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Scripture Reading: Col. 3:10-11; 1:15-19; Eph. 1:22-23; Rom. 12:5; 2, Eph. 3:8-11; 4:15-16; 1:10; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10-12; Matt. 16:18-19; Rom. 14:17; Heb. 1:8; Rev. 21:1-3; 22:1-2
We have seen in the previous chapter that there are four races in the eyes of God—the Adamic race, the Abrahamic race according to the flesh, the Abrahamic race according to the Spirit, and the overcoming race. Today we are near the end of a period of six thousand years since the creation of Adam. The age of the race of Adam lasted two thousand years up to the time of Abraham. In the Adamic race the first figure was Adam, and the last main figure was Nimrod, who built up Assyria with Nineveh as its capital and Babylon with Babel as its capital. Babel was the end of the age of the Adamic race.
Then God selected Abraham out of the idolatrous people of Chaldea, the site of ancient Babylon (Gen. 15:7; Acts 7:2-4). The age changed from the race of Adam to the race of Abraham according to the flesh. This age also lasted two thousand years. The first figure of this age was Abraham and the last main figure was John the Baptist. John the Baptist was a person in a time of transition from the Old Testament age to the New Testament age. The Old Testament strongly prophesied concerning him (Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1; 4:5). He should be considered as both the last one of the age of the race of Abraham according to the flesh and the first one of the age of the race of Abraham according to the Spirit.
When Abraham was called by God, God told him that his seed would be as the dust of the earth (Gen. 13:16) and as the stars of heaven (15:5). This meant that God would give Abraham two kinds of descendants. The descendants of Abraham according to the flesh are as the dust of the earth. These descendants are countless since there is no way to count the dust. Abraham’s other descendants are as the stars of heaven. These are his spiritual descendants, the believers in Christ. In Galatians 6:16 Paul refers to the spiritual descendants of Abraham in a collective way as the Israel of God. This is the real Israel (Rom. 9:6b; 2:28-29; Phil. 3:3), including all the Gentile and Jewish believers in Christ, who are the true sons of Abraham (Gal. 3:7, 29).
From the divine viewpoint, the Adamic race occupied two thousand years of history, and the Abrahamic race according to the flesh also occupied two thousand years of history. The spiritual descendants of Abraham as the spiritual, heavenly Israel have now occupied almost two thousand years also. Thus, God’s economy has been among the human race for three periods of time—two thousand years for the race of Adam, two thousand years for the race of Abraham physically, and about two thousand years for the descendants of Abraham spiritually. This is the history of mankind from the divine view. No secular historian would tell us that human history is divided into these three periods of time. Eventually, human history will enter into another age. That will be the age of the millennium, the kingdom of one thousand years.
The main thing in the approximately six thousand years of human history is the divine economy. Because we are near the end of this six-thousand-year period of time, we are at the threshold of the manifestation of the kingdom. God’s economy has passed through almost six thousand years of human history. During this period of time, God’s enemy, Satan, has done all that he can to frustrate the carrying out of God’s economy.
The book of Job shows us that along with the divine economy there is also the satanic chaos. Job 1:6 says, “Then one day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, Satan also came among them.” Satan was permitted to enter into God’s dwelling place in the heavens. Job then goes on to tell us about Jehovah’s conversation with Satan (vv. 9-12). Satan was given the permission to touch all of Job’s things except his life. This shows that God does have an adversary. This adversary always comes alongside His economy. Where the economy of God is, there is also the satanic chaos.
The divine economy and the satanic chaos can be seen from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. When God created the heavens and the earth, the angels were stirred up to sing and shout for joy (Gen. 1:1; Job 38:4-7), but right away Satan rebelled against God, bringing in chaos (Isa. 14:12-15; Gen. 1:2a). This story of the divine economy and the satanic chaos has been going on and on throughout the history of the universe. The New Testament opens with Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God becoming incarnated to be a God-man (John 1:1, 14). What a wonderful thing the incarnation of the Triune God was! But immediately after His incarnation, there was the satanic chaos. Herod sought to kill Christ in His infancy (Matt. 2:1-22).
Even in the new heaven and new earth, there will still be signs of the satanic chaos and the divine economy. The big sign, the unique sign, of God’s economy will be the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of God’s economy. Outside the city is a “trash can,” which is called the lake of fire. The lake of fire is a strong sign of all the chaos from generation to generation throughout the ages. For eternity there will be two things—a city of water and a lake of fire, signifying God’s economy and Satan’s chaos.
In one meeting I heard someone pray, “Lord, deliver us from the chaos.” I would like to ask whether this prayer is right or wrong. Some may say that this is right because the Lord Jesus told us to ask the Father not to bring us into temptation but to deliver us from the evil one (Matt. 6:13). We may, however, have a wrong concept about what this kind of deliverance is. God does not want us to be delivered out of the satanic chaos. What God wants is embodied in the words overcome and conquer. If God delivered us out of the satanic chaos, He would not need us to overcome it, to conquer it. God wants us to conquer the satanic chaos. The real deliverance to us from God is our conquering. In Ephesians 6 Paul tells us that we need to be empowered in the Lord to stand against the stratagems of the devil (vv. 10-11). Then he says, “Take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand” (v. 13). We are not to be delivered out of the chaos, but we are to stand against it.
While the carrying out of God’s economy has been going on, the satanic chaos has been accumulating throughout the nearly six thousand years of human history. This accumulation has consummated in Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Judaism did not come out of God’s economy. Judaism is part of the satanic chaos. In Revelation 2:9 the Lord spoke to the church in Smyrna of the “synagogue of Satan.”
We have seen that the church, due to its degradation, eventually became married to the world during the time of Constantine. At that time the church actually became a kind of “anity,” that is, Christianity. That “anity” was also an accumulation of the satanic chaos. The church’s marriage to the world, as seen with the church in Pergamos (vv. 12-17), eventually issued in Roman Catholicism, as seen with the church in Thyatira (vv. 18-29). In Roman Catholicism there is the hierarchy of bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope. The universal papal system was established in the latter part of the sixth century. With the Catholic Church there is much heresy, much superstition, and many pagan practices. Catholicism is an accumulation of the satanic chaos. Judaism is the first accumulation, and Catholicism is the second accumulation.
The seekers of the Lord could not tolerate the degradation of the church, so they stood up again and again in different centuries to carry out a certain amount of the Lord’s recovery. Eventually, in the sixteenth century Martin Luther rose up, and the Lord used him to recover the truth concerning justification by faith. Eventually, Protestantism came out of this period of reformation. The issue of the Reformation was the state churches, such as the Church of Germany, the Church of Norway, and the Church of England, today’s Anglican church. Then some lovers of the Lord began to see truths from the Scriptures that were not present in the state churches. Thus, the private churches were formed, such as the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, and the Methodist Church.
In the eighteenth century the Lord used Zinzendorf to recover something of the practice of the proper church life. Then in the nineteenth century the Brethren, under the leadership of John Nelson Darby, went on to recover the church life in a further way. The Brethren began in 1828, but within ninety years they were divided into about one hundred divisions.
In the early part of the twentieth century the Lord caught a young man in China named Watchman Nee, and the Lord used him to continue His recovery. Brother Nee once told me that both Europe and America had been spoiled as far as the Lord’s move was concerned at that time. That forced the Lord to go to China, which Brother Nee said was “virgin soil” for the Lord to have a new start of the church life. We are now in the Lord’s recovery of the proper church life for the building up of the organic Body of Christ.
God’s economy has passed through the Adamic race and also through the Abrahamic race, both physically and spiritually. Alongside this economy, there has been Satan’s chaos, which has resulted in three accumulations, which are three “isms”: Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. Because of the failure among the first three races and because of the accumulations of the satanic chaos with Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, the Lord needs a fourth race, the race of the overcomers. In the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, the Lord has a sevenfold calling for the overcomers.
According to church history, the Lord’s recovery with His overcomers began in the second century. The divine revelation was fully completed in the first century with Paul’s ministry and John’s mending ministry. Within the first century, however, there was also the degradation of the church life. Even within such a short time after the completion of the divine revelation, the church fell into degradation, so there was the need of overcomers. Brother E. H. Broadbent, in his book The Pilgrim Church, points out that the line of the overcomers started in the second century and has continued throughout the centuries.
I was born in China far away from western Christianity, but thank the Lord, about one hundred fifty years ago, the Lord sent a number of the best missionaries to that old conservative country. They were real men of God who were honorable, faithful, and excellent in character. They opened up the door for the gospel. My mother was baptized because of their work. It was through this that I came into Christianity. After I was saved, the Lord gradually opened my eyes. I saw that since I was a man, I had to be a Christian, and if I was going to be a Christian, I must be an overcomer. I must come out of Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism to stand with the overcomers.
I was born in northern China, and Brother Nee was born in the south. Eventually, under the Lord’s arrangement, we came into contact with each other. As a young believer, I was able to read his magazine called The Christian. When I read this, I was caught by the Lord. I realized that since I was a Christian, I had to be the same kind of Christian as Brother Watchman Nee was—an overcomer. About seventy years ago Brother Nee and I were among the progressive young people in China. We studied in modern schools and learned English. We were also very patriotic, but we were caught by the Lord to be overcomers.
We were called by the Lord to be one with Him to conquer His enemy, to overcome him. Some of us may feel that there is too much chaos today. Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism are a threefold chaos. We might want to ask the Lord to deliver us out of this. Instead of delivering us, however, the Lord might allow chaos to come to our place so that we would learn how to be one with Him to conquer it, to overcome it. We are in the Lord’s recovery, which is for the carrying out of God’s economy on the earth. Because of this, the satanic chaos is here also. The overcomers are not delivered out of this present chaos. Instead, the overcomers conquer all the destructive chaos and triumph in the unique constructive economy.
My burden in this chapter is to show us how to conquer the satanic chaos and what to conquer. We may feel that as Christians, we should conquer sin, the world, our flesh, and our self. But Revelation 2 and 3 show that the Lord wants us to conquer three things: Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. The Lord referred to those in Judaism as being of the synagogue of Satan. If anything of Judaism is still lingering in us, we will be defeated. We must conquer anything Judaistic.
We also have to conquer three kinds of teachings: the teaching of Balaam (2:14), the teaching of the Nicolaitans (v. 15), and the teaching of Jezebel (v. 20). In the seven epistles to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, these are three other teachings besides the apostles’ teaching. The teaching of Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans are the teachings of today’s Protestant churches. These teachings build up the organized system of Christianity. If we are going to be an overcoming believer, we have to conquer the teaching of Balaam and the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
The teaching of Jezebel is the teaching of the Catholic Church. In the eyes of God, the Catholic Church is an evil prostitute, a great harlot (17:1). According to Revelation 17:5, this great harlot has daughters. The daughters of the apostate church must be all the different sects and groups in Christianity that hold to some extent the teaching, the practices, and the tradition of the apostate Roman Church.
The contents of the teaching of the Roman Church, the teaching of Jezebel, is first the worshipping of idols. The Catholic cathedrals are full of idols. In his book The Great Prophecies, G. H. Pember points out that even Buddha has entered into Catholicism. In the Catholic calendar there is a saint named Josaphat, whose story is actually that of Buddha (see Message 51 of the Life-study of Revelation). Alexander Hislop, in his book The Two Babylons, exposes the origin of the evil, demonic, pagan things that were brought into the apostate church. Also with the Catholic Church there are the deep things of Satan (Rev. 2:24).
We have to be the overcomers who conquer everything of Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism. In the eyes of the Lord, these three “isms” are more evil than sin, than the world, and than our self. Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism should be the first category of things that you and I have to conquer. It is worthwhile to study the outline at the beginning of chapter 3, which is concerning the overcomers spoken of in the epistles to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. The Lord charges us in these epistles to conquer, to overcome, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.
The book of Revelation tells us that Antichrist will destroy all religions at the beginning of the great tribulation. He will exalt himself above all gods and force people to worship him (Dan. 8:9-11; 11:36-37; 2 Thes. 2:3-4; Rev. 13:4-6, 12, 14-15). He will persecute the apostate Roman Church and destroy it. Revelation 17:16 says, “The ten horns which you saw and the beast, these will hate the harlot and will make her desolate and naked and will eat her flesh and burn her utterly with fire.” This harlot is the Catholic Church, and the beast is Antichrist. This verse prophesies clearly that Antichrist will burn the Catholic Church, will make her desolate and naked, and will eat her flesh. Peter tells us that we need to give heed to the prophetic word as to a lamp shining in a dark place (2 Pet. 1:19). Such prophecy is a lamp to our feet (Psa. 119:105).
Surely we should not remain in anything of Judaism, Catholicism, or Protestantism. If we are going to be overcoming believers, we have to overcome, to conquer, these three kinds of “isms.” This is why I spent nearly seven years to overthrow the system of one man speaking in the churches. Such a system is according to the teaching of the Nicolaitans (concerning the Nicolaitans, see Rev. 2:6 and footnote 1 and Rev. 2:15 and footnote 1). In 1937 Brother Watchman Nee saw the need to have the church meeting in mutuality as revealed in 1 Corinthians 14. This fellowship is in his book The Normal Christian Church Life. At that time, however, we could not find a way to replace the one man speaking service in the Lord’s Day morning meeting. Over ten years later in 1948, Brother Nee spoke concerning this again in his book Church Affairs. He said that this system is hard to overthrow, but if you push, I push, and everyone pushes, eventually this evil system will be pushed away.
The real factor of this recent turmoil was that I was working to push away the practice of one man speaking and the rest listening, that is, the Lord’s Day message meeting in the churches. The leading dissenting ones would not say that they opposed this, but actually this was the real case. They thought that if this practice were pushed away, they would lose their “jobs.” They were fond of speaking to a congregation. It is not a small matter to give up the practice of one man speaking and the rest listening, the practice of the Lord’s Day message meeting. Brother Nee said that this practice is according to the customs of the nations (2 Kings 17:8, NASB). This is a part of the “isms” that we have to conquer.
In order to push away the clergy-laity system, the system of one man speaking and the rest listening, we must be those who speak for the Lord. If all of us rise up to speak for the Lord, the clergy-laity system will be pushed away. If we come to the Lord’s Day meeting in a neutral way without the intention to speak for the Lord, we are contributing to this system. Our silence, our not functioning, our not opening up our mouths to speak in the meeting, is what constitutes the system of one man speaking.
All of us need to rise up to speak for the Lord. The more we speak, the younger we become. If we want to reduce our oldness, we need to speak. If we do not speak in the meeting, we may feel that the meeting was poor. The meeting was poor to us because we did not speak. Every meeting in which we speak is a meeting in the heavens. The more we exercise to speak for the Lord in the meetings, the higher the meetings are to us and the more we love the meetings.
The Lord is pleased with our speaking because we are conquering and annulling the destructive chaos by our speaking. After these past seven years, a number of churches have tasted the riches and the sweetness of the prophesying meeting, the church meeting in mutuality. By this kind of practice, many of the young people among us will be trained to speak. If the Lord had not led us into the God-ordained way of meeting with all functioning, there would have been no way for us to take up the work in Russia today. The saints who are serving in Russia are all speaking for the Lord. I want to say again that in every aspect of our practical church life, we must remember that we have to conquer Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.
If we are to be the overcomers, we need to be clear about God’s economy. Christ is the centrality and universality of the divine economy (Col. 3:10-11). Actually, God’s economy is just Christ. What God desires to have is Christ. Christ is God’s good pleasure and His unique goal.
The New Testament shows us this in Ephesians 1 and 3. These chapters speak of God’s good pleasure (1:5, 9) and God’s eternal purpose, God’s heart’s desire (3:11). God’s good pleasure is Christ. A church without Christ as the centrality and universality is not pleasant to God. God could never be pleased with a church without Christ. God does not want to see merely a group of people meeting and serving together. He wants to see Christ among them, and He is concerned about how much Christ is among them. How much God would be pleased with us depends upon how much Christ we have. Everything we do must be in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, through Christ, and to Christ.
Christianity’s gospel preaching is for soul winning, but our gospel preaching is the practice of the New Testament gospel priesthood for saving sinners to make them members of Christ, parts of Christ. Then we offer these parts of Christ as an offering to God (Rom. 15:16). In the Old Testament the sacrifices that the priests offered were all types of Christ. Today in the New Testament economy we offer the members of Christ. In other words, we offer the Body of Christ. To preach the gospel merely to win souls is not adequate. We preach the gospel to make sinners the living members of Christ to constitute Christ’s Body so that we can offer them to God for the constitution of Christ’s Body.
As priests of the gospel, we need to visit people in a regular way to bring the gospel to them. D. L. Moody once made a decision that he would preach the gospel to at least one person a day. One night he went to bed, and he realized that he had not preached the gospel to anyone that day. He went out into the street, and the only one he saw was a policeman. He went to that policeman and exhorted him to believe in the Lord Jesus. Then Moody hurried home. Later, the policeman wanted to know who this person was who spoke to him about believing in the Lord. The policeman found out that this person was D. L. Moody. Then he went to see D. L. Moody, and he was saved. This shows us that we should fulfill our duty as priests of the gospel to regularly visit people so that we can make them the members of Christ for the increase and building up of the Body of Christ.
God’s economy also makes Christ preeminent in all things (Col. 1:15-19). To have the preeminence is to have the first place.
Christ, in the whole universe, is the first. He is even the first in the Godhead (v. 15a). The Godhead has three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Of the three, the Son is the center. The embodiment of the Triune God is Christ, the Son, so He is the center. Colossians 1:18b says that Christ has the first place, the preeminence, in everything. He is the image of the Triune God. If you have the image, you have the person. This shows us that Christ is the very center of the Divine Trinity. He is both the image and the embodiment of the Triune God.
Christ, the preeminent One, is a living, organic person, and the Body of Christ is an organism, not an organization. A wooden stand is an organization of pieces of wood, but a living person is an organism. The church is not mechanical. It is not a robot. The church is an organism. If we want the church to be living, we should not come to the meetings and sit in our chair the entire time to merely listen to others. That makes us mechanical, not organic. We need to exercise our spirit to sing to the Lord, praise the Lord, and speak for the Lord. When we say Amen, we should say it in a living way with the exercise of our spirit. Not only prophesying needs our practice; even saying Amen needs our practice.
Sometimes the best part of the Lord’s table is when everyone makes a “noise” to the Lord. If we are always so orderly and organized in what we do, our meeting might be like a cemetery. In a cemetery there is no noise, and everything is very orderly. But the church is living, so the church has to make a joyful noise to the Lord (Psa. 98:4, 6; 100:1). If we do not exercise our spirit in the church meetings, we will die. Exercise is the secret of being healthy. In the church meetings we should be living and active in the Spirit. In this way Christ will have the preeminence in our meetings.
Christ also has the preeminence, the first place, in the creation (Col. 1:15b-17). He is the Firstborn of all creation, the One who has preeminence among all the creatures.
Christ is also preeminent in the resurrection for the new creation, the church, the Body of Christ (v. 18). In the old creation, He is the Firstborn. In the new creation, in resurrection, in the Body of Christ, He is also the Firstborn. Christ is the first in resurrection as the Head of the Body. As such, He has the first place in the church, God’s new creation (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15).
Christ also has the preeminence in the fullness of the Godhead. Colossians 1:19 says that “in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell.” Actually, the fullness in this verse is Christ Himself. Christ is the center, Christ is the embodiment, Christ is the image, and Christ is the fullness. Thus, in every way, in every aspect, and in everything, Christ must have the first place, the preeminence. In the church life everything must be for giving Him the preeminence, the first place.
God’s economy takes Christ as its centrality and universality, makes Christ preeminent in all things, and also produces the church to be the Body of Christ, the house of God, and the kingdom of God, consummating in the holy city, the New Jerusalem. Whatever we do in the God-ordained way is for Christ to produce the church. We are here living a church life to take Christ as the center and to make Christ the preeminent One for the purpose of producing the church, the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is the fullness of Christ as the One who fills all in all to be His expression (Eph. 1:22-23). Christ is immeasurably full, vast, and great. Ephesians 3:18 speaks of our apprehending the universal dimensions of Christ—the breadth and length and height and depth. How broad, how long, how high, and how deep is the universe? The breadth, the length, the height, and the depth are the immeasurable dimensions of the universe, and these dimensions are the dimensions of Christ. Because Christ is so vast, He needs the Body of Christ as His fullness, His expression.
We need to be those who live Christ and magnify Christ for His expression. If Christ is not full in us, we cannot express Him. We can illustrate this by the amount of water in a cup. If the cup is not full of water, no one can see the water. Thus, the water is hidden, concealed, not expressed. When the cup is filled with water to the extent that it is overflowing, this overflow of water is the expression. When the cup is overflowing with water, everyone sees the expression. No one knows that we have Christ in us, so we need to be overflowing with Christ.
We overflow with Christ by speaking Christ. When we overflow, Christ flows. This overflow is Christ’s expression, and this expression is the fullness. The Bible does not tell us to come to the meetings to be quiet. This is the practice of degraded Christianity. The architecture of the cathedrals and many denominational meeting places, with their stained-glass windows that do not let in much light and their high ceilings, promotes people’s silence. Our meeting places are not like this. Our meetings should not be full of silence but full of the divine speaking for the exhibition of Christ, the expression of Christ.
The Body of Christ is an organism constituted with His members (Rom. 12:5). As the members of the Body of Christ, we are the living parts of Christ.
The Body of Christ needs to be built up with the unsearchable riches of Christ through the divine dispensing (2, Eph. 3:8-11). This is the stress, the emphasis, of the Bible.
The Body of Christ is built up through the divine dispensing by the gifted members as the joints of the rich supply and by each one part operating in its measure (Eph. 4:16). The gifted members must be active, living members. They dispense the rich supply, which is the supply of Christ. Each one part also needs to operate in its measure. We may feel that we are not the gifted members, so we are not needed. But all of us are parts of the Body, and we need to operate according to our measure. We should not merely function; we must function in fullness.
The Body of Christ is also built up through the growth in life of the Body, holding Christ as its Head (vv. 15-16). Through the growth in life the church is built. To build anything we first need the material. The material for the building of the church is the riches of Christ. In order to build, we also need the skill. In the church we need “smiths,” that is, skilled people. Gifted persons are “smiths,” and the operating parts are small “smiths.” We also need a way to be built up, and the way is to grow. If we do not grow, there is no church building. The church building is constituted with the riches of Christ, by the gifted persons and the operating parts, and through the growth in life of all the saints.
Eventually, such a built-up church is for Christ to head up all things in the universe in Himself (1:10).
The church is also the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15-16). The house of God is composed of the many sons of God as the many brothers of Christ, the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10-12). We are the Body with Christ as the Head. We are also a house with Christ as the firstborn Son among many sons, His many brothers.
The church as the house of God is also the pillar and base of the truth. As the pillar, the church supports the truth, and as the base, the church holds the truth. The truth is the Triune God with Christ as the embodiment, as the center, and as the image to produce the church to be the organism as Christ’s Body, as God’s home, and as God’s kingdom. Anything else is not the truth, and to teach anything else is to teach differently. Doctrines such as head covering, foot-washing, and methods of baptism are doctrines but are not the truth that we need to teach. The truth is just one thing—the Triune God, having Christ as the center, the embodiment, the image, and the expression, to produce the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, and the kingdom of God. We are one in this truth. We are not one in the different small points in the Bible.
The church as the pillar and base of the truth is the manifestation of God in the flesh, and this is the great mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:15-16). The church is the continuation of Christ as the manifestation of God in the flesh.
The church is also the kingdom of God (Matt. 16:18-19; Rom. 14:17). The kingdom of God is for the divine administration to express the divine authority (Heb. 1:8). We should be people under authority, and among us there should be the divine administration. Romans 14:17 says that today the church life is the kingdom of God.
Eventually, the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, and the kingdom of God will consummate in the holy city, the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21—22). Revelation 21:2 says that the holy city, New Jerusalem, will come down out of heaven from God. First, the New Jerusalem will be in the heavens in the thousand-year kingdom. The overcomers will be there as the co-kings of Christ in the heavenly part of the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens. After the thousand-year kingdom, all the saints will be matured and will be included in the New Jerusalem. Then the New Jerusalem will come down out of heaven. Our dwelling place for eternity will be the New Jerusalem on the new earth. We are in the church as the Body of Christ, the house of God, and the kingdom of God, and we are on our way to becoming the new city, the New Jerusalem.
