Search
The ultimate consummation, the New Jerusalem, is the consummation of the entire divine revelation, the Bible, and of all the wonderful items contained in the Bible as the complete revelation of God. How much you can get into the items of the ultimate consummation depends upon your knowledge of the truth, your ability, and your degree of endeavoring in the truth.
We have seen that one of the aspects of the Trinity contained in this ultimate consummation is that the Triune God Himself comprises the basic elements for the building up and the constitution of the New Jerusalem as the gold, pearls, and precious stones.
We can easily understand that gold refers to the Father’s nature. We must see that the gold in the New Jerusalem is a consummation of all the items of gold used as figures in both the Old and New Testaments beginning from Genesis 2. At the flow of the river in Genesis 2, there is gold (vv. 10-12). In the book of Exodus gold was used extensively in the building of the tabernacle. Also, in the book of Zechariah there is a golden lampstand (4:2). There are two golden spouts and golden oil (v. 12). Then in the New Testament Paul tells us that he laid the unique foundation and that this foundation needs to be built upon with gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor. 3:10-12). Peter also says that the proving of our faith is much more precious than of gold (1 Pet. 1:7). In addition, the Lord charged the church in Laodicea to buy from Him gold refined by fire that they might be rich (Rev. 3:18). These are just some of the verses we need to study in order to see the significance of the consummation of gold in the New Jerusalem.
Many of you young brothers have consecrated yourselves to the Lord with your whole life, not only your whole time. You must consider what you must do. To serve the Lord with your full time and with your whole life does not mean that you need to do much work. You must realize that to serve the Lord is not to do a work, nor is it to carry out a big Christian career. To serve the Lord is to minister the Lord, the Triune God, as everything from within the revelation of the holy Word with all the basic truths. This is the main thing. This is your capital. If you know more basic truths from the Bible, you have more capital. If you do not have any truth, you are a poor one with an empty hand to serve the Lord. Whenever I come to this point, my heart is broken, and my spirit is burning for you. According to my observation, you have not done the best job in acquiring these basic truths. Even if you are still under the age of sixty, you can still do a lot of studying. Even at the age of eighty, I must testify that I study the Bible every day. How could we serve the Lord without the capital of the adequate knowledge and experience of the divine truths? I am very much burdened for you all in this matter.
We have just finished the Life-study of the entire New Testament, and most of these messages have been published. There are many pages filled with many points of the truth for us to study. When we are ministering the word in the meeting, it is not sufficient merely to go to the pages of the Life-study to pick up a subject and to pick up some points without much study. This does not work. Even to give one message in one meeting you need the capital.
You must study the gold in the Bible, from Genesis 2 through Revelation 21, to fully understand the gold in its ultimate consummation. Go to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible and take down all the verses that use the word gold or golden. Then spend a month to study these verses, to study the gold. See what is there in the divine revelation. This is the way to get the capital. After such a study, you would begin to see something. You would see the gold as the base of the mountain on which the New Jerusalem is built. It is its base, its site, and its ground. The city proper is like a mountain with a height of twelve thousand stadia, and the city is pure gold, like clear glass (Rev. 21:16-18). After such a study, then you would know the ultimate consummation of the significance of gold used as a divine figure in the Bible.
As we have seen, gold in the New Jerusalem signifies the Father’s nature. Gold is a sign of the nature of God the Father, not a sign of work or doing. Gold is a matter of essence and nature. It is a substance that no one can improve and that no one can produce. Please do not think that I have exhausted everything of the spiritual, divine, heavenly, and holy significances of all the items in the Bible. I cannot do that, and I am not that all-inclusive. What I am doing is opening up the mines for you to go in and dig. Even in these messages I have spoken quite a number of points that were not covered in the Life-study messages. I have also seen more in the last eight years concerning the New Jerusalem since I wrote the footnotes to the Recovery Version of Revelation in 1976. This again shows us that we must get into the depths of all the truths in the Bible.
Pearl signifies Christ’s person in His redemptive death and life-secreting resurrection (v. 21). Pearl is produced by an oyster. When the oyster gets wounded by a particle of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the sand, making it a pearl. Such a produce denotes Christ the person in His redemptive death and life-secreting resurrection.
Then we come to the jasper stone of the wall and the twelve precious stones of the foundation. Some of us must study the twelve different kinds of precious stones in the New Jerusalem (vv. 14, 19-20). You need to study the best lexicons and the experts’ study of these kinds of minerals. I believe there is much spiritual significance in all these different stones. (The Lord may lead us to have a special training on the book of Revelation after we have finished the entire New Testament. We need at least thirty more messages on this book). God’s Word does not have any word of waste. Even a small preposition bears a lot of meaning. These twelve stones as the wall and the foundation of this ultimate consummation must bear a great significance. I did have a burden to study these twelve stones, but I did not have the time. Many of you young brothers should pick up the burden to spend a year’s time, even more, just to study the twelve precious stones of the New Jerusalem. This is worthwhile.
This is why I told some of you already that I do not like you to put aside the Life-studies and the footnotes in the Recovery Version. Our fellowship in the last chapter concerning the inclusion of Hymns, #1348 in our hymnal gives me the ground to say this. The outline in the Recovery Version for chapter 21 of Revelation clearly titles verses 3 through 4 “The Peoples on the New Earth” and verses 5 through 7 “The Sons of God in Eternity.” I made this so clear in the Recovery Version, yet still this hymn slipped into our hymnal. This means that if the editors of this hymnal and even the ones who arranged the numbers for the hymnal had picked up the proper knowledge from the footnotes of Revelation, they should have discerned that this was a wrong hymn. I never really looked into the hymnal until one day a few months ago, and then I saw this hymn. This shows that many of you have passed through the trainings, but you have missed many of the basic truths. The dear ones who edited and arranged this hymnal have been with us many years, but the inclusion of this hymn indicates that they did not get into the depths of the book of Revelation. Still, some of you like to put the Life-studies and the Recovery Version aside and go to the other books. I am not belittling others’ books, but I would ask you what better things you could get there. The better and more basic things are in the Recovery Version and the Life-study messages, but because this is your “property,” you do not treasure it. Most of what the Lord has shown us in these past years has been printed. I feel sorry that so much of Brother Nee’s ministry has not yet been put into print. This is why I had the burden to put all the things that the Lord has shown us into print. All these truths are in print, and they are worthwhile of your study for five to ten years.
When standing on the shoulders of these truths, you can go further to study the twelve precious stones. I hope that maybe six or eight young brothers would spend one year to study these twelve stones. I believe you can do a complete job within one year, since this is a big job. In addition to studying by using the lexicons and other Bible-study helps, it would help to get the stones themselves. Precious stones signify the transforming work of the Spirit with all the divine elements. Transforming work needs elements. A piece of wood can be petrified by being replaced with all the mineral elements. The Spirit, which is the flowing water, flows with the divine elements to transform our entire being. Since this book of Revelation is made known to us by signs, all the precious stones are signs signifying the Spirit’s transforming work with all the divine elements carried and constituted into our being to transform us from clay pieces into precious stones. It is worthwhile to study these signs.
This is the Triune God as the constitution of this ultimate consummation — the Father’s nature, the Son as the precious One in His redemptive death and in His life-imparting resurrection, and the Spirit as the flow in His transforming work with all the divine elements. This is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God in one of His aspects. There are many more things to say concerning the book of Revelation, and we may need an entire year with two trainings to do an adequate job. The golden lampstands in chapter 1 and the ultimate consummation of the New Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 still need more ministry.
Chapters 6 through 20 of Revelation are actually a parenthetical section because Revelation is a book on the church. The focus of the Bible is not the world situation. The focus of the Bible is Christ and the church. The first three chapters of Revelation are on the church, chapters 4 and 5 are on Christ, and the last two chapters are on the consummation of the church. Chapters 6 through 20, though, are a section of God’s governmental, universal administration to purify and clear up the entire universe by judging and eliminating all the negative things. The last enemy, death, will be dealt with along with Satan, who held it as might and who is cast into the lake of fire. After this, the entire universe is cleared up and becomes a new universe, a new heaven and a new earth. Revelation 6 through 20 is, therefore, a section on God’s universal government to deal with His enemy and all the negative things.
Within this parenthetical section, the church and the saints are referred to seventeen times:
(1) In 6:9-11 the souls who are still under the altar cried to the Lord. The cry of the martyred saints constitutes the fifth seal in Revelation and ushers in the sixth seal, which is the initial step of the great tribulation.
(2) In 7:9-17 is an innumerable multitude under the Lamb’s overshadowing care. While the judgment of all the calamities is taking place, Christ will overshadow His redeemed ones.
(3) In 8:3-5 Christ is the High Priest offering all the suffering saints’ prayer, with His incense added, to God. God’s answer to this prayer is to judge the rebellious world.
(4) 11:18 mentions the reward given to the Lord’s slaves, the prophets, the saints, and those who fear His name. This reward will be given by the Lord to His faithful ones at His coming back.
(5) In 12:1-17 is the universal woman with the man-child. It is the man-child that causes the great dragon to be cast down from the heavens to the earth.
(6) In 13:7 the beast, the Antichrist, was allowed to war with the saints and to overcome them.
(7) The firstfruits of the believers before the great tribulation, the one hundred and forty-four thousand, are in 14:1-5.
(8) In 14:13 are the martyred saints in the great tribulation and their blessing.
(9) In 14:14-16 is the harvest of believers near the end of the great tribulation.
(10) In 15:2-4 are the martyrs who had been under Antichrist’s persecution, standing upon the glassy sea.
(11) During the tribulation there is a warning given to the remaining saints to keep their garments in 16:15.
(12) In 17:14 are those saints who were called and chosen and faithful. They were selected to be an army to fight Antichrist and the false prophet.
(13) In 18:4 the Lord calls His children: “Come out of her, My people.” Since Babylon the Great is twofold, to come out of her means to come out of both religious Babylon and material Babylon.
(14) In 19:7-9 is the bride ready for Christ’s wedding.
(15) 19:14 mentions the heavenly armies composed of the overcomers who will be the ready bride.
(16) In 20:4 and 6 we see the co-kings of Christ in the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens.
(17) Then we see the camp of the saints surrounded by the rebellious nations instigated by Satan in 20:9.
These seventeen instances of the church in this parenthetical section need much study. If we would study these instances, we would see something and have something new, solid, and basic to minister to the churches. This kind of study and ministry would encourage me. If we would study these instances, we would understand much more concerning God’s economy related to the church and the saints. These seventeen instances are inserted into this parenthetical section. During this time God will be carrying out His universal, governmental administration.
You young brothers are in a golden time because you have many years to study these precious things if the Lord delays His coming. I believe that all this wonderful knowledge will be very useful in the millennium and in eternity. If you do not pick up this knowledge today, it will be too late. You will be the “later graduates.”
Again let me emphasize that we must study the consummation of all the stones in the Bible from Genesis 2. Onyx is the very first stone mentioned in the Bible, and one of the last stones mentioned in the Bible is jasper. This is very interesting and needs your study. You also must study the twelve stones on the breastplate of the Urim and Thummim and the stones on the shoulders of the high priest. By such a study you will receive something.
When you present these things to the saints, even the new ones among us will enjoy hearing them. You will attract people, and the church will be built up through the saints being edified by you. Then your preaching or teaching will enrich the ministry in the Lord’s recovery. You do not need to go to the traditional teachings in the books on your shelves. Many marvelous mines in the twenty-seven books of the New Testament have been opened up in these last ten years. The only problem is that we have not taken the time to dig into them. Do not go away from these mines to other sources, hoping to get something there. You must see the ultimate consummation of all the stones.
Then you must go on to study and see the ultimate consummation of the river with the water of life in the Bible. In Genesis 2 we see a river going forth from Eden to water the garden and from there dividing and becoming four branches (v. 10). In Exodus there is the flowing water out of the cleft rock. Psalm 46 tells us that there is a river whose streams gladden the city of God (v. 4), and Psalm 36:8 tells us that the Lord will cause us to drink of the river of His pleasures. Also, in Ezekiel 47 we see a river that brings life wherever it goes (v. 9). Finally, in Revelation 22:1 we see a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the book of Revelation there are some minor things that should not be considered as consummations of the things in the other books of the Bible. But all the major things are the consummation of items already existing in the Bible. This is because Revelation is a book of the harvest of all the truths in the Bible. It is the harvest of all the seeds of the divine truth, which have been sown and have grown up throughout the Scriptures. This is why in Ezekiel 47 the water is issuing out of God’s house (vv. 1-2), which nearly matches Revelation 22 with the water proceeding out of the throne of God. From God’s temple there is water flowing, and from God’s throne there is water flowing. Then in the New Testament the Lord Jesus said that if we drink of Him, we will have rivers of living water flowing out of our innermost being (John 7:37-38). Paul also tells us that the Israelites in the wilderness drank the same spiritual drink and that they drank of Christ who was the spiritual rock that followed them (1 Cor. 10:4). In Revelation 7 we see that the Lamb shepherds the saints and guides them to springs of waters of life (v. 17). Revelation 21:6 says that God will give to the thirsty one from the spring of the water of life freely. Also, in chapter 22 is the ultimate calling in the entire Bible. The Spirit and the bride say that whosoever is thirsty must come to drink the water of life (v. 17). This needs much study. This is the consummation of the river and of the water of life in the Bible.
We also need to study light throughout the Bible with its consummation. We have to go to all the references of light in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In Genesis 1 there are the fourth-day lights. Psalm 36 says, “In Your light we see light” (v. 9). Isaiah 2:5 says, “House of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of Jehovah.” Peter tells us that we have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9). Even Paul was charged by the Lord to preach the gospel to open peoples’ eyes and to turn them from darkness to light (Acts 26:18). There are many references to light in the Old and New Testaments, which we must study. Once you have studied light throughout the Bible, then you can see that the light in Revelation 21 is a consummation of all the light in the Bible. We have also seen that the tree of life, the river of life, and the light of life are the consummation of the divine life throughout the Bible. This also needs our study.
In this ultimate consummation we must also see that the Trinity is the entrance. The three gates on each side (Rev. 21:13) signify the entrance through the Triune God. Luke 15 shows us this threefold entrance. The Son came to redeem (v. 4), the Spirit came to seek and find the lost one and to bring him back to the Father (v. 8), and then the Father receives the lost one back to Himself (v. 20). The Son’s redeeming, the Spirit’s seeking, and the Father’s receiving are a complete entrance into the New Jerusalem. We can also see these three gates in 1 Peter 1:2. We were selected according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. God the Father’s selection is the initiation; God the Spirit’s sanctification carries out the selection of God the Father; and God the Son’s redemption, signified by His sprinkled blood, is the completion. This again is the three gates of the Trinity. Another reference to the Triune God being our entrance into the holy city is Ephesians 2:18, which says, “Through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.” The second point of the Trinity in the New Jerusalem is that the Trinity is the intrinsic element as the gold, the pearl, and the precious stones for the building up and the constitution of this ultimate consummation. Third, the Trinity in this ultimate consummation is for the living of God’s redeemed ones. They walk on the golden street, feed on the tree of life, and drink of the water of life. Fourth, the Trinity is also for their enjoyment. To enjoy the Triune God is to be enlightened, to be fed, and to be satisfied. God the Father is the light of life, God the Son is the tree of life, and God the Spirit is the water of life for the enjoyment of His chosen and redeemed people. Finally, a more basic item of the Trinity in the New Jerusalem is that He is God our Creator, the Lamb our Redeemer, and the Spirit as the river of water of life, our Regenerator. As human beings, we need to pass through these three steps: created, redeemed, and regenerated. We can at least see these five aspects of the Divine Trinity in the New Jerusalem. The Divine Trinity is for our being, the Divine Trinity is for our entry into this ultimate consummation, the Divine Trinity is for the building up, the constitution of such an ultimate consummation, and finally, the Divine Trinity is for our living and for our enjoyment.
Second Corinthians 13:14 also shows us something concerning the enjoyment of the Divine Trinity: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” The fellowship of the Spirit is the flow of the river. The grace of Christ is the tree of life for our supply, and the love of God is just like the light of God. Love is the nature of God’s essence. Light is the nature of God’s expression. Both love and light are the nature of what God is.
The New Testament tells us four main things concerning what God is: God is Spirit (John 4:24), God is life (1:4; 10:10; 14:6), God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and God is light (1:5). These four items are fully covered in the footnotes of the Recovery Version of the Epistles of John. I am concerned that some of you were in the training on these Epistles, but you still do not know what the Spirit, love, light, and life are. Let us read part of footnote 53 in 1 John 1 in order to see what these terms mean:
Expressions such as God is light, God is love (4:8, 16), and God is Spirit (John 4:24) are used not in a metaphoric sense but in a predicative sense. They denote and describe the nature of God. In His nature, God is Spirit, love, and light. Spirit denotes the nature of God’s person; love, the nature of God’s essence; and light, the nature of God’s expression. Both love and light are related to God as life, which is of the Spirit (Rom. 8:2). God, Spirit, and life are actually one. God is Spirit and Spirit is life. Within this life are love and light. When the divine love appears to us, it becomes grace, and when the divine light shines on us, it becomes truth.
These terms are clearly defined and covered in this footnote, but many of you never got into it. Therefore, this has not become your capital in your ministry. You do not have this basic realization within your being. Then when you minister the word to God’s people, you do not have the rich capital. As a result, you are short of feelings, short of thoughts, short of words, short of points, and short of expression. Thus, your speaking is poor, without anything interesting to people. But if you are equipped and enriched within your being, you know that the Spirit denotes the nature of God’s person in John 4:24, love denotes the nature of God’s essence, and light denotes the nature of God’s expression. God’s life is also carried by God’s Spirit, and within this life are love and light. This is clear, and this is rich. You must be saturated with this kind of knowledge. You should soak yourself in these things. If you would stay in this footnote for one day, you would never forget it. I am concerned that such a footnote is here in the Recovery Version, yet you would disregard it and go to other books.
This kind of knowledge is not merely objective. The more you would read this footnote, the more you would be nourished. Then when you minister to people, they would receive some nourishment. We could preach four or five messages out of this one footnote for our gospel preaching, telling people that our God is not like the idols. The nature of our God’s person is Spirit. This provides good material for gospel preaching. Many of us preach from the traditional concept that God loves the world and that the sinners are going to hell. It is true that God loves us, but there is nothing fresh, nothing new, and nothing interesting in this for people. We can tell people how God in nature is Spirit, and how God who is Spirit in nature is also love. You not only tell people that God loves them, but you also need to tell them that God is love, which is the nature of His essence. Then you need to tell them that God is light in His expression, and this God who is light is also life.
The entire Bible is the gospel, and especially the book of Romans in its entirety is the gospel. However, we have never been taught, educated, or raised up in this way. We have neither been saturated in or equipped with all these divine truths. These things have not become a part of our being. Our entire being needs to be reconstituted with all these things until they become our constituent. Then our preaching will be very much strengthened and enriched. We will preach something intrinsically essential, and we will be teaching the basic revelation in the Holy Scriptures. This is the New Testament ministry. Do not go to study the so-called theology. That is too superficial. Hardly any of these teachings get into the intrinsic nature of the divine person and His divine work. The New Testament ministry is absolutely different from this. The vision that the Lord has given us in His recovery is following the New Testament ministry; it is not following traditional theology. Many people with a Ph.D. in theology would not be able to tell you what it means to say that God is Spirit, God is love, God is light, and God is life. This is why I strongly urge you not to leave the “diamonds” the Lord has given to us on your bookshelf and spend your time on other writings. To spend your money and time in other books is a waste when you compare this with spending your time on the precious things the Lord has shown us, which are there in the footnotes of the Recovery Version and in the Life-study messages.
Please do not consider my word as a rebuke or as a warning. I hope you realize that my word is a word of love. I love the churches, I love all the saints, and I love you all. I do not like to see your time, money, and energy wasted. To teach and to preach things other than the New Testament ministry itself delays people, and to some extent it holds them back, distracts them, and misleads them. I do not like to see this. My heart is broken. I like to see you redeem your time, save your energy, and save your money so that you may save others’ time. One message that is not in the central lane of the New Testament ministry wastes a lot of energy and a lot of time for the saints. They must listen to you, and they must read your writings. This could waste their time and maybe mislead and distract them. At the least, it holds them back. This is why I was so burdened to call this urgent gathering. We must stop any kind of traditional ministry. We must come back to the unique New Testament ministry that the Lord has shown us in the past sixty years. This has become our vision. This is a word of love. I have no intention to rebuke you, to discredit you, or to condemn you. I do not even have the intention to warn you. That is not my business, and that is not my heart. My heart is just that I love you brothers. You have consecrated your entire future to take this way. Why do you need to waste your time and thus waste others’ time? Others must listen to you and read your materials, and they get the wrong impression. You must consider how to save the saints’ time. Do not give them anything that will hold them back. We must consider what we speak in the meetings and what we write and publish in print. We must consider whether this material would take the saints on speedily or would hold them back, distract them, or mislead them. We are not living in Martin Luther’s time. We are living at the end of the twentieth century, and the Lord’s recovery has passed through so many centuries already. In these last sixty years the Lord has shown us many things, and we have done our best to put these into print. These things should not remain on your bookshelves while you go back to the old writings. This is not wise. My love would not allow me to be silent. This is why we are here. I hope that all of you would accept this word and drop the old things and go forward.
