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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:11, 18a, 19-20; 2 Cor. 3:18; Phil. 1:19; Gen. 2:12b; 1 Cor. 3:12a; 1 Pet. 2:4-5; Rev. 4:3a
We all have seen that the basic elements of the structure of the New Jerusalem are gold, pearls, and precious stones. Gold refers to the divine nature of God the Father, and pearls refer to the produce of Christ in His overcoming death and life-secreting resurrection. In this chapter we want to see the third item of the basic elements of the structure of the New Jerusalem — precious stones. Precious stones (Rev. 21:11, 18a, 19-20) signify the produce of the Spirit in His transforming work with His divine element for the building up of God’s building (Gen. 2:12b; 1 Cor. 3:12a; 1 Pet. 2:4-5; 2 Cor. 3:18).
Gold refers only to the nature of God the Father, not to any of His work. Gold is God Himself as the divine nature given to us as a gift of which we may partake and which we may enjoy. Pearls, however, do not refer to Christ Himself directly but to the produce of His work of redemption through His death and resurrection. The work of the Son is His redemptive work, of which there are mainly two aspects — one aspect is to wash away all our negative things through His death, and the other aspect is to germinate us, to make us alive, with the divine life through His resurrection. This work produces the pearls. The precious stones are also a kind of produce. The work of Christ produces pearls, and the work of the Spirit of Christ produces precious stones. It is difficult to differentiate between these two kinds of works. Christ’s work is to secrete His life over us, and the Spirit’s work is to transform us into precious stones.
Even though Christianity has been on the earth for nearly two thousand years and the Bible has been given to God’s children, the depth of the divine revelation has been missed, lost, and even buried by the traditional concept, teaching, and knowledge. It is not easy for us to stay away from the traditional teaching and knowledge that we picked up in the past. In Acts 5 we see a great teacher of the law named Gamaliel (v. 34), under whom the apostle Paul received his education (22:3). Gamaliel was a great teacher among the Jews and was respected by them. Do you believe, however, that Gamaliel had any concept or any share in God’s New Testament economy? God’s economy in the New Testament began on the day of Pentecost under the leadership of a Galilean fisherman named Peter. God’s economy was being carried out in a marvelous way, but all the Pharisees, including Gamaliel, did not have any idea that this was God’s move on the earth. Gamaliel was a godly man who feared God, yet he did not know anything concerning God’s economy and had no share in God’s economy. This godly man was fully blinded by his Judaic, traditional theology, and actually he was in darkness. Gamaliel and the other Pharisees were content with the knowledge of God that they had received according to their traditional teaching. When the Pharisees were intending to do away with the apostles, Gamaliel advised them not to do this but to leave them and the entire situation in God’s hands (5:38-39). His advice was very good, godly, and wise, yet he did not have any share in God’s New Testament economy.
Today there are many Gamaliels who are godly and prayerful and yet hold on to their traditional theology. Actually, the Judaic theology is not wrong, but it is short. In the same way, many people today who have doctor’s degrees in theology and many theological professors in today’s seminaries are just like Gamaliel. They are short of the knowledge and vision of God’s New Testament economy. We may be “Galilean fishermen,” yet we must testify that we know what God’s New Testament economy is. We do not have the burden to minister the “Judaic theology,” which is so fundamental and scriptural yet has nothing to do with God’s New Testament economy.
The situation of Gamaliel is a warning to us. We may be godly and even respected and revered by other people, and yet have no share in or knowledge of God’s New Testament economy. The Lord Jesus promised us that He would come quickly, and yet nearly two thousand years have passed since His ascension because very few of His believers throughout the centuries entered into God’s New Testament economy. Rather, they all were “caught” and occupied by traditional theology. Today’s seminaries teach the traditional theology, and yet they know nearly nothing concerning God’s New Testament economy. In today’s theological teaching, there is not such a term as God’s New Testament economy. Gamaliel did not know anything about Jesus Christ moving as the very embodiment of the Triune God to dispense the Divine Trinity into God’s chosen people and how this dispensing produces a corporate vessel, which is the church, the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all, to express God in a corporate way consummating in the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is a golden mountain. Revelation 21 tells us that the city was pure gold and also that the street of the city was pure gold (v. 21). When we were regenerated, we received the nature of God, and a part of this golden mountain entered into our being. We all have a part of the golden mountain, the New Jerusalem. We need to realize that something within us is divine. A part of our regenerated being is gold, and this divine gold is God’s nature. As the children of God, we have God’s divine nature, which means that we have a part of the golden mountain. Your part, my part, and the parts of billions of believers in Christ, including Paul, Peter, and John, when added together, equal the golden mountain.
The gold within us does not need any further work, but it needs some development. A small tree develops, which means that it grows, but the tree does not work. When trees grow, they develop. As we have seen, 2 Peter 1 tells us that we are partakers of the divine nature and shows the development of the divine nature. Although trees grow or develop, they still need a suitable environment for their development. The divine nature within us as symbolized by the gold does not work, but it grows or develops, and its development needs a good environment. Otherwise, the development will be frustrated, limited, or restricted. In order for the divine nature to develop within us to its fullest extent, we need to give it the best environment.
As a young believer, I heard that Christians have to grow, but when I asked how we grow, no one knew the answer. Some said that to grow is to acquire more knowledge from the Bible. I knew one particular older brother who had a tremendous amount of Bible knowledge. Although he gave sermons on the Bible and was one of the best teachers I was under, he still smoked. Although he had a great amount of the knowledge of the Bible, he was short of life. Today the Lord has opened our eyes to see that God the Father’s nature is in us as the ground, the site, of God’s building and that this nature is developing. Now we need to let this divine nature have the best cooperation and the best environment in order that it may grow and develop within us.
The redemptive work of God the Son is all-inclusive. His desire is for us to stay in His death so that He might secrete His “life-juice” over us. This is the life-secreting work of Christ. Because this work is hard for us to realize, we need such an allegory. Without this allegory we would not be able to see that Christ’s resurrection life is actually the divine life element secreted over us to make us pearls.
If we check with our experience, we will be able to understand more fully Christ’s secreting work. Whenever you remain in the all-inclusive death of Christ, whenever you take the cross, the resurrection life of Christ secretes over you. It may be that a certain young brother feels that his father is wrong in a certain matter. He may feel that he needs to complain or rebel, but if he does this, he is running away from the death of Christ. However, if this brother stays under the cross in the death of Christ and says, “Lord, I praise You that You have kept me in Your death; I praise You that I am now residing in Your all-inclusive death,” immediately something within him will be secreting around his inner being, and he will sense the inner supply. As he experiences this inner secretion time after time, he will become a pearl more and more. This is the secretion of the resurrected Christ in His resurrection life.
Even in our marriage life we must remember that in order to enjoy the secreting work of Christ in His resurrection through His death, we must remain and stay in His death. Do not run away. Many married sisters run away from the death of Christ in their relationship with their husbands. When a wife is nagging or scolding her husband, she has moved out of the death of Christ. We all need to see that the marvelous, all-inclusive death of Christ is our “home sweet home.” Regardless of what a sister’s husband would say to her, she needs to stay, to remain, in Christ’s death. If she would do this, she would sense the secreting of Christ’s resurrection life. The more trouble her husband would give her, the more enjoyment she would have as long as she remains in the death of Christ. This fellowship is not a doctrine or a teaching but an explanation of our subjective experience of Christ. Thank the Lord that today He has opened the veils and has shown us the way to be victorious and to be an overcomer. We do not need to “gnash our teeth” to endeavor or to struggle. We only need to stay home, to remain in the death of Christ. Then we enjoy the secreting of the divine life in resurrection.
The Spirit’s transforming work is different from Christ’s secreting work. Without Christ’s secretion of life, the Spirit has nothing as an element with which to transform us. Christ secretes His resurrection life over us, and following this, the Spirit works to transform us with the life element. In other words, the transforming work of the Spirit continues the secreting work of Christ. When we received Christ, we received God the Father as the divine nature into us. Then as we remain in the death of Christ, we enjoy His life secretion in us. The Spirit then uses this secreting life to transform us. The secreting work is only an addition to add more of the divine life to our natural life, but the transforming work is to change our being metabolically. In order to change any living being metabolically, there is the need of some new element. This new element is the very life that has been secreted into our being. After Christ’s secretion the Spirit comes and continues to transform our being with this secreted life. Then our entire being will be gradually transformed not only in form but also in essence.
Second Corinthians 3:17-18 shows the transforming work of the Spirit. Verse 17 tells us that the Lord is the Spirit. The One who died on the cross was Christ the Lord, and the One who proceeded out of Him was the Spirit. Now we see, however, that the Lord is the very Spirit who proceeded out of Himself. This is a mysterious fact, which is beyond our understanding. Verse 17 goes on to tell us that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. The Spirit of the Lord is the Lord Himself, with whom is the freedom from the letter of the law.
Verse 18 indicates that we need to behold the Lord with an unveiled face. Originally, our face was veiled, but many of us today have unveiled faces. This means that our heart has turned to the Lord so that the veil has been taken away, and the Lord as the Spirit has freed us from the bondage, the veiling, of the law, so that there is no more insulation between us and the Lord. Now with an unveiled face we look at the Lord. The more we look at the Lord, the more He secretes the resurrected life over our being. While we are looking at the Lord, we are being transformed. Verse 18 tells us that “we...are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Eventually, the transforming work is done by the Lord Spirit. The Spirit who transforms us is “the Lord Spirit.” The Lord is the One who secretes life into us, and the Spirit is the One who transforms us with the life secreted into our being by the Lord.
The Spirit’s transforming work is with His bountiful supply of the divine element (Phil. 1:19) for the building up of God’s building (Gen. 2:12b; 1 Cor. 3:12a; 1 Pet. 2:4-5). Consummately, the transforming work of the Spirit issues in the New Jerusalem, which bears the image of God for His expression. God appears like a jasper stone in Revelation 4:3, and the New Jerusalem, having the glory of God, shines like a jasper stone (21:11). Also, the first layer of the wall’s foundation, as well as the entire wall of the New Jerusalem, is built with jasper (vv. 18-19). This indicates that the main material in the building of the holy city is jasper. Since jasper signifies God expressed in His communicable glory (4:3), the main function of the holy city is to express God in bearing His glory.
The transforming work of the Spirit produces the precious stones for God’s building. Pearls, which are used for the gates of the holy city, bear an attractive appearance. Pearls are good for attracting, but they are not good for the building of the wall. To build the wall there is the need of some solid material. Pearls are good material for the gates since they are for attraction, but precious stones are the solid material for God’s building of the wall. The transforming work is an advancement of the secreting work. The secreting work is the initiation and the entrance into the holy city, but the transforming work is for the building of the wall. Life-secreting makes us into pearls, but for us to be precious stones, there is the need of a further step — the transforming work of the Spirit.
First, we have the golden nature as a gift from God the Father; second, we are enjoying the secreting work of Christ to make us pearls; and third, we are experiencing the transforming work of God the Spirit to make us precious stones. God the Father imparted His divine nature into us as a piece of gold, and this gold is a part of the city proper of the New Jerusalem, the holy mountain. Then if we stay in the death of Christ, we enjoy His secreting work to add more and more of the divine life with the divine element into our being. Finally, God the Spirit will continue by using the secreted life to transform our entire being from a piece of rock to a jasper stone, which is good for the building of God’s eternal dwelling place. This dwelling place has been initiated today in the church life, and we are proceeding toward the ultimate consummation, the New Jerusalem.
