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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:1—22:5; 1 Cor. 3:9b; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15
Prayer: Lord, we worship You that You have brought us through so many days. Today You have brought us to the end, to the consummation, of the central line of God’s revelation. Lord, do cleanse us with Your precious blood, and cover us with Your prevailing blood. We trust in You for this last meeting. Give us a good ending. You are the Alpha, and You are the Omega. We trust in You as our ending. Lord, do cover us that we may be really protected in this hour, listening to Your word. We do not want to merely hear Your word. We also want to see something. We want to enter into the intrinsic revelation of Your Body, the church, which will be consummated in the New Jerusalem. We want to feel the same way that You do, according to Your feeling, and we want to understand the same way that You do, according to Your understanding. Lord, we are the New Jerusalem. We are the Body. We are Your counterpart. Lord, unveil everything that is on Your heart tonight in this meeting. Help us in the speaking. Lord, we realize that we are so weak in this matter. Stand with us as one spirit. Amen.
In this chapter we have come to the end of the Bible. Any good writing always closes with something of the real thing it talks about. If we are going to understand what the Bible talks about, we have to go to the end to see how it concludes.
Most Bible readers appreciate the beginning of the Bible, but they do not pay much attention to the end of the Bible. This is because their understanding deprives them of the preciousness of the ending of the Bible. Their understanding is that the Bible ends merely with a heavenly mansion. This is very objective, having very little to do with us subjectively. According to this natural understanding, God spends many years and does so much just to prepare a mansion for us. This is why not many pay attention to this part of the divine revelation. This shows us that the proper understanding means everything.
Many years ago, I began to realize that the end of the Bible could not be a physical city as a mansion into which we will enter to live for eternity. If the Bible really ended this way, it would be so low. After having studied the Bible for a number of years, I realized to some extent the preciousness of the Bible and the contents of the Bible. Based upon this principle, I realized that the concluding figure shown at the end of the Bible must not be that low or that simple. It must be something very significant, very precious, and very mysterious.
I began to hunt for material and books on the New Jerusalem from past writers. I found something of the truth concerning the holy city in the writings of Tersteegen, a German writer. Tersteegen indicated that the New Jerusalem must be something about the believers in Christ themselves. That opened my eyes a little bit. Brother Austin-Sparks said a little more. He pointed out that the New Jerusalem should be a figure, just as in the beginning of the Bible, God also uses figures such as the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). In the whole universe there is not such a physical tree — the tree of life. There are apple trees and peach trees. There are many kinds of trees, but who has ever seen or heard of a tree of life? What is life? Life is mysterious. Thus, Brother Austin-Sparks said that this must be a figure of speech. A figure of speech is used to speak of something that is somewhat unseen, somewhat mysterious, and somewhat hidden, concealed. Because something cannot be easily realized or apprehended, it is not possible to express what that thing is in normal terms. This is why figures of speech are used. The tree of life is a figure of speech.
Based upon this, I realized something further. Since the tree of life in Genesis 2 is a figure of speech, indicating something mysterious, invisible, and glorious, the same tree of life mentioned in the last chapter of the Bible must also be a figure of speech. The tree of life grows in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:2). Furthermore, since one item of the New Jerusalem is a figure of speech, the rest of the items must also be figures of speech. Revelation is a book of signs (1:1) because it unveils to us things that we have never seen and that we cannot understand. Based upon this principle, the New Jerusalem as the conclusion of the book of Revelation should surely be a sign.
We need signs, or figures, to help us see the mysterious things of the new creation. The old creation is altogether visible and physical, and the Bible tells us that God’s intention is not to have the old creation as something that remains forever. Instead, God uses the old creation as the means to produce the new creation. The old creation is altogether physical, whereas the new creation is altogether spiritual. Adam was physical, but the second man, the last Adam, is a spiritual person.
Today in the universe there is such a thing that is called, in a figure of speech, the tree of life. We have not seen it, yet it is there. That is actually the very uncreated life, the divine life, the eternal life of God. That life is altogether not physical and altogether invisible. In order to describe it, God in His divine revelation uses a figure of speech. Genesis 1 and 2 speak of how God created the heavens and the earth with billions of items, including man. The created universe is physical and visible. Only one thing mentioned in Genesis 1 and 2 is real yet invisible. That one thing is the tree of life. The tree of life is real but invisible.
The entire book of Revelation shows us invisible things. Do you believe there are seven physical lampstands? Surely these lampstands are not physical. The seven lampstands signify the seven local churches (1:11-12, 20). A local church can be seen since it is physical, but if we are going to see the intrinsic reality of the local church, we need a figure of speech. Thus, the lampstands are not real lampstands. They are figures. They are signs. They signify the local churches, not in the physical sense but in the intrinsic, invisible sense.
In Revelation the Lord Jesus is described as the Lamb (5:6, 8, 12-13; 6:1, 16; 7:9-10, 14, 17; 12:11; 13:8; 14:1, 4, 10; 15:3; 17:14; 19:7, 9; 21:9, 14, 22-23, 27; 22:1, 3). The Gospel of John also speaks of the Lord Jesus as the Lamb. When John the Baptist saw Jesus, he declared, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (29, John 1:36). Of course, the Lord Jesus was not a physical lamb with four legs and a little tail. The Lamb of God is a figure of speech indicating a lot. In the book of Revelation there are the lampstands and the Lamb. There are also many other signs in the book of Revelation. At the end of this book there is a great sign — the New Jerusalem. This should help us to realize that the New Jerusalem is not something physical. It must be something mysterious, something very intrinsic, something spiritual, and something that can never be apprehended by the human mind and seen by the physical eyes.
I have spent much time to study the last two chapters of Revelation concerning the New Jerusalem. I thank the Lord for this. When I was in mainland China, I understood the New Jerusalem to some extent, but I was not completely clear until after I came to Taiwan in 1949. At the beginning of the 1960s, when we were compiling our hymnals both in Chinese and in English, I wrote some new hymns. Four of these are concerning the New Jerusalem (see Hymns, #975, #976, #978, and #979). These hymns express the understanding of the intrinsic reality of the Body of Christ. In the universe there is something called the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not something physical like the human body. The Body of Christ is a figure of speech to indicate that the church is an organism. This figure of speech must be used because no one can explain it. Things that are mysterious and intrinsic must be described with figures of speech.
The book of Revelation is really a book of revelation, and in this book a great sign is revealed — the New Jerusalem. This great sign signifies the ultimate consummation of God’s new creation work. When this new creation work is fully accomplished, the old heaven and old earth will pass away (21:1). God’s new creation work will take Him at least seven thousand years to complete. Almost six thousand years have passed. God will also use the thousand-year kingdom to complete His new creation work. God’s new creation work is not simple. In order to make the old creation, God did not need to become a man. For God to become a man and live on earth for thirty-three and a half years was not a simple thing.
In Revelation 21 and 22 there is a picture of a holy city. This picture must be very significant. Over thirty-five years ago, I received the understanding of the significance, in detail, of every item of this city. Hymns, #979, composed of sixteen verses, gives the details of these items. We need to see what this holy city, the New Jerusalem, is. Many in Christianity say that it is a heavenly mansion, but we need to throw away that inaccurate concept.
The New Jerusalem as God’s holy city is God’s universal building for His new creation out of His old creation (1 Cor. 3:9b; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). The New Jerusalem is the building of God’s new creation. God would spend at least seven thousand years to finish this work. How does He carry out this work? First, He became a man. He was begotten in a human virgin’s womb and remained there for nine months. Matthew 1 says that God was born into the womb of Mary through His Spirit (vv. 18, 20). It was a great thing for the infinite God, the eternal God, to stay and be confined in the womb of a human virgin for nine months. His being in a virgin’s womb could be considered as an imprisonment to Him. Then He came out of that womb to be a God-man. His remaining in humanity in His human living was a longer imprisonment. As the divine person, He was imprisoned in humanity on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He went to the cross and suffered there for six hours until His death (Mark 15:25; Matt. 27:45-46). Afterward, He went down to Hades and remained there for three days (12:40). He was raised from the dead on the third day (16:21). As the resurrected Christ, He has been working in the heavens for almost two thousand years to work out His new creation. This work is not yet finished. I hope we can see how much time, how much energy, and how much wisdom God has put into the work of His new creation. Therefore, the New Jerusalem, as the ultimate consummation of God’s new creation work, must be very, very significant.
We have to find out what the New Jerusalem is. The New Jerusalem is a building. First Corinthians 3:9 says that the church is God’s cultivated land, God’s farm, to grow something, and also God’s building. In the whole universe there is a building, and this building is the building of the new creation. The New Jerusalem is God’s universal building.
The New Jerusalem is God’s tabernacle — God’s dwelling in eternity (Rev. 21:3a). It is also God’s temple as God’s redeemed people’s living and serving place (v. 22). In the Old Testament there was first the tabernacle and then the temple. The tabernacle was God’s dwelling place, and the temple was the priests’ living place. The temple was also God’s people’s worshipping place, their serving place. We have to realize that even today in the New Testament we are living in the temple as God’s new creation. We are living in the temple because the church is the temple (1 Cor. 3:16-17). To us it is the temple; to God it is the tabernacle. The New Jerusalem, as the tabernacle, indicates what God’s redeemed people will be to God in eternity, that is, God’s eternal dwelling place. And the New Jerusalem, as the temple, indicates what the Triune God will be to His redeemed people in eternity, that is, their eternal dwelling place. In the new heaven and new earth, the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for the redeeming God and the redeemed man for eternity.
The tabernacle, as a sign, signifies that the processed and consummated Triune God, after traveling through the wilderness of incarnation, human living, His all-inclusive death, and His life-imparting resurrection, and entering into His surpassing ascension, has secured a redeemed people to be His dwelling in eternity, as in typology after He traveled with the children of Israel through the wilderness and attained to Mount Sinai, He obtained His redeemed people to build Him a tabernacle for His dwelling on the earth. And the temple, as a sign, signifies that the processed and consummated Triune God, after being wrought into His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people through His death, resurrection, and ascension in humanity, has been constituted with His redeemed and glorified people to be His organism, which becomes eventually His redeemed people’s dwelling in eternity.
The New Jerusalem is also the bride, the wife of Christ as the Lamb (Rev. 21:9). The city becomes a woman, a female. The bride is a virgin, and the wife is a married one. The New Jerusalem is both a virgin and also a married wife. The New Jerusalem is Christ’s wife, and Christ is the embodiment of God. Therefore, this New Jerusalem, on the one hand, is God’s dwelling and, on the other hand, is Christ’s counterpart. Christ’s counterpart is His Body, the church. For the wife to be the husband’s counterpart means that she is a part of him. The New Jerusalem, to God, is the tabernacle; to us, is the temple; and to Christ, is a wife, a counterpart.
The New Jerusalem is the mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite people. This aspect of the New Jerusalem brings us to the central point of the divine dispensing. In order to be mingled with us, God had to be processed. The processed Triune God is the One who has gone through incarnation, human living, an all-inclusive death, and a wonderful resurrection. These are four steps, four processes. For God to be mingled with us, He also needs to be consummated. He was perfect in eternity, but He was not complete in what He wanted to be. He wanted to be God mingled with man. He wanted to be both divine and human. In eternity past was He complete? He was divine but not divine and human. Thus, He was perfect and without defect but not complete. He needed to be completed, to be consummated.
He became consummated by being processed. He became a man, lived a human life, and entered into death. We may think that His entering into death was merely a suffering. It was a suffering, but it was also a marvelous process. The eternal God who is the divine life, the uncreated life, the indestructible life, entered into death. Would you like to travel through death? God desired to do this, and He did it. He traveled through death. He took a tour of Hades. To God this was wonderful because this was His process. Then He entered into resurrection and transcended to the heavens in His ascension. Now He is there as both the perfect and complete God. Today He is not only perfect but also complete. He has been consummated with incarnation, with human living, with a wonderful death, with resurrection, and with ascension. He is completed. He has been consummated.
Such a God, a processed and consummated God, is absolutely qualified and ready to mingle Himself with His people so that they can be redeemed, regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified. God today is not so simple, and neither are we. God is completed, and we are enjoying Him as the consummated One. One day we will be consummated. That consummation will be the glorification, the redemption, the transfiguration, of our body of humiliation into the body of Christ’s glory (Phil. 3:21). We will be the same as He is. He has passed through all the processes, and we will also pass through all the processes of redemption, regeneration, transformation, conformation, and eventually glorification. We have been redeemed and regenerated. Now we are passing through the “tunnel” of transformation. Eventually, we will pass through the processes of conformation and glorification. Our God is the processed and consummated Triune God, and we are the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, conformed, glorified tripartite man. He mingles with us, and we mingle with Him to be one. The New Jerusalem is not merely God or merely man. The New Jerusalem is a God-man in the corporate way. The New Jerusalem is a mingling of the processed, consummated Triune God with the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite man. He is triune, we are tripartite, and we are mingled with Him.
The New Jerusalem is a composition of two groups of people — God’s Old Testament saints and Christ’s New Testament believers. This is signified by the names of the twelve tribes and the names of the twelve apostles (Rev. 21:12b, 14b). The names of the twelve tribes of Israel are inscribed on the twelve gates, the entrance into the holy city. This indicates that the New Jerusalem comprises all the redeemed saints of the Old Testament. The names of the twelve apostles are on the twelve foundations of the holy city. This indicates that the New Jerusalem is also composed of the New Testament saints, represented by the apostles. The Old Testament saints are the entrance, whereas we, the New Testament believers represented by the apostles, are the foundations of the holy city. Without the Old Testament saints we do not have the entrance, but without us they do not have the foundations. Both the Old and New Testament saints are the composition of the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is not just a composition but a constitution. Composition is outward, but constitution is inward. Our human body is an example of this. The outward skeleton is a composition of bones, but we also have an inward constitution. The inward constitution of the New Jerusalem is the Triune God, and the outward composition is the redeemed saints. The inward constitution is with God the Father as the substance, signified by the pure gold, with God the Son as the initiation (entrance) through His redemption, signified by the pearls, and with God the Spirit as the building (the wall with its foundations) through His transformation, signified by the precious stones (vv. 18-21).
The New Jerusalem is built of three kinds of precious materials, signifying that she is built with the Triune God. First, the city proper, with its street, is of pure gold (vv. 18, 21). Gold, the symbol of the divine nature of God, signifies the Father as the source, from whom the element for the substantial existence of the city comes.
The twelve gates of the city are twelve pearls. Pearls are produced by oysters in the waters of death. When an oyster is wounded by a grain of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the grain of sand and makes it into a precious pearl. This is a picture of Christ’s redeeming and overcoming death and of His life-imparting and producing resurrection with the secretion of His life around us to make us pearls. Christ as the living One came into the death waters, was wounded by us, and secreted His life over us to make us into precious pearls for the building of God’s eternal expression.
The holy city is also a constitution of precious stones. The Spirit works to transform the redeemed and regenerated saints into precious stones. The work of Christ is redemption; the work of the Holy Spirit is transformation. Precious stones are transformed items. Transformation involves burning and pressing. A piece of coal can be transformed into a precious stone by tremendous heat and pressure. We may not want to be burned or pressed, but if we are not burned and pressed, we will remain pieces of coal, and we cannot be built up together into the New Jerusalem. There is no coal in the New Jerusalem.
Some in the church life become dropouts because they do not like to be transformed. They do not like the elders because they feel that the elders are too strict. They do not like the older sisters or the young ones. Actually, they do not like anyone. They only like themselves. They do not want to be burned or pressed by anyone. They want to remain in themselves, and they want their freedom. They may say that the United States is a country of freedom and that the elders are controlling them. In recent years some tried to bring democracy into the church life. Where are these ones today? They are pieces of coal outside the church life.
In order to be transformed from pieces of coal into precious stones, we must be pressed and burned. I have been pressed and burned for over sixty years. I have been burned by the elders, by the young brothers and sisters, by my wife, by my children, and by my grandchildren. They are the coals to burn me. When I was young, I tried to press others. Today, though, I have learned that it is better to be pressed. The wives are big pieces of coal to burn the husbands, and every elder is a burning coal to transform us. I believe that I have received much transformation through this burning.
This is the sovereign arrangement of the Lord, and we cannot stay away from it. A husband cannot stay away from his wife because divorce is not allowed by the Lord. We have to stay under the Lord’s sovereign arrangement to be burned every day. In this sense, we should feel happy to be with all the saints, with our spouse, and with our children. We cannot avoid the heat and pressure, because this is the age of transformation. We need to be transformed by burning and by pressure to become the precious stones in the New Jerusalem.
Now we want to see the contents of the New Jerusalem. First, the New Jerusalem has God’s glory as the uncreated light and the Lamb as the lamp to shine forth the divine brightness through the entire city (vv. 23, 11; 22:5b). In the New Jerusalem there will be no man-made or God-created light, because God’s glory is the light. Within the lamp, Christ, is the light, God. By this way God shines through the entire city. God is the light; Christ is the lamp; and the church, the New Jerusalem, is the lamp container. The New Jerusalem is the lamp container, the container that contains the lamp with God as the shining light.
The throne of God and of the Lamb is also in the New Jerusalem. This is the throne of the redeeming God, for God’s administration in His eternal kingdom for eternity (vv. 1b, 3b). This throne of authority for God’s administration in the whole universe is also the throne of grace. We know that it is the throne of grace because out of it flows the river of water of life with the tree of life growing in it. These are not indications of authority but of grace. The river of water of life is grace. The tree of life with its twelve fruits is also grace. The throne is of God and of the Lamb. God and the Lamb are not separate. They are one. Our God is the Lamb-God, the redeeming God, for God’s administration in His eternal kingdom for eternity.
The New Jerusalem has a street from the throne of God and of the Lamb spiraling through the entire city to reach the twelve gates of the city on its four sides, for communication (v. 1c). The New Jerusalem has only one street. This street is not straight but a spiral. It spirals down from the throne to reach all the twelve gates. There are three gates on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the east, and three gates on the west. This one street from the throne reaches all the gates by spiraling. This is for communication. Even today in the church there is only one spiraling street. There is no cross street on which to turn. No one can be lost on this one street. Every entrance can be reached by this one street. This is very meaningful. Quite often, some saints like to turn, but in the church life there is no turn. We just have to go on and on upon the one street.
The river of water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb in the midst of the street to the twelve gates of the city to water the entire city (v. 1a). Where there is the street, there is the flow of life. Where there is the flow of life, there is the street. Our street, our way, is the flow of life.
The tree of life grows on the two sides of the river of water of life and produces twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month, to supply the entire city (v. 2a). The tree of life grows on the two sides of the river, and the river is in the midst of the street. Thus, the street, the river, and the tree are mingled together. These three items are spiraling from the throne through the entire city to reach the twelve gates. The entire city is supplied with the water of life and the fruit of life. This is the life supply of the New Jerusalem.
The uncreated light, the river of water of life, and the tree of life are all for the divine dispensing to maintain the New Jerusalem, to supply the necessities of the holy city, and to sustain the divine building for eternity. The light shines to dispense, the river flows to dispense, and the tree grows to dispense. The light, the river, and the tree are for dispensing the very substance, element, and essence of the Triune God into our being. This dispensing mingles the Divine Trinity with the tripartite man. This mingling is the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the mingling of the Triune God with the tripartite man.
This mingling is not easily carried out or completed. It is not so simple or direct. On God’s side, there was the need for Him to pass through many processes. On our side, we have to pass through five “-tions”: redemption, regeneration, transformation, conformation, and glorification. Every “-tion” is a process. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of God’s new creation work. This consummation is a mingling of the processed, consummated Triune God with the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite man. The mingling of divinity with humanity is the church. This is the intrinsic view of the church as the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem, and this is the consummation of the entire Bible. The entire Bible consummates in this mingling, which is signified by the New Jerusalem.
