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Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:23; 22:5; John 1:4; 8:12; 1 John 1:5; Rev. 21:11; 22:2, 14; Gen. 2:9; Rev. 22:1, 14, 17
The fifth aspect of the New Jerusalem’s application to the believers is the triune enjoyment. This is the most crucial aspect of the application of the New Jerusalem. According to the record in Revelation 21 and 22, the main stress of the New Jerusalem’s application to us is the aspect of the triune enjoyment. The enjoyment of the New Jerusalem is of the Triune God, the very Godhead of the Trinity. The items of our triune enjoyment are the divine light (21:23a; 22:5), the divine river (v. 1), and the divine tree (vv. 2a, 14; Gen. 2:9).
Any type of beautiful scenery needs light, a river, and trees. The earth lives by these three items. If there were no light, no water, and no trees, there would be no life. Also, we ourselves live by light, by water, and by food. These three items are necessities to the earth and to us human beings. In the same way, the New Jerusalem will live by God as light, by God as water, and by God as food.
Light refers to God the Father. First John 1:5 tells us that God is light, and according to the context of this verse, God mainly refers to God the Father. While love is the nature of God’s intrinsic essence, light is the nature of God’s outward expression. In the New Jerusalem light refers to God Himself to illuminate the entire city for His expression. Revelation 21:23 tells us that the city has no need of the sun or of the moon. This indicates that in the new heaven and the new earth the sun and moon will still be there. The fact that the tree of life in the New Jerusalem yields its fruit each month also indicates that in the new heaven and new earth the moon will still be there to divide the twelve months. The sun will also be there to separate day and night into periods of twelve hours each. Isaiah 30:26 tells us that in the coming days, “the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, / And the light of the sun will be sevenfold.” In the New Jerusalem, however, there will be no need of the sun or of the moon. The light in the city will be God Himself as the light of life (John 1:4; 8:12). Since such a divine light will illumine the holy city, it has no need of any other light, whether created by God or made by man (Rev. 22:5). The God-created and man-made lights will not be needed in the New Jerusalem, because we have God, who is much brighter than the sun and the moon and even more bright than the man-made lamps.
God as the divine light, the light of life, is contained in the Lamb as the lamp (21:23b). An electrical light always needs a bulb or a lamp to contain it; otherwise, there is the possibility of a person being electrocuted. In the New Jerusalem the redeeming Lamb is the lamp, and God is within Him as the light. This indicates that without the redeeming Christ to contain the divine light, the divine light would “kill” us. With the redeeming Christ as the lamp, however, the divine light does not kill us; it illumines us. The killing becomes a kind of enlightening through the redemption of Christ. First Timothy 6:16 tells us that God dwells in unapproachable light. In Christ, though, God becomes approachable. Outside of Christ, God’s shining is a kind of killing, but inside of Christ, God’s shining is a kind of illumination. Since the day we were saved, we began to enjoy God as the divine light in the redeeming Christ illumining us all the time. Even today we should enjoy God in this way.
Today we Christians actually have God Himself within Christ as our light. We do not need philosophy, the human-made light, and we do not need ethical teachings such as that of Confucius. We do not need any kind of religious teaching, because we have God Himself within us. Do you need someone to tell you to love your parents? Do you not have a divine light in you all day long shining within you to let you know that you have to honor your parents? We have to realize, though, that Paul still tells us to honor our father and mother (Eph. 6:2). If all Christians have God as the light within them, why does the New Testament still teach many things? Beginning in Ephesians 5:22 through 6:9, Paul unveils the kind of living needed in ethical relationships. He talks about the relationship between wife and husband, between children and parents, and between slaves and masters. These charges are not given in the first chapter of Ephesians but in the last two chapters. Before giving us this kind of teaching, Paul says in Ephesians 5:14, “Therefore He says, Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” The New Testament does not reveal the teaching to us first, but the divine light. Because we are still in the old creation, we still need this teaching. When we get to the New Jerusalem, however, there will be nothing old, and there will be no teaching there. If we would care for the new creation and the inner anointing all the time, there would be no need of teaching. Because we are in the old creation, however, many times we need some teaching to remind us to awake from our sleep.
According to the principle of the new creation, we have God in us as light. In Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). When we are fellowshipping with God, we do not need any other light. As long as we have Him, He is the very light to us, and we do not need any teaching or doctrine. As long as we have the very God who is light to us in our fellowship with Him, there is no need of anything else.
In the New Jerusalem gold symbolizes God’s divine nature, and light refers to His divine shining. This shining is in the redeeming Lamb as the lamp to hold the divine light for our benefit that we may enjoy God as the shining One in the redeeming Christ. Revelation 21:11 indicates that God as the light shines through the New Jerusalem. This verse tells us that “her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, as clear as crystal.” The word for light in this verse is “luminary” or “light-bearer” in the Greek. The entire wall of the New Jerusalem is built with jasper (v. 18), and the light of the New Jerusalem is like a jasper stone, bearing the appearance of God (4:3) to express God by her shining. God in the redeeming Lamb is the light, and the entire city is a luminary, a great light-bearer. This means that God as the divine light shines within and through the redeeming Christ, and this shining enlightens the entire city. Then the entire city becomes a light-bearer. This bearing of God’s light becomes an expression, and this expression is God’s goal. This is why Revelation 21:11 also tells us that the holy city has the glory of God. Glory is God expressed. In the New Jerusalem God is light, and His shining is His glory. The shining is the coming out of the light, so when God shines in the city, God is expressed in glory, first in Christ and through Christ and then in the city and through the saints. God is the light, Christ is the containing lamp, and the city’s wall bears the divine light to express God.
We need to apply this picture to our daily life. Today we have God in the redeeming Christ shining within us, and we are being transformed to be transparent. In our old creation we are opaque, but in our new creation we are transparent. Second Corinthians 3:18 says we are being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. Eventually, we will have the appearance of jasper and will fully express the “jasper God” (Rev. 4:3).
A certain saint may be a very good person, but he may still be opaque and not transparent because he remains in the old creation so much. Because of this, not much transformation has transpired in his being. When you are with another saint, though, you may sense that with him everything is transparent since he has experienced much transformation in life. Many times when you come to a certain brother, you cannot get any light. Your coming to another brother, however, may bring you into the light. Even before he begins to talk to you, you are in the light. When you are home, you are in darkness. But when you come to this dear saint, your coming means light to you. When you come to him, everything is clear, darkness is gone, and there is light. Opaqueness is over, and everything is transparent. We all need to be transformed to such an extent that we are full of light and transparent.
In the Bible darkness is a type of punishment. God punished the Egyptians with a thick darkness for three days (Exo. 10:22), and in the future God will punish the Antichrist and his kingdom with darkness (Rev. 16:10). Part of the enjoyment in the New Jerusalem is that there will be no night. The city will be full of light, and this light is God the Father. He will not only be the nature of the New Jerusalem, but He will also be the shining light as an enjoyment to the entire city. The first enjoyment in the New Jerusalem is God as our light. Our experience today is the same. When we are left in darkness, this is a real punishment. When we open our entire being to Him, however, we are in the light, and the light is God Himself enjoyed by us in our daily life. This is the first aspect of the triune enjoyment.
The second aspect of the triune enjoyment is the river of water of life (22:1). This river refers to the Spirit as the consummation of the Triune God. John 7:38-39 indicates that the rivers of living water refer to the Spirit. In Revelation 22:1 there is the throne of God (the Father) and of the Lamb (the Son), out of which flows the river of water of life (the Spirit). God, the Lamb, and the water of life refer to the Trinity. The river is the flowing of the Triune God and the consummate coming out of God. When God flows out, He becomes the river of water of life. When the Triune God reaches us, He is the living water. (See footnotes 12—15 in Revelation 22, Recovery Version.)
This flowing river is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God reaching us. God on the throne in the Lamb reaches the entire city as the flowing river. Today God reaches us by being the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). God the Father made an eternal plan (Eph. 3:11), He sent the Son, and the Son came with Him (John 8:29) to accomplish His plan on the cross. While He was accomplishing God’s plan on the cross, blood and water issued out of His side (19:34). This is typified in the Old Testament by the cleft rock flowing out the living water (Exo. 17:6). The water signifies the ultimate consummation of the Triune God reaching His redeemed people. In Revelation 22 God in the Lamb flows as the living water to reach His redeemed people.
Revelation 22:1 says, “He showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street.” Many Christians have never paid adequate attention to this last phrase — in the middle of its street. The river flows out of the throne, but it flows in the middle of the street. Revelation 21:21 tells us that the street of the city is pure gold. Without the street, the river cannot flow. If there is no street, there is no river. The street in the New Jerusalem is the very riverbed of this flowing river. The street being gold indicates that the way in the New Jerusalem is God’s divine nature. The Christian way for the Christian life is God’s divine nature. We should dress according to God’s divine nature, behave ourselves according to God’s divine nature, talk to others according to God’s divine nature, and deal with our spouse according to God’s divine nature. The highway of our Christian life is God’s divine nature, which is the street of the entire city.
If the street is there, in the middle of the street flows the river. According to our experience, if we do not behave and live according to God’s divine nature, we feel dried up within, and we do not sense the flow of life within us. We have the flow of the water of life within us when we are living, behaving, and having our life according to God’s divine nature. If you do not walk in the divine nature as the divine street, you are dried up because there is no riverbed for the flow of the street. There is the need of a riverbed so that the river can flow in and through our inner being. This corresponds with our daily experience.
The light of the New Jerusalem is God the Father, and the river is God the Spirit. This Spirit can only flow in the middle of the divine nature. It cannot flow in the human nature. Obviously, God the Spirit cannot flow in anything sinful. Also, He cannot even flow in your natural, human nature. He can only flow in the divine nature. When you live the divine nature and have your daily life in the divine nature, that divine nature becomes an excellent riverbed for the Holy Spirit to flow through. This is a crucial matter. Sometimes you may wonder where the flow of life within you is. You may feel that every day you are a “dried up” Christian. The reason you are dried up is that you do not know how to lead a life according to the divine nature. You must make a decision that from now on as a child of God with His divine nature, you will live, behave, and do everything according to this divine nature. If you do this, you will immediately have the sense that you are no longer dried up but that a river is flowing within you.
For God the Father to be our light, we need the redeeming Christ, and for God the Spirit to be our river, we need the divine nature. The divine light is contained in the redeeming Christ, and the divine river is flowing in the divine nature. Without the redeeming Christ, you cannot take and enjoy God as the shining light. Without the divine nature, there is no way for the Holy Spirit to flow in you. You need both the redeeming Christ and the divine nature. Praise the Lord that we are the partakers of the divine nature and that we also have the redeeming Christ. We have the full right and privilege to enjoy the divine light and to claim the divine flow. Both the divine light, God the Father, and the divine flow, God the Spirit, are our portion even today. We must apply God the Father as the divine light in the redeeming Christ, and we must apply God the Spirit as the flowing river in the divine nature. This kind of revelation is much higher than any kind of ethical teaching. By the Lord’s mercy we are here under this revelation. This river flows in the divine street, and the street spirals down the golden mountain until it reaches all twelve gates. This means that the river saturates the New Jerusalem, carrying the tree of life with its fruit to nourish the city (22:2a, 14).
Where the divine river goes, the tree of life grows (v. 2). The tree of life signifies God Himself in Christ as the life supply to us (Gen. 2:9; John 1:4; 14:6). God the Father is the divine light, God the Spirit is the divine river, and God the Son is the divine tree, the very embodiment of the Triune God as life. After God created man, He prepared a garden and put the man whom He had formed into that garden. Many trees were there, and among these trees one particular tree stood out — the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). This tree is the very embodiment of life. According to the divine revelation, only God Himself is life in the entire universe. This God who is life is absolutely embodied in Christ (Col. 2:9). Christ is the tree of life, and in this tree of life is the full enjoyment of all the riches of life. Revelation 22:2 tells us that the tree of life yields its fruit each month. Every month there is a crop. The tree of life produces twelve fruits to be our life supply. This depicts that today our Triune God embodied in Christ is our enjoyment. The fruits of the tree of life, as our life supply, will be the food of God’s redeemed for eternity. They will be continually fresh, produced every month, twelve fruits yearly.
The tree of life was closed to the fallen man by God’s glory, righteousness, and holiness until Christ’s death fulfilled all the divine requirements. Through Christ’s death the tree of life is open again and available to all the sinners who would believe in Him and take Him as their Savior and life. Then they, as the believers in Christ, have the privilege to drink His Spirit as the water of life. In Revelation 22:14 there is a promise of the tree of life, and in Revelation 22:17 there is a calling to the water of life. We have answered the calling, and we are now enjoying the promise.
We all need to be enjoying God the Father as the light, God the Spirit as the river, and God the Son as the tree in a daily way. When we enjoy the Triune God in this way, we become “the most beautiful scenery.” When a sister sees her husband enjoying God the Father as light, God the Spirit as the flowing river, and God the Son as the tree of life, she can see that her husband is “beautiful scenery.” Light is with him, the river is flowing in him, and the tree is growing in him. If there is no light, no river, and no tree, there is nothing but desolation. In some Christian homes that I visited, I saw this desolation. I could not see the light, the river, or the tree. Quite often, though, when I entered into a saint’s home, I had the full realization that the light was there, the river was flowing, and Christ was growing there.
Many times when I visit a certain church, I can see that it is full of light, full of the flowing river, and full of the tree of life. If this is the case, the church is full of beautiful scenery. It is beautiful, comfortable, and enjoyable. If the church in a certain locality is not enjoyable, this is because the light is dim, and the river and the tree are absent. A kind of desolation may exist in a particular church. Our hope, though, is that every church in the Lord’s recovery would be full of beautiful scenery with these three divine things — the divine light shining, the divine river flowing, and the divine tree growing. The divine light is shining to enlighten us, the river is flowing to saturate and supply us, and the tree is growing to be our life supply and meet our every need. Today we can enjoy such a Triune God, and this Triune God will be our triune enjoyment in full in the New Jerusalem.
