24. If we are impressed by what has been said about Israel and the tribes and the hundreds, when the Saviour tells us that He was not sent save unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel, we do not take the words in the same sense as the Ebionites with their poverty of |25 understanding (their poverty of intellect gives them their name, for "Ebion" is the Hebrew for "poor "), and suppose that Christ came chiefly to Israel after the flesh; for "it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God." Again, the Apostle gives similar teaching concerning Jerusalem when he tells us that "the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is our mother." And in another epistle he says, "But ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven." If, then, Israel is a race of souls, and there is a city, Jerusalem in heaven, it follows that the cities of Israel, and, consequently, all Judea, have for their metropolis the heavenly Jerusalem. Accordingly, whatever is foretold or said respecting Jerusalem, if we listen to God as God, and hear Him speaking from the depths of His wisdom, we must understand that the Scriptures refer to the heavenly city, and the whole country containing the cities of the holy land. It may be that these are the cities to which the Saviour leads us up when He gives the command of ten or five cities to those who satisfactorily dealt with the pounds.