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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:11, 21:23; 4:3; 22:1-2, 22:5; 17-18, 21, Rom. 8:30; 1 John 3:2
I. The New Jerusalem being the ultimate manifestation of the fullness of God:
А. The light of the New Jerusalem being the effulgence of God’s image — Rev. 21:11; 4:3:
1. The New Jerusalem being filled with God’s life, with what God is — 22:1-2.
2. The New Jerusalem being filled with God’s light, God’s expression — 21:23; 22:5.
B. The entire New Jerusalem being God’s fullness, the ultimate expression of the riches of all that God is.
II. The believers’ glorification being for God’s fullness:
А. The created yet fallen man entering into God’s glory through redemption and transformation to become God’s fullness for God’s expression — 17-18, 21, Rom. 8:30; 1 John 3:2.
B. The New Jerusalem being the aggregate of God’s redeemed, matured, and glorified people throughout the ages, the ultimate expression of the riches of all that God is.
In this chapter we will continue the line of God’s fullness in order to see the ultimate manifestation of the fullness of God. The sixty-six books of the Bible contain many items, and in the last two chapters of the Bible the New Jerusalem appears as the conclusion of the development of these items. The structure of the New Jerusalem is simple because it has only three materials: gold, pearl, and precious stones. The city itself is a mountain of gold; the entire city is gold. The city has four sides, and each side has three gates. The twelve gates are twelve pearls (Rev. 21:21). The wall of the city is precious stone, and the twelve foundations of the wall are adorned with twelve precious stones (vv. 18-20). Hence, the city has only three kinds of materials: pure gold, pearl, and precious stones.
Throughout the last two thousand years, since the completion of the New Testament, many Bible students and scholars have spent much time and effort to study the New Jerusalem. There are many different views and opinions concerning this city, and there have been endless arguments and diverging opinions. During the past decades we thoroughly studied most of the different teachings concerning the New Jerusalem, and we have seen that the New Jerusalem is not a physical city.
The entire Bible contains the divine revelation and reveals God’s economy, His eternal plan. The Bible also reveals God’s person, showing that God is triune — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Furthermore, it reveals the process and the goal of redemption. After unveiling these precious things, the Bible concludes with a city in Revelation 21 and 22. This city of pure gold has a wall of precious stones and gates that are pearls. In addition, the length, breadth, and height of the city are equal; hence, it is a cube. How can the consummation of the divine revelation in the Bible be a physical city? If the New Jerusalem were a physical city, it would not bear much significance.
The book of Revelation is a book of signs (1:1). Signs are used to express deep thoughts that cannot be described in words. The first sign in this book is the golden lampstands (v. 12). These are not physical golden lampstands. They are a sign that illustrates the nature and function of the church. The church should be of gold, completely divine, and it should shine brightly in the dark. Therefore, the golden lampstands are a sign. Another sign is the Lion-Lamb (5:5-6). This refers to the Lord Jesus. As the Lamb, He is our Redeemer, and as the Lion, He fights against the enemy. In the eyes of God, Christ is the Lamb of God for our redemption, and He is the overcoming Lion to defeat God’s enemy and bring in God’s kingdom.
There are more than ten signs in the book of Revelation, and the last sign is the New Jerusalem. Revelation 1:1 says, “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to His slaves the things that must quickly take place; and He made it known by signs, sending it by His angel to His slave John.” What is presented in this book is mainly in signs rather than plain words. In chapter 1 the seven churches are not spoken of in plain words; instead, seven golden lampstands are used to show the condition of the seven churches. When we see the golden lampstands, we understand the condition of the churches, because a picture is better than a thousand words. It is simple to describe something with a picture. It is difficult to give an accurate description of a person by describing his appearance, features, and demeanor, no matter how many words we use. The simplest and clearest way to give an accurate description is to present a picture.
The book of Revelation mainly uses signs to present its revelation, not plain words. According to this principle, the New Jerusalem cannot be a physical city; it must be a sign. The revelation in the Scriptures is mysterious. The ultimate issue of this revelation appears at the end of the Bible. If this ultimate issue was presented in plain words, thousands of words would not be adequate. God is very wise and uses one great sign, a city, to show the ultimate consummation of the divine revelation.
In 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 Paul says, “According to the grace of God given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. But let each man take heed how he builds upon it...If anyone builds upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, stubble, the work of each will become manifest; for the day will declare it, because it is revealed by fire, and the fire itself will prove each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work which he has built upon the foundation remains, he will receive a reward; if anyone’s work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” These verses show that even before the book of Revelation was written, Paul said that gold, silver, and precious stones are the materials for God’s building. He used gold, silver, and precious stones as a sign to show that once we are saved, we possess the life of God.
For over ten years after my salvation, even though I said that I had God’s life and nature, I did not have a deep impression of the divine life. It was not until 1939 in Tientsin that I received a revelation as I was praying and reading the Word in my room. I had a deep sensation that God is in me and that I was made to contain God. We all need to see that to be saved is to have God, to gain God. At the time of our salvation we gained God, and we now have God in our spirit. Gold in the Bible signifies the divine nature of God, which is just God Himself. Therefore, when Paul says that we need to build the church with gold, he means that we need to build the church with God.
How do we build with God? According to the revelation in the Bible, the Christian life is a matter of transformation, not a matter of cultivating one’s character or improving oneself. If we are to be transformed, a new element must enter into us. This means that another essence must enter into us. An example of this is petrified wood, which is wood that has become stone. When wood is in flowing water for a long period of time, the element of the wood is carried away and replaced with various minerals from the earth that are in the water. These minerals change the wood and gradually transform it into stone. This example shows that transformation requires the addition of new elements. As Christians, we do not rely on cultivating our character, nor do we depend on outward improvement. We need transformation; we need to receive a new element into us. This new element is God Himself.
When we wake up in the morning, we need to spend five minutes to pray and ten minutes to read the Word. God is Spirit (John 4:24), and we receive Him into us by praying and reading the Word. When we pray, we breathe in the Spirit, and when we read the Bible, the Spirit of God enters into us, because the Spirit is in the Bible. Hence, we need to read the Word and pray daily.
I preach God’s word, and I work for the Lord in order to build up the church. If I encourage others to cultivate their character or if I promote self-improvement, I am building the church with wood, grass, and stubble, which are of no value before God. My burden and the messages that I release are to let God spread in us so that He can fill us and transform us. We are not here to speak to people about cultivating their character, because our quick temper is wood, and our meekness is also wood. Whether we are quick tempered or meek, it is of no value before God. Consequently, our work is not to improve other people; it is not a work of wood, grass, and stubble. We must not do a work that helps people “wear makeup.” Rather, we need to tell people that man needs to have the life of God and to be sanctified. For this reason, after we are saved, we need to breathe in the Lord through prayer every day. We must learn to put aside the self, and instead of cultivating our character or trying to improve ourselves, we only need to be filled in spirit with God. If we live in this way, we are building the church with gold.
In 1 Corinthians 3:12 Paul says that we should build with precious stones. We can say that stones are created by God, but precious stones are the product of transformation. Precious stones are formed when carbon is transformed through heat and pressure. Before we were saved, we were like a pile of dirt, but we thank the Lord that we are saved. We have received God’s nature into us. We are also precious stones because we have experienced some transformation. Second Corinthians 3:18 says that when we behold the glorious Lord with an unveiled face, we are transformed to bear the Lord’s image. What is the image of the Lord? Revelation 4:3 says, “He who was sitting [upon the throne] was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance.” God is like a jasper stone in appearance. The color of jasper is dark green, which signifies the richness of God’s life. God is sitting on the throne, and His appearance is jasper; He is full of life. The New Jerusalem is a mountain with a height of twelve thousand stadia. The length, breadth, and height of the New Jerusalem are equal. The wall of the city, which is one hundred and forty-four cubits high, is jasper (21:16-18). The jasper wall of the New Jerusalem signifies that the entire city, as the corporate expression of God in eternity, bears the appearance of God. God’s appearance is like jasper, and the New Jerusalem looks like jasper.
In order for us to be transformed into jasper, we need to behold the glory of the Lord day by day (2 Cor. 3:18). The more we behold Him, the more His element is added into us, and we are transformed from glory to glory into His glorious image. We will be transformed from one degree of glory into another degree of glory until we are like God. This is spoken of in 1 John 3:2, which says, “Now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” He is a precious jasper stone. For us to be like Him means that we will be transformed into precious jasper stone.
The workers of the Lord who want to build up the church must never build with wood, grass, and stubble. Instead, we must build with God as pure gold and with the Lord Jesus Christ as the element in the Spirit. We must minister the Triune God into people so that they can have an inward change and gradually be transformed into precious stones. When the Lord’s recovery first came to the United States over twenty years ago, the Americans did not feel comfortable with me because I am Chinese. They had the concept that it is Americans who go as missionaries to China to preach the gospel but that the Chinese could never go to the United States to preach the gospel. However, I knew that even though I am a small Chinese man, I had a treasure from the Scriptures that they did not have.
The Americans have the good quality of not holding on to oldness. They may look down on others, but once they see something real, they accept it. They are not proud in this regard. We were able to start the work in the United States because we have a rich store of “precious gems.” One of the gems I presented was the human spirit. I went to many places through the years and preached that man has a spirit. I also quoted Zechariah 12:1, which says, “Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundations of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him.” The people who heard this were amazed. They could not believe that this verse is in the Bible, because they never saw it. Now preachers everywhere in the United States say that man has a spirit. This is our treasure.
We also encountered some obstacles. The majority of those whom we gained initially were young people, because it was easy for them to follow us. When we asked them to call on the name of the Lord, they called with much vigor, and when we asked them to pray, they prayed earnestly. There was a young man who called on the name of the Lord at home after his salvation. When his parents heard him and found out that he learned to call on the Lord from a Chinese person, they warned him to be careful and not to get too involved. However, the divine nature, the element of gold, within this brother increased daily, and he changed. When he went home at the end of the semester, his parents realized that he was not the same. He had the element of God; he had gold as well as precious stones.
About five years ago I went to Berkeley to hold a conference. The university in Berkeley has caused much agitation and unrest concerning human rights, but there is a church there. At that conference the saints gave similar testimonies about how their parents initially opposed them but are now in the church life. This happened because their parents saw God in the saints. There was much gold, and there were many precious stones in that conference. This proved that my labor in the United States was not in vain. I am not building the church with wood, grass, and stubble. Rather, I have God, and I work the divine nature and element into people; I work “gold” into them. My work is not a work of gold plating but of filling people with gold. I also have the Spirit of Christ, the life-giving, transforming Spirit who caused the young people to change and be transformed. The young people were transformed after they obtained the nature of God. This caused their parents to enter into the church life.
The Bible does not wait until Revelation to speak of gold and precious stones. Rather, Paul speaks of gold and precious stones in 1 Corinthians 3. We can boast to the angels that many of our young people have gold within them and are becoming precious stones. They are being transformed. Perhaps their parents only wanted them to study well, but after a few years their parents will see gold and precious stones in them.
The New Jerusalem, which is a mountain of gold, shows the story within every Christian: God grows in us daily, and the element of God increases within us gradually. The mountain of gold is increasing gradually. Those who do research in minerals say that minerals are continually being formed. The gold in us is continually increasing and growing. Even though this is a slow process, the gold is increasing every day. In addition, the carbon within us is being transformed into precious stone.
The New Jerusalem also has gates of pearl. This is another wonderful aspect of the city. Pearls are produced by oysters in the ocean. When a grain of sand enters an oyster, the oyster is wounded and secretes its life-juice to coat the sand. When the sand is coated with many layers, a pearl is produced. Hence, an oyster depicts Christ, who, as the eternally living God, became a man, entered into the death waters of humanity, and was wounded by sinners, the grains of sand. He is now secreting His life around us to make us precious pearls so that we can be built into God’s eternal expression. When we receive Him as our Savior and remain in His death, His resurrection life operates and works within us to continually secrete His life essence around us, the little grains of sand. The more His life surrounds us, the shinier we become, until we eventually become pearls.
When we began the work in Taiwan, I spoke concerning the death and resurrection of Christ. I explained how Christ’s death keeps us in His death and how His resurrection operates within us to secrete the divine life. Through His death and resurrection, we are being transformed from grains of sand into pearls. Many saints can testify that this is not Oriental ethics, nor is it Western philosophy; rather, it is the truth contained in the Bible. This truth reveals that the materials of God’s building are gold, precious stones, and pearls. This refers to God’s nature, the transforming work of the Spirit, and the secreting work of Christ in His death and resurrection. We have gold in us, and we are becoming precious stones and pearls. These are the constituents of the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is the ultimate manifestation of the church. It is the ultimate manifestation of the totality of all the local churches throughout the ages. This ultimate manifestation is the fullness of God. God as the Father is rich. When He is expressed, He is the fullness in the Son. The Son, as the one grain of wheat, passed through death and resurrection and was reproduced as many grains (John 12:24). We are the multiplication of the Son. We are the fullness of the Son, His expression. The gold within us is increasing daily; hence, we are the church. We are also becoming precious stones, and the secreting work of Christ’s death and resurrection is making us pearls. As a result, in eternity all the believers will become the ultimate manifestation of God, the New Jerusalem. They will be the fullness of God, His expression. Thus, the New Jerusalem is a sign that portrays the believers.
The church in Taipei should be a miniature of the New Jerusalem. The presence of any wood, grass, or stubble shows that we need to be transformed. When we remain in the Lord’s death, He can carry out a secreting work within us. He can operate within us as the Spirit and envelop us with His life. In this way the little grains of sand become pearls. This brings us to the ultimate consummation of the Scriptures.
The Bible speaks about God entering into us to be our element of pure gold, Christ the Son passing through death and resurrection to bring us into His death and to carry out a secreting work within us to make us pearls, and the Spirit transforming us into precious stones. The ultimate conclusion of the Bible is the city New Jerusalem. The constituents of this city are pure gold, pearls, and precious stones.
Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ is the effulgence of God’s glory. However, in Revelation 21:11 the New Jerusalem has God’s glory, and the light of the city is like jasper and manifests God’s image. This is the outward appearance of the city, the ultimate manifestation of the fullness of God as His expression.
There are two elements within the New Jerusalem. One element is God’s life, and the other is God’s light. Concerning God’s life, in the middle of the street in the city flows the river of water of life, bright as crystal (22:1). In addition, on this side and on that side of the river grows the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, and yielding its fruit each month (v. 2). The river of water of life and the tree of life are the nourishing supply in the city. Concerning God’s light, the New Jerusalem has no need of the light of a lamp or the light of the sun. There is no man-made light in the city, because the Lord God shines as the light. The glory of God is the only light in the city (v. 5). Life refers to what God is, and light is God’s expression. Within the city there are only God’s life and God’s light. This means that the church should be full of God’s life and light; the church should be the full expression of what God is.
Many young people can testify that no social group can compare to the church life. In the church life we sense the flow of life, and we have the life-fruit produced by the tree of life that is full of the life supply. We also have the shining of the light of life. We have often experienced being confused and not knowing what to do, but once we come to a church meeting, our whole being becomes clear and bright. This is the inward condition of the New Jerusalem. According to its outward appearance, the New Jerusalem is the effulgence of God’s glory, expressing the image of God who has the appearance of jasper. Within the city there is the river of water of life and the tree of life that produces the fruit of life. There is also the expression of the light of God.
In conclusion, the glorification of the believers is for God’s ultimate expression. Man was created by God and then fell. But when we believed in the Lord, we received redemption, and we are now being transformed. The issue of transformation is our maturity and glorification. Romans 8:30 says, “Those whom He predestinated, these He also called; and those whom He called, these He also justified; and those whom He justified, these He also glorified.” Verse 21 says, “In hope that the creation itself will also be freed from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” This indicates that we have a part in the glory that is yet to be expressed. This glory is the consummate expression of God, the effulgence of God’s glory. Eventually, we will all be in this glory. We will be glorified.
In this glory we will be God’s fullness in order to express God for eternity. Today we are still in time. We have not arrived at eternity future, but we can have a foretaste. The local church is a miniature of the New Jerusalem. As long as we are in the church, we will receive the supply of life and the shining of the divine light. We can also experience the church shining with the light of God’s glory to express God’s image as jasper. We can enjoy God’s glory. The issue of being supplied with and enjoying God’s glory is that we become His ultimate expression.
