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Scripture Reading: 2 Pet. 3:10-12; Rev. 21:1, 21:6; 22:1, 22:17b; John 4:14; 7:37-39; Rev. 22:2, 14; 2:7; 21:3, 11, 22
I. The New Jerusalem being the consummation of all the works of God’s new creation out of His old creation in all the dispensations through the ages, including:
А. The ages in the Old Testament:
1. The age before the law — from Adam to Moses.
2. The age of the law — from Moses to Christ’s first coming.
B. The ages in the New Testament:
1. The age of grace — from Christ’s first coming to His second coming.
2. The age of the kingdom — from Christ’s second coming to the end of the old creation (2 Pet. 3:10-12; Rev. 21:1).
II. The New Jerusalem being the aggregate of God’s organic union and mingling with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people:
А. The constitution of God as life in the redeemed humanity.
B. The organic building of divinity with humanity.
C. With the processed Triune God to be the flowing river of water of life as the very center and the very source of supply of the holy city — 22:1:
1. To quench organically the thirst of God’s people mingled and built together with God for eternity — 21:6; 22:17b; cf. John 4:14; 7:37-39.
2. To satisfy organically the entire city with Christ as the tree of life growing in the river of water of life for eternity — Rev. 22:2, 14; 2:7.
III. The New Jerusalem being God’s ultimate organism:
А. For the redeeming God to dwell organically in His redeemed people as His tabernacle for eternity — 21:3.
B. For God’s redeemed people to dwell organically in their redeeming God as their temple for eternity — v. 22.
C. As the processed Triune God’s eternal manifestation and expression:
1. With the processed Triune God as the glory of its content — v. 11a.
2. With the conformed people as the shining light of its appearance — v. 11b.
3. The ultimate issue of the organic union in God’s relationship with man in His life, which is unsearchably rich in eternity.
The Bible is the holy Word, God’s oracle. It is an oracle full of divine revelations. First, it unveils God to us. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created.” Divinely speaking, the Bible is a book of revelation. Humanly speaking, to us it is a storybook containing the story concerning God. This story has a center. The center in this story is the tree of life (2:8-9). This story unveils God to us, but the center of the story is the tree of life.
At the beginning of the Bible a very striking, particular, and peculiar tree, the tree of life, is standing there. Perhaps we have seen hundreds of kinds of trees, but we have never seen a tree named life. The Bible as a storybook begins with this tree and ends with this tree (Rev. 22:1-2). This tree is the center of the whole world. Some maps of the world place the Mediterranean Sea, with the small nation of Israel on its eastern shore, at the center of the populated world. The garden of Eden was not far from today’s Israel. Genesis 2 tells us that where the tree of life was, there was a river with four heads, one of which was the Euphrates (v. 14). That is the river where Babylon was built. Today’s Iraq is on the Euphrates. The Euphrates is one of the four heads of the particular river that flowed out of Eden to water the garden where the tree of life was. This means that the tree of life is at the center of the populated earth. Then, at the end of the Bible there is a holy city. In the center of that city is God’s throne (Rev. 22:1, 3). Out of the throne flows the river of water of life, and along this river, on its two sides, grows the tree of life, not like a pine shooting upward but as a vine spreading forward to reach every part of the city until it reaches the twelve gates (vv. 1-2). This indicates that this nourishing tree is the center of the entire New Jerusalem. The story of the Bible is that God made the tree of life the center.
Now we need to ask, “What is the tree of life?” or “Who is the tree of life?” As I have pointed out in previous chapters, God became incarnated to be a man. After this man grew up to be thirty years of age, He came out to minister. In His ministry, one day He told people, “I am...the life” (John 14:6). This sentence is short, and the words are simple enough for a preschool child to read: I am the life. In the next chapter, John 15, He said, “I am the true vine” (v. 1). These two sentences put together equal “I am the life tree.” Therefore, the tree of life, the life tree, is Christ. We need to be bold to say that Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9), is a tree, a vine tree, and this vine tree is the tree of life.
In Genesis 2:9 there is no indication or hint that the tree of life was a vine. However, when we come to the end of the Bible, we find that the tree of life is a vine. We know this because it grows not by shooting upward but by spreading out to reach people. It is one tree, but it grows on two sides of the river. Hence, it must be a vine. Between Genesis and Revelation there is another chapter of the Bible concerning Christ — John 15 — in which He told us that He is the true vine. There are many vines on this earth, but only one vine is true. This vine is Christ.
The queen of England has a large vine. In 1958 I was invited to England, and while I stayed there, some brothers brought me to see the Queen’s vine, a large vine in a glass room. The British people were boasting of that tree. When they asked me what I thought about it, I replied that the Queen’s vine was too small compared with the true vine that I had seen. The Queen’s vine had not yet filled the room where it was kept, but the vine that I had seen had circled the entire globe many times. No one can measure its length. Christ, the great vine tree, is everywhere on this globe. He is in Seattle, in Hong Kong, in New York, in New Zealand — in every place on this earth. Therefore, we should not listen to some Bible teachers who say that there is no tree of life today. That is a falsehood. The tree of life is here today.
Like God Himself, the things concerning God are mysterious and abstract. It is difficult to describe such an abstract and mysterious God. Therefore, God used the wisest way to teach us concerning Himself. He taught us like a teacher in a kindergarten. A kindergarten teacher teaches her students by means of pictures. There is a saying that a picture is better than a thousand words. Thus, in Genesis 2 God set forth a picture, the tree of life. We might say that after this picture appeared in the Old Testament, it disappeared for a while. In the Old Testament we cannot see the picture of the tree of life after Genesis 3, because due to the fall of man, the way to the tree of life was closed by the cherubim, signifying God’s glory, and also by the flaming sword, the flame signifying God’s holiness and the sword signifying God’s righteousness (3:24). This indicates that to fallen mankind the way to the tree of life was closed by God’s glory, God’s holiness, and God’s righteousness. There was no longer an entrance for fallen mankind to touch the tree of life.
But one day God Himself came out of eternity and entered into time to be a man. Then He died on the cross for the man whom He had created and who had become fallen. He died an all-inclusive death, which was also a vicarious death. By that death He satisfied the demands of God’s glory, God’s holiness, and God’s righteousness. In a sense He took away the cherubim and the flaming sword so that the closed entrance was opened again. Hebrews 10:19-20 says that a new and living way has been initiated for us to come to God as the tree of life. Actually, in this new way we do not need to go to the tree of life; the tree of life came to us and is now with us. He was with Peter and John, and He was so close that John could even lie in His bosom. Then this One opened His mouth and told them, “I am the life” and “I am the true vine.” This means that He is the tree of life to His believers. Every day His disciples were dealing with the tree of life, yet they did not know it. They were dealing with the tree of life without being conscious of it.
This long storybook, the Bible, does have a conclusion. This conclusion is the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:9—22:3). If we were to ask some careful pastors, “What is the New Jerusalem?” they might advise us not to touch this matter. They might also advise us not to touch the entire book of Revelation, in which the New Jerusalem is mentioned, because Revelation is a mystery. On the other hand, some careless pastors might say that the New Jerusalem is a heavenly mansion that Christ is building for us in heaven. They would say that the Lord Jesus told us in John 14 that He would build such a mansion for us, in which there is a room for every believer in Christ. If we believe in Christ, when we die, we will go there to enjoy the eternal life, which equals the eternal blessings. When I was a young Christian, I believed such teaching, but later I discarded it.
The New Jerusalem has three sections. The city proper, or the city itself, is pure gold (21:18b). This means that the base of the city is gold. The second part of the city is its twelve gates, each of which is a pearl (vv. 12-13, 21). The third part of the city is the wall with its foundations, all of which are precious stones (vv. 14, 18a, 19-20). The entire wall is jasper, and the foundation of the wall has twelve layers. The first layer of the foundation also is jasper. Revelation 4:2-3a tells us that God’s appearance is like jasper. Thus, in appearance the city is exactly the same as God. God appears like jasper, and the city also appears like jasper.
The three sections of the New Jerusalem are constructed with three kinds of materials, or three kinds of elements. The number three is a particular number in the universe, signifying the Triune God. The Triune God is the number three. Every number in the Bible has its meaning, and three signifies the Triune God. Therefore, the three kinds of materials in the New Jerusalem no doubt signify the Triune God.
The first material is gold, which constitutes the city proper and forms the base of the city. In the Bible gold refers to God the Father as the base, the fountain, the source. The second material is pearl. Pearls are produced by oysters, and oysters live in the sea, signifying the death water. One day a small rock enters into an oyster and wounds it. This rock then remains in the wound, and the oyster secretes its life-juice from the wound around the rock, layer after layer. Eventually, a pearl is produced. This indicates that Christ is the living “oyster.” He lived in the death water, the world. One day we sinners, as small “rocks,” wounded Him. He was wounded by us and for us, and He retained us in His wound. Through His death we were redeemed, and His death also released His divine life (John 12:24), the life-juice of the “oyster.” His resurrection secretes the divine life around the redeemed sinners to make them all pearls. These pearls become the entrance to the holy city.
Christ’s redemption with His secretion in the resurrection life first redeemed us and then secreted the divine life around us, making us pearls. Through Christ’s resurrection we were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3), and regeneration is the very entrance into the kingdom of God (John 3:5). In the New Jerusalem God the Father is signified by the gold, and God the Son, by the pearls. By making us pearls, God the Son has now become us. Both Christ and we are pearls. Here we can see the organic union. The organic union indicates that Christ is united with us organically through His death and resurrection. His death becomes the redeeming death, and His resurrection becomes the secreting resurrection. He redeemed us, and He secretes His life-juice over us to make us pearls, which are both He and we. In this way the second person of the Trinity became us. This is the organic union.
The twelve gates of pearl bear the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev. 21:12). This indicates that these pearls are the twelve tribes of Israel. A name always denotes the person who bears that name. Therefore, the twelve pearls must be the twelve tribes of Israel. The twelve foundations of precious stones bear the names of the twelve apostles (v. 14). The twelve tribes represent the Old Testament saints, and the twelve apostles represent the New Testament saints. Although we are common believers, we are the saints. Initially, we, the saints, were pieces of clay; we were made of dust (Gen. 2:7). Eventually, through transformation by the Spirit, this clay becomes precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12b; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Pet. 2:5). After we are saved, redeemed, and regenerated to be saints, the Spirit lives in us. Every day the indwelling Spirit works not to correct us, change us, or adjust us but to transform us metabolically with some element, some new factor, added into our being. Every day, without our being conscious of it, the indwelling Spirit adds the new element of God into our being, and with this new element, which is divine and is even God Himself, He transforms us metabolically. For many years nearly every day I have had the feeling that the Transformer is within me. The indwelling Spirit is transforming us.
On weekends many people like to pursue pleasures for their entertainment, but the saints in the churches are happy to use the weekends to attend conferences to hear the word of God from the Lord’s ministry. This is a sign of transformation. It is not necessary for me to teach the brothers that they should love their wives and should not lose their temper toward their wives. I would rather tell the brothers that God is one with them and has even become them, making them God in His divine nature and life (but not in His Godhead). We are humans, but God is making us divine. This is wonderful.
In the New Jerusalem the precious stones are we plus the Spirit. The transforming Spirit becomes one with us, His transformed ones. Therefore, the pearls are Christ and we, and the wall of precious stones is the Spirit and we. These two items, the pearls and the precious stones, indicate that the second of the Triune God and the third of the Triune God have made Themselves one with us. Without the Spirit it would be impossible for us as pieces of clay to become jasper, bearing the same appearance as God. But now we have the life-giving Spirit, who is actually the consummated Triune God, in us, making us one with Him. Thus, we are altogether in the organic union with the Triune God.
The New Jerusalem is a city with three elements constituted into our being to make the Triune God mingled with us, His redeemed people. On the one hand, we can say that the holy city is just the Triune God. On the other hand, we can also say that the holy city is the Triune God mingled with all His redeemed.
The earth is not our everlasting dwelling place. As God’s saved ones, we are sojourners on this earth (1 Pet. 2:11). We are traveling through to reach our destination. On the one hand, we can say that the Triune God is our destination, and on the other hand, we can say that the holy city is our destination. This is because eventually the Triune God becomes the factors of the holy city, and we also will be made factors of the holy city. The building up of the holy city is a mingling of the Triune God in His divinity with us in our humanity. The holy city is both divine and human. It is divinely human and humanly divine. There you can meet God, and there you can meet all the redeemed, including those of the Old Testament, who bear the label of the names of the twelve tribes, and those of the New Testament, who bear the label of the names of the twelve apostles. Such a city is both God and the redeemed. This is the structure of the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 21:3 tells us that such a New Jerusalem is first the tabernacle of our God, God’s dwelling place for eternity. It also tells us that there is no temple in the city, but the Dweller, the Divine Trinity, who dwells in the tabernacle, is Himself the temple to be our dwelling place (v. 22). God dwells in us as the tabernacle, and we dwell in God as the temple. Therefore, we and God have a mutual abode (John 14:23). The New Jerusalem is God’s home and also ours. We will be there to be His abode, and He will be there to be our dwelling place. This means that He will dwell in us and we will dwell in Him. He will abide in us, and we will abide in Him. This mutual dwelling and abiding was spoken of by the Lord in John 15, where He said, “Abide in Me and I in you” (v. 4a). In theology this is called coinhering. We and God not only coexist but also coinhere. He exists in us, and we exist in Him. Even a husband and a wife cannot coinhere. There is no possibility for them to abide in each other. But in the New Jerusalem there is the wonderful fact that God will abide in us and we will abide in Him, that is, that He and we will coinhere. This coinhering of God and us is an organic union. I believe that we will need eternity to show us what the organic union between God and us is. There we will realize and experience this union in full. He will abide in us, and we will abide in Him. How marvelous this is!
Within the city there is God’s throne, and God’s throne refers to God’s administration. God is the reigning God. He is the King, He is the Governor, and He is on the throne. However, this One who is on the throne is very peculiar. In Revelation 22:1 and 3 the throne is called “the throne of God and of the Lamb,” indicating that there are two sitting on the same throne. These two do not sit side by side, but God the Father is within the Son, the Lamb. As the Lamb, the Son is a man, the Redeemer, and the God who is within Him is the redeeming God. In Revelation 21:23 the Lamb is the lamp of the holy city, and God is the light within the lamp, shining to illuminate the city with the glory of God.
In this picture we can see three layers: the light, the lamp, and the city. God as the light shines in the Lamb as the lamp, and the lamp is in the city. Since the city is jasper, it is transparent (v. 11). There is no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in the city, because God as the unique light shines from within Christ throughout the city to make the entire city a great lamp shining over all the nations around the New Jerusalem (vv. 23-24). All the nations will walk in the light of the city.
Again, in this picture we can see the organic union. In the holy city God and Christ are organically united, and They and we are also united as one. Therefore, there is an organic union between us and God and Christ. The entire New Jerusalem will be a great organic union.
The situation in the New Jerusalem is like that in the church today. God is the light within us, and we are the lamp shining out God. This means that we are shining out God through the church. Thus, the church is a big lampstand to shine forth the very Triune God as our testimony organically.
Not only so, out of the throne within the city flows a river of water of life (22:1). This river spirals down from the top of the city until it circles to reach the twelve gates. The water of life in this river quenches organically the thirst of God’s redeemed (21:6; 22:17b; cf. John 4:14; 7:37-39). Along the river the tree of life grows as a vine (Rev. 22:2). This one tree growing on the two sides of the river is a spreading vine, bearing a new kind of fruit every month. That is, in twelve months twelve different kinds of fruit are borne.
The fruit borne by the tree of life is good for food (Gen. 2:9), good to nourish us. The water of life quenches our thirst, and the tree of life nourishes us, feeds us, and satisfies us organically (Rev. 22:14; 2:7). For eternity we will be in the New Jerusalem enjoying the Triune God, a God who flows out to reach us. By this we can see the Triune God: God as the light in the lamp is God the Father; the Lamb as the lamp is Christ, the Son; and the flow of the water of life is the Spirit. This is the Triune God flowing out of His throne to reach all His redeemed to maintain the organic union for eternity.
This is the end of the Bible, and this is the conclusion of the Bible. The Bible ends as it begins. It begins with the tree of life as the center, and it ends with the tree of life as the center, to carry out an organic union between God and us by our drinking of God as the water of life and our eating of Him as the tree of life. The water of life quenches our thirst from within, and the tree of life nourishes us also from within, by our drinking and by our eating. In the New Jerusalem this is not to produce the organic union but to maintain it. For eternity we will be organically united with God every day and every minute by our eating and drinking of Him.
The New Jerusalem is the consummation of all the works of God’s new creation out of His old creation in all the dispensations through the ages, including the ages in the Old Testament and the ages in the New Testament.
In this universe God has two creations, the old creation and the new creation. The new creation is produced by God out of the old creation. First, we were born into the old creation, but one day we were regenerated to be made a part of the new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The new creation is produced out of the old creation in four different ages.
The first age was the age before the law — from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5:14a). In that age God remade many people out of the old creation into the new creation, including Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Eventually, they all became parts of the new creation.
The second age is the age of the law — from Moses to Christ’s first coming (John 1:17). In this period God made many people of the old creation new. Moses, Joshua, Ruth, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the prophets were made new by God. They were made a part of the new creation out of the old creation.
The third age is the age of grace — from Christ’s first coming to His second coming. This is the present age, the age in which we are today. In this age millions of people of the old creation have been made new. All the believers in Christ have become a new creation. We all are part of the new creation.
Actually, today we are both the old creation and the new creation. Whenever we lose our temper, we are surely the old creation. Whenever we walk according to the Spirit, we are the new creation. This can be illustrated by a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. While it is on the way out, it is part cocoon and part butterfly. In the church meetings we are all “butterflies,” but after going back home, we may all go back to our “cocoon.” Some saints may be ninety percent out of the cocoon and ten percent in the cocoon. Others may be vice versa. We are all in the process day by day. We are passing through a tunnel, a process in which we are being transformed out of the old and into the new. We are in transit from the old creation to the new creation.
The fourth age is the age of the kingdom, the millennium — from Christ’s second coming to the end of the old creation (2 Pet. 3:10-12; Rev. 21:1). In this age God will finish His work of producing the new creation out of the old creation by perfecting those of His chosen people who were not perfected in the foregoing ages. At the end of the millennium the old heaven and the old earth will pass away through fire and be renewed to become the new heaven and new earth, into which the New Jerusalem will come to be God’s eternal manifestation and expression.
The New Jerusalem is the aggregate, the totality, of God’s organic union and mingling with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people. Thus, the New Jerusalem is actually a constitution, not an organization. It is a constitution constituted with both the Triune God and us, the redeemed people. This constitution is still going on and will go on until the day when we are raptured. At that time this constitution will be consummated. Then the New Jerusalem will come down as the final consummation of the church (v. 10). The church is the miniature of the New Jerusalem. We are now in the church to be processed into the new creation in full. In the New Jerusalem we will participate in the consummation of God’s organic union and mingling with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people.
Today the church is God’s organism, but on a small scale. Eventually, the New Jerusalem will come as the eternal consummation of the church to be God’s ultimate organism. This organism is altogether an organic union, an organic mingling, of the Triune God with His redeemed people.
We are God’s children. In fact, we do not need correction, nor do we need improvement or adjustment. What we need is transformation (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18). Transformation is our need. We are fallen people. Whether we are adjusted, improved, or corrected, we are still fallen people. We need to be transformed. In other words, we all need to be constituted with the Triune God as our divine element. Why do we still lose our temper? Because we are short of divinity; we are short of God. We need more of God. This is all that we need. By nature some of the saints are quick people. If they attempt to restrict themselves from losing their temper, they may lose it even more. The more we try to restrict our temper, the more we will lose it. The best way is to forget about our temper. The way of trying to restrict our temper is the way of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the way of teaching, the way of the cultivation of morality, the way of religion. We should not take that way; we should take the way of the tree of life, the way of partaking of God as our life. We should forget about ourselves and our temper and only contact our God every day and every moment. This is why the Bible tells us to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17).
Anywhere and at any time we can pray, “O Lord, O Lord.” Just by saying “O Lord,” we receive some addition of God into our being. When we are in the office, we need not bother others by saying “O Lord” loudly. While we are doing our work, we can say softly, “O Lord, thank You that You are one with me.” Just by saying this much, God is added into us. This addition of divinity will transform us. Then, even if we try to lose our temper, we will have no temper to lose, because all our temper will be swallowed up by the addition of God. Our goal should not be to live a life without losing our temper; our goal should be to live a life that expresses God. If people call us a good man, that belongs to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We need to give people the impression that we are a God-man, even that we are genuinely God in His nature and in His life. They may say to us, “How good it is to have you in the office. When you are in the office, God is here.” They may say this because we are among them living a life that is not a good life but a God life.
We should not try to adjust ourselves. When we try to adjust ourselves, we remain in the cocoon. We should not remain in the cocoon; we should be in God. The way to be in God is to turn to our spirit, and the way to make this turn is to say, “O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah.” Just by saying this much, we are immediately in our spirit. When we are in our spirit, God is there, waiting for us. Then we enjoy God, we live God, and we express God. In a real sense, we even are God. If we all live a life that lives God, expresses God, and manifests God, what a benefit the entire human society will receive through us!
This is not a religion. The very dynamic salvation of God is the redeeming and living God. He has redeemed us, and now He is living in us and with us to cause us to live with Him in order that we may express Him. He is God in us to make us God in Him. We do not need to exercise our mind to think so much. We need only to say, “O God, O Lord, O Christ. Hallelujah, You are with me. I can live You, and I can be You.” How simple and how wonderful this is!
