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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:11, 18-21; Gen. 2:11-12; 1 Cor. 3:12a; 1 Pet. 2:4-5; Matt. 13:45-46; 2 Pet. 1:4; 2 Cor. 3:18
The basic elements of the structure of the New Jerusalem are gold, pearls, and precious stones (Rev. 21:11, 18-21). Gold is an element created by God and characterized by its unchangeableness. Pearls are produced by oysters. When an oyster is wounded by a particle of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the sand and makes it a precious pearl. The particle of sand is something created by God, yet the life-juice of the oyster is added to this particle by secretion, and a pearl is produced in a marvelous way. Precious stones are not created but transformed from things created. Due to intense heat and pressure these stones were transformed from their original form and nature to a transformed form and nature.
Gold in typology in the Bible refers to the divine, uncreated nature of God. If we would pay our attention to this matter of gold when we study the Bible, we would realize that gold is a special item in the Bible. In Genesis 1 and 2 we see God’s creation of man, the tree of life, the flow of the river, and the gold. Genesis 1 and 2 are very economical, and these two chapters cover a great span of the creation of the universe and unveil to us God’s eternal purpose, His original intention in man. Following the gold in Genesis 2, we see bdellium. Bdellium is a kind of pearl produced from a tree’s secretion. When the resin of the tree, the tree’s life secretion, the tree’s sap, congeals into gum, this gum is considered as a kind of pearl. Following the bdellium in Genesis 2 is the onyx stone, the precious stone (v. 12b). Finally, we see a woman named Eve who was Adam’s counterpart. The Lord God took a rib from Adam’s side and built it into a woman. Actually, in Genesis 1 and 2 we see ten significant items — God, creation, man, the tree of life, the river that flows, gold, bdellium, onyx stone, a wife, and a couple who became one flesh. If we understand these ten items, we know the real significance of God’s creation, especially of man, recorded in the first two chapters of His divine revelation.
At the conclusion of the divine revelation in the last two chapters of the Bible, Revelation 21 and 22, we see a city built with gold, pearls, and precious stone. In the real structure of a building, the first item is the base or foundation. On the base the doors are set up, and the wall is built up to fit the doors. In any building you need the base, the doors, and the wall. In the New Jerusalem the gold is for the base, pearls are for the gates, and the precious stones are for the wall. The record of these three materials in Genesis 2:12 is in this sequence because this is the sequence of building.
In 1 Corinthians 3:12 Paul refers to the building up of the church. For the proper building up of the church Paul mentions three kinds of materials — gold, silver, and precious stones. Instead of bdellium or pearl, Paul mentions silver in 1 Corinthians 3. In Genesis 2, in 1 Corinthians 3, and in Revelation 21 we see the materials for God’s building. In these three portions of the Scriptures the first item is gold, and the last item is precious stone. The second items in these three portions are all somewhat different. In Genesis there is bdellium, in 1 Corinthians there is silver, and in Revelation there are pearls. It is quite marvelous to see the consistency of the divine revelation. In Genesis 2:12 we see three materials in typology for God’s building, and in 1 Corinthians 3 we also see three materials for the actual building of the church. Paul says that he laid the unique foundation and that we should build on this foundation with gold, silver, and precious stones. Paul, of course, is not talking about a material building but about the building up of the Body of Christ. To say that the Body of Christ can be built with gold, silver, and precious stones indicates that these three materials are signs that signify something.
Gold, silver, and precious stones signify the various experiences of Christ in the virtues and attributes of the Triune God. It is with these the apostles and all spiritual believers build the church on the unique foundation of Christ. Silver in typology according to Exodus 30 always typifies redemption (vv. 11-16; cf. 38:25-28). The building materials of the church are first the gold, referring to God with His divine nature, and second the silver, referring to the Redeemer with His redemption.
We also must look into the significance of precious stones. According to John 1, Andrew went and found his brother Simon Peter and brought him to Jesus (vv. 41-42). By that time Peter was a “muddy” person. When Jesus saw Peter, He said, “You are Simon, the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is interpreted, Peter)” (v. 42). Peter (Gk.) means “a stone.” At that time Simon was not a piece of stone but a piece of mud. When he came to the Lord, however, the Lord immediately changed his name. When we reach the book of Revelation, we see that on the twelve foundation stones of the holy city there are twelve names (21:14). Undoubtedly, Peter is the first foundation stone — jasper.
All the apostles were created pieces of clay, but they were regenerated and transformed into precious stones for God’s eternal building. In the Gospel of John, Peter was named “a stone” by the Lord, and in John’s Revelation this same Peter is one of the twelve foundation stones. The Lord’s word in John 1 concerning Peter being a stone was a prophecy, which was fully fulfilled in Revelation 21. Even at the time when the Lord was going to be crucified, Peter was still a piece of mud and not a stone. He first boasted that he would never deny the Lord, and eventually in the same night he denied the Lord three times. At that time none of us could recognize or acknowledge Peter as the first layer of the foundation of the New Jerusalem, God’s eternal habitation. He was still quite muddy.
In between John’s Gospel and his Revelation are Peter’s Epistles. In his first Epistle Peter tells us that the Lord is the living stone and that we all need to come to Him as living stones for God’s building of His habitation (2:4-5; Eph. 2:22). All of us believers, including Peter, are the living stones for God’s building. After he experienced Christ in His resurrection and ascension, Peter declared that he was one of the precious stones for the building up of a spiritual house. John 1, 1 Peter 2, and Revelation 21 all refer to Peter. He was predicted to be a stone in John 1, he became a stone in 1 Peter 2, and he is a foundation stone in the New Jerusalem. Peter was a piece of mud or clay transformed into a piece of stone and transformed further to be a piece of precious stone for the building of God’s dwelling in the entire universe.
In type in Genesis, in the actual building in 1 Corinthians, and in the fulfillment in Revelation, there are only three categories of materials for God’s building. Also, their sequences are the same. Gold is first, and precious stones are last. In between these two items we see bdellium in Genesis, silver in 1 Corinthians, and pearls in Revelation. Bdellium is not something of the animal life but something of the plant life. In the Bible the animal life with the blood is for redemption. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Heb. 9:22). Also, in the Bible the plant life signifies the producing, multiplying, and propagating life. Bdellium is out of the plant life in Genesis 2, and pearl is out of the oyster, the animal life, in Revelation 21. This is because in Genesis 2 sin had not yet come in. The producing of bdellium out of the plant life means that at that time there was no need of redemption. After Genesis 3 when sin came in, God still wanted to produce the pearls, but now there is the need of redemption. Therefore, in the process of the actual building in 1 Corinthians 3, the second item is silver, which signifies redemption. Then in the conclusion, or the fulfillment, of the divine revelation, a sign of God’s redemptive work will remain forever as the pearls, signifying the produce of Christ in His redemptive work with His secreting life for the entry into God’s building.
In Genesis 2 there was only the tree of life without the Lamb. But in Revelation 22 there is the tree of life with the Lamb. The tree of life grows in the river of water of life, which flows out of the throne, not only of God but also of the Lamb. The Lamb is not implied until Genesis 3, when Jehovah God made coats of skin to clothe Adam and Eve after man’s fall. In eternity the pearl will not be a kind of bdellium produced out of the plant life, the producing life, but a pearl produced out of the animal life, the redeeming and producing life, a pearl produced by and out of the crucified and resurrected Christ.
In all three sections concerning God’s eternal building, the materials are always three in number and are in a unique sequence — gold, pearls, and precious stones. These materials are three in number because the actual material for God’s building is the processed Triune God — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. God would never use anything other than Himself in His processed Trinity to build up His dwelling place. It would be impossible for a man to build a house for himself with himself. The only way that a contractor could build a house with himself as the material would be to “kill himself.”
Now we must ask the question — who killed Jesus? For Jesus’ martyrdom, the Jews killed Him, but for Jesus’ redemption, God killed Him. Pilate sentenced Jesus to death, but this sentence was a persecution for martyrdom. Isaiah 53 tells us that God judged Jesus, that God condemned Him, and that God gave the verdict of death (vv. 4, 6, 10). It was God Himself who killed Jesus. The One who was killed on the cross was the man Jesus, but He was not merely a man but a Triune God-man. On the cross the very God killed the Triune God-man for the purpose of redeeming us and secreting Himself as the life-juice around His redeemed ones to make them into pearls for the building up of His dwelling place. Thus, we may say that God killed Himself in man in order to be the building material for His eternal dwelling place.
The apostle Peter was an uneducated and unlearned person. As a Galilean fisherman, he had very little schooling. In spite of this, in his first Epistle Peter says that Jesus Christ his Lord is the living stone. He also says that we who come to this Jesus are also living stones. To speak such a word needs much realization, which comes from the proper knowledge. In Peter’s second Epistle he furthermore says that we all are partakers of the divine nature (1:4). We will not only inherit the divine nature in the future, but we are partakers of the divine nature, partaking of, enjoying, the divine nature today. Although Peter was an uneducated fisherman, he could tell us that the Lord is the living stone, that he also was a living stone, that we all are living stones, and that we partake of, enjoy, the divine nature. This is the pure biblical teaching, not the ethical or philosophical teachings of Confucius or other philosophers. There is no comparison between the philosophical books and the Bible. The Bible teaches people in a divine way, showing us that we believers have God’s divine nature. This is not a doctrine but a reality.
Gold signifies the divine nature of God for the base of God’s building. This divine nature is the golden base within us for God’s building. The more we partake of the divine nature, the more we have the base for God’s building. I do not care for people’s humility or for people’s pride. Human pride and human humility are the same. Both human pride and human humility are useless for God’s building. I care only for how much God you have, how much divine nature you have partaken of, and how much divine nature you are partaking of day by day. It is possible to be a very good wife and a very nice husband and still not have much of God’s divine nature. We all need to ask how much God we possess. This is the base for the building up of the church. According to my realization, the Lord has done much in these last twenty-three years in the United States. Many of the saints have truly partaken of the divine nature and have a substantial amount of the divine nature within them. This is the base for God’s building, and this is the base in which I put my trust for the work. Man’s humility can never be the base for the building up of the church. Only God’s nature, God Himself, can be such a base. Neither a proud nor a humble person is good for the building up of the church. Only those who are partaking of the divine nature daily are good for the building up of the church. The basic thing in the Lord’s recovery is not a great number of people but how much divine nature is here as a base for the building up of His Body.
We must realize that we are not simply allegorizing the Bible but pointing out the real things in the biblical allegories. The entire New Jerusalem is an allegory. Even in human language there is the need of allegory because some things cannot be expressed or described by mere plain and direct words. Because this building up of God’s eternal dwelling place is altogether mysterious, spiritual, heavenly, and divine, there is the need of an allegory to express and describe it. Gold, pearls, and precious stones are all part of this allegory to express and describe the divine reality.
From the time that I was a young believer, I realized that I was regenerated, born again. However, I never realized that within me there was something divine. It was not until a number of years after I had received the Lord that I began to realize in a small way that through regeneration God had come into me. As a human being regenerated by God, you not only have the human nature but also the divine nature. Nature always denotes a certain kind of essence. Any element or substance has its essence. God is the divine gold as the element, and in this element is the essence with its nature. Today we believers have this divine nature.
We all have to fight the battle, showing people that the Bible unveils to us that we believers have God within us as the divine nature. We are not merely studying the New Jerusalem. We are here to dig out all the divine truths so that we may realize what we are today, where we are today, where we are heading, and what we should be. We have to realize that we are the people who have the divine nature, the divine element, the divine substance, and the divine essence in our being. As a believer, you are “a golden man.” You are not a muddy man. All the sisters need to realize that they are not muddy women but “golden women.” Because we are so golden, we cannot go dancing. Do you think a golden man would quarrel with his wife? Gold never changes. Despite what you do to it, it remains the same. We the believers in Christ today are golden. We are divine. We have the divine nature. We all have to declare that we are not muddy but golden. Gold is the base for the building up of the dwelling place of God for eternity.
The Lord Jesus told Peter that he was a stone (John 1:42) and reminded him in Matthew 16 that he was a stone (v. 18). He also said that He would build His church. Today the Lord is doing a building work. From the day of Pentecost the Lord began to build the church with you and me as stones based upon God’s divine nature. The stones are built upon the golden base, which is the site. All the materials are built upon this site, and the site is the base. The base for the Lord’s building today is God’s divine nature. It is not your knowledge, your education, your good character, your kindness, your humility, or even your love. The base is the nature of God. I have the assurance and the confidence to say that in the Lord’s recovery there is a strong base of the divine nature within so many of us who are loving the Lord.
What we have seen in this chapter is according to the divine revelation. The base for God’s eternal building and for His present building work is His divine nature. We all should say, “Lord Jesus, thank You. Through Your redemption I have the position, the standing, and the right to take my God as my divine nature. Thank You, Lord, that I have taken and am still taking and enjoying You as my divine nature.” The basic elements of the structure of the New Jerusalem are the gold as the base of God’s building (Rev. 21:18b, 21b), the pearls, which signify the produce of Christ in His redemptive work with His secreting life for the entry (v. 21a) into God’s building (1 Cor. 3:12a; John 3:5), and the precious stones (Rev. 21:11, 18a, 19-20), signifying the produce of the Spirit in His transforming work (2 Cor. 3:18) with His divine element for the building up of God’s building. All these three precious materials are built together and built up to be a universal wife, the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:2, 9), the redeeming God, which corresponds with and reflects the wife in Genesis 2, who is a type of this universal wife of the redeeming God.
