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Scripture Reading: 3, 11, Rev. 21:18-20, 22
I love this allegory of the New Jerusalem because it speaks about or depicts our experiences of Christ. There is not another type or allegory in the Scriptures that speaks so much about Christ according to our Christian experience. In this chapter we will see the second aspect of the application of the New Jerusalem to us — the triune constitution.
We partook of the triune constitution at the very beginning of our Christian life. Our faith in Christ, our baptism into Christ (Gal. 3:27) or into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19), and our regeneration in the Spirit (John 3:6b) were the very initiation, the very beginning, of our Christian life and of our spiritual constitution. Regeneration made us another kind of being. By being born of Adam, we were born into the old creation, but we had a second birth, a new birth, a birth from on high, a birth of, in, and with the Spirit. Through this birth we became another kind of being. In one sense all of us have “two faces.” We have the face of our old being and the face of our new being. According to the New Testament revelation, we believers have two lives — the adamic life and God’s life, the divine life. Regretfully, many of us also have two kinds of living. Our coming to the church meetings, pray-reading the Word, fellowshipping with the saints, and meeting in the homes is a heavenly, spiritual, and divine living. Many times, however, when the sisters go shopping, they have another living, which is something different in nature from God’s nature.
As believers, we do have the realization that, on the one hand, we possess the divine nature and that, on the other hand, we have a nature that is rotten and full of corruption — our natural, human nature. The adamic nature can easily be seen even in our children. We may have the feeling that our children are loving and innocent, but at times we all have to admit that our children are “ugly.” The reason they are ugly is because all of us human beings have an ugly nature, which we inherited from Adam. Our natural nature is ugly, but thank the Lord that through the second birth, regeneration, we received another nature, the divine nature. We have an excellent nature, which is the very nature of God Himself.
Since we were regenerated, a constituting work began to take place in our being. When I was a young believer, I frequently heard the word edification. I was told that all the believers need to be edified. As a young Christian, the word edification became a very popular and strong word to me. Actually, the New Testament speaks about edification, but this word denotes the building. The natural understanding concerning edification is that we need to be educated or taught. The very Greek word for edification in the New Testament (King James Version) is the very word for building up. Many Christians feel that they need to be edified, which to them means that they need to be taught, trained, disciplined, regulated, adjusted, improved, and educated. Not many understand this word in the New Testament in the sense of being built up. The New Testament denotation, however, is mainly on the aspect of being built up, and to build up is to constitute. We all need to be constituted, to be built up. To be educated is altogether a matter of knowledge in the mentality and not a matter of being built up with some element. To be built up is to receive more and more of the divine element, which becomes our constituent to constitute us.
Today’s Christianity is mostly a religion of knowledge, theology, biblical teaching, regulation, adjustment, and character improvement. Because of this, the basic thought in the Holy Word of constitution has been altogether lost. Not many Christians have the thought that they need to be constituted with the Triune God and not merely taught. All the mothers know that they have to teach their children, but the main thing that mothers do is feed their children. If a mother would merely teach her children day and night for two weeks without feeding them, the children would not be able to live. Mere teaching does not constitute a child, but feeding does. Mothers are not so bothered by their child being naughty, but they are really bothered when their child does not eat. Eating is not to receive knowledge but to receive some nourishing, constituting element to enable one to grow.
When we look at the New Jerusalem, we cannot see any doctrine or anything concerning the theology of the Trinity. What we see is gold, pearls, and precious stones. These elements signify the Triune God, but they do not indicate a theology of the Trinity. Gold, pearls, and precious stones are not doctrines but elements.
The triune constitution is with the Triune God wrought into the believers as their intrinsic elements. Intrinsic means something that is inward and hidden. Even our physical body receives some nourishing element into it every day, which eventually becomes our body’s intrinsic element. For example, every morning I eat a big breakfast, and this breakfast becomes my intrinsic element. As this food is assimilated within me, it supports, sustains, and strengthens me to live. My strength comes from this intrinsic element. The food is taken into my being and becomes the intrinsic element in my physical body.
The allegory of the New Jerusalem is quite marvelous because it shows what we could not see outwardly — the intrinsic elements. The city is not organized but constituted with gold, pearls, and precious stones. The city is not only constituted with these three elements, but also its constitution becomes a building. The constitution is the building up. Also, we need to remember that this city is a composition of God blended with all His redeemed people. This composition is arrived at by constitution. When we receive the Triune God into us, the Father is given to us as the gold, the Son is secreting over us to produce the pearls, and the Spirit is transforming us to make us precious stones. These three elements are in our being working in us, and they are the very intrinsic elements that constitute our spiritual being. In a corporate sense, our spiritual being is the church today and the New Jerusalem in the coming ages.
The first intrinsic element of the triune constitution is gold, given by the Father as the basic element (Rev. 21:18b). We have seen that gold in typology always refers to God’s divine nature, and Peter tells us that we are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). When we were born physically, we all inherited our father’s nature by being born of him. We all have been given our human nature by our begetting father. In like manner, when we were born of God, as the begetting Father, He imparted His own nature into our being, which is the gold of the “golden mountain,” the New Jerusalem. The city proper is like a mountain with the height of twelve thousand stadia, and Revelation 21:18 tells us that the city was pure gold. Also, Revelation 21:21 tells us that the street of the city was pure gold. All of this denotes that the divine nature is the basic element of our spiritual constitution, just like our human nature is the basic element of our human being.
The divine nature becomes the golden street on which we walk and in which we behave. As human beings, we behave in our human nature. In the same way, a dog has a “doggie nature,” and he always behaves in this nature. A dog does not need anyone to teach it to bark. The dog’s barking is because of his nature. The dog nature becomes the “street” for the dog to walk on. Since we as the children of God have the divine nature, this divine nature should spontaneously be our street and our walkway. The reason we do not go dancing is because this is against the divine nature. The divine nature regulates us, not by a written regulation but by being a street in our inner being. Our driving a car is not only regulated by a street but also by the lines painted on the street. Our Christian life should not be regulated by a church code or by a written regulation but by the divine nature as our unique street.
In the New Jerusalem there is one unique street — God’s divine nature. Why do we Christians not gamble? There is not a code which says that the members of the church should not gamble, but the divine nature within us will not allow us to gamble. We are walking on the divine street, which means that we are walking in the divine nature. The divine nature has been given to us, and 2 Peter 1:3-4 says that God has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness and that we may be those partaking of the divine nature. To partake of the divine nature means that we have received the divine nature already. Partaking of the divine nature means enjoying the divine nature. All of us have a share of the golden mountain within us since we have received God’s divine nature. We do not need to receive His nature again, but we have to enjoy it every day.
Peter tells us in his second Epistle that through the precious and exceedingly great promises, the believers might become partakers of the divine nature (v. 4). We all need to praise the Lord that we have God’s divine nature as the gold within us. His divine nature is rich, high, excellent, and brilliant! He has also given us great promises in both the Old and New Testaments to enable us to partake of this golden nature.
In order to illustrate how we partake of the divine nature through the great promises of God, we need to consider something that plagues every human being — anxiety. Everyone has anxiety and worry; no one can avoid this. We all must admit that anxiety is a “killer.” There are some wonderful promises in the Bible, however, concerning anxiety. In Matthew 6 the Lord Jesus told us not to be anxious for our life, which involves what we eat, what we drink, and what we put on (v. 25). The Lord then went on to tell us to look at the birds of heaven. Although the birds do not sow or reap or gather into barns, our heavenly Father nourishes them (v. 26). Finally, the Lord charged us to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (v. 33).
Upon graduating from college, a certain young man may aspire to get the best job. If he does not get a job after three months, however, he probably will become anxious. He will begin to wonder where he will get the money to feed and clothe himself. The Lord Jesus, however, promised us that if we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, He will take care of our needs. If we take His promise, we will enjoy the divine nature.
In 2 Peter 1:4-11 there is a record of the divine nature and its development. The development of the divine nature is the growth of the divine nature. The divine nature has been given to us for us to partake of and enjoy. Through the promises of God we can enjoy the divine nature, and by this the divine nature develops and grows from one state to another. While we are enjoying God’s nature, we are being constituted with it. In the physical realm, what I eat and enjoy becomes my intrinsic element to constitute me. My healthy facial color and my strength are from the inner constituting by the intrinsic element.
Through the promises of God, we can enjoy the divine nature wrought into our being as our intrinsic element. Philippians 4:6-7 says, “In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses every man’s understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” These verses also contain a promise through which we can deal with anxiety and partake of the divine nature. When you have anxiety, the enjoyment of the gold within you is annulled. This means that when you are in anxiety, you need the enjoyment of the divine nature in you. When you keep or take the promises concerning anxiety, you will enjoy the divine nature. Whenever anxiety threatened to take me over, I said, “Lord Jesus, Philippians 4:6!” Sometimes I shout — “Philippians 4:6!” To let your requests be made known to God means to tell God what you need. If you are anxious about your children, tell God, and the peace of God will guard your heart and your thoughts. In nothing be anxious, but in everything tell God what you need. Once we tell the Lord what we need and that we do not like this anxiety, from that time the thing that is causing us the anxiety becomes His business and His job. Therefore, we enjoy Him and we enjoy His golden nature.
He has granted to us all things which relate to life, and He has also given us the great promises that we may partake of, that we may enjoy, the divine nature. While we are enjoying this divine nature, it constitutes us. When we are in anxiety, we cannot enjoy God’s nature constituting us in any way. However, when we appropriate and apply God’s promises, the divine nature has a way to constitute our being and grow within us. This is the first aspect of the triune constitution.
The second aspect of the triune constitution is the pearls, which are produced through the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life (Rev. 21:21a). The divine nature was given to us by God, but pearls are produced through the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life from the time that we entered into Christ. When we stay in the death of Christ, Christ’s resurrection life secretes itself over us, making all of us pearls. In Galatians 2:20 Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ.” When we say this, we stay in the death of Christ. When you say that you have been crucified with Christ, this means that you admit that you have been crucified on the cross. When you recognize this divine fact, you stay in His death. When you declare, “I have been crucified with Christ,” this means that you are staying in His death, that you would not go away from His death, and that His death is your dwelling place. When you stay, remain, and abide in Christ’s death, then it is no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you. His living and moving in you is the secretion of His resurrection life over you to make you a pearl. This secreting is a constituting. When you get up in the morning, you should stay in the death of Christ for ten or fifteen minutes; while you are staying in His death, the Lord is moving in you. This moving is His secreting of His resurrection life around you. After fifteen minutes of abiding in His death in morning watch, you will look like a pearl to your spouse. If you do not have a morning watch to stay in the death of Christ, Christ has no chance to secrete His life over you, and your appearance may be “ugly” instead of “pearly.”
If we stay in the death of Christ every day for five to ten years, we will eventually become a “big round pearl.” Sometimes because our stay in the death of Christ was a little short, His secretion of His resurrection life over us was not complete. Therefore, when others looked at us, they saw that we were pearls, but they also could still see “the rock” of our fallen nature. Also, because the secretion of the resurrection life is not that thick in us, there are still parts of our being that the resurrection life has not touched. As pieces of rock, we need to abide in the death of Christ and enjoy the rich, thick secretion of His resurrection life to make us pearls. The rock is not made into a pearl by being taught but by being constituted with the resurrection life of Christ through His death.
I thank the Lord for encouraging me with all the saints and with all the churches. When I go back to visit a church after having been there before, I can see that the saints have enjoyed more secretion and that Christ has been constituted more and more into their very being. We have not only been taught by the ministry, but we have been ministered to with the indwelling Christ secreting His resurrection life over us all the time to make us pearly. When a mother notices that her son is growing, this encourages her. This growth comes from the mother’s feeding him with nourishing food, and this food constitutes him, becoming his intrinsic element to make him grow. Her son then becomes not only knowledgeable but also constituted.
Today in the church life we need to be taught, but more importantly, we need to be constituted. Constitution means more than knowledge. This constitution is going on all the time in the Lord’s recovery because we have heard and are hearing so many messages that minister Christ’s resurrection life to us. We need to admit that we have been crucified with Christ. When you take this fact and stay in this fact, admitting that you are dead in Him, you will be staying in His death. As long as you stay here, the resurrected Christ will secrete His resurrection life around you to make you a pretty pearl. Many of us can testify that we have seen saints in the Lord’s recovery who are not the same as they were before they came into the church life. This is because they have become constituted and not merely taught. I do not like to teach, but I love to minister some element of the Triune God into your being.
The third item of the triune constitution is the precious stones through the transformation of the Spirit (Rev. 21:18a, 19-20), from the time that we began to look to the Lord. In the New Jerusalem we first see the base, the golden mountain, then there are the pearly gates, and finally, there is the building, mainly with jasper and other precious stones. The gold is given, the pearl is produced by Christ’s resurrection life through His death, and the precious stones are produced by the transforming work of the Spirit.
In order to see the transforming work of the Spirit to make us precious stones we need to look at our experience. I have been practicing to remain in the death of Christ for approximately fifty years, and I am still practicing this every day. If I do not practice this, I lose the ground for Christ to secrete His resurrection life over me. When I remain in His death, spontaneously I look unto Him with an unveiled face. If you are not remaining in His death, even if you would look unto Him, your face would be fully veiled. The more you stay in His death, however, the more the veils are taken away. Then you see Him with an unveiled face. When we stay in the death of Christ, not only does Christ secrete His resurrection life around us, but also we behold Him, we look at His face, we appreciate Him, and we love Him. This affords the Spirit within us a great opportunity to move and to bring in more riches of the Divine Trinity into our being to transform us (2 Cor. 3:18). Transformation is a metabolic work. The divine element is added to us, and this element replaces our old nature metabolically.
The secretion of the resurrection life of Christ is good for our entering into the Triune God, but transformation is good for building. The wall is not built with pearls but with precious stone. You not only have the experience of Christ secreting His resurrection life over you, but you also have the experience of the Spirit supplying you with the rich element of the Divine Trinity, which transforms you into His image. Through this transforming work, you become not only pearls but also precious stones good for God’s building. This is constitution by the Father’s nature as the gold, by the Son’s secretion to produce pearls, and by the Spirit’s transformation to produce stones. We are not separate pieces of precious stone, but we are pieces fitted in together to become God’s building. The building up of the church is not a kind of arrangement or organization but a constitution. We are being constituted with the Father’s divine nature, with Christ’s resurrection life, and with the bountiful supply of the riches of the Divine Trinity. This constitution not only changes our being but builds all of us together in the intrinsic elements of the Divine Trinity.
As God’s building, today we are the church, and tomorrow we will be the New Jerusalem. The triune constitution is for the building up of the New Jerusalem to be God’s dwelling place (Rev. 21:3). God dwells in this constitution. The church today and then the New Jerusalem in the future, being the house of God, has to be a spiritual constitution with the element of the Divine Trinity. This constitution is God’s dwelling place. Second, this constitution is God’s corporate expression (v. 11). God dwells in such a constitution, and this constitution expresses God in a corporate way as a corporate Body. The function of the church today is to express God corporately, and in eternity in the New Jerusalem we will be such a corporate expression forever. This corporate expression is also a constitution with the intrinsic element of the Triune God.
Finally, the triune constitution is God’s expansion — the temple to be our dwelling place (v. 22). If God had never been expanded, how could He be the temple? John was looking for the temple in the New Jerusalem, but he saw no temple because the temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. This means that the Triune God has been expanded to be a temple. To us God is the temple for us to dwell in, to serve Him, and to stay with Him. To God, however, we are His tabernacle for Him to dwell in. The New Jerusalem is the tabernacle, and in another sense it is a temple. This is a strong proof that the New Jerusalem is not a physical city but a personal entity. The New Jerusalem is the believers, God’s tabernacle, and God, the believers’ temple. He dwells in us, the tabernacle, and we dwell in Him, the temple. We serve God in God. This is God’s expansion. The New Jerusalem as a spiritual, divine constitution is God’s dwelling place, God’s corporate expression, and God’s expansion to be our temple for us to live in and to serve Him. Praise the Lord for the triune constitution!
