Search
Scripture Reading: John 1:13; Eph. 4:18; 1 John 4:8, 16; 2-3, 1:5; Col. 2:9; 3:4; Rev. 2:7; Phil. 1:20; John 14:17a; 15:26; 16:13-15; Rom. 8:2; Rev. 22:17b; Phil. 1:19
I hope that we all have been impressed with the picture that we have seen concerning the New Jerusalem. The holy city is a golden mountain, and around this mountain is a wall built with jasper. The city itself lies “square” (Rev. 21:16), with its length, breadth, and height equal. At the bottom of the wall are twelve layers of precious stone as the wall’s foundation. On each of the four sides of the wall are three pearl gates. On the top of the city is a throne, and this throne is the throne of God and of the Lamb. The Lamb is the lamp of the city, and God is within the Lamb as the light. Out of the throne proceeds the river of water of life, and this river is in the middle of a golden street, which goes down the mountain in a spiral fashion. On the two sides of the river grows the tree of life, which is a vine spreading and proceeding along the flow of the water of life, producing new fruit each month, for God’s people to receive and enjoy.
Such a picture has helped us to see the entry into the city, the constitution of the city with the divine element of the Triune God, and the existence of the city. Now we need to see the living of the New Jerusalem. The living of the city is also triune. In the New Jerusalem we see that the One sitting on the throne is the source of life. This refers to God the Father who is within the Lamb as the light and who is the source of life (John 5:26). Proceeding out of the throne is the river of water of life. John 7:38-39 indicates that the river of water of life denotes the Spirit of life. In this river grows the tree of life, which refers to the Son. Thus, we see the triune living of the New Jerusalem — the Father sitting on the throne as the source, the Spirit flowing out of the Father as a river, and the Son as the tree of life growing in the Spirit to express Himself for the life supply of the entire city. Actually, the city’s living is the Triune God’s living. In eternity in the new heaven and the new earth, the Triune God and His redeemed people will be one entity. The Triune God and His chosen, redeemed, called, forgiven, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people will be mingled together as one for eternity.
Some believers may feel that God is one entity and that they are another entity. However, we must realize that God is not only with us and in us but also mingled with us (1 Cor. 6:17). Many Christians do not believe in the truth of mingling. They contend that it is a heresy to say that a person is mingled with God and that this is to make yourself God. They feel that to say that God is mingled with man is to lower down God by making Him a man. The Bible, however, tells us that the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Word is God and flesh is man, which means that God made Himself man and was a man. God became a man, and He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years as a man. In the last three and a half years of His earthly life, He traveled and ministered. He was a genuine, perfect man with a stomach to digest food, with tears to shed, and with blood to shed on the cross for our sins. To say that God became a man is not to lower down God but to honor and respect Him. What a wonder it is that God became a man, that the Creator became a creature! What a glory that our God made Himself a man!
To say that we are mingled with God, though, does not mean that we become God in His deity and that we are qualified to be the object of people’s worship. This is a top blasphemy and is utterly heretical. To say that we have been born of God, though, and that we have the life of God and the nature of God is a divine, scriptural fact (v. 13; 1 John 5:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:4). Since we all were born of a man, this makes us a man. Whatever is born of a dog is a dog. Because we were born of a man, we have a man’s life and a man’s nature. In like manner, the fact that we have been born of God means that we have God’s life and God’s nature and that we are the sons of God. If you say that you are God and that you are deified with His deity and Godhead to be an object of worship, this is heresy. However, if you say that you are like God in your being (1 John 3:2), having His life and nature, this is the truth according to the divine revelation.
The New Testament tells us that the Lord Jesus is God and the Son of God; also the Lord Jesus is man as well as the Son of Man. Some of the church fathers used the term deification to describe the fact that we have been mingled with God and that we are partakers of God’s life and nature. When you use the word deified, though, if you mean that you have been made God in His Godhead to be an object of worship, this is heresy. On the other hand, if your denotation is that through regeneration you have received God’s life and nature and that now you are a son of God, this is altogether safe and scriptural. We all have to admit and boast of the wonderful fact that we have been born of God. We have received His life and His nature, and we are now partakers of the divine nature, enjoying the divine nature daily. We and our God are mingled together as one entity.
On the one hand, we are one with God, being mingled with Him. On the other hand, He is the object of our worship, and we are His worshippers. First Corinthians 6:17 tells us that “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” The New Testament also tells us that God dwells in us and that we are dwelling in God (1 John 4:15). The fact that we are in God and God is in us is coinherence. Coinherence is even deeper than mingling. Even today we and God are not two entities but one. When eternity comes, we will not be an entity separate from God, but we will be one with God, thus one entity. This one divine entity is the New Jerusalem.
We can see God in the New Jerusalem in His trinity, and we can see ourselves in the New Jerusalem in a triune way. Our entry into the New Jerusalem is triune, our constitution is triune, our existence is triune, and now we must see that our living is triune. We live triunely with the Father, with the Son, and with the Spirit. The church life today as a precursor of the New Jerusalem should be the same. The church life is a miniature of the New Jerusalem, but in its nature and in the intrinsic element of the triune living, the church today should be exactly the same as its full consummation. Individually we are a small New Jerusalem, and corporately as the church life we are also a miniature New Jerusalem.
We should be those living with the Father as the source of life (John 1:13; Eph. 4:18; John 5:26) on the throne. The first striking point of the New Jerusalem is that God is sitting on the throne. This God is the Lamb-God, the redeeming God, God the Redeemer. Genesis 1:1 does not tell us that in the beginning God and the Lamb created the heavens and the earth. The first verse of the book of Genesis tells us that God only created. In Revelation 22:1, however, we see God and the Lamb, which signifies that God is now the redeeming God, no longer merely the creating God. In Genesis 1:1 He was the creating God, but in Revelation 22:1 we see the redeeming God.
Revelation 22:1 tells us that the throne is the throne of God and of the Lamb. Here it indicates that two are sitting on one throne. How can two sit on one throne? Actually, God and the Lamb are not two, but They are coinhering. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father (John 14:10-11). For eternity They are the redeeming God. The “green,” jasper God is within the “red,” sardius Lamb (Rev. 4:3). This redeeming God is the source of life. We all need to look at this marvelous picture. Here is a golden mountain twelve thousand stadia, or approximately thirteen hundred and sixty-four miles, high. On the top of this high mountain is a throne, and One is sitting on this throne who is both God and man, the redeeming God. He is the source from which flows the river of water of life.
In 1977 a few of us brothers went to see the Holy Land. One day we drove to the north, to Caesarea Philippi. At the foot of Mount Hermon, there is a fountain, which is one of the three sources of the Jordan River. There is a big spring that comes out of this fountain, and the Jordan River flows out from this spring. The flow of the Jordan River comes from the spring, and the spring comes from the fountain. This is a picture of the Triune God flowing Himself into His redeemed people. The redeeming God is sitting on the throne with His sovereign authority as the very source of life. God the Father is the source, God the Son is the redeeming element, and the throne of God is the element of the divine authority. From this source flows the Spirit as the living water throughout the entire city. Today we should have a living with the Father as the source of life on the throne. We must take the Godhead as our very source and as our very authority. We have already seen that we cannot “throw the throne away” and still enjoy the flow of life. We must take the throne and be under the throne in order to have the enjoyment of the flowing life. Today we must see that we need to take God as our source with His redeeming element and with the element of His divine authority. When we do this, we have the flow of life.
We must have a living with the Father as the source of life. What is the source of our daily living, of our marriage life, of our home life, and of our church life? We should be able to say, “Amen, Lord. The source of my family life, marriage life, business life, and church life is God the Father with His redeeming element and with the element of His divine authority.” We also live with the Father as love (1 John 4:8, 16), the nature of God’s essence, and as light (1:5), the nature of God’s expression. In the very divine life, which flows from the divine source, is love and light.
The only way that we could have such a living, taking God as the source of life, as love, the nature of His essence, and as light, the nature of His expression, is in the fellowship of His divine life (vv. 2-3). We must remain and keep ourselves in the fellowship of the divine life. In order to do this, we must have a definite, set-aside time every day to stay with the Father in fellowship. This time should be at least five minutes long. The longer your time is for this fellowship, though, the better. During this time, do not care for anything, and lay aside every other burden. Just have a time absolutely for you to contact the source of the divine life to remain in the divine fellowship.
In order to have such a time, you first have to practice to get everything done. Then gradually, you have to learn that you can still have this time of fellowship with many things undone. At first, if you have anything undone, your heart is always there. During your time of fellowship, your mind may wander to think about the things that you have to do or bear. You have to improve yourself in this practice of remaining in the fellowship, however, until you advance into a state where you can be so free to remain with the Father for a set time with many things still undone. Even though there are many things around me that I see undone and that I feel compelled to do, I still set aside some time to enjoy the fellowship of the Father’s divine life.
You must also learn during this set-aside time to keep yourself in the fellowship of the divine life. After three or four minutes of having a time with the Lord, the telephone may ring. Let it ring. You do not need to answer it. Learn to free yourself from outside disturbances to keep yourself in the fellowship of the divine life. Finally, you must learn to stop anything that you sense interrupts your fellowship. Always try your best to keep yourself in the divine fellowship. Then you will enjoy God the Father as the source of life, as love, the nature of His essence, and as light, the nature of His expression.
We also need to be those living with the Son as the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9). When you have the Father, you have the Son, and when you have the Son, you have the Father. The Son as the embodiment of God is life (3:4). We live with the Father as the source of life, but we live with the Son as life. The New Testament does not tell us that the Father is life, but it always says that the Son is life (v. 4; John 14:6). The life comes out of the source, of course, just as the flow comes out of the fountain. We live with the Father as the fountain, and we live with the Son as life and as the life supply, the tree of life (Rev. 22:2; 2:7). Even today in the church life, as indicated by Revelation 2:7, we can eat the tree of life.
The Lord Jesus is our daily life supply, and every day we must call upon His name to enjoy this supply (Rom. 10:12). Day after day we need to be those who call upon the name of the Lord again and again. When we call “O Lord,” this is very good, but it is not as sweet as when we call “O Lord Jesus.” In our experience, our calling becomes sweeter when we add the name Jesus. If we call by saying, “O Lord Jesus Christ,” this makes our calling richer. At times our praying for many things frustrates us from the enjoyment of the Son as our life and as our life supply. If we would come to the Lord and call upon His dear name, praising and worshipping Him for who He is and for what He has done, our enjoyment and fellowship with Him would be quite rich.
We all have to learn how to take our Lord individually and extensively as our enjoyment for His magnification (Phil. 1:20). When we enjoy the Lord in such a way, we magnify Him. Sometimes our prayer to the Lord is in a “pitiful way,” where we complain about our negative situation or environment. If this is the case, we are not magnifying Christ. Despite our environment or negative situation we need to learn to enjoy Christ to a great extent. Then we will be able to say, like Paul did, that our expectation and hope is that Christ will be magnified in our body, whether through life or through death (v. 20). Paul enjoyed Christ even in prison because he was enjoying the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ for his daily salvation (v. 19). Through this all-inclusive bountiful supply, Paul was saved to magnify Christ in his body. He was living in prison with Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, as the life, and as the life supply. This means that he was eating Jesus as the tree of life all the time.
We also need to be those living triunely with the Spirit as the realization of Christ the Son (John 14:17a; 15:26; 16:13-15). When you call, “O Lord Jesus Christ,” you enjoy the Lord. When you enjoy the Lord, immediately the Lord within you is the Spirit. The Lord is realized as the Spirit. The more you call on the Lord, the more you have the Spirit within you as the realization of Christ, the Spirit of reality. The reality mainly denotes the very being in the divine essence of the Triune God. The Spirit is the reality of the Triune God.
This Spirit is also the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). The Father is the source of life, the Son is life, and the Spirit is the Spirit of life. The power plant is the source of electricity, and the electricity itself is electricity. But in order for the electricity to be applied to us, there is the need of the flow, or the current, of electricity. The electrical current is actually the electricity itself, but if the electricity is not moving, it cannot be applied. Electricity can only be applied by its current. The current is the flowing of electricity. We may say that the Father is the power plant, the Son is the electricity, and the Spirit is the current of electricity. The Spirit of life simply means the current of life. When life moves, it is the Spirit of life. This corresponds to 2 Corinthians 13:14, which refers to the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The fellowship of the Spirit is the flow of the Spirit. When we live with the Spirit, we enjoy the flow of life, and this life becomes our real supply. The Spirit of life is also the water of life (Rev. 22:17b), and we live with the Spirit as the water of life for the bountiful supply of the Triune God (Phil. 1:19).
Our living should be a triune living, in which we live with the Father in the fellowship of His divine life, live with the Son for His magnification, and live with the Spirit for the bountiful supply of the Triune God. The entire New Jerusalem lives by the Father on the throne, by the Spirit flowing as the river of water of life, and by the Son growing as the tree of life. The Son growing is the life supply, and the Spirit flowing is the bountiful supply of the Triune God to support the entire city. This should not be something merely in the future, but this must be our living today. We are living with the Father as the source, as love and as light, in His fellowship of the divine life; we are living with the Son as the embodiment of the Triune God as life and as the life supply for His magnification; and we are living with the Spirit as the realization of this enjoyable Christ as the Spirit of life and as the water of life for the bountiful supply of the Triune God to nourish the entire church life. This should be our triune living.
