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In the foregoing messages we have seen that the New Jerusalem is the Jerusalem above and the city of the living God. In this message we shall consider the New Jerusalem as a sign.
If we would understand the significance of the New Jerusalem as a sign, we need to see the crucial importance of the first verse of Revelation. This verse is the key to open up the entire book. Without this key, the book of Revelation will be closed to us.
Revelation 1:1 says, “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to His slaves what must swiftly take place; and He made it known by signs, sending it by His angel to His slave, John.” Here we see that the divine revelation is given to Jesus Christ and that He makes it known by signs. All the pictures in Revelation are signs. The revelation in the book of Revelation is composed mainly of signs, that is, symbols with spiritual significance, such as the seven lampstands signifying the churches and the seven stars signifying the messengers of the churches (1:20). Even the New Jerusalem is a sign, signifying the ultimate consummation of God’s economy. This book, then, is a book of signs, symbols through which the revelation is made known to us. John’s Gospel is a book of signs signifying how Christ came to be our life to produce the church, His bride. John’s Revelation is also a book of signs showing how Christ is now caring for the church and how He is coming to judge and possess the earth and to bring the church, His bride, into God’s full economy.
In the book of Revelation, which is the conclusion of the New Testament and even of the entire Bible, there are two great signs. In chapter one there is the sign of the golden lampstands, and in chapters twenty-one and twenty-two there is the greatest sign, the sign of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the aggregate of all the lampstands. At the beginning of Revelation, there are seven lampstands, the local lampstands in this age. At the end of Revelation, there is an aggregate, a composite lampstand, the universal lampstand in eternity. Therefore, Revelation begins with the lampstands and ends with the lampstand. The lampstands are signs of the churches, whereas the New Jerusalem is a sign of God’s eternal dwelling place and of Christ’s wife, His eternal counterpart.
The signs in the book of Revelation should not be interpreted literally. We should not think that the church is an actual lampstand with seven shining lamps. Likewise, we should not think that Christ is literally a lamb (Rev. 5:6). In the same principle, we should not consider the New Jerusalem a material city. The New Jerusalem is Christ’s wife, and He, of course, cannot marry a physical city. Since we do not take the other signs in Revelation literally, we should not interpret the New Jerusalem as a literal, physical city for us to dwell in. Such an interpretation is altogether natural. If we do not interpret the seven lampstands as meaning that the seven churches are literally golden lampstands, or the lamb as meaning that Christ is an actual lamb, we should not interpret the New Jerusalem as a material city. The lampstands and the lamb are signs, and the New Jerusalem also is a sign.
If the New Jerusalem were an actual city made of gold, pearls, and precious stones, this would mean that a material city was the conclusion of the entire divine revelation. This is not logical. God has been working throughout the ages, first creating the universe and man and then coming to earth to redeem man. The Lord Jesus, the God-man, lived on earth, He was crucified and resurrected, He ascended, and He poured Himself out as the Spirit upon His disciples. The disciples then went out to preach the gospel. As a result of the preaching of the gospel, throughout the centuries people have been saved and added to the church in order to be built up as the Body of Christ to express Him. To be sure, the final outcome of all this will not be a material city.
Just as the lampstands are not actual lampstands but signs of the churches, so the New Jerusalem is not an actual city but a sign of the ultimate consummation of God’s economy. The New Jerusalem is a great sign of the totality of all God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people.
The church today is the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15). This house is not an actual house but the totality of God’s people. This house is a sign signifying that the church’s function today is to be a house in which the Triune God can dwell. In eternity this house will be enlarged to a city — the New Jerusalem. Just as the church as God’s house is not an actual physical house, so the New Jerusalem is not an actual physical city. The city of New Jerusalem is a sign signifying the church’s function in eternity to be God’s dwelling place.
The New Jerusalem is the last and greatest sign in the Bible, and we all need the proper interpretation and understanding of this sign. As a sign the New Jerusalem indicates that God, through creation, incarnation, redemption, resurrection, ascension, and all His transforming and building work, will gain a living composition of His chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people to be His dwelling place and His counterpart to fully satisfy and express Him for eternity.
The New Jerusalem is a sign of the aggregate of the result of God’s work of the new creation in all the dispensations within the old creation. There are four dispensations: the dispensation of the patriarchs, the dispensation of the law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of righteousness.
From the time God created all things and mankind according to His eternal plan, His economy, He has used four distinct dispensations to do His work of the new creation on the man whom He created in order to accomplish the purpose of His eternal economy. The dispensation of the patriarchs was from the creation of Adam to the giving of the law by Moses (Rom. 5:14). This was the dispensation before law. Hence, it may be called the pre-law dispensation. In this dispensation God first put the created man under His direct government that man might receive Him as life. Man, however, became fallen. Thus, God caused fallen man, the function of whose conscience had been activated by the knowledge of good and evil, to receive His redemption in Christ. God also caused man to be governed by his own conscience and to be acceptable to Him through sacrifices according to the way of redemption that He ordained. Moreover, He caused man to enjoy His riches by calling on His name so that he might walk with God and work with God. Eventually, because man became repeatedly fallen, God made fallen man subject to the authority which He gave to man. This caused man to be ruled by man that he might live and be preserved and that God might have the opportunity to visit man. Finally, in the dispensation of the patriarchs, God called the new race out of the Adamic race, which had become fallen to the uttermost, and gave to this new race the promise of grace, leading them to hope in the Christ who would come to be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. In this way, God obtained the chosen patriarchs to be the first part of the new race in His new creation, signified by the crown of twelve stars worn on the head of the universal woman in Revelation 12, for the building of the New Jerusalem as God’s expression in eternity future.
God’s original intention was to do the work of the new creation on the fallen man of the old creation according to His promised grace. However, because fallen man did not realize his impotence and his need of God’s grace, God temporarily changed His way of doing His work of the new creation on the fallen man of the old creation. God gave fallen man the law, which was established according to what God is. By doing this, He initiated another dispensation, the dispensation of law, which extended from Moses to the coming of Christ.
God’s intention in setting up the dispensation of the law according to His economy was to accomplish certain things through the law. First, through the law God kept His chosen people in custody that they might satisfy the requirements of the law through the offerings, which typified Christ, and thereby be guarded, as sheep are guarded in a sheepfold. Second, through the law God provided His chosen people a child-conductor that they might be led to Christ, that through the offerings they might be forgiven, and that through the temple they might enjoy God’s riches. Third, through the law God caused His chosen people to have the knowledge of sin and of themselves, and thereby realize and sense their need of God’s grace. As a result, God kept His chosen people in the custody of the law and brought Christ to the chosen people who waited for Him in the dispensation of law and to those who would believe into Him in the coming dispensation. In this way God obtained a group of people who are signified by the moon under the feet of the universal woman in Revelation 12, as the second part of the new race of the new creation, to constitute the New Jerusalem as God’s eternal expression in the new heaven and new earth.
When, at the fullness of time (Gal. 4:4), God determined that His purpose in decreeing the law had been attained and that the law had been used to its full extent, He became flesh, thus terminating the dispensation of law and inaugurating the dispensation of grace. At that time God again changed the way of His work of the new creation on the man of the old creation by replacing the demand of the law with the supply of grace. The dispensation of grace is from Christ’s first coming to His second coming, which will mark the beginning of the millennial kingdom. The dispensation of grace is also the dispensation of the mystery of the church.
When God inaugurated the dispensation of grace, the Triune God became flesh in the Son, who was born of a woman to become Christ, possessing both the divine nature and the human nature and bringing grace and reality (John 1:1, 14, 17). He passed through human life in humanity, experiencing every hardship and suffering. He also lived out the Triune God in humanity. He passed through the death of the cross in humanity, accomplishing an all-inclusive death and releasing the divine life for multiplication and increase to constitute the Body of Christ, which is the church. Moreover, the Triune God was raised from among the dead with a resurrected body in humanity, that the only begotten Son might be born the firstborn Son in His humanity in resurrection. At the same time, those who believed in Christ were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3) to become His many sons. This Christ, who was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), breathed Himself into those who believed in Him (John 20:22) to be the reality of their spiritual life for their spiritual existence and living. Then the resurrected and glorified One was exalted in ascension. He was made both Lord and Christ to be a Leader and Savior (Acts 2:33-36; 5:31), that He might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to God’s chosen people. Moreover, in ascension He poured Himself out as the consummated Spirit of the Triune God (Acts 2:4; 10:44-45), baptizing those who believed and became His members in this consummated Spirit into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13), that they might be His fullness to express Him. These matters include mainly the person and work of Christ and constitute the gospel of God to be preached to sinners, calling those who were chosen of God to believe, to be saved, and to be regenerated. God then constitutes them to be the churches in different localities that the Body of Christ may be fully built up. In this way God obtains all those who believe in Christ in the new testament as the third part and the majority of the new race in God’s new creation, signified by the sun with which the universal woman in Revelation 12 is clothed, for the accomplishment of the constitution of the New Jerusalem to be God’s ultimate and full expression in eternity.
After the conclusion of the dispensation of grace, God will change for the last time the way of His work of the new creation on the man of the old creation. He will set up His kingdom on earth (Rev. 11:15) to carry out His administration, and by His absolute righteousness He will bring to a conclusion the different kinds of people among the human race, that He may accomplish His work of the new creation in the old creation. This dispensation is called the dispensation of the kingdom. In this dispensation righteousness will reign as a king. Hence, this dispensation is also called the dispensation of righteousness. It will cover a period of one thousand years (Rev. 20:4-6), beginning with the second coming of Christ and ending with the putting away of the old heaven and old earth, the old universe.
In this dispensation God, according to His righteousness, will use the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens to reward the just men perfected in the old testament and the overcoming believers in Christ in the new testament that they may participate in Christ’s kingship and joy. Moreover, according to His righteousness, God will perfect the immature believers in the new testament and also will deal with all the Israelites who repent and believe in Christ at His coming back.
The dispensation of the kingdom, which is the dispensation of righteousness, will be only an age of restoration (Acts 3:21), and as such it will still be a dispensation in the old heaven and old earth of the old creation. This dispensation will be used by God to chasten, to discipline, and to perfect the believers. This means that all the work of the new creation will be completed not in the new heaven and the new earth but in the fourth dispensation in the old creation. God, therefore, will use the last dispensation in the old creation to complete His work of the new creation on the man of the old creation. During this dispensation, God will cause the immature believers in the dispensation of grace to mature in life, and He will cause the repentant Israelites, after the termination of the dispensation of grace, to become constituents of the new race in His new creation. Thus, God will complete the work of the new creation on the man of the old creation in the old creation, a work that will produce and perfect a new race. The people of the new race will be the constituents of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth in eternity. They are the object that God intends to obtain in His work both of the old creation and of the new creation throughout the generations for the fulfillment of His economy. Therefore, as the aggregate of the result of God’s work of the new creation in all the dispensations within the old creation, the processed Triune God and the transformed tripartite man will be mingled as one to be a mutual dwelling place for His ultimate expression in eternity.
Hence, the New Jerusalem is the composition of all the Old Testament and New Testament saints. All these saints have been regenerated by God and have become sons of God who have God’s life and nature. Through God’s life and nature, they have been transformed into the image and likeness of God that they may be matured and qualified to inherit all that the processed Triune God is and that they may be built together as God’s eternal building to be the mutual dwelling for God and for themselves. Thus, the New Jerusalem will be God’s rest, satisfaction, and expression in eternity.
The New Jerusalem, as a composition of all the regenerated saints of both the Old Testament and the New Testament dispensations built together with God as God’s eternal building, will also be the mingling of all the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite men with the processed, consummated Triune God. In the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Triune God has been processed and consummated to be one with men, His chosen people. And through the generations in God’s dispensations, the tripartite men have been redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified to be one with the Triune God, who has chosen them in eternity past to be His counterpart, dwelling place, and expression in eternity future. What a wonderful and marvelous mingling of divinity with humanity this will be!
In addition to all these, the New Jerusalem will be the ultimate manifestation of the processed and consummated Triune God for His expression in the regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity in eternity.
