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Scripture Reading: Rev. 17:1-5; 2-3, 21:9-10, 22-23; 22:1-2 S. S. 6:4
In this chapter I wish to show you a contrast, a comparison, between two cities, the mysterious Babylon and the holy New Jerusalem. As we pointed out in the previous chapter, the intention of God is to build up a corporate Body, a corporate vessel, with humans mingled with God Himself to contain God and express God. However, the enemy of God came in before God did to work himself into the human nature, so that humans have become the materials for Satan to build up an evil, sinful, corporate vessel to contain and express Satan instead of God. The whole history of the human race is a history of this evil, sinful, satanic building. From the time of Cain, the second generation of the human race, Satan began his building. He built a human society as a corporate vessel to contain himself and express all his sinful aspects.
In the Scriptures a city is a sign of the human community built up with humans as its materials. It is a sign of a living community, either of Satan to contain Satan or of the living Body of Christ to contain God. Today the human community as a corporate vessel contains Satan with all his sinful aspects, and Satan is expressed through it. Whether in the Far East or in the West, whether in Europe or in Africa, all the human communities are parts of the satanic building as a corporate vessel to contain and express Satan. We can see Satan expressed, for example, in the night clubs and movie theaters in many places. After the fall of man, Satan utilized the human race as materials to build up human civilization as a vessel to contain him and to afford him a resting place, a habitation. Human civilization, the human community, is a satanic dwelling place, a resting place for Satan to have his satisfaction and rest.
After the city of Babel and its tower were built to contain and express Satan, God chose Abraham from that region and brought him out to an elevated land, the land of Canaan, which represents the heavenly realm in resurrection. God’s intention was to make Abraham a house and a kingdom with a people as the materials for God’s divine building. However, the children of Israel were brought down to Egypt through the subtlety of the enemy Satan. Instead of building God’s divine building, the children of Israel built cities for Pharaoh, the enemy of God. However, immediately after God delivered them out of Egypt, He commanded them to build a tabernacle. For forty years in the wilderness they were always for this building. Then when they entered the land of Canaan, after they subdued all the enemies, they built a temple in the city of Jerusalem as a more solid habitation for God.
The city that Satan built up with the second race of humans was first called Babel and then Babylon. God chose a people as a new race to be another people, the heavenly people, to build up another city, that is, Jerusalem. The history of the Old Testament is a history of the fighting and struggling between these two cities, Babylon and Jerusalem. These two cities represent two corporate bodies, two corporate vessels. Babylon represents a satanic vessel, and Jerusalem represents a divine vessel. Babylon represents a civilization, a community, of the human race as a container to contain and express Satan, whereas Jerusalem represents a chosen people as a container to contain and express God. These two cities always opposed each other. Eventually, Babylon came to destroy Jerusalem with the temple and capture all the vessels in the temple for the worship of God, placing them in the temple of idols. Later on, when the people of Israel returned to Jerusalem, they brought all these vessels from Babylon back to Jerusalem to restore the worship of God in the temple and in the city. This is the history of the Old Testament.
Now, let us see the history in the New Testament. The New Testament, as we have said before, is also a record of building. Immediately after we recognize that the Lord Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Lord tells us that we are stones as the materials for His building of the church (Matt. 16:18). Building in the New Testament begins at this point. However, while God is building His church, Satan is also building his building. God is building the New Jerusalem, and Satan is building Babylon. Eventually, throughout all the Scriptures, there are these two cities, the New Jerusalem as the building of God and Babylon as the building of Satan.
We should not believe that Babylon is only a material city. Rather, Babylon is a sign, signifying people as a human community used by Satan as a corporate vessel to contain and express him. Likewise, we should not believe that the New Jerusalem is a heavenly mansion. The New Jerusalem is also a sign. It signifies all the chosen, redeemed people of God as materials built up together as a corporate vessel to contain God and express God. Therefore, in the whole universe, with the human race, there are two communities, the satanic community and the divine community. The satanic community is a corporate vessel to contain and express Satan, and the divine community is a corporate vessel to contain and express God.
I must reiterate these things because in Christianity there is a wrong concept concerning the New Jerusalem. In some places certain ones have come to me and said, “Brother Lee, you have taken away our heavenly mansion. Our only hope was to go to the heavenly mansion, but according to your teaching and interpretation, our heavenly mansion is gone.” Whether or not your heavenly mansion is gone is not up to me. My burden from the Lord is to help His children realize what the central thought and heart’s desire of God is. Do you think that God is looking for a heavenly mansion with millions of rooms, one room for each believer? This thought is ridiculous; it is too childish. God is not looking for such a thing. Rather, God is looking for a community, a composition of living persons redeemed by Him, regenerated by Him, transformed by Him, and mingled with Him as a corporate vessel to contain Him in Christ and to express Him through Christ. This is God’s desire, and this is the New Jerusalem.
This thought is not only in the New Testament; it is also in the Old Testament. One day the Lord revealed to me Song of Songs 6:4. This verse says, “You are as beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, / As lovely as Jerusalem.” Here we see that the bride, the one who is seeking the Lord, is likened by the Lord to Jerusalem. Thus, the thought of Jerusalem being the bride of the Lord is clearly seen in both the Old and New Testaments. However, to see the vision of the New Jerusalem we need to be brought to a high mountain. The two visions in Revelation, the vision of Babylon and the vision of the New Jerusalem, are in contrast. In Revelation 17 the apostle John was carried away in spirit into a wilderness to see the vision of Babylon (v. 3). In order to see the vision of Babylon, there is no need to go to a high mountain; it is sufficient to be in the wilderness. However, for John to see the vision of the New Jerusalem, he had to be carried away onto a great and high mountain (21:10). If you want to see something heavenly, you have to be in the heavenly place. If you want to see something eternal, you have to be on the spiritual height, on the spiritual high place. If you remain in the wilderness, you can see only Babylon and can never see the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city. If you want to see the heavenly city, you have to be delivered from the wilderness to the height of the heavenly places.
Now we must go further to see more details concerning this corporate heavenly vessel. With passages such as Revelation 21 and 22, we must be very much before the Lord, looking to Him for the proper understanding. Hence, when we come to the details of the New Jerusalem, we cannot go too fast. God in Christ is the center of the New Jerusalem as the divine vessel. We may also say that Christ as the expression of God is the center of this divine corporate vessel. In the picture of the New Jerusalem, the invisible God is likened to light that shines with glory (21:11, 23; 22:5). When light shines, it does a work. Light is a ruling power; it rules when it shines. Darkness, on the other hand, brings in confusion and disorderliness without any rule. In order to destroy a government, you must first throw everything in it into darkness. Similarly, when you turn off the lights in a room, everything is in confusion and disorder, but when you turn the lights on again, the light rules and brings everything back into order. If all the lights in a major city were to go out, the whole city would be in darkness, and there would be robbery, looting, and killing. When the lights come back on, however, there is the ruling and governing, and the entire city is restored to good order.
In the six days of God’s creation for restoration, the first thing restored was the light (Gen. 1:3). When God divided the light from the darkness, light came in to rule (vv. 4, 16). Where God is, surely there is light shining, and where God shines, there is the ruling power. If we have the presence of God in the church, we have the light, we are in the light of God, we are in God as light, we are under the light of God, and all of us are ruled. All confusion is subdued, and all things are brought into order. If there is confusion among us, it simply means that we do not have God as light and that we are in darkness. Today the church is a miniature of the New Jerusalem. In this smaller New Jerusalem, if we have God as the center in Christ, we have the light, and the first thing light does is rule everything and keep everything in order. When light shines, it also generates. Life comes from light. When the light of God shines into you, the life of God comes into you. Light always brings life to us. When we have God as light, we first have order and then life. We can see this in Genesis 1. On the first day when light came in, there was the dividing; that is, the keeping of order began. Before light came in, everything was in chaos. After light came in, light was divided from darkness, and things began to be kept in order. After this, the waters below were divided from the waters above, and life came out of this order. If there is the light of God, there is the ruling power and there is order, and if there is the ruling power and order, there is the generating power, the yielding of life. All kinds of lives came out because of the light. This is the picture in the New Jerusalem. God is the ruling center of the New Jerusalem as the shining light. From this light come out all the riches of life. God is light and from Him flows the river of water of life, and in this living water grows the tree of life.
Furthermore, this very God, who as light rules and generates all the time, is in Christ the Lamb as the lamp. Revelation 21:23b tells us that the glory of God illumines the city, and its lamp is the Lamb. Just as light cannot be separated from a lamp, so God can never be separated from Christ. If light is separated from a lamp, the light is no more, and if the lamp is separated from the light, the lamp is no longer a lamp because it does not have light. Hence, light is one with the lamp. This picture shows us that God is one with Christ. God is the light, and Christ as the Lamb is the lamp. They cannot be separated; they are two in one.
Moreover, as the Lamb, Christ is the redeeming One. Without Him as the redeeming One, we can never come to touch, to contact, God as light since we are so sinful and so much in darkness. Because no one can exist or stand before God in His light, we need redemption; we need the Lamb. It is only by redemption and by the blood that we can come to contact God. First John 1 says that God is light and that when we come to fellowship with Him, we are in the light (vv. 5, 7a). Then when we are in the light, we see how sinful we are, so we need the blood of Jesus to cleanse us (v. 7b). When we are in the light of God, we need redemption; that is, we need the Lamb. We can testify this from our experience. Whenever we contact God as light, we have the sense that we need redemption, we need the redeeming blood of the Lord, and we need the Lord as the Lamb. Christ as the Lamb, the redeeming One, is the Mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5). Through Him and in Him we can contact God, and in Him and through Him God can reveal Himself to us. Today God, who is light, is in the Lamb, the redeeming One, and in eternity Christ will still be the Lamb in whom the very God who is light will be experienced by us. Furthermore, the Lamb, who is the redeeming Christ, is the very expression of God, who is light.
God is in Christ, Christ is the expression of God, and God in Christ is on the throne at the center of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:1). These three items — God as light, the redemption of Christ, and the authority in the light — are a picture of the authority, the headship, and the lordship of God in Christ.
According to the measurements of the holy city, the New Jerusalem is a mountain. The city itself lies square, and its length, breadth, and height are all twelve thousand stadia (21:16). The wall is one hundred and forty-four cubits high and is much lower than the city itself. This indicates that although the bottom part of the city is a square, the top part of the city must not be. Rather, the top of the city is a peak. Therefore, the city must be a mountain. The throne of God in Christ, no doubt, is on the top of the mountain. So, the throne is the highest and central point of the city. Everything comes out of this throne. The river flows from the throne in the midst of the street, which starts from the throne. Since this one street meets the need at all the twelve gates, it must start from the top where the throne is and spiral through the entire city to reach all the twelve gates.
This picture is very meaningful. God as light is in Christ as the redeeming One, and the throne of God in Christ is the exercise of His authority. Out of these three — light, redemption, and authority — come all things. If we have God as light in the redeeming Christ to exercise His authority among us today in the church, then we have everything. We have the tree of life, we have the river flowing with the living water, we have the street of life, and we have the golden city, the pearls as the gates, and the precious stones as the foundations. We have everything. All the aspects of the church and all the riches of the church come out of God as light in the redeeming Christ exercising His authority.
What we need today is to acknowledge the redemption of Christ, be under the light of God, and be in subjection to the authority of God. Sinners need to repent because the kingdom has come; this means that the authority of God, the divine heavenly ruling, has come. The kingdom of the heavens simply indicates the heavenly ruling. Why do we commit sins and constantly do things against God? It is simply because we do not subject ourselves under His authority. If we are willing to be subjected under His authority, everything is all right, and there are no problems. The divine authority is exercised in the light of God and in the redemption of Christ. Therefore, we have to receive the redemption of Christ that we may be in the light of God, and then we will be under the authority of God. Today in the church there is the need for God to exercise His authority as light in the redeeming Savior, Christ, and there is also the need for us to be subjected under His authority. When we realize the authority of God by the light of God in the redemption of Christ, we will have the riches of Christ. All the riches of Christ will be the reality in the church. Then we will have the real expression of Christ. The way to realize the real church life is to realize the redemption of Christ in the light of God and to subject ourselves to the authority of God, that is, to have God as light in the redeeming Christ exercising His authority over us. This is the only way for us to have the real church life.
