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Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” According to this verse, we are being transformed into the same image as the Lord by the Lord Spirit. Revelation 4:2b-3a says, “Upon the throne there was One sitting; and He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance.” It says here that the Lord on the throne was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance. Revelation 21:11b says, “Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, as clear as crystal.” This refers to glory. First Corinthians 3:12 says, “If anyone builds upon the foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, stubble.” Gold is first, then silver, and last precious stones.
God’s work in us is to make us mature in life. God begins His work of making us mature by working His life into us. From then on, God unceasingly works in us so that He can work His life out from within us. When He has worked His life out from within us, we will have reached maturity. When God puts His life into us, He is mingled with us. When He works His life out from within us, we are mingled with Him. When He comes to mingle with us, this is the principle of incarnation. When we mingle with Him in the Holy Spirit, this is the principle of death and resurrection.
Every person who has been saved experienced the first aspect of God’s work at the time that he was saved. The principle of incarnation is God’s entering into us and mingling with us. This is what transpired at the time when we were saved. What God is doing in us now is the second aspect of His work—the principle of death and resurrection. This aspect causes us to be worked into God and mingled with God. When this second aspect is completed, we will be mature in His life. At that time we will express His image and be conformed to His image. When we express His image, spontaneously, we also will express His glory. Image and glory are actually one.
The result of being transformed into the Lord’s image is that the Lord is expressed from within us. This is the work of the Spirit. At the time of our salvation the Spirit entered into our spirit. From that time on, the Spirit desires to spread out from our spirit into every part of our being—our mind, emotion, and will. When the Spirit is able to do this, our mind, preferences, and opinions will have the element of the Spirit and will bear traces of the work of the Spirit. Then, whenever someone comes in contact with us, they will sense the flavor of the Spirit in all our thoughts, preferences, choices, decisions, and opinions. This is because the Spirit has expanded and spread out from within us. The Spirit who has expanded and spread out from within us is our glory.
If we allow the Spirit to do this, others will sense glory with us. They will also feel that we are noble and different. Sometimes we may come in contact with a particular saint whom we know is saved but whose speaking, conduct, thoughts, and sentiments cause us to feel that he is a person who is base and dishonorable. Why is this? It is because he has not allowed the Spirit to spread out from within him to all the parts of his being. On the other hand, sometimes we may contact a saint who does not have a high status in the world but who gives us the sense that he is noble, honorable, weighty, and bright. Although we may be more educated, have more learning, be of a higher status in the world, and be more capable and wealthy than he, we have the sense that we are lower than he is. This sense proves that this person has the glory of God with him.
This glory is the Spirit of God being expressed from within him. Therefore, when people contact him, it is like they are contacting the Lord. When people are with him, they feel that they have the presence of the Lord. This is because this person has the Lord’s image. His speaking, opinions, feelings, and moods all have the image of the Lord, because the Lord is being expressed from within him. The glory and image that we sense are the expression of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Lord Himself (2 Cor. 3:17). Thus, the Lord as the Spirit is manifested from within him. This is a mature person.
We all know that God works in us in three persons. He is God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. These three persons—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—are actually one God, the Triune God. The Triune God’s purpose is to work Himself into us and also to work Himself out from within us. The apostle Paul says that in God’s building, He uses gold, silver, and precious stones as the materials (1 Cor. 3:12). Gold refers to the life and nature of God. At the time we were saved, God entered into us, and we received God’s life and nature. God’s life and nature are typified by gold. In other words, when we were saved, God added His life and nature into our being as gold.
There is no doubt that every person who has been saved has received God with His life and nature. This is to say, once a person is saved, he experiences the first step of God’s work—the element of the Triune God is worked into him, and he receives the golden element of God. The second step is the work of silver. This refers to the work of Christ. In the Bible silver refers to redemption, and Christ’s redemptive work is the work of the cross. There is a twofold meaning to the cross. On the one hand, it rids us of what we should not have, and on the other hand, it recovers what we originally received that became degraded. These are the two aspects of Christ’s redemptive work on the cross.
When God first created us, He gave us everything that we would need. He created for us a mind with the ability to think, an emotion with the ability to love, and a will with the ability to make decisions. We need all these things, so all of them were created for us by God. However, man fell, and all these items fell into an improper position. Moreover, because man continued to fall, man was mixed up with much uncleanness, sin, and corruption. The redemption of the cross of the Lord Jesus saves us from all the things that we do not need and also recovers the things that we do need, including a normal mind, emotion, and will.
In short, we were created by God with everything that we would need. However, we fell, and because of this fall, sin and the world were added into us. The Lord Jesus’ redemption on the cross takes away the sins and the world from within us and is recovering us so that we can be used by God. This is the principle of Christ’s redemption on the cross. This is the work of silver, of God the Son.
At the time we were saved, God entered into us as the Spirit; thus, we received the golden element of God. Then based upon Christ’s redemptive work, every day the cross takes away the sins and the world from within us and recovers us. When we allow the cross to take away the sins and the world and to recover us back to God in this way, we receive the work of silver and the silver element of Christ. All those who have been fully saved have this silver element. Bit by bit we are allowing the cross to take away the sins and the world from within us and at the same time to recover us back to God.
Some saints, however, do not have this experience of the cross. They have only the golden element; they do not have the silver element. For example, a person who is truly saved and regenerated has the life of God within him. Thus, he has the golden element of God. However, this person is fallen, and he has a weakness. His weakness is that he loses his temper easily. Some have fallen into playing mah-jongg, others have fallen into going to the movies, but this person has fallen into losing his temper. He loses his temper easily. If his wife, children, relatives, colleagues, or even the brothers and sisters displease him in the slightest bit, he loses his temper. He does not care whether this is pleasing to God or what God’s will is—his entire person falls into his temper. Such a person is genuinely saved—he has God’s golden element—but he does not have Christ’s silver element. He has God’s life, but he has not experienced the redeeming and dealing work of the cross. He has the golden element but not the silver element.
Although he has allowed the blood of the cross to save him from God’s condemnation, he has not allowed the redemptive power of the cross to recover him from his temper. Likewise, some people have not allowed the cross to save them from movie theaters or from their addictions. It would not be fair to say that they have not been saved. However, although they have been saved, they remain in their temper or their addictions. This shows that they have gold in them but not silver. They have the life element of God in them but very little of the work of the cross.
There are some, however, who although they used to have quick tempers, addictions, and different kinds of weaknesses, they have allowed the cross of Christ to deliver them from all these things. The cross of Christ has saved them from their temper, addictions, and various kinds of wickedness and brought them back to God. The cross has taken away the temper, addictions, and sins that they should not have. At the same time, the cross has also recovered the things that they should have and brought them back to God. Such ones have both gold and silver. Thus, when we come into contact with such persons, we can testify that they have both gold and silver.
Is a person mature if he has both the golden nature of God and the silver element of Christ? Is he mature if he has both gold and silver? No, he is not. He still needs precious stones. What kind of work do precious stones represent? Precious stones represent the constituting work of the Holy Spirit within us. A saint who has the golden element of God and the silver redemptive work of Christ does not necessarily resemble the Lord, having the Lord’s flavor or the Lord’s image. This is because he lacks the constituting work of the Holy Spirit.
First, a believer needs to have the golden element, then he needs the silver element, and third, he needs the precious stones. Gold indicates that he is saved and has the life of God within him. However, at this stage he still may remain in his lust, wickedness, addictions, and temper, because he has not yet received the work of the cross—the silver element. As he is gradually delivered from his lust, wickedness, addictions, and temper, the silver work of the cross will become apparent. Then he will have gold and silver and will no longer have his addictions and wickedness. However, at this stage he may still have his own thoughts, and others may not be able to sense any flavor of the Lord in his speaking. Moreover, his opinions may not come from the Lord. Such a person has received the life of God and the dealing work of the cross, but his preferences, emotions, opinions, views, and thoughts do not cause others to sense the Lord’s presence. Although his opinions are not wicked, and he does not aspire after the world, others cannot sense the Lord’s presence in his expression. This is because he has not received the constituting work of the Holy Spirit.
Precious stones are not originally created by God. People who study chemistry know that precious stones come from materials buried deep in the ground that have undergone burning and high pressure. Similarly, we are not precious stones originally. Our thoughts are not precious stone, our emotions are not precious stone, and our opinions are all the more not precious stone. No matter how good or how lofty they are, their nature is not precious stone. Our mind, emotion, and will are transformed into precious stone by being constituted and burnt by the Holy Spirit and also being pressed by the outward situations.
For example, suppose that you have a very good mind, a very clean emotion, and also a very proper will. Even if this is the case, these things are not precious stones. They are what you originally have in your natural being. They do not have the element of the Lord in them because they lack the work of the Holy Spirit. You have to let the Holy Spirit enter your mind, emotion, and will and allow Him to burn you like fire. You also have to allow the outward situations to coordinate together to deal with you. Through the burning, dealing, pressing, and constituting of the Holy Spirit inside and all the situations outside, your thoughts, emotions, and will receive the element of the Lord and even the Lord Himself. Eventually, this will cause your mind, emotion, and will to become precious stones.
At this point, when a person comes into contact with you, he will feel that you not only have the life of God and the work of the cross but also the Lord Himself in your mind, preferences, and opinions. As soon as a person comes into contact with you, he will feel as if he is coming into contact with the Lord. Spiritually, you will have the shining of the precious stones. Inwardly, you will have gold and silver, and outwardly, you will have the appearance of precious stones. This means that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit within you will also have worked out of you. This matches the expression of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. The brightness of the New Jerusalem is jasper, and jasper is a precious stone. Moreover, the wall of the New Jerusalem is also jasper, and the foundations of the wall are precious stones. In other words, the New Jerusalem is a city of jasper, and jasper is God’s expression.
Revelation 4:3 says that He who was sitting on the throne was like a jasper stone and a sardius. This shows that the appearance of the New Jerusalem is the same as that of God—both are jasper and precious stones. Precious stones are produced by the constituting work of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the appearance of precious stones is also an issue of the constituting work of the Holy Spirit. This appearance is the expression of the Holy Spirit. This entirely echoes 2 Corinthians 3, which says that the expression of the Holy Spirit from within us is the shining and image, and this shining and image are the Lord Himself. Thus, we can see from Revelation that the appearance of the New Jerusalem is jasper and precious stones and that the appearance of jasper and precious stones is also the appearance of the Lord who is sitting on the throne.
How can we become like the Lord? How can we have the image of God? The first step is to let God’s life, which is the Spirit, enter into us. In this way we will have gold in us. Then we need to let the cross work in us, separate us from sins, the world, lust, and our preferences. Is this separation by the cross sufficient? It is not. The Holy Spirit still needs to constitute us and burn within our mind, emotion, will, and entire inner being. Together with the pressing work of the outward environment, the work of the Holy Spirit will work the Lord’s image as a precious stone into us. This transforms us into precious stones. When that time comes, God will have completed His work in us, and we will be mature.
There are three steps to the work of the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. We were originally created by God to contain God. However, we fell into sins and the world. So one day God came to redeem us and cleanse us with the blood of His Son. Moreover, He put His life and nature, His golden element, into us. Thus, we were regenerated and saved. From then on, Christ’s cross has been carrying out its separating work in us so that we are separated time and time again from sins, the world, temper, and lust and are placed on God’s side. Then the Holy Spirit burns within us and carries out a constituting work within us. Because we are rebellious and resistant, the Holy Spirit also uses the outward environment in coordination with His work within us to burn us, press us, and constitute us to the extent that our mind, emotion, and will all have the shining image of God and become like precious stones, that is, resemble the Lord. This image is the image of the glory of the Lord. This is what it means to be transformed into the image of the Lord, even as from the Lord Spirit.
By this time we will not only have gold and silver but also precious stones. We will be bright and honorable. When people come into contact with us, they will sense the Lord’s presence. We will have the image of the Lord, and our speaking and expression will have the flavor of the Lord. Our thoughts, emotions, opinions, views, and choices will also have the Lord’s flavor. Even those who do not like us will respect us from deep within because we will have weight before the Lord and will have been constituted with the Holy Spirit. We will have the brightness of precious stones, which is the image of the Lord.
How does the Holy Spirit constitute and burn within us? The Lord loves and cares for each one of us. We have all been saved and have the life of the Lord. We are also willing to let Christ’s cross work within us. Thus, we have gold and also silver. But this is not enough. We all need to have the experience of the precious stones. We are now undergoing the process of becoming precious stones. Although we have not experienced sufficient burning, sufficient pressing, and sufficient constituting, we are in this process. The Holy Spirit is operating and constituting within all of us.
For example, suppose we dislike someone, and the mere sight of this person annoys us. At this point the Holy Spirit will begin to work within us. If we dislike someone, the Holy Spirit will give us a sense within and cause us to feel that it is not right for us to dislike this person and that our dislike does not come from the Lord. The Holy Spirit will bother us, stir within us, and at the same time will constitute us with Himself so that we will be knit together with Him. The Holy Spirit will bother us today, stir within us tomorrow, operate within us the day after, and burn within us a few days later. Then bit by bit, after a few months we will no longer dislike that person as much as we did before. However, we still may not like him—some feeling may still remain within us. Therefore, the Holy Spirit will raise up the environment. He will hit us on the left, press us on the right, and cause us to suffer from some illness or to encounter some other difficulty. The Holy Spirit will deal with us outwardly in this way. Then one day, without knowing why, our dislike for this person will disappear, and when we see him, we will even think that he is nice and gentle. Moreover, when we see him again at another time, we will even be able to have good fellowship with him. This is the constituting work of the Holy Spirit within us.
Having been burnt, constituted, and pressed by the Holy Spirit, our emotions and preferences, as well as our mind, thoughts, will, and opinions, will have the flavor of the Lord. Very often, our mind and thoughts do not have the Holy Spirit. They are simply our own thoughts, thoughts that are according to the ways of the world. Therefore, the Holy Spirit will touch us—bothering, turning, and stirring within us—and ask us, “Is this the Lord’s way? Is this the Lord’s truth? Is this the Lord’s method?” If we do not listen to these questions and this speaking inside of us, an outward environment will come to hit us, press us, and deal with us. Eventually, all we will be able to do will be to bow down before the Lord. Our mind will have been smitten, our emotion broken, and our will defeated. Now we will have the Lord’s image, and everything that comes from our mind, emotion, and will shall be like precious stones—being glorious and bearing the Lord’s presence. This will be the expression of the Holy Spirit and the image of the Lord.
Revelation shows that the New Jerusalem is a golden mountain. The street of the city is pure gold, and the wall of the city is jasper. This depicts the work of the Holy Spirit within us. At the time of our salvation we receive the gold inside of us but not the wall outside of us or the image of the Lord. Thus, the Holy Spirit will work in us further until bit by bit our mind, emotion, and will receive the Lord’s image. When we receive the Lord’s image, we will have the wall, precious stones, and glory. All these things are the expression of the Lord and are God Himself. The precious stones are the image of God, the manifestation of God. This is what it means to be mature.
