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In this message we shall consider Christ’s person in the New Jerusalem.
In the New Jerusalem Christ will still be the redeeming Lamb (Rev. 22:1). This indicates that in eternity we shall be enjoying what God has prepared for us through Christ as the Lamb. Christ accomplished redemption on earth. This redemption was designed by God in eternity past. Before the foundation of the world Christ was appointed by God to be the Lamb to redeem the fallen human race (1 Pet. 1:19-20). Hence, redemption was designed in eternity and accomplished in time. The fact that Christ will be the Lamb in the New Jerusalem means that the redemption accomplished by Him in time will be carried into eternity. In eternity past there was only the design of redemption, but in eternity future there will be a memorial of redemption. In the New Jerusalem we shall remember that we were fallen and that we were redeemed by Christ as the Lamb.
In eternity we shall enjoy something like the Lord’s table. When Christ established the table, He said, “I will by no means drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in the kingdom of My Father” (Matt. 26:29). Here we see that we shall have the Lord’s table in the kingdom. In the New Jerusalem we shall have the Lord’s table eternally. We shall remember how Christ gave His body for us so that we might become His mystical Body, and how He shed His blood for our sins so that we might be redeemed back to God and have the right to come to Him and enjoy Him as the tree of life. There will be such a memorial in eternity. For this reason, Christ will be the Lamb in the New Jerusalem. He was appointed the Lamb in eternity past, He died as the Lamb in time, and in eternity He will still be the Lamb for a memorial.
In eternity Christ, the Lamb, will be the Husband. This means that the Redeemer is the Husband and that the New Jerusalem is the wife. The thousand years of the millennium will be the Lamb’s wedding day (Rev. 19:7). On this wedding day the overcoming saints will be the bride to the Bridegroom. Then after the wedding day Christ for eternity will live a married life with His redeemed ones. In that married life He will be the eternal Husband, and all His redeemed ones will be His eternal wife.
In both the Old and New Testaments God likens His chosen people to His spouse (Isa. 54:6; Jer. 3:1; Ezek. 16:8; Hosea 2:19; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:31-32). The spouse is for the Lord’s satisfaction in love. As the bride of Christ, New Jerusalem comes out of Christ, her Husband, and becomes His counterpart, just as Eve came out of Adam, her husband, and became his counterpart (Gen. 2:21-24). As the wife of Christ, the New Jerusalem is prepared by participating in the riches of the life and nature of Christ.
Revelation 21:9 speaks of both the bride and the wife. The bride is mainly for the wedding day, whereas the wife is for the entire life. The New Jerusalem will be the bride in the millennium for one thousand years as one day (2 Pet. 3:8) and the wife in the new heaven and the new earth for eternity. The bride in the kingdom age will include the overcomers (Rev. 3:12; 19:7-9), but the wife in eternity will include all God’s redeemed ones.
In the book of Genesis Adam typifies Christ as the Husband, and Eve typifies the church as the wife. Eve was built with a bone, a rib, taken out of Adam and then was brought back to Adam to be one flesh with him. The ultimate fulfillment of this type will be in the New Jerusalem. Christ will be the eternal Adam, and God’s redeemed people will be the eternal Eve. The two, Christ and His wife, will enjoy their married life eternally.
In eternity Christ with God will also be the temple (Rev. 21:22). According to the Bible, the temple is where God dwells and where His people worship Him. In eternity Christ with God will be such a temple, a temple that is both God’s habitation and our dwelling place.
In Revelation 21:3 we see that the New Jerusalem, as God’s dwelling place, will be the tabernacle of God with men for eternity. The tabernacle made by Moses was a type (Exo. 25:8-9; Lev. 26:11). That type was first fulfilled in Christ as God’s tabernacle among men (John 1:14), and will eventually be fulfilled in the fullest way in the New Jerusalem, which will be the enlargement of Christ as God’s dwelling place. This tabernacle will also be the eternal dwelling place of God’s redeemed people. Hence, the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for both God and us.
In Revelation 21 firstly is the New Jerusalem as the tabernacle, then is Christ with God as the temple. The New Jerusalem is a composition of all of God’s redeemed people, both the redeemed of Israel and the redeemed church. It consists of God’s redeemed people as a tabernacle for God’s dwelling place. In the Old Testament the tabernacle of God was a precursor of the temple of God. The New Jerusalem as the tabernacle of God will be the temple of God. This indicates that in the new heaven and the new earth the temple of God will be enlarged into a city. In one sense the holy city as composed of God’s redeemed people to be the tabernacle of God is for God to dwell in, and in another sense the holy city as constituted of Christ with God to be the temple is for us to dwell in. Therefore, in the new heaven and the new earth the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for both God and man for eternity. Actually, the tabernacle and the temple signify one thing — the mutual dwelling place of God and His redeemed people. The tabernacle signifies God’s redeemed people, and the temple signifies Christ with God. These are not two separate things but one thing in two aspects. This indicates that God’s redeemed people and Christ with God are not two separate entities but one corporate entity in two aspects.
In eternity the New Jerusalem as the tabernacle to God and Christ with God as the temple to us will both be for God to dwell among His redeemed people that He may dispense Himself into them. The New Jerusalem will be a gathering of all of God’s redeemed people so that God may have a dwelling place in which to dispense Himself in Christ into them continually for eternity, and that they may eat and drink of the all-inclusive Triune God for eternity.
In the New Jerusalem Christ will not only be the Lamb, the Husband, and the temple; He will also be the lamp. Revelation 21:23 says, “The city has no need of the sun nor of the moon that they should shine in it, for the glory of God illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” Christ is the Lamb to be the lamp. As the lamp, Christ shines out God for eternity. God is light (1 John 1:5), and this light is in the lamp shining forth the Triune God as light into the redeemed ones. This also is a matter of God’s dispensing.
In eternity the Lamb as the lamp will shine with God as the light to illuminate the New Jerusalem with the glory of God, which glory is the expression of the divine light. God as the light, and Christ as the lamp, the light-bearer, indicate that God and Christ cannot be separated. Actually they are one light. God is the content, and Christ is the light-bearer for the expression of God. As the light is in the lamp to be its content and to be expressed through the lamp, so God the Father is in the Son to be expressed through the Son.
God, being the light, needs a lamp. Without the Lamb being the lamp, God’s shining over us would “kill” us. With the redeeming Christ as the lamp, however, the divine light does not kill us; rather, it illumines us. First Timothy 6:16 says God dwells in unapproachable light. In Christ, though, God becomes approachable. Outside of Christ God’s shining would be a killing, but inside of Christ God’s shining is an illumining. Because the divine light shines through the Redeemer, this light has become lovable and touchable, and we may even walk in it (1 John 1:7). Through the redeeming One, the Lamb, God’s killing light becomes an enjoyable shining for God’s dispensing.
Revelation 21:23 is a clear picture of the centrality and universality of Christ. God is the light, Christ, the Lamb, is the lamp, and the New Jerusalem is the container of this lamp. God shines in and through Christ, and Christ shines in and through the New Jerusalem. By this, Christ will be the centrality and universality of the coming eternity, when Christ will be the center, the circumference, and everything in the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 21:6 indicates that in the New Jerusalem Christ will be the spring of the water of life: “I will give to him who thirsts from the spring of the water of life freely.” Here we have the spring of the water of life, and in Revelation 22:1, the river of water of life. The water of life is the Triune God Himself as life to us. This water of life first has a spring and then a flow, a river. The flow comes from the spring, and the spring comes from the fountain. The fountain is the Father, the spring is the Son, and the flow, the river, is the Spirit. In eternity Christ will be the spring of the water of life, even as the Spirit will be the river and the Father will be the fountain.
As we consider the fountain, the spring, and the river, we see a picture of the Triune God flowing out as the water of life to dispense Himself into His redeemed people. According to the picture portrayed in Revelation 21 and 22, the river of water of life will flow in a spiral manner throughout the New Jerusalem and saturate the entire city. This is God’s marvelous dispensing.
Revelation 22:2 says, “On this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” In the New Jerusalem Christ will be the tree of life. The word for “tree” as in Revelation 2:7 and 1 Peter 2:24, is “wood” in Greek, not the usual word used for tree. In the Bible “the tree of life” refers to Christ as the embodiment of all the riches of God (Col. 2:9) for our food (Gen. 2:9; 3:22, 24; Rev. 22:14, 19). Here it refers to the crucified (implied in the tree as a piece of wood — 1 Pet. 2:24) and resurrected (implied in the zoe life — John 11:25) Christ who is in the church life today, the consummation of which will be the New Jerusalem. In the New Jerusalem the crucified and resurrected Christ will be the tree of life for the nourishment of all God’s redeemed people for eternity.
It was God’s original intention that man should eat of the tree of life (Gen. 2:9, 16). Due to the fall, the tree of life was closed to man (Gen. 3:22-24). Through the redemption of Christ the way to touch the tree of life, which is God Himself in Christ as life to man, has been opened again (Heb. 10:19-20). The eating of the tree of life not only was God’s original intention concerning man, but this will also be the eternal issue of God’s redemption. All His redeemed people will enjoy the tree of life, which is Christ with all the divine riches as their eternal portion, for eternity.
According to Revelation 22:2, the tree of life grows “on this side and on that side of the river.” The one tree of life growing on the two sides of the river signifies that the tree of life is a vine, spreading and proceeding along the flow of the water of life for God’s people to receive and enjoy. It fulfills, for eternity, what God intended from the beginning. Today the enjoyment of Christ as the tree of life is the believers’ common portion (John 6:35, 57). In the millennial kingdom the overcoming believers will enjoy Christ as the tree of life as their reward (Rev. 2:7). Eventually, in the new heaven and the new earth, for eternity, all God’s redeemed will enjoy Christ as the tree of life as their eternal portion.
The tree of life is Christ as our life supply. First Christ is the Lamb of God for our redemption (John 1:29) and then the tree of life for our life supply. He is not only the redeeming Lamb of God but also the tree of life.
“The leaves” of the tree of life are “for the healing of the nations.” In the Bible, leaves are a symbol of man’s deeds (Gen. 3:7). The leaves of the tree of life symbolize the deeds of Christ. The regenerated believers eat the fruit of the tree of life, receiving Christ as their life and life supply inwardly, that they may enjoy the divine life for eternity; whereas the restored nations are healed by the leaves of the tree of life, taking the deeds of Christ as their guide and regulation outwardly, that they may live the human life forever. As the tree of life, Christ sustains the regenerated sons of God with Himself as the life supply, and maintains the restored peoples of nations with His deeds as the healing element, in the new heaven and new earth for eternity.
In the New Jerusalem Christ will still be the Son of Man eternally. John 1:51 indicates this: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” In eternity future Christ will be not only God but also man, not only the Son of God but also the Son of Man. In eternity past He was God, solely and merely divine, having no humanity. But in eternity future He will be God and man, the Son of God and the Son of Man, both divine and human, having divinity as well as humanity. In eternity He will have two natures, two essences, and two substances — divinity and humanity. Eternally Christ will be the Son of Man to be the Lamb, the Husband, the temple, the lamp, the spring of water of life, and the tree of life. In eternity future Christ will have both divinity and humanity forever.
In eternity Christ will not only be the Lamb, the Husband, the temple, the lamp, the spring of the water of life, the tree of life, and the Son of Man — He will also be the Shepherd. In eternity we shall not have problems, but we shall still need Christ’s shepherding. A good shepherd not only solves the problems of the sheep but also feeds them. In fact, the most important task of a shepherd is the feeding of the sheep. Likewise, in the New Jerusalem our Shepherd, Christ, will feed us.
Concerning Christ’s eternal shepherding, Revelation 7:17 says, “The Lamb in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them and shall guide them to springs of waters of life.” As our Shepherd Christ will lead us to the springs of the waters of life. This indicates that He will shepherd us into Himself. He will lead us into Himself as the spring of the water of life so that we may enjoy the eternal dispensing of the Triune God, that we may express Him to the fullest extent for eternity.
