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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:1-3, 9-14, 16-23; 22:1-2, 5, 14, 17
It takes the entire Bible to give us God’s complete revelation. In Genesis we are told about God’s creation. Then at the end of the Bible we see a holy city. At the beginning there is creation, and at the end a city. In creation God called “not being as being” (Rom. 4:17), but a city signifies something further because a city is a building. In God’s economy, then, He first created. Following the creation, He began to build.
The thought of building runs throughout the entire New Testament. After Peter recognized that Jesus was the Son of God and the very Christ, the Lord told him, “Upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). Here is the thought of building in Matthew 16.
The thought of building actually came in much earlier. In God’s consideration what was going on even in Old Testament times was a building. In Matthew 21 the Lord used the parable of a vineyard to signify the Jewish nation. At the end of that parable the Lord told the Jewish leaders that because of their fruitlessness, the lord of the vineyard would give the vineyard to another nation (that is, to the church) (vv. 33-43). The Lord said to them, “The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner” (v. 42). The Lord was telling them that they were the builders and that He was the cornerstone, which they as the Jewish leaders were rejecting. This rejected stone became in God’s sovereignty the cornerstone of the building.
Christ as the cornerstone is the base of the gospel. Many preachers quote Acts 4:12, which says, “Neither is there another name...in which we must be saved.” We must realize, though, that Acts 4:12 is based upon verse 11. Verse 11 tells us that Christ, the rejected stone, has become the cornerstone. This cornerstone is the very Savior in verse 12. Christ’s being the Savior is based upon His being the cornerstone that was rejected by the builders in the Old Testament economy. The Jewish leaders until that time were the builders in the eyes of God; the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone is a prophecy in Psalm 118:22. In God’s eyes, then, both the Old Testament time and the New Testament time have been His building period.
Right after His creation, He began to build. His creation was to produce the building materials for His building. God created the universe and man for the purpose of building a city. Creation means calling not being as being. A city, however, is a building of things created. God has two works. The first is the work of creation, and the second is the work of building. The New Jerusalem, a city as God’s building, is the conclusion of God’s entire revelation.
For God to have a building, the center of His creation, man, needs to be regenerated. Regenerated man becomes God’s building material. God did not impart Himself into any item of His creation. In His old creation He did breathe the breath of life into man (Gen. 2:7), but that breath was not something of His essence or nature. It was only His breath. That breath of life, neshamah (Heb.), became the spirit of man; as Proverbs 20:27 says, “The spirit (neshamah) of man is the lamp of Jehovah.” Nothing of God’s essence was imparted into man until the New Testament time and the completion of the full redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then God came to impart not only something of Himself but also Himself into man that man might be regenerated by Him (John 3:5), born of Him (1:12-13).
When we were born of our earthly father, our father’s essence and nature were imparted to us. We are now regenerated persons, the offspring of God. We are children born of God, not sons adopted by an adopting father. We have been begotten of a begetting Father. Whatever the Father is has been imparted into us, His children.
The only thing of His that we do not have is His Godhead. He is the very God. Even though we were born of Him, we do not participate in His Godhead. To say that we are deified in the sense of having His Godhead is blasphemy. We worship Him. We ourselves are not the object of any man’s worship and never can be. That would be blasphemous.
However, we should have the boldness to say, “Hallelujah! I have God’s life (Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:12) and God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4). In life and in nature I am the same as my God because I have been born of Him.” His life is our life, and His nature is our nature. Hallelujah! We are the excellent children of God (Rom. 8:16; 1 John 3:1). The last stanza of Hymns, #608 says that with God we “differ not in life in any way!”
The natural material out of God’s creation is not qualified to be used for His building material, because it has nothing of God’s essence. What God uses for His building must have His essence.
In our daily life we are bothered by dust. I like Texas, but one thing I do not like is that it is too windy. Too much wind brings dust. When we are in the New Jerusalem, though, there will be no dust. The New Jerusalem, the holy city, is a golden mountain (Rev. 21:18). This mountain is about thirteen hundred fifty miles high, the approximate distance from New York to Dallas. The New Jerusalem is twelve thousand stadia high (v. 16); one stadion equals about six hundred feet. Have you ever seen such a high mountain? It would take fifty days to climb it on foot, if you traveled twenty-seven miles a day.
The wall of the city is made of jasper upon a foundation of twelve different precious stones (vv. 18-20). Precious stones were first created and then transformed by pressure and heat. They are not merely natural but were created and then transformed. In the New Testament there is the strong thought of transformation (2 Cor. 3:18). The twelve gates are twelve pearls (Rev. 21:21). Pearls have also gone through a process. Pearls are produced by oysters in the waters of death. When the oyster is wounded by a particle of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the sand and makes it into a precious pearl. In this process we can see the death, the killing, and the secretion of the life-juice to produce a pearl.
The entire city is built of gold, precious stones, and pearls. There we will not need to sweep the floor. There will be no dust! All the created beings will have been transformed.
In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul says that the unique foundation has been laid, but we must be careful how we build upon it. We can build with two categories of materials: gold, silver, and precious stones or wood, grass, and stubble (vv. 10-12). Wood, grass, and stubble all become dust after they are burned, but gold, silver, and precious stones do not.
In Paul’s concept the natural created men are wood, grass, and stubble; and the regenerated, transformed men are gold, silver, and precious stones. When Peter came to the Lord Jesus, he was a “dusty” man, a man made of dust (Gen. 3:19), because he was born of the adamic race. Adam was made of dust, and Peter was born a dusty man. Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus called him Cephas (Gk. Peter), which means “a stone” (John 1:42). The changing of Simon’s name by the Lord Jesus to Peter indicated that Peter would be transformed.
This was the reason that Peter was very strong in this concept, even in the writing of his first Epistle. He said that the Lord Jesus is a living stone (2:4), and that as we come to this living stone, we all become living stones to be built up as a spiritual house (v. 5). The spiritual house is not built of wood, grass, and stubble. It is built of transformed materials. Because our mentality is fully occupied by the natural thought of ethics, philosophy, and morality, we overlook this matter in the New Testament. The entire New Testament, however, is saturated with this thought of the divine building of transformed humanity. The conclusion of the Bible is a holy city composed of gold, pearls, and precious stones.
All the materials that comprise this holy city are found in the first two chapters of Genesis. In Genesis 2 there is the tree of life. By the tree there is a river. Where the river flows, there is gold, “and the gold of that land is good” (v. 12). There is bdellium, a pearl produced by the plant life, and onyx stone (vv. 9-12). Following this, at the end of the chapter there is a bride for Adam (vv. 21-23).
In Revelation 21 and 22 there is a bride, a city built of gold, pearls, and precious stones. Within the city is a river, and in the river is the tree of life. These six items — the bride, gold, pearls, precious stones, the tree of life, and the river — are all found in the first two chapters of Genesis. The difference is that in Genesis the city had not yet been built. The three materials were there but not built into a city. Some six thousand years later, through God’s building work, all the materials have been built into a city. Do you see how these two ends of the Bible reflect each other?
In 1963 I went to Tyler, Texas, and stayed in a brother’s home. After one of the meetings a friend of his, who was a traveling minister, picked up the phone in his home and called a brother in Plainview, Texas. He told him to come and hear me at any cost. The next evening he was in the meeting. That night I gave a message on how the two ends of the Bible reflect each other. This brother was caught. After the conference he said that he was clear to take this way. This was the beginning of the church life in Texas. I hope that we also can have such a glorious impression of the Bible’s beginning and end reflecting each other. This is God’s economy — to build up His eternal dwelling with the created things transformed to be His materials.
When the children of Israel had been brought to Mount Sinai, God revealed to them the design of His tabernacle, and they built it. That was a type. In the Holy of Holies within the tabernacle there was nothing but gold to be seen. Gold overlaid the boards, and upon the ceiling could be seen the golden thread. Upon the high priest was the golden breastplate complete with twelve precious stones. The twelve stones on the breastplate had the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Exo. 28:15-21). This was God’s special “alphabet” to reveal His thought to His children by means of the Urim and the Thummim (v. 30). We can see, then, that the thought of God’s building, using precious stones, is also in Exodus.
In the New Testament we are charged to be careful how we build (1 Cor. 3:10-12). Do not use wood, grass, or stubble; that is, do not use your natural man. The church is not built of the natural man. It is built with the regenerated, transformed man. When you bring your natural life into the church, you make the church no longer the church. This is what is happening today. Many Christians, even Christian workers, are making the church no church by using the natural way, the fleshly way, man’s way, not the regenerated and transformed way.
Peter tells us that as newborn babes we need to drink the milk of the word in order that we may be transformed into precious stones to be built up as a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:2-5). John’s writings especially stress this matter of transformation. In the first chapter of his Gospel there is the incarnate Christ as God’s tabernacle (v. 14). Then in the last two chapters of John’s Revelation there is the enlarged tabernacle, including not only Christ but also all His believers, because by this time they have been regenerated, fully transformed, and built together into one entity. Such is the New Jerusalem. This is the real revelation of God.
The Bible begins with God’s creation and concludes with His building. This building is a regenerated and transformed entity. Pearls indicate regeneration. This is why all the gates for the entrance are pearls. Without regeneration no one can enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Regeneration is the entry into the kingdom of God, as is fully signified by the pearl gates. The precious stones signify transformation. After entering this kingdom through the pearl gates, we are gradually transformed for the building.
The New Jerusalem will be the tabernacle of God with men in eternity. The tabernacle in Revelation is not a new item. It is fully revealed and portrayed in Exodus 25 through 40. Then John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. When Jesus was on this earth, He was a tabernacle. In the last two chapters of the Bible there is the eternal tabernacle. To understand the last two chapters of Revelation, then, we must go back and study Exodus 25 through 40 and John 1:14.
The holy city, the golden mountain, is the aggregate of all the lampstands. The entire city has one street (Rev. 21:21; 22:2), yet this one street reaches all twelve gates. How could one street in a city serve twelve gates? Also, the wall is one hundred forty-four cubits high (21:17), and the city itself is twelve thousand stadia high (v. 16). These facts indicate that the city proper must be a mountain. On top of the mountain is a throne, from which the street spirals down to the bottom to reach the twelve gates. It must be a spiral street, spiraling down the mountain until it circles around all twelve gates. One street, descending from the top to the bottom, reaches and serves all twelve gates. On top of this golden mountain is the throne as the center. On the throne is Christ as the Lamb with God in Him (22:1). This Lamb is the lamp with God in Him as the light (21:23; 22:5). This indicates that God is in the Lamb just as the light is in the lamp.
This high golden mountain is a stand. Upon this stand is a lamp; therefore, this is a golden lampstand. It is a golden lampstand with Christ as the lamp and God within Him as the light shining out through eternity. Thus, the holy city, the golden mountain, is the aggregate of all the lampstands, the totality of all today’s lampstands, shining forth God’s glory in eternity in the new heaven and the new earth.
The city and its street are pure gold, like transparent glass (21:18b, 21b). Transparent gold signifies the nature of God. Bible teachers generally agree that in typology gold signifies the divine nature, the divine essence.
The twelve foundations of twelve different precious stones, bearing the names of the twelve apostles, signify all the New Testament saints, represented by these twelve apostles (vv. 14, 19-20). The New Jerusalem is a composition of all the redeemed saints, both Old and New Testament. The twelve apostles represent the New Testament saints, while the names of the twelve tribes on the twelve gates represent the Old Testament saints (Rev. 21:12-13, 21a).
Pearls signify the saints produced through the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Christ. In His incarnation He was like a living oyster in the death waters. Then He was wounded by us, the little particles of sand. These wounds caused Him to secrete His life-juice around us, thus making us into pearls. Here is incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Through this process we, the grains of sand, have been made into precious pearls.
The foundation and the wall built with precious stones signify the saints transformed by the sanctifying Spirit (vv. 19-20, 18a, 11b). We were made of dust, but we have been regenerated into stone and transformed into precious stones. Dust, regenerated into stone and transformed into precious stone, is qualified to be used as God’s building material.
The length, the breadth, and the height of the city are equal, just as the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament had three equal dimensions (1 Kings 6:20). The measurement there is twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high. This is the Holy of Holies in the type of the temple. The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle is ten cubits by ten cubits by ten cubits (Exo. 26:2-8). In both cases the three dimensions are equal. The principle is that such a building of three equal dimensions signifies the Holy of Holies, which is the very place where God dwells (Rev. 21:16). The entire city, then, is the very place of God’s dwelling.
John says that he saw “no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (v. 22). This indicates that the entire city is the temple. First, there is the tabernacle in Exodus. Then, after entering the good land, the children of Israel built a temple, which replaced the tabernacle. Even before the temple was built, in 1 Samuel 3:3 the tabernacle was called the temple. This means that the tabernacle and the temple actually refer to one thing. One could be taken down and moved from place to place in the wilderness; the other one had a settled location in the good land as a more permanent building.
The holy city is called the tabernacle. In the Old Testament the temple was in the city of Jerusalem, but in Revelation 21 and 22 the entire city is the tabernacle and the temple. This temple is not only God’s dwelling but also the dwelling place of all His serving ones. At that time all the saints will be priests with an eternal priesthood. We will all serve Him (22:3). Our dwelling place, then, will also be the temple. The New Jerusalem is a great temple where both God and His redeemed dwell together.
“The glory of God illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (21:23). “They have no need of the light of a lamp and of the light of the sun, for the Lord God will shine upon them” (22:5). The glory of God as the light and the Lamb as the lamp signify that God in Christ is the light of the New Jerusalem in eternity. In the new city there is no need of the sun, the natural light, or of any man-made lamp because God Himself will be the light, and Christ will be the lamp, shining out God to enlighten the entire city. This means that God in Christ is everything in the New Jerusalem.
The throne of God and of the Lamb is the administrative center of the city. Out of it proceeds the river of water of life in the middle of the street, with the tree of life as a vine growing along its two sides (vv. 1-2). The street is a spiral, and the river is in the street. Since the tree of life grows along both sides of the river, it must be a vine. A tree standing up could not grow on two sides. It must therefore be a vine, growing spirally along the street. John 15 speaks of the vine tree (v. 1). Jesus is the vine tree, which is the tree of life.
In a radio broadcast a Bible teacher was asked about the tree of life. He said that the tree of life is over. This is incorrect. The tree of life remains today, and it will remain forever. In Revelation 2:7 the Lord Jesus said that to the one who overcomes He “will give to eat of the tree of life.” Even today this promise is being fulfilled. The tree of life that we are eating is Jesus (John 6:57). The Lord Jesus told us, on the one hand, that He is the bread of life (v. 48), typified by the manna. Then, on the other hand, He told us in John 15 that He is the vine and in 14:6 that He is the life. As the vine tree and as the life, He is the tree of life. The tree of life in Genesis 2:9 signifies Christ. He came to us as the reality in John 14 and 15. Still today He is the tree of life of which we may eat.
The tree of life as a vine growing along the two sides of the river signifies that God in the Lamb is the center of the New Jerusalem and supplies it with His divine life to nourish and satisfy it. The street, in which the river of water of life flows, goes down from the top of the mountain spirally to reach all twelve gates on the four sides of the city for its fellowship (Rev. 22:1-2). The street is for communication; communication is fellowship. First John 1:1 and 3 show us that out of this divine life comes the divine fellowship. The street, the river, and the tree of life are for fellowship. Today in the Lord’s recovery we are in this fellowship, which is along the street with the river flowing and the tree growing.
The ultimate consummation is the bride, the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:2, 9). The entire holy city is a bride. In John’s Gospel, at a time when the disciples of John were jealous of Jesus, John said, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom” (3:26-29). As the friend of the Bridegroom, John was glad for his followers to leave him and go to Jesus, because He was the Bridegroom. Regeneration in John 3 is for the producing of the bride.
Consummately, we will be a corporate female for eternity (Rev. 21:2). The unique male for eternity is our God, our Redeemer, our Lord. We will be a corporate female to match Him. Eventually, then, what comes out through the twofold work of God — creation and building — is a couple. God is married to man, and man is married to God. At the conclusion of the sixty-six books of the Bible is Revelation 22:17, which says, “The Spirit and the bride say...” The conclusion of the Bible is that a couple says.
This bride who matches the Spirit is the ultimate consummation of all the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite men. The Spirit is the all-inclusive Spirit as the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. The Spirit is the Triune God reaching us, so this reaching One is the consummation. He has passed through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
Today our God is a processed God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and this Word became flesh. Incarnation is a process. This very incarnated One lived on earth in a poor carpenter’s home. After thirty-three and a half years He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and He was slaughtered on the cross. This was also a process. He went into Hades (Acts 2:27; Eph. 4:9), and He entered into resurrection. These also were processes. Surely all these steps are processes that He went through. Today our God cannot be the same as He was before the incarnation.
Do you believe that God is the same as He was before the incarnation? Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes, even forever.” If you say that since His resurrection He is the same yesterday and today and forever, I agree with you; but if you say that this verse is true of Jesus before the incarnation, I do not agree. He did not have flesh before His incarnation. Through all these processes God became our Redeemer, our Savior, and our life. He has even become the rich, bountiful, life-giving Spirit within us today.
Thus, at the conclusion of the Bible is the consummation of the processed Triune God, and the wife is the aggregate and consummation of all the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite men. Hallelujah! The Triune God marries the tripartite man. Here is an eternal couple expressing the Triune God for eternity. The tripartite man in eternity will be enjoying this rich Triune God.
We were chosen and predestinated, and we have been called, saved, and regenerated. Now we are being transformed to be precious materials so that we may be built up to be a spiritual house to serve God and to be the Body of Christ to express Him. This is our goal. We are the children of God, being transformed that we may be built up as a house to serve God and as the Body to express Christ.
