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I. Seven golden lampstands
II. The vine and the branches
А. The Triune God
B. The believers
C. Bearing fruit
III. The New Jerusalem
А. A mutual habitation
B. Possessing God's life and nature
IV. Our eternal destination
We have seen many wonderful and mysterious things about the Triune God. Although we cannot understand how our God can be three-one, we have seen that He is three-one in order to dispense Himself into us. In this last lesson on the Triune God we want to see the final result, the consummation, of His dispensing. Such a rich Triune God is doing so much for us. He is dispensing Himself into us as life and everything. But there must be an issue; something must be produced by His economy.
In Lesson Seven we saw how the golden lampstand in Exodus 25 is a wonderful type of the Triune God. That lampstand also appears in 1 Kings 7, then in Zechariah 4. Each time it reveals more to us about the Triune God, and each time it is related to God's dwelling place. But the final appearance shows us the goal. In Revelation 1:12 John saw a vision of seven golden lampstands. This was a great mystery to him, so the Lord told him that "the seven lampstands are seven churches" (1:20). The lampstand that symbolized the Triune God has now become the seven lampstands which are the seven churches!
But the church is made up of people. How could the lampstand be a symbol of both the Triune God and the church? This is possible because the church is just the mingling of God and man. By working Himself into man, God has produced the churches as the golden lampstands. They are filled with the divine nature of God. Christ has made His home in the believers' hearts; the Spirit has saturated their whole being, so they have become the full expression of the Triune God. They are golden and they are shining. When people see the church they see the Triune God.
In John 15 the Lord Jesus describes God's economy as a vine tree. In 15:1 Jesus says: "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman." In 15:5 He says, "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit."
The vine tree is a picture of the Triune God. The Father is the husbandman (farmer). He is the source and originator of this vine tree. It was planted by Him and is cultivated and supplied by Him. He is even its soil, its sunshine, and its air. The Lord said, "I am the vine." The Son is the vine, which is the embodiment of the Father. All that the Father is, has, and does is wrapped up in this vine. Later, in John 15:26, the Spirit is revealed as the Spirit of reality. We know this Spirit brings all that the Father is and has, and makes it our reality. The Spirit is the sap, the life juice, that flows in the vine.
This great vine is the organism of the Triune God. An organism is something that is living. All that the Father is is in this organism, embodied in this vine, which is the Second of the Trinity. Within the vine is the circulating life-flow of the Spirit. It is the Spirit who carries the riches of the Father to sustain the vine and its branches.
But in this picture there is not only the Triune God; we are also a part of this wonderful vine tree. The Lord says, "I am the vine, you are the branches." The branches of the vine are its body; if you cut off all the branches you would be left with just a bare stem. There would be no body and no branching out. In the same way, the church is the Body of Christ. We are the branches of the vine. We live in the vine and the Spirit flows through us, bringing us all the riches of the Triune God. In this way we are the expression of the Triune God, the branching out of God. We are vital to Him, for without us He has no way to be fully expressed.
The picture in John 15 shows us what the Body of Christ is. It is the Triune God and His believers blended into one living organism. The church is not an organization; it is an organism. The ultimate intention of the Triune God is that He might be worked into us and mingled with us until He and we become a mutual abode. That means God abides in us and we abide in Him. Wonderful!
By this abiding, the branches of the vine bear fruit. As we receive the dispensing of the Triune God into us, we should dispense Him into others to bear them as fruit. This is our responsibility and joy (John 15:8, 11, 16). A vine tree is only good for bearing fruit, and a rich vine should bear much fruit. No husbandman wants a vine that does not bear fruit. The abundant fruit is the husbandman's glory. Bearing fruit is our occupation and the Father's glory.
We enjoy God in such a rich way. Don't you think that it is right for us to tell our friends so that they may also enjoy this God? If we do not tell our friends about this wonderful Triune God, how can they believe and receive Him? When we speak, we branch out God. Since we are His branches, we can branch Him out to reach our friends. What a privilege! We are not only the receivers of God, but we are also the dispensers of God. We work together with God to bring others into the vine, into the organism of the Triune God. Hallelujah! Then the Father will get the glory through us.
The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the Triune God into His chosen and redeemed people. Many people think that the New Jerusalem is a physical city or is "heaven." But according to Revelation 1:1, all the things revealed in Revelation are signs and symbols. In Ephesians 5, the church is the bride of Christ. Revelation 21:2 and 9 say that the New Jerusalem is the bride. So the New Jerusalem is not a physical place or the so-called "heaven"; rather, it is the enlargement, completion, fullness, and ultimate expression of the church. It is the mingling of the Triune God and humanity.
Revelation 21:3 tells us that the New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God. This means that it is God's dwelling place. However, 21:22 shows us that the holy city is the temple of His people. What does this mean? This means that God lives in His people and His people live in Him. The New Jerusalem is the mutual habitation of God and man. After many generations of dispensing Himself into His people, God and His people coinhere one another. Hallelujah! Would you like to go to heaven or would you rather be in this coinherence? "Going to heaven to be with God" is too poor compared to such a coinherence. To live in the Triune God and to have the Triune God live in us is the greatest blessing in the universe.
Revelation 21:18 says that "the building material of its wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold." Verse 11 says that the light of the New Jerusalem "was like a most precious stone, as a jasper stone, clear as crystal." Jasper is dark green. It signifies life in its richness. Green grass, green fields, and green mountains all testify of the richness of life. If a field is brown we have the impression that there is no life there. The great wall of the New Jerusalem is a shining testimony of the richness of God's life. Revelation 4:3 says that God Himself has the appearance of jasper stone. Keep in mind that the New Jerusalem is just the enlargement of the church. That means that one day God's people will have the appearance of God. Praise the Lord! We will fully express the richness of God's life!
Within the wall, the city is of pure gold. You will recall that gold symbolizes God's divine nature. This means that we, God's people, will be fully constituted with God's nature. Outwardly the city is green, expressing the divine life; inwardly it is gold, full of the divine nature. This is truly a glorious picture! This is the ultimate result of the dispensing of the Triune God. The more He dispenses Himself into us, the more we receive His divine nature. Once we were going to the lake of fire, now we are going into God. Originally, we were full of the satanic nature; at the end, we will be full of the divine nature. The only way to get from here to there is to receive more of His dispensing. We need to escape the corruption that is in the world in order to partake of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). O Lord Jesus! What a way! What a conclusion!
God's eternal desire is to get a group of people who are fully mingled with Him to be His universal expression and mutual dwelling place. The entire Bible reveals God in His Trinity working toward this goal. We see the Triune God reaching man, then bringing man back into Himself. In the Old Testament He was triune when He made man and dealt with man. In the Gospels He actually became a man — Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus was the first man mingled with God. But God wanted many more such men, so in Acts we see Him as the Spirit propagating Himself into tens of thousands of believers. The Epistles show us the development of these believers into the church, the Body of Christ. In Revelation we see the final product, the ultimate consummation, of the Triune God's dispensing — the New Jerusalem. It is the enlargement and fullness of the lampstand, the church, and the vine tree. It is the ultimate mingling of humanity and divinity, the coinherence of God and man. This fulfills Genesis 1:26. The Bible ends the way it begins. It begins with God's image for His expression, and it ends with a vast, immense, splendid corporate expression. This is our eternal destination and the Triune God's eternal purpose. This is according to what the Father has planned, what the Son has accomplished, and what the Spirit is applying. What a plan! What an accomplishment! What an application! Praise the Triune God!
