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Scripture Reading: Heb. 11:10; Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22; Rev. 3:12; 2:7; 20:4-6; Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:28b; Rev. 14:1-4, 14-16; 21:1-3, 9-23; 22:1-5
I. The New Jerusalem being the city with foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God and for which the Old Testament saints such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob eagerly waited — Heb. 11:10.
II. The Jerusalem above, the mother of the New Testament believers — Gal. 4:26.
III. The heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, to which the New Testament believers come forward — Heb. 12:22.
IV. The New Jerusalem, the city of God, descending out of heaven from God and appearing in the millennium — Rev. 3:12.
V. The Paradise in the millennium — 2:7.
VI. The composition of all the overcomers of both the Old Testament and the New Testament up to the beginning of the thousand-year kingdom — 20:4-6:
А. God moving in the overcomers by growing in them — Col. 2:19.
B. God making them mature to arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ — Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:28b:
1. The firstfruits before the great tribulation — Rev. 14:1-4.
2. The harvest at the end of the great tribulation — vv. 14-16.
VII. The New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth — 21:1-3, 9-23; 22:1-5:
А. The eternal habitation of God constituted with the Triune God and God’s redeemed people — 21:3, 10-23.
B. The mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated and glorified tripartite men for the eternal manifestation and expression of the Triune God through His redeemed people.
C. The greatest sign in the book of Revelation as an organism of the Triune God in eternity.
D. The Triune God’s flow as the river of water of life to water, nourish, sustain, and maintain the entire city for eternity.
E. The move of God in the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity as the ultimate consummated part of the move of God in man for eternity, thus to be a great part of God’s history in His union with man.
In Genesis 1 and 2 we are told that God created the heavens and the earth with man as the center. Zechariah 12:1 says that God stretched forth the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the spirit of man within him. The heavens, the earth, and man are the three basic and outstanding elements of the entire universe. Then at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21 and 22, we see the new heaven, the new earth, and the New Jerusalem. The new heaven is to replace the old heaven, the new earth is to replace the old earth, and the New Jerusalem, as the consummation of the new man, is to replace the old man.
The old heaven and old earth will be baptized through fire and will pass away to become the new heaven and new earth (2 Pet. 3:10-13), into which the New Jerusalem will come to be God’s eternal expression. The book of Matthew speaks of three kinds of baptisms: the baptism of water by John the Baptist, of Spirit by the Lord Jesus, and of fire, the lake of fire, by the Lord Jesus, not as the Savior but as the Judge (3:11). Eventually, everything will go through fire. Peter tells us in his second Epistle that the elements in the universe will be baptized in fire. After going through fire, the old heaven and old earth will come out to be the new heaven and new earth. This is similar to our baptism. We were the old man, but after passing through baptism, we become the new man. Thus, the new heaven replaces the old heaven, the new earth replaces the old earth, and the new man replaces the old man. This new man, the new creation, eventually and consummately is the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is a new man.
Paul says in Galatians 6:15 that circumcision or uncircumcision means nothing; what matters is the new creation. The New Jerusalem will be the aggregate of God’s new creation, and the new creation in the New Testament is also called the new man (Eph. 2:15; Col. 3:10). Eventually, the ultimate consummation of the corporate new man is the New Jerusalem. At the beginning of the Bible, the heavens, the earth, and man are old, but at the end they all become new — the new heaven, the new earth, and the new man, who is the new creation, the New Jerusalem.
Now we need to consider how the old man can become the new man. How could the first man Adam in Genesis 1 and 2 become a corporate New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22? The Bible shows us that God has two kinds of creations: the old creation and the new creation. God completed His work of the old creation with the heavens, the earth, and man in the first two chapters of Genesis. Then in Genesis 3 Satan came in to inject himself into God’s creation, to contaminate God’s creation. So beginning from chapter 3 of Genesis, the entire old creation of God became corrupted, contaminated, and fallen. This fallen creation needs to be redeemed.
However, the Bible shows that God’s eternal purpose is not just to redeem, to bring back, to repossess, the fallen old creation but to regenerate man to make him the new creation. God’s new-creation work started from the second half of Genesis 3. Man became contaminated and fallen, and in his fallen situation he did not know what to do. Then God came in to preach the gospel to Adam. The first gospel preaching was by God Himself to Adam in Genesis 3 concerning the seed of the woman (v. 15). The seed of the woman is Christ in the New Testament. Christ as the seed of the woman would come to redeem, to restore, man and also to germinate, to regenerate, man (Gal. 4:4-6). Surely this is the work of the new creation, so the work of God’s new creation began from Genesis 3.
Thus, we can say that the work of God’s new creation occupies the entire Bible except the first two chapters. The new-creation work of God began from Genesis 3, not from Matthew 1. God’s new-creation work passes through four main ages: the age before law, from Adam to Moses; the age of law, from Moses to Christ; the age of grace, from Christ’s first coming to His second coming; and the age of the kingdom of one thousand years. God’s new-creation work started from Genesis 3 and passes through these four ages. In these four ages God does His best to get Himself into man in order to make the old man the new man. Thus, the portion of Scripture from Genesis 3 to the end of Revelation is on God’s new creation.
God worked on the old creation but not for the old creation. God works on the old creation to have a new creation. A butterfly coming out of a cocoon is a good example of this. The cocoon is the old creation. Eventually, the butterfly is the new creation. God works on the “cocoon,” the old creation, to get the “butterfly,” the new creation. From the time when God began to work on the cocoon, that was the beginning of God’s new-creation work. Eventually, God will get rid of the cocoon and will cause the butterfly to come out. This butterfly is the New Jerusalem.
Now we need to consider whether we are the new creation or the old creation. On the one hand, we are the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). But when we lose our temper, that is a part of the old creation. Although we are the new creation, we are also being renewed and transformed to become the new creation in a fuller way. Much of our being is still in the old creation. None of us have fully come out of our cocoon, our old creation. Today we are the new creation, but we are still with the old creation.
Today God is growing in us, expanding in us. The more God grows, the more God expands, and the more the cocoon is reduced. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). The cocoon, the old I, should decrease, but the butterfly, Christ, must increase by God’s growing in us. God’s growing in us is God’s work. I am so thankful to the Lord that in the entire Bible there is a verse such as Colossians 2:19, which says that by holding the Head, the Body “grows with the growth of God.” God is growing within us. If He does not grow within us, we cannot grow.
Philippians 2:13 says that God is operating in us. What is the difference between God’s growing and God’s operating? We can illustrate this by considering young children. In order for children to grow, they need to move by running, jumping, and acting in many ways. It is not sufficient for them to eat and drink. In addition to this, they must operate. If there is no operation, there is no growth. This is why the schools have playgrounds where children can exercise, operate, for their proper development and growth. It is the same with us in the spiritual realm. If we do not exercise, operate, we cannot grow. The ones who exercise the most, grow the most.
In the New Testament one verse tells us that our God is growing in us. Another verse tells us that our God is operating in us. He is not lazy. The more He operates in us, the more He grows in us. We need to cooperate with God’s operation in us by exercising our spirit to function by speaking in the meetings. The best way for us to grow is to exercise our spirit to speak. God’s growth in us depends upon His operation, and His operation is His work for His new creation.
We should not forget that God’s work for the new creation began in Genesis 3. Eventually, both Adam and Abel became a part of God’s new creation work, so they will be a part of the material for building up the New Jerusalem. God worked in Genesis with Adam, Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that work was the work of God’s new creation. The work of the New Jerusalem started from Adam and passed through the entire Old and New Testaments. The new-creation work of God began with Adam in Genesis 3. God was moving even then to work Himself into man.
God’s new-creation work started from Genesis 3, but it was not realized in a full way until the New Testament. For God to work Himself into us, God needed to become a man. He had to come into man, making Himself a man. Matthew 1 says that the birth of Christ was directly of the Holy Spirit (vv. 18, 20), and Luke 1 says that John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb (v. 15). It was not until the New Testament age that the divine title the Holy Spirit was used. In Psalm 51:11 and Isaiah 63:10-11 the title of the Spirit should be translated “the Spirit of holiness.” In the Old Testament the Spirit of God was working in the old creation (Gen. 1:2). Then the Spirit of Jehovah is seen in God’s relationship with man (Judg. 6:34). But in the New Testament, God came to become a man. His whole Divine Being was brought into that little man Jesus. The Holy Spirit, mentioned in the conceptions of John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus, is for sanctifying humanity for Christ’s incarnation (Luke 1:15, 35; Matt. 1:20 also see Luke 1:35, footnote 2, second paragraph — Recovery Version, for the difference in essence between the conception of John the Baptist and the conception of the Lord Jesus).
Now we need to consider how this little man, Jesus, could get into people. This is revealed in the Gospel of John. John 14 was the first part of the Lord's last message given to the disciples. In verse 10a He said, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” But at that time He was not yet in the disciples, so He prayed that the Father would give them another Comforter, that He might be with them forever (v. 16). The Lord said that when this Comforter would come, He would be in the disciples as the Spirit of reality (v. 17). Furthermore, He told them that on the day of resurrection they would know that He was in the Father, that they were in Him, and that He was in them (v. 20). Before that time He was in the Father, and the Father was in Him, but He was not in the disciples. But in His resurrection He came into them as the Spirit of reality. This was God’s dispensing of Himself into man for His new creation. It was for this purpose that He died and resurrected.
In John 14 the Lord’s going was not for the purpose of going to heaven. He went through death and resurrection to the Father (vv. 12b, 28b) to bring humanity into divinity. The issue of His going was that He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In His resurrection He was begotten of God to be God’s firstborn Son, and millions of believers were begotten to be the many sons of God as His many brothers (Rom. 8:29; Acts 13:33). At that time the Triune God had fully entered into man, and from that time the Triune God remains in man to operate in man for His growth in man. When He grows in us, His growth becomes our growth.
In His mercy He is operating within us to cause us to love Him so that He can grow within us. If it were not for His mercy, we would not be here. We are here loving Him. Whether we fail or succeed, He still grows in us. If we lose our temper, His operation causes us to have a full repentance. We may pray, “Lord, forgive me for losing my temper.” This is a sign of His operation in us. Many times our growth in our failure is more than in our success.
We can consider David as an example of this. David committed a terrible sin with Bath-sheba, but was he more spiritual after that sin or before it? Surely he became more spiritual after his sin, his repentance, and his receiving of God’s forgiveness. This does not mean that we should try to commit sin. But we need to realize that the Lord’s mercy sustains us all the time. At times God may put His mercy aside to try us, to test us. Regardless of how we are, when God would do this, we cannot help but fail.
Peter was so strong to tell the Lord that even if all the others would be stumbled, he would never be stumbled (Matt. 26:33). He said that he was ready to go with the Lord both to prison and to death (Luke 22:33). Then the Lord said to him, “Peter, a rooster will not crow today until you deny three times that you know Me” (v. 34). The Lord had to put His mercy aside for a time so that Peter’s natural strength and self-confidence could be dealt with. After Peter’s failure he surely became more spiritual than before.
This illustrates how God today is moving in us to do a work for His building. His building is to be consummated through the church in the New Jerusalem. He operates in us in our thinking, our willing, and our doing. While He is operating in us, He is growing in us. Then we grow in His growth. This is the work of God’s new creation. God works on us as the old creation to produce the new creation.
The building up of the New Jerusalem as the outcome of God’s new creation is not a sudden thing. It is altogether a progressive thing. This progression started from Adam. First, God worked on Adam as the first piece of material for His New Jerusalem. Then God worked on another piece of the old creation, Abel. Eventually, Abel became a part of God’s new creation. God works throughout all the successive generations to gain the New Jerusalem as the final product of His new-creation work. Today as we grow in Him and He grows in our growth, He is arriving at His goal to consummate His new-creation work. This work is going on, and this work will have a consummation. This is why the subject of this chapter is the move of God in man in the consummation of the New Jerusalem.
Now we want to consider what the New Jerusalem is. The New Jerusalem is the city with foundations, whose Architect and Builder is God and for which the Old Testament saints such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob eagerly waited. Hebrews 11:10 tells us this. This was the reason Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived in tents. They did not desire to live in a city in their age, because they eagerly waited for the city to come, the New Jerusalem.
In Hebrews 12:22 we are told that we, the New Testament believers, are coming forward to that heavenly city, the heavenly Jerusalem. This shows us that there is something called the heavenly Jerusalem that is already in existence. Some teach that today there is no New Jerusalem. This is wrong. The Bible does not tell us that the New Jerusalem will come but that it will come down (Rev. 21:2). It was there already, but it will come down and be removed from heaven to the earth.
The Architect is God. God designed it and built it. Of course, we know that God does not build it directly. He builds it first through Christ as the Head indirectly. Then Christ gave many gifts to His Body to perfect every member of the Body. Then every member of the Body functions to do the direct building work. This is God’s building work in totality. The Old Testament saints like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were waiting for this built-up city.
Galatians 4:26 says that the Jerusalem above is the mother of the New Testament believers. The Jerusalem beneath on this earth is a sign of the one above, and the one above is our mother. We are the children of the Jerusalem above. Thus, before we came into existence, she was there as our mother. Before we were born, our mother existed already.
As we have already mentioned, the New Testament believers come forward to something that is already in existence. They come forward to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God (Heb. 12:22). This strongly proves that the New Jerusalem is now existing in the universe.
The New Jerusalem, the city of God, descends out of heaven from God and appears in the millennium. Revelation 3:12 tells us that in the millennium, in the thousand-year kingdom, the New Jerusalem will descend out of heaven from God. Furthermore, the name of the New Jerusalem will be written on the overcoming believers.
This appearing New Jerusalem will be the Paradise of God in the thousand-year kingdom (2:7). This is not the Paradise mentioned in Luke 23:43, as the joyful section of Hades. That was the Paradise that the Lord mentioned to the thief on the cross. The Lord told him that he would be with Him in Paradise. The Paradise mentioned in Revelation 2:7 as a reward to the overcomers is the highest Paradise in the universe; it is the New Jerusalem in the coming millennial kingdom. A number of Bible students consider the garden of Eden as a kind of Paradise. Thus, we may say that there are three Paradises: the garden of Eden at Adam’s time, the Paradise in Hades for the dead saints, and the Paradise in the millennium, the New Jerusalem.
When the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven, that will be the beginning of the millennium. The New Jerusalem will be the composition of all the overcomers of both the Old Testament and the New Testament up to the beginning of the thousand-year kingdom (20:4-6). This is why the Lord Jesus told us in Matthew 8:11 that many would feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens. This means that in the manifestation of the kingdom in the New Jerusalem, the overcoming believers will feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the millennium the Old Testament overcomers will feast with the New Testament overcomers.
Hebrews 11:40 shows that the Old Testament saints cannot obtain what God promised apart from the New Testament believers. This verse says, “God has provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.” At the end of the age of grace, a good number of the New Testament saints will be matured to be the overcomers. By that time the New Jerusalem will be enlarged. The New Jerusalem in the millennial kingdom will be composed of all the overcomers of the Old Testament to the last overcomer of the New Testament. In order to obtain and enjoy this, the Old Testament overcomers need the New Testament overcomers to perfect them. They are waiting for us to go on so that they may be made perfect.
Today God is moving in the overcomers by growing in them (Col. 2:19). He is making them mature to arrive at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13; Col. 1:28b). The maturity comes out of our growth in life. In Ephesians 4 we see that we are growing up into the Head in all things and that all the Body causes the growth of the Body (vv. 15-16). This growth comes from God’s growing in us. That growing is God’s operating, and that operating is God’s moving.
Before the three and a half years of the great tribulation, many firstfruits will be raptured to the heavenly Mount Zion, the center of the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev. 14:1-4). They take the lead to mature first among the saints. Then there will be the harvest of the majority of the believers at the end of the great tribulation (vv. 14-16). Between the rapture of the firstfruits and the harvest there will be the three and a half years of the great tribulation (vv. 6-13).
In between the firstfruits and the harvest there will be another group, the late overcomers, who will be killed by Antichrist and who will stand on the glassy sea (15:2-4). During the three and a half years of the great tribulation, Antichrist will set up his image, forcing all the people on earth to worship him (13:4, 12, 15; 2 Thes. 2:4). Whoever chooses not to worship him will be martyred. These ones are the late overcomers.
Then at the end of the tribulation, the Lord will harvest the majority of the saints. Because they did not become mature, the Lord will leave them on earth to become ripe under the suffering of the great tribulation, which will be like the parching sun. This sun will dry up the earthly waters from all the believers who are left on the earth in the great tribulation, enabling them to ripen. This is why the angel cries out that “the hour to reap has come because the harvest of the earth is ripe” (Rev. 14:15).
The believers who were not overcomers will suffer a dispensational punishment during the thousand-year kingdom. Through those thousand years they will become mature to be included in the final consummation, the ultimate consummation, of the New Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation 21—22. The New Jerusalem is built up by God’s progressive, gradual work from Adam to the last believer of the New Testament. They all will be placed into the New Jerusalem by God’s growing and operating in them. This growing and operating is God’s moving and God’s work through the generations. All this work is God’s history.
The New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth is the ultimate consummation, which is revealed in the last two chapters of the Bible (21:1-3, 9-23; 22:1-5).
The New Jerusalem will be the eternal habitation of God constituted with the Triune God and with God’s redeemed people (21:3, 10-23). The holy city as the tabernacle of God is for God to dwell in, and God and the Lamb as the temple (v. 22) are for the redeemed saints to dwell in. In the new heaven and new earth the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for God and man for eternity.
Revelation 21 tells us that the New Jerusalem is of gold as the base (v. 18). This refers to God the Father in His divine nature. Then the walls and foundations are built with precious stones, signifying the Spirit in His transforming work (vv. 18-20). Then there are the twelve pearls for twelve gates, displaying Christ in His redemptive and regenerating work (v. 21). Thus, the holy city is constituted with the Triune God.
Furthermore, the names of the twelve tribes are inscribed on the twelve gates (v. 12), signifying that the New Jerusalem includes all the redeemed saints of the Old Testament. Also, the twelve names of the twelve apostles are on the twelve foundations (v. 14), signifying that the New Jerusalem includes all the New Testament saints. This shows that the holy city is a composition of the Triune God and His redeemed people.
The New Jerusalem is also the mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated and glorified tripartite men for the eternal manifestation and expression of the Triune God through His redeemed people.
The holy city, New Jerusalem, is the greatest sign in the book of Revelation as the organism of the Triune God in eternity. The first sign in the book of Revelation is the golden lampstands (1:12), and the last is the New Jerusalem. Both refer to God’s building.
In the center of the city there is the throne of God and the Lamb. From the redeeming God’s throne flows a river (22:1). That river refers to the Spirit. God, the Lamb, and the Spirit are the Triune God’s flow as the river of water of life to water, nourish, sustain, and maintain the entire city for eternity.
In the New Jerusalem we see the move of God in the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity as the ultimate consummated part of the move of God in man for eternity, thus to be a great part of God’s history in His union with man. This is altogether the move of God in His union and in His mingling with man, so this becomes God’s history. The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the history of the Triune God.
