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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:11, 18-21; John 19:34; Matt. 13:45-46; John 3:5; Gen. 2:12b; 1 Cor. 3:12a
The Bible is not a book of religion, philosophy, or something invented by the human mentality, but it is God’s revelation of the divine life. The Bible, of course, covers many things, but its focus and very central thought is the divine life. Our human life is a mystery, and the divine life is even more abstract and mysterious. No human words in human language can fully utter the mystery of this divine life. Therefore, God exercised His wisdom to reveal such a mystery concerning His divine life by many allegories.
Many Bible students and teachers are insistent upon not using too many allegories. Paul, however, in Galatians 4 says that Sarah and Hagar and each of their sons are an allegory. Sarah and Hagar represent two covenants (vv. 22-24). Without Paul’s writing in Galatians 4, none of us would dream that these two women are an allegory of the two covenants. Paul, though, received this revelation probably with the realization that it would be hard for us to understand the two covenants in such a marvelous way without the allegory of these two women. Also, the Lord Jesus and the other apostles pointed out items in the Old Testament, which are allegories to reveal the unutterable revelations of the divine life. The greatest allegory in the Bible is in its last two chapters, and this allegory is the ultimate consummation of the divine revelation — the New Jerusalem. Throughout the centuries the New Jerusalem has been a puzzle to all the students and teachers of the Bible. However, in the last thirty years by the Lord’s mercy, this puzzle has been brought into a fuller light. In order for us to receive a vision of the holy city, we need to be uplifted to a “high mountain” so that we may see God’s dwelling place for the fulfilling of His eternal purpose (Rev. 21:10).
In this one allegory it is possible for one to see nearly every single divine point revealed in the Bible. If we know the Bible, we can see that the most central and most mysterious point in it is the Divine Trinity. The main and basic structure of this allegory of the New Jerusalem is the Divine Trinity. It is not possible to understand the structure of this allegory unless we enter into the entire Bible to see all the points revealed concerning the Divine Trinity. The Divine Trinity is the most basic and the chief attribute of God’s divine person. Love, light, and life are a few of the many attributes of God’s divine person, but the most basic attribute of God is the Trinity. It is easier to explain what love, light, and grace are as attributes of God, but it is really hard for anyone to define what the Divine Trinity is. The Divine Trinity is the greatest and the basic attribute of God.
The first divine title revealed in the Bible implies God in His Trinity. The word for God in Genesis 1:1 is Elohim, which is plural in number. Then in Genesis 1:26 God referred to Himself as “Us.” In the Bible there is one God, but this one God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — the Trinity. By studying the sixty-six books of the Bible, we can conclude that the Divine Trinity is for His dispensing. As the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, He dispenses Himself into His chosen people, and this dispensing is the main operation, the main goal, of God’s being triune. The Divine Trinity is for the divine dispensing, and this dispensing consummates in the New Jerusalem.
In the New Jerusalem there are three gates on four sides, and the New Jerusalem is constructed with three basic elements — gold, pearls, and precious stones. The reason the number three is so prevalent in the New Jerusalem is that this number represents the Divine Trinity. In this chapter and in the remaining chapters we will see that every aspect of the New Jerusalem is triune. Without such an allegory, it would be impossible to understand such a divine mystery of God dispensing Himself to consummate in a wonderful, divine building — the New Jerusalem.
In this chapter we want to see the significance of the pearls in the New Jerusalem. Revelation 21:21 tells us that the twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are twelve pearls. A pearl is not created or manufactured but produced by an oyster. A pearl is something produced organically just as a piece of fruit is not something manufactured or created but is the produce of an organic tree. The fact that an oyster produces a pearl is quite significant. Pearls are produced by oysters in the waters of death. When the oyster is wounded by a particle of sand, a little rock, it secretes its life-juice around the sand and makes it a precious pearl.
Since the Bible says that in the New Jerusalem there are twelve gates and that every gate is a pearl, we have to study every aspect of this pearl. Especially, we need to see how the pearl comes into existence. This is the purpose of God’s wisdom in using an allegory. Without such an allegory of the oyster producing a pearl, how could we imagine that the gates as the pearls signify the produce of Christ in His redemptive work with His secreting life for the entry into God’s building? As Christians, we have heard repeatedly that Christ died and resurrected for our redemption. By merely using the words death, resurrection, and redemption, however, our understanding is somewhat limited. In one of Charles Wesley’s hymns he refers to the five bleeding wounds that the Lord bore when He was being crucified on the cross (see Hymns, #300). This, however, is a “physical teaching” concerning the divine truth. This is not an allegorization. Without such an allegory of the oyster producing a pearl, we cannot adequately understand the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection to redeem and transform us.
In this allegory we need to see the illustration of Christ’s death. The oyster depicts Christ as the living One coming into the death waters, being wounded by us, and secreting His life over us to make us precious pearls for the building of God’s eternal habitation and expression. That the twelve gates of the holy city are twelve pearls signifies that regeneration through the death-overcoming and life-secreting Christ is the entrance into the city.
The oyster’s wound is an inward wound caused by a little rock. This rock can remain in this wound or, we may say, in this death. In like manner, we can remain in Christ’s death. Where are you staying today? You should say, “Praise the Lord! I am staying in Christ’s death. The Lord’s death is my abode, my dwelling.” You are a “little rock” that wounded Christ. After being wounded, He keeps you in His wound. Now you need to stay in His wound, in His death. I have been a Christian for over fifty-nine years, and I must testify that His death is my best residence.
Are you not staying in the Lord’s death? If you are not staying in His death, you have nowhere to stay or to remain. We all need to realize that every moment we need to stay in the all-inclusive death of Christ. The reason we lose our temper is because we move out of the death of Christ. Because you “left home” and did not remain in His death, you lost your temper. As long as you remain and stay in the death of Christ, you will never lose your temper. Where can you get the victory over sin, over your temperament, over the world, and over Satan? There is victory only in the death of Christ.
You may have been a Christian for many years, and yet you have never been told that you need to remain in the death of Christ. You may have been remaining in your kind of endeavor to behave properly. This means that you have been a wanderer. You have been homeless with no place to stay. However, if you stay in the death of Christ, you do not need to try to be nice. Not many of us realize that the Lord’s all-inclusive death should be our residence, our home, in which we must stay. After the little rock wounds the oyster, it stays in the wound, and the oyster will not let it go. It grasps the rock in the very wound it made, so the wound becomes its residence, its home, its dwelling place. In like manner, the very death that Christ accomplished on the cross becomes our dwelling place. We have to stay in the death of Christ.
If we stay away from the wound, we cannot enjoy the secretion of the resurrection life. If the rock stays away from the wound of the oyster, it is not in the position to enjoy the secretion of the life-sap of that oyster. The secretion symbolizes the move of the resurrection life. Because an oyster is living and organic, it immediately reacts to being wounded by a rock by secreting its life-sap around the rock to keep it and even imprison it in its wound. This picture, or allegory, shows that we are imprisoned in the death of Christ by His secreting power and that this secretion is the move of His resurrection life.
The wound signifies the death of Christ in which we sinners who wounded Christ are captured, kept, and imprisoned. The only place that one can be a normal, proper Christian is in the wound, the death, of Christ. We all need to say, “Lord, I have no choice; my unique residence today is Your death.” Hallelujah for the death of Christ! This death is our rest, our residence, our home, and our unique place of protection. As long as I am staying in His wound, His life reacts, and this reaction is a secretion of His resurrection life. The death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ have been taught mostly as objective items, which have nothing to do with our daily Christian life. Actually, the death of Christ is not merely objective but very subjective. We have to be conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10). His death has to be our daily dwelling place, and His resurrection should be our daily experience. We should be one with Him all the time in His death and resurrection. Our oneness with Him is in the Spirit. Hence, the secretion of His resurrection is in the Spirit — the reality of His resurrection.
Day by day I enjoy the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life. A kind of secretion is around me all the time because I am always imprisoned in His death. Where death is, resurrection is. Resurrection works in death and through death. This resurrection is the secretion of the life-sap of the resurrected Christ around your entire being in the way that oysters produce pearls.
The oyster is an allegory of the wonderful Christ. He is the unique One who can live in the death waters. As One who is living and organic, He was wounded by us, and He reacted by resurrecting to secrete His life-sap around the wounding ones. What a mercy! We wounded Him, and He will not let us go. Because of His great love with which He loved us, His wound caused by us became our prison. His desire is to imprison us in His death so that we might enjoy His life-secreting resurrection. Even though you may have never heard this before, you should have had some experiences of this. After you believed that the Lord died for you and that He is in resurrection, you enjoyed staying with Him. When you aspired to be in the Lord, you were abiding in His death, and within you there was a life secretion. Even though you had not heard this fellowship, you did have this kind of experience. Christ makes us pearls by being wounded by us, by keeping us in His wound, and by secreting Himself around us in His death through resurrection in the Spirit, who is His reality.
The pearls are the gates, and this point of the allegory means that the more we are made pearls, the more we are in the New Jerusalem. When we believed in the Lord Jesus, we were regenerated, and this was the initiation of our entering into the New Jerusalem. At that time, though, we were barely in the New Jerusalem in our experience. As we stay in the Lord’s death and enjoy His life-secreting resurrection, there is a further entering into the New Jerusalem. Our experience of the Lord’s death and resurrection becomes our entry into the New Jerusalem. We can enjoy being in the New Jerusalem to a great extent by staying in the death of Christ to enjoy His secretion of Himself as the resurrection life-sap around us. We all need to ask ourselves how much we are in the New Jerusalem and how much we are still outside the gates. The only way for a further entering into the holy city is by a further staying in the death of Christ. The death of Christ is the right place for you to receive and experience the secretion of life by the resurrected Christ. What I am telling you is not an objective teaching concerning the resurrection, but is altogether concerning our daily experience of the subjective, resurrection life of Christ. We need this kind of subjective experience.
I hope that after reading this chapter, all of us would pray, “Lord, imprison me and keep me always in Your death. I do not want to leave Your death but to make Your death my sweet and wonderful dwelling place. Lord, I want to stay with You in Your death.” His death is the place where He has the position to secrete Himself around you, and this is the only place where you can enjoy and experience His resurrection life as a kind of life-sap secreting itself around your being, making you a wonderful piece of pearl. We need to see that the pearls signify the believers produced of Christ in His redemptive work with His secreting life for the entry into God’s building.
The producing of the believers as the pearls by Christ in His redemptive work is allegorized in the blood and water that came out of His side (John 19:34). When He was dying on the cross, a soldier pierced His side, and immediately there came out blood and water. Blood and water are two allegories to describe the redemptive work of Christ. Blood is for redemption, and water is for regeneration. We need redemption because we are sinful, and we need regeneration, which is the initiation of the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life, because we are merely human and do not have the divine life. We need the blood to wash away our sins, and we need the water as the flow of the divine life to germinate us, to bring the divine life into our being, that we may have the life power to overcome so many things. The first stanza of Hymns, #1058 says,
The writer of this hymn refers to the “double cure.” Christ’s redemption gives us a double cure. First, He washes away our sins, and second, He regenerates us. His blood saves us from the guilt of sin, and His life saves us from the power of sin. In His redemption Christ can give us a double cure — He washes away our filthiness, and He keeps away our death. This double cure is His redemptive work, yet for us to enjoy His redemptive work, we must be willing to be imprisoned in His death. While we are in His death, He has the position to secrete Himself around our being. Then we will surely receive the double cure, and we will be produced as pearls for the entry into God’s building.
To produce pearls the main thing needed is that another element has to be added to the wounding rock. The rock is one element, and the oyster’s secretion brings the element of the oyster life to this rock. Two elements are mingled together to produce a pearl. Your human life, your human being, with your natural element is the rock. After we wounded Christ, He captured us, and He is now keeping us in His death to secrete Himself around us, which is the adding of His divine element to our human element. This shows how marvelous the allegories in the Bible are. No plain word could explain this divine mystery to such an extent. All the unseen, invisible mysteries are unveiled in this allegory. The divine element is being added to our human element, making us pearls for the building of God’s eternal expression.
At the time a certain brother was married, he may have been very rough. But after years of abiding in the Lord’s death and enjoying His life-secreting resurrection, even his wife can testify that a great part of her husband has become pearl. Before we came into the enjoyment of Christ in His death and resurrection in the church life, we were very rough, but we can all testify that at least some part of our being has become pearl and that we are in the process of becoming pearls. We are under the secretion of the resurrection life of Christ through His imprisoning death. His death is imprisoning us to keep us in the position of enjoying the secretion of Christ around our entire being.
All the meetings of the church help us to stay in the death of Christ, and they keep us in the death of Christ. Do not get away. Stay home. Where is your home, and what is your home? Your home is the death of Christ, and He is here secreting and moving in His resurrection life. This secretion is His resurrection, which is fully realized in His life-giving Spirit. The secretion is the operation of His life-giving Spirit; if you do not have His Spirit, you do not have His resurrection. Also, the way to enjoy His Spirit is to stay in His death. The more you stay in His death, the more you have His Spirit moving in you. This moving of His life-giving Spirit is the secreting of His divine life.
We also must realize that although every gate is a single pearl, this pearl is collectively singular. It is a collective piece of pearl, not just you yourself. It is a group of believers. After this fellowship I believe that we understand in a more thorough way one more of the basic elements of the New Jerusalem — the pearls.
Christ was wounded for us in order to have us imprisoned in His wound so that He might carry out His secretion over us again and again throughout our entire life to make us pearls for the building of God’s eternal habitation. This is for the entry (Matt. 13:45-46; John 3:5). The more we are made pearls, the more we are in the New Jerusalem, and the more we are in the kingdom. We were regenerated to enter into the kingdom of God. To use the allegory of a pearl, however, to illustrate the entering into the kingdom of God by regeneration is much more significant.
I hope that we could follow the Spirit to fully enter into the denotation and significance of the pearls. Then we will no longer be shallow in our understanding of Christ’s death, resurrection, and redemption. We will not be “skating on the ice of the truth” in this matter. We want to get into the depths of this truth to enjoy the riches of Christ.
