardly repelled.