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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:2-3, 10-14, 16-19, 21-23; 22:1-2
We have seen that the New Jerusalem is a full picture of all the building work of God throughout the generations. It condenses all the thoughts, main points, and main lines of all the Scriptures. If we study the Scriptures carefully with the help of the Holy Spirit, we will be very clear that God’s intention is to give Himself to us as life in Christ and through the Holy Spirit. In this way, God is able to mingle Himself with us and cause us to be built together as a corporate Body, a corporate vessel, a corporate container, to contain God in Christ through the Spirit and to express God through Christ. This is the central thought of God.
God is triune; God the Father is embodied in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit. First, God flows out to be life to us in Christ. When Christ came, He told us that He is the bread of life which comes down out of heaven, the food of eternal life from heaven (John 6:47-51). Second, God flows out to be life to us by the Holy Spirit, who is the living water for us to drink (7:37-39). God first flowed out to us through the Lord Jesus as our food supply, and then He flowed Himself into us as the Holy Spirit to be the living water for us to drink. God the Father in the Son is food to us, and God the Father as the Spirit is drink, the living water, to us. Therefore, we can feed on the Lord Jesus and drink of the Holy Spirit. When we feed on the Lord Jesus and drink of the Holy Spirit, we enjoy the Triune God, we experience the Triune God, and we are mingled with the Triune God as one. In this very experience of this enjoyment of the Triune God, we are built up together as one corporate Body. On the one hand, this corporate Body is a bride for Christ, a counterpart to match Christ. On the other hand, this corporate Body is a habitation, a dwelling place, for God to be His satisfaction and rest. Eventually, when we come to the end of the Scriptures, we have the New Jerusalem as a picture, showing how God is everything to us, how He is life to us in Christ, how He is the living water to us in Christ through the Holy Spirit, how He by being life and everything to us is mingled with us, and how He builds us together as one corporate Body to contain Him in order to express Him. In the holy city, the New Jerusalem, God is everything in Christ through the Spirit.
The writer of Revelation, the apostle John, is the same as the writer of the Gospel of John. If you pay full attention to this matter, you will realize that all the things that the apostle John spoke of concerning the Lord Jesus in his Gospel are condensed and embodied in the picture of the New Jerusalem. In his Gospel, John tells us that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb of God (1:29). He also tells us that the Lord Jesus is the Bridegroom who has the bride (3:29-30) and that He is the light (1:4; 8:12), the way, the reality, and the life (14:6). Then he tells us that the Lord Jesus is the living bread from heaven, full of the life supply, and the living water (6:51; 7:37). All these items are condensed and embodied in the picture of the New Jerusalem.
Furthermore, the picture depicted in the last two chapters of the entire Scriptures concerning the New Jerusalem corresponds to the picture portrayed in the first two chapters of the Scriptures. In the first two chapters of the Bible we see the tree of life, and we also see a river flowing by the tree of life. Then we see gold, bdellium (pearl), and precious stones in the flow of the river by the tree of life. Here there is the tree of life, the flow of the river, and three items of precious materials for the building. Now in the last two chapters of the Bible, again we see the tree of life, the river of water of life, and the gold, pearls, and precious stones as materials for the building.
There is a difference between the materials at the beginning of the Bible and the materials at the end of the Bible. In Genesis 2 the three precious items were merely materials; they were not yet built. The materials were present, but there was not yet a building. However, when we come to the ultimate consummation, we see a building built with these three kinds of materials. The holy city, the New Jerusalem as the divine building, is built with gold, pearls, and precious stones. Whereas at the beginning of the Scriptures we have a garden, at the end of the Scriptures we have a city. A garden is a scene of nature, of God’s creation; a city is something built up with the materials created by God. In the first two chapters of the Scriptures we see a beautiful scenery of God’s creation centered on a garden. But at the end of the Scriptures we see a beautiful building as the ultimate conclusion of the building work of God throughout all the generations.
If you would ask me what God has been doing from Genesis 3 to Revelation 20, I will tell you that God has been doing only one thing, that is, the work of building. God is carrying out this work by building Himself with His chosen and redeemed people. God is the Creator, and all creation is the creature with humans as the center. Although He is the Creator, His intention is to build Himself into man as His creature to mingle Himself with him. He desires to be the contents of His creature and to make His creature a vessel to contain Him, the Creator. This is the very central thought of God, and this is the real meaning of the church. What is the church? The church is a composition of created human beings mingled with the Creator. The Creator, the Triune God, is the contents of this people, and this people is built up together as a corporate Body to contain God and express God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the church is a group of people who are regenerated by God, filled by God, occupied by God, transformed by God, and who contain God and express God all the time. This is the very meaning of the church. God in Christ through the Spirit is the contents of this corporate Body, and this corporate Body is the vessel to contain God and express God. The reason we must spend so much time on this picture of the New Jerusalem is that this is the only picture in all the Scriptures that fully shows us the real situation, the real condition, and the real nature of the church.
In the previous chapters we have covered eight points concerning the New Jerusalem as a picture of the church. Now we come to the ninth point, the gates. A gate is an entrance, an opening, through which one can have a share with something inside a building. If we are going to have a share in this divine building, we have to enter through the gates. What are the gates? Revelation 21:21 says, “The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was, respectively, of one pearl.” The city itself is pure gold (v. 18), but the gates are pearls, each gate being of one pearl. In the types of the Scriptures, gold is something that is different, distinct, from all other things. It represents the holy nature of God, which is a nature of separation, a separating nature. What then is the meaning of the pearl? Pearls are produced by oysters. 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 signifies how Christ as the living One came into the death water and was wounded by us on the cross. After we wounded Him, we stayed at His wound to receive what He accomplished on the cross and to receive the divine secretion of the divine life, the resurrection life. The resurrected Lord secretes His divine life-juice around us all the time until we, the worthless grains of sand, become the precious pearls. We were created as grains of sand, but we were regenerated as pearls. It is by regeneration that we obtain an entrance into the divine things. In John 3:5 the Lord told us, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Once we are regenerated, we have the entrance into the things in the divine realm. This means we have the gates of pearl.
The holy city, New Jerusalem, has twelve gates (Rev. 21:12, 21), with three gates on each of its four sides (v. 13). Three is the number representing the Triune God. That there are three gates on each side signifies that the three of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — work together to bring people into the holy city. This is indicated in the three parables in Luke 15. In the first parable we have God the Son finding the sinners as the shepherd looking for the lost sheep (vv. 4-7). In the second parable we have God the Spirit finding the sinners as the woman seeking her lost coin (vv. 8-10). And in the third parable we have God the Father receiving the repenting and returned sons as the father receiving his prodigal son (vv. 11-32). Thus, the three of the Triune God — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit — work together to bring sinners back and to bring sinners in, in order to have a share of the divine things.
In Revelation 21, four represents the four directions of the earth — the east, the north, the south, and the west. The gates on the four sides facing the four directions of the earth signifies that the gospel is preached to all the directions of the inhabited earth and that the entrance into the holy city is available to all the peoples on earth. Furthermore, the number four signifies the creatures, because in Revelation 4:6 we are told that there are four living creatures around the throne of God. That there are three gates on each of the four sides, three times four being twelve, implies that the Triune God, the Creator, is mingled with man, the creature. The New Jerusalem is the mingling of God and man.
From which direction did you come in? I came in from the east, while many of you came in from the west. The brothers from South America and Africa can say that they came in from the south, and many Russians and Eskimos will say that they came in from the north. Praise the Lord that regardless of which direction you and I came in, we all came in through the gates; that is, we all came in through the same Triune God, through God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. On every side, the three gates are the same. The directions are different, but the gates are the same. By the mercy of the Lord I have traveled to many places — to Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Canada. When I was young, I thought that, as a Chinese believer, I would be different from the Japanese believers, the German believers, the American believers, and many others. Later on, however, I discovered that I was wrong. When I went to Japan, I met a group of Japanese believers who are exactly the same as I am. When I went to Southeast Asia, I met some Filipino believers, and I found that they also are exactly the same as I am. Everywhere I went, whether Denmark, England, Italy, or the United States, I found that everyone who is a believer in Christ is the same as I am. Why is this? It is because we all came in through God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. Because we all came in through the same Triune God, we all are the same. When I went to Japan, I could not speak Japanese, and they could not speak Chinese, yet we could speak by Christ with one another. I could say Amen to them, and they could say Hallelujah to me. When we knelt down to pray, we could pray together wonderfully. I could not understand what they prayed in Japanese, but I could say Amen. They could not understand what I prayed in Chinese, but they could say Amen. This shows that we all came through the same gates, the same Triune God.
Not only so, after you enter through the gates, no matter from which direction you enter, once you walk on the street, you will be one with all the others. There is only one street. When we come in, we are all one. Unlike Los Angeles, which has many streets, the New Jerusalem has only one street, which spirals from the top, from the throne of God, to the bottom of the mountain to reach the twelve gates. Once we enter the gates, we are on the street, and we are with all the others. We are one in Christ, and we are one in His Body. The street is the way with the flowing of the living water. What is the flowing of the living water? It is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. There is only one way, one street, one flow, one stream, one Spirit, one fellowship, and one food with twelve varieties. Everything is one. We are one. This is wonderful! Regardless of how you label yourself, sooner or later, you will have to give up your label. You may label yourself as a Presbyterian, a Baptist, a Methodist, a Pentecostal, an Episcopalian, or another name, but there are no such names in the New Jerusalem. Therefore, you must drop the names. You have to realize that you are a member of the New Jerusalem and that you are one with all the members. We are one in Christ and one in His one Body. No matter how you denominate yourself as a denomination, if you do not give that up today, one day the Lord will tell you, “Child, give that up.” We are one in Christ, not in doctrine. We are one in the way, in the life, in the flow of the stream in the Spirit, and in the fellowship of the Spirit.
In these days I have had a great deal of fellowship with many saints. One thing I have stressed is that we should be general and not try to be special. Do not say, “I am a Presbyterian,” “I am a Baptist,” or, “I am a Spirit-filled Christian.” Forget about these labels. Simply remember that you were a sinner, and now you have been saved. You are a saved one; that is all. Do not consider yourself higher than others. Do not consider that you are spiritual and others are not, nor consider that you have seen the heavenly vision and others have not. Give up all these thoughts. Regardless of what you think of yourself, as long as you are within the gates, you are one with me, and I am one with you. We are all one in the way, in the life, in the Spirit, in the flow, in the communion, in the fellowship of the Spirit. Today in Christianity there are too many streams. There is the Presbyterian stream, the Methodist stream, the Lutheran stream, and so forth. However, in the New Jerusalem, there is only one stream. We all drink of the one water, we all feed on the one food, and we all walk on the one street. Furthermore, we have only one direction, that is, the direction toward the throne of God. We have one peak and one goal. We are marching on toward the top, the peak, toward the throne of God in Christ.
Now we come to the tenth aspect of the New Jerusalem, the wall of the city. We have seen that the city itself is pure gold (Rev. 21:18b), the first item of the materials of the city. We have also seen that the gates are pearls (v. 21a), the second item of the materials. Now we must see that the wall is built up with precious stones (vv. 18a, 19-20), the third item of the materials. The three kinds of materials are related to the three persons of the Triune God. The pure gold is related to God the Father as the divine nature; the pearls are related to God the Son, Christ, as the crucified One, the wounded One, in whom we are regenerated; and the precious stones are related to the work of the Holy Spirit. Here we have the nature of God the Father as the pure gold, and we have the crucifixion, the redemption, and the regeneration of Christ to make us pearls. Now we need to have the working of the Holy Spirit upon us to make us precious stones.
A precious stone is not an original item of creation. It is something created by God that is burned to become like charcoal. Then, after being burned, it has to be burned more intensely with great pressure until it becomes a precious stone. According to an article I once read, a one-square-inch piece of carbon, when pressed under a weight of 800,000 pounds and burned in a heat of five thousand degrees, will become a small, fine diamond. This is an illustration of the working of the Holy Spirit. Originally, we are not pieces of stone but pieces of clay. We need to be burned and pressed. We may think that because we are regenerated and are seeking the Lord, the Lord should be very happy with us and should be good toward us by always giving us good and happy days. However, we know that often it is just the opposite. The more we love the Lord and seek the Lord, the more we are troubled. After hearing this word, perhaps you will be frightened and try to run away, but the Lord’s hand is upon you. You cannot run away, because you are in the divine hand. He is the Potter, and you are the clay (Rom. 9:20-21). Therefore, how can you run away? If you are able to run away, then try to do so. If you can give up being a Christian, try to do so, and the sooner the better. However, our being Christians is up to Him and not up to us; it is something from heaven and not something of this earth. You cannot give up the Lord. I tried a number of times to give up being a Christian, but I simply could not make it. The more I tried to give up, the more I had to love the Lord.
I must tell you the truth: the more you seek to love the Lord, the more there will be pressure and burning. On a given day, pressure may come from almost every side. Your dear wife is a pressure, your dear children are a pressure, and your dear brothers and sisters are a pressure. Everything is a pressure, and everyone burns you. Everywhere you go, there is a furnace. You are just like the dough in a cake mold, put into the oven by the Cook. However, do not be afraid. The Cook knows how hot the oven should be. Whether it should be low, medium low, medium, medium high, or high, the divine Cook knows how to adjust the fire. He will “cook” you in the right way. He will press you, and He will burn you until you become a properly baked “cake,” suitable to His taste. He will press you and burn you until you become a diamond, a piece of precious stone. This is the work of the Holy Spirit.
In these days Christians pay too much attention to the gifts. If a young man who has graduated from a seminary, who is eloquent in speaking, smart in thinking, and can recite some Bible verses, stands up to deliver a sermon in a wonderful way, people will admire and praise him. Such a young man may have a gift, but nothing of him may have passed through pressure and burning. I can never forget the lesson, the help, given to me by the Lord through Brother Watchman Nee when I was young and had just come out to serve the Lord. One day he sat in the living room with me alone. He said, “Brother, you have to realize that serving the Lord is not merely by the gifts. It is by something else that is more necessary.” I asked him, “What is that something?” He said, “Brother, it is hard for me to tell you. You have to pass through the furnace to be burned and pressed.” Then he went on to use the potter as an illustration. A potter makes a number of vessels, or containers, out of clay. Then he paints some beautiful patterns on the various pieces. The containers look beautiful, but they cannot be touched. A little touch will ruin them, so the potter has to put all these vessels of clay with the beautiful paintings into the furnace to be burned. After the burning, they become solid. Whatever is painted on them can no longer be removed; it has been burned and wrought into them. This illustration shows us that the Lord needs us to be “burned” vessels with something of Him wrought into us by the work of the Holy Spirit. This is different from the gifts, which often hurt, damage, destroy, and spoil us.
As we have seen, the wall of the holy city is built with precious materials pressed and burned by the divine hand. We have to realize that we may have the gold as the city itself and the pearls as the entrance to the city, but if we do not have the precious stones, we do not have the wall. What is the function of the wall? The wall is for separation, and it is also for protection and safety. In many churches there may be the gold, and there may be the pearls as the entrance, but they do not have the wall. Likewise, many believers have the gold within them, and they have the entrance, but they do not have the wall. They have never been built up. They are “flat” and “horizontal”; they have no dimensions. It is as if every part of them is an entrance. There is no separation, no protection, and no safety. There is nothing of the Holy Spirit wrought into them for them to be built up as a wall. We must have something of the Holy Spirit burned, wrought, into us to make us precious stones so that we may be built up as a separation, as a protection, as a safeguard, as a separating line, to separate what is holy from what is worldly.
Furthermore, Revelation 21:18a says, “The building work of its wall was jasper.” Jasper is the appearance of the revealed God, the expressed God (4:3). When God reveals Himself, He appears as jasper, shining, transparent, with the divine expression. The wall of the holy city has the appearance of God, expressing the image of God. How can this be? It is simply because the believers, after the pressing and the burning, have been conformed to the image of God. Today we may have certain brothers who are nice and good naturally. When you meet them, you do not sense the appearance of God, the expression of God, the image of God. However, perhaps after five years they may have gone through some troubles, trials, burning, and pressing. When you meet them again, they may still be good and nice, but they are different. You will sense with them that there is the appearance of God, the expression of God, the image of God. You will see the divine jasper in them because they have been burned and pressed in the hand of the Holy Spirit. They have the appearance of God, and this very appearance of God is the boundary line, the separating line, of the church, separating what is of the church from what is not of the church and separating what is holy from what is worldly. The more you are like God, the more you are separated from the world. The more you express God, the more you have the separating line.
Revelation 21:14 says, “The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” The wall is built upon the foundations of the apostles of the Lamb. This means that the wall is built upon the Christ who is brought to us by the apostles. Who are the apostles of the Lamb? They are the bearers of Christ. They are the transformed transmitting agents of Christ. That the wall is built upon the apostles of the Lamb simply means that the wall is built upon the Christ who is brought to us through the apostles as the transmitting agents. The children of Israel are the entrances, but the apostles of the Lamb are the foundations because they have Christ, and they brought Christ to us. This is a picture of the church. The church is built upon nothing other than the Christ brought and taught to us by the apostles.
Now we come to the last item of this holy city. The entire city is an expression of God in light, in life, and in glory. Revelation 21:11 says, “Having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, as clear as crystal.” Thus, the whole city is an expression of God. It is a vessel, a container, a corporate Body, a built-up city to express God. This again is a picture of the church.
In conclusion, we must realize what the New Jerusalem is. The New Jerusalem is a living composition of all the saved persons throughout all the generations from the Old Testament time to the end of the New Testament time. They have been regenerated. They have been transformed in nature and in form. They have been changed absolutely into the same condition, the same situation, and the same form as God. Moreover, they have been built up together as a corporate vessel, a corporate container, to contain God and to express God. Therefore, God in Christ through the Spirit is the contents of this city, and God is the glory expressed through this city. This is the picture of the church. If we are going to understand the church and realize the real church life, we have to see this picture and understand all the aspects of this picture. May the Lord bless us in this matter.
