THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE

The Mingling of Divinity with Humanity

Message Five
Living Out and Working Out the New Jerusalem
by the Experience of the Mingling of God with Man

Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:15-16; Col. 2:19; Psa. 36:8-9; Rev. 2:7; 19:7-9; 21:18-23; 22:1-5

I. The New Jerusalem is the totality of the overcomers; a remnant of the Lord’s believers, the earlier overcomers, will be the bride of Christ for one thousand years; then they will join the rest of the Lord’s believers, the later overcomers, to be the wife of Christ for eternity—19:7-9; 20:4, 6; 21:2-3, 7:

A. The earlier overcomers, as the reality of Zion within Jerusalem, the reality of the Body of Christ within the church, have highways to Zion in their heart; they take the way of the church internally by being incorporated into God as their dwelling place through the crucified Christ, typified by the bronze altar as their nest for their refuge, and through the resurrected Christ in ascension, typified by the incense altar as their home for their rest—Psa. 48:2; 84:3-5; cf. Prov. 27:8.

B. To overcome means that we love the Lord more than our self, more than our soul-life; an overcomer knows and loves only Christ for the Body of Christ—Phil. 3:10; 4:12; Rev. 2:4, 7; 12:11.

C. The Lord is waiting for a group of overcomers to live out the reality of the Body of Christ in resurrection to become the bride of Christ to bring Him back and to usher in His kingdom age; for this we need to pray, “Lord, may I receive Your mercy and grace to be one of Your overcomers.”

II. To live out the New Jerusalem is to grow up “into the Head” by the mingling of God with man, and to work out the New Jerusalem is to function “out from the Head” for the oneness of the Body of Christ—Lev. 2:4-5; John 6:57; 7:37; 17:21, 23; Eph. 4:3-4a, 11-16; Col. 2:19; 1 Cor. 3:6-12a; 10:3 -4, 17; 12:12-13; Rev. 2:7; 21:9-11; 22:14, 17:

A. God’s desire is to gain the New Jerusalem through the precursor of the organic Body of Christ produced in the local churches—2:7; 12:5; 14:1-4.

B. Eventually, the local churches will be over; only the Body of Christ will remain forever as the unique mutual abode of God and man so that God and man are married together, mingled and incorporated together, to be one entity, a great corporate God-man—l:11-12; 21:2-3, 22; 22:17a.

III. Whatever is ascribed to the New Jerusalem should be both our personal and corporate experience for us to become the New Jerusalem and build the New Jerusalem by the mingling of God with man for the oneness of the Body of Christ to fulfill the eternal purpose of God—Rev. 21:3, 22:

A. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must hold on to this principle: God’s presence is the criterion for every matter—21:22; 22:4; Exo. 25:30; Psa. 27:4-5, 8; 31:20; 91:1:

1. The New Testament commences with the individual Christ as the God-man, “God with us”, and ends with the New Jerusalem as the corporate Christ, as the great God-man, “Jehovah is There”—Matt. 1:23; Ezek. 48:35.

2. The Spirit is the presence of Christ with our spirit; we must live and act in the person of Christ, in the presence of Christ, according to the index of His whole person, expressed in His eyes—2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; 2:10, 13; Exo. 33:11a, 14-17; 1 Cor. 14:24-25; cf. Rev. 5:6.

B. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must be under the throne of God, the ruling of God—22:1, 3:

1. Sin is lawlessness, a dethronement of God; we need to dethrone ourselves, humble ourselves, to live in our spirit, coordinate with the saints for God’s move, and maintain a “clear sky” in our Christian life and church life in order to be filled with God’s ruling presence of reigning grace—1 John 3:4; Ezek. 1:13-16, 22, 26; Rom. 5:21; Rev. 4:1-3; 22:1; cf. 1 Kings 10:18.

2. To reach this point means that in everything we allow God to have the Preeminence and are completely submissive to His authority and administration so that He can fulfill His eternal purpose in us, through us, and with us—Rom. 5:17; Matt. 8:9; Rom. 14:17; cf. Num. 17:8.

C. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must have the flow and supply of life—Rev. 22:1-2:

1. The flowing river of life and the edible tree of life should be the outstanding features of our Christian life and church life for the enjoyment of God as our real Eden, our pleasure, entertainment, and joy—Hymn, #509; Gen. 2:8-10; Psa. 36:8-9; 43:4a; Neh. 8:10.

2. To drink one Spirit is to be mingled with the Spirit as the oneness of the one Body, this requires us to call on the Lord continually and draw water with joy from Him as the fountain of living water—1 Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 4:3-4a; Isa. 12:3-4; Jer. 2:13; John 4:10, 14; 7:37-39; Rev. 22:17.

3. To eat the tree of life, that is, to enjoy Christ as our life supply, should be the primary matter in the church life, to enjoy Christ requires us to love Him with the first love, loving the Lord, enjoying the Lord, and being the testimony of the Lord go together—2:4, 7; 22:14.

D. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we reality must be full of the light of life—21:11, 23; 22:5; Luke 11:33-36:

1. The light of the New Jerusalem is God as the illuminating glory shining out through Christ the Redeemer as the lamp, and the entire holy city is the diffuser of the divine light; today this diffuser to spread the divine light is the Body of Christ—Rev. 21:23-24a; 22:1, 5; 21:11; Eph. 5:8-9.

2. Light is the presence of God; we enjoy Christ as our God-allotted portion in the light to deliver us from the authority of darkness, the kingdom of Satan, and to transfer us into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love—Col. 1:12-13; Acts 26:18; Rom. 13:11-14; cf. Mark 9:2-8.

3. The light of God is in the sanctuary, God’s dwelling place, which is our spirit and the church; in our spirit and in the church we receive divine revelation and obtain the explanation to all our problems—Eph. 2:22; 1 Tim. 3:15; Psa. 73:16-17, 22-26.

E. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must partake of God the Father in His divine nature, typified by the gold as the base of the city—2 Pet. 1:4; Rev. 21:21b:

1. The one street of pure gold signifies that when we live and work according to the divine life flowing in the divine nature, we never “get lost”, and we are pure, simple, and uncomplicated—22:1; 2 Cor. 11:2-3.

2. The divine nature is what God is; we must exercise our spirit to enjoy God as Spirit(the nature of God’s person), and we must remain in the divine fellowship to enjoy God as love (the nature of God’s essence) and as light (the nature of God’s expression)—John 4:24; 1 John 4:8; 1:5, 3.

F. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must experience God the Son in His death and resurrection, typified by the pearl gates—Rev. 21:21a:

1. Pearls signify the issue of Christ’s secretion in two aspects: His redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-dispensing resurrection—John 12:24; 19:34; cf. Zech. 13:1; Jer. 2:13.

2. We must experience the death of Christ by the power of Christ’s resurrection so that we may be conformed to His death and to the image of the firstborn Son of God—Phil. 3:10; 1:19; Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 4:7-13.

G. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must experience God the Spirit in His transforming work, typified by the jasper wall with its foundations of precious stones—Rev. 21:18-20:

1. By our growth in the divine life in Christ as the living stone, we are transformed into precious stones to have the same appearance as God—1 Pet. 2:4; 1 Cor. 3:12a; Rev. 21:10-11; 4:3; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2.

2. The wall functions to separate, to sanctify, the city unto God from all things other than God, thus making the city the holy city; the wall also functions to protect the interest of the riches of God’s divinity on the earth and the attainments of His consummation—Rev. 21:2a, 10b; cf. John 17:17.

Ministry Excerpts:

GROWING UP INTO THE HEAD
AND FUNCTIONING OUT FROM THE HEAD
FOR THE BUILDING OF THE BODY

The Body is an organism, not an organization. As members of this Body, we grow unto maturity until we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ Himself (Eph. 4:13). Ephesians 4:15 says that we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ. As Christ is imparting Himself into us, we are growing in Christ. The growth of the Body is by the increase of the Triune God within all its members, who grow into the Head, Christ, in everything.

The building up of the church is the growth of the Body of Christ. As we grow up into the Head in all things, we have something out from the Head for the building up of the Body.

We need to grow up into the Head and then we need to function or operate out from the Head so that the Body can be supplied and built up. The Lord will fill us and move within us for us to function according to the measure of our capacity. Our capacity needs to be enlarged so that the Body of Christ can be built up more and more. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “1993 Blending Conference Messages Concerning the Lord’s Recovery and Our Present Need,” msg. 3)

THE LORD’S CONCERN BEING TO GAIN
THE NEW JERUSALEM THROUGH THE PRECURSOR
OF THE ORGANIC BODY OF CHRIST

The Lord’s concern is to gain the New Jerusalem through the precursor of the organic Body of Christ produced in the churches and composed of all the believers, not physically but spiritually. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “Crystallization-study of Song of Songs,” msg. 4)

Not only so, eventually, the book of Revelation does have a consummation. In this consummation all the seven lampstands disappear. In the first chapter we see the seven lampstands. But in the last two chapters we see only one city. Eventually, the local churches will be over. Only the Body will remain and remain forever, and this Body of Christ is the unique tabernacle as God’s dwelling place on this earth, the unique bride of the Lamb (21:2-3). We all have to see this.

Only One Consummation, the New Jerusalem,
at the End of the Bible

Therefore, we must pay much more attention to the Body of Christ than to the local churches. This does not mean that I annul the teaching of the local churches. We still need it. As a person, we have a physical frame. That is our body. But a body by itself is a carcass. A physical body needs an inner life. Today the church is the same. On the one hand, it does have a frame, a body, but this frame is not the nature, the essence, or the element of the church. Ephesians 4 tells us the church is the Body, and within this church is the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father (vv. 4-6). The Father is the source, the Lord is the element, and the Spirit is the essence of the Body. These four entities are built together.

We need to see that there is something on this earth structured as a kind of organic constitution, which is called the Body of Christ, and this Body of Christ is the organism of the unseen God. Dear saints, this is the consummation of everything. Many things are mentioned in the Bible, but eventually, at the end of the Bible, there is only one consummation, and this consummation is the New Jerusalem. In this consummation we can see God (the Father, the Son, and the Spirit) and God’s redeemed humanity. We can see Israel because the New Jerusalem bears the names of the twelve tribes representing saved Israel (Rev. 21:12). We can see the believers because the holy city bears the names of the twelve apostles representing all the New Testament believers (v. 14). The New Jerusalem is the consummation of God and man. God has constituted Himself into our humanity, and our humanity also has been constructed into His divinity. Now divinity and humanity are joined, united, mingled, and blended together.

The reality of the Body of Christ is a living by all the God-men united, joined, and constituted together with God by mingling humanity with divinity and divinity with humanity. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” msg. 3)

The Holy City Being a Corporate Person—
the Processed Triune God Married
to the Transformed Tripartite Man

The holy city is a corporate person, and this corporate person is a couple—the processed Triune God married to the transformed tripartite man. This is the Spirit and the bride becoming one (22:17a). Divinity and humanity are married together, mingled together, to be one entity. The holy city is a corporate person—a great corporate God-man. The holy city as the tabernacle of God is for God to dwell in (21:2-3), and God and the Lamb as the temple are for us to dwell in. God is our temple, and we are His tabernacle. In the new heaven and new earth the New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for both God and man for eternity. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living In and With the Divine Trinity,” ch. 13)

THE BUILDING OF THE NEW JERUSALEM

The New Testament believers are charged by God to build the church (1 Cor. 3:10, 12; 14:12, 26; Eph. 4:12, 16), which will eventually consummate in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2, 9-10). In each locality many dear saints are building the church by leading new ones to salvation, helping them to be transformed, and fitting them into the building. Although these saints may not be conscious of it, their labor is the building of the New Jerusalem. I expect that one day when we are in the New Jerusalem, we will recognize those whom we brought into the church and realize that we built them into the New Jerusalem. Some in Christianity may not accept this word. They may even consider it to be heretical, but this is what is revealed in the Bible. This is not a traditional Christian teaching; it is the heavenly vision. When we see one another in the New Jerusalem, we will realize that what we were building in the churches was the New Jerusalem. (CWWL, 1975-1976, vol. 1, “The Building of the Church,” ch. 3)

THE NEW JERUSALEM BEING
THE TOTALITY OF THE OVERCOMERS

The New Jerusalem is the totality of the overcomers. The overcomers will be the New Jerusalem in the coming age, the age of the millennium, as the precursor to the New Jerusalem in eternity future. Only a relatively small part of the believers will be the overcomers. The majority of the believers—genuine, regenerated, blood-washed believers—will have been defeated. At the Lord’s coming, He will take away only the overcomers, leaving the rest of the believers in another category because they will not have the maturity in His divine life. In the millennium the overcoming believers will be with Christ in the bright glory of the kingdom, whereas the defeated believers will suffer discipline in outer darkness (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). This is so that they can be perfected for their maturity.

The earlier overcomers will be rewarded. The Lord will reward the overcomers in this age with what they are in Christ. They will enjoy their victory, but the defeated ones who were not ready will have nothing to enjoy as their reward. Instead, the Lord will deal with them so that they can become matured and perfected. Eventually, the majority of the believers will enjoy what they are in Christ for eternity.

To Overcome Meaning to Love the Lord
More Than Our Self

An overcomer is someone who overcomes in every area of his daily life. The Lord Jesus is moving within us to live through us even in the way that we comb and cut our hair. If we do not follow Him in this matter, we will be defeated in having a worldly hair style. When the Lord says, “Don’t comb your hair that way,” we should respond, “Amen. Whatever You want, Lord Jesus.” This is what it means to overcome. This means that we love Him more than our self, more than our soul-life. An overcomer knows and loves only Christ.

The last two chapters of Revelation unveil the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth for eternity. That will be the totality of all the believers throughout all the generations of the Old Testament and the New Testament. By then all of God’s chosen and redeemed people will have been made overcomers. This gives us an overview of the book of Revelation. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” msg. 1)

The Lord Being Waiting for a Group of Overcomers
to Be the Means for Him to Usher in His Kingdom Age

This age is really coming to a close. Look at the development in the world situation. The nation of Israel has been restored, and Jerusalem has been returned to the Israelites. Hence, this age should be ended. But it seems that the Lord still has no way to close this age. The reason that the Lord still has not closed this age is that He is still waiting for the overcomers. He is waiting for a group of overcomers to live in His Body in resurrection to be the means for Him to usher in His kingdom age. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “A General Outline of God’s Economy and the Proper Living of a God-man,” msg. 4)

God’s Presence Being the Criterion for Every Matter

As both a dwelling place and a counterpart, the church is corporate. God’s counterpart is not an individual believer but the church corporately. I hope that God will enable us to see this. No matter how spiritual we are, as long as we are individualistic, we damage the dwelling place of God, the house of God, as well as the counterpart of God. Therefore, Christians should by no means be individualistic. They must be built together with the brothers and sisters in the church.

Now we will go on to see how we can know that a church has been built up. In other words, what is the condition of a built-up church?

First, a built-up church has God’s presence. Revelation 21:22 says that there is no temple in the New Jerusalem, for God and the Lamb are its temple. We know that during the Old Testament times the temple was the center of Jerusalem. Therefore, that God and the Lamb are the temple means that God and the Lamb themselves become the center of the city. In other words, God is with the city, and the city has the presence of God.

Therefore, we must hold on to this principle: God’s presence is the criterion for every matter. Regardless of what we do, we must pay attention to whether or not we have God’s presence. Do we have God’s presence while we are expressing our opinions? Do we have God’s presence while we are saying certain things or taking a certain attitude? Is God’s presence in our suggestion or proposal? If we touch the presence of God in all things, we will see that God will be there as the temple, and the building of God will be with us. When we argue with each other, we all may be for the Lord, and our insisting may be quite justifiable. However, due to our arguing we do not have God as the temple—the presence of God. Instead, we have torn down the city.

The more we reason, the more we lose God’s presence. Please remember that the temple in the New Jerusalem is God Himself. God’s presence is the center of the city. Therefore, in the church we must have the presence of God; we must have God as the temple. Then we will be built up to have the condition of the New Jerusalem.

Having the Throne of God, the Ruling of God

Second, if the church is built up, it will have the throne of God, the ruling of God. In the New Jerusalem there is the throne of God. This throne is not only a matter of God’s presence but also a matter of God’s ruling. In this building there is the presence of God, and there is also the dominion of God. Because the throne of God is established, God can exercise His authority. If we want to know whether a certain church is being built up, we need to see whether there is God’s throne and God’s dominion among them.

Sometimes when you go to a certain place and meet some brothers and sisters there, you can sense that among them there is not the throne of God but the throne of man. When you attend their service meeting, you notice they speak as if they are sitting on a throne. Whoever speaks is on the throne. Before one finishes speaking, another one speaks over him. He seems to be saying, “Come down from the throne now and let me get up onto it.” Although he does not say this plainly, this is the impression he gives by his attitude and demeanor. After this one finishes, another sister would say, “Brother So-and-so, what you have said is not correct.” While she speaks, her voice may sound very gentle, but the impression is the same: “Come down from the throne.” This is not my imagination. Many times while I was sitting together with God’s children, I saw this kind of situation. This means that the throne of God, the dominion of God, is not there. Rather, everyone is sitting on his own throne. Please remember that once there is such a situation, the presence of the Holy Spirit is definitely not there. This proves that in such a place God’s children have not yet been built up.

Having the Flow and Supply of Life

Third, a builded church has the flow and supply of life. The Scriptures show us that there is a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne, and on both sides of the river there is the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, and yielding its fruits each month (Rev. 22:1-2). This indicates that in God’s presence and God’s reigning there is the flow of life. Here there is the water of life which quenches people’s thirst and causes people to be watered. Here there are also the fruits of the tree of life which enable the hungry people to be satisfied. Everyone who comes here can obtain the supply he needs.

Having the Light—
the Redeeming and Shining God

Fourth, a builded church has light. In the New Jerusalem there is light (Rev. 21:23). This light is not natural light, neither is it the light of the sun or of the moon; this light is God Himself. God is the light while Christ is the lamp. God shines forth His glory in Christ, and this glory is the light of the city. That the city has no need of the sun or of the moon means that in this building there is no need of natural light. The God who is manifested in their midst in Christ is the light. Or we may say that God in Christ expressed through them is the light. Therefore, when you go into the midst of a group of people like this, you feel that it is bright there. This is just like the situation in a meeting hall filled with light. The electricity that shines forth is expressed through fluorescent lamps to become light. Hence, when you walk into a room like this, everything is clear: you can see chairs, people sitting down, the entrance, and the hallway. You can see everything clearly. (CWWL, 1958, vol. 2, “The Building Work of God,” msg. 7)

We cannot live in darkness. We can live only in the light. The New Jerusalem will have a particular kind of light—the redeeming and shining God (Rev. 21:23). The redeeming God shines as the shining God. The illuminating glory of God is the light within Christ, and the redeeming Christ is the lamp containing the light. God is always contained in Christ. Christ is the unique container of God. God’s glory is the light of the city, and God is contained by Christ as the content, shining out through Christ.

The light of the holy city is the unique eternal divine light in which the redeemed elect live and move within the city, needing not the natural light, the sun and the moon, created by God, nor the artificial light made by man (vv. 23, 25; 22:5a). In the universe there are only three kinds of light. First, there is the natural light, the sun and the moon, created by God. Then there is the artificial light made by man. Third, there is the real light, the genuine light, which is God Himself. Revelation tells us that in the New Jerusalem we do not need the natural light of the moon and the sun or the artificial light. This is because we have the first-class light, which is the source of all the light. This light is God, shining within Christ, diffused over all the nations. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers,” msg. 4)

Becoming Partakers, Enjoyers,
of the Divine Nature

The New Jerusalem also has a street (Rev. 21:21b). This street is joined to the city proper, and the two cannot be separated. Therefore, the Bible says that the city is pure gold (v. 18) and that the street is pure gold (v. 21). The street is just the city proper.

The street is pure gold. You cannot find a grain of sand in it. It is all pure gold. In the Scriptures gold denotes the nature of God. This indicates that the city is filled with God and the nature of God. There is absolutely no earthy element. The street is altogether simple and pure. The street is also one—without any complication, and it is pure gold—without any mixture. (CWWL, 1958, vol. 2, “The Building Work of God,” msg. 8)

John tells us that the divine birth brought a seed into us (3:9). In this seed is the divine nature. Peter, furthermore, tells us that God has granted to us all things which relate to life (2 Pet. 1:3). Based upon this fact God gave us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these we might become partakers, enjoyers, of the divine nature. Now we all have to learn how to taste the constituents of the divine nature, which are Spirit, love, and light. In other words, when you partake of the divine nature, you enjoy God as the Spirit, as love, and as light.

To illustrate this, let us consider our set-apart time to fellowship with the Lord. In such a fellowship we realize and enjoy the Lord as the Spirit, and simultaneously we enjoy the nature of God’s essence, which is love. Love then saturates us and even becomes us. Before this time we may have been disgusted with many things. After this kind of fellowship, however, everything is lovable. We may have been disgusted with our wife before this fellowship, but afterward we are filled with love for our wife. This love has not only filled us but saturated us. The reason we Christians can love persons whom others cannot love is because we enjoy God as love. We enjoy the divine nature of this loving God. This is why John tells us in his first Epistle that if we love our brother, this means that we are born of God because God is love (4:7-8). When we love others, we are enjoying the divine nature.

If we would spend an adequate amount of time in the morning with the Lord, we would be full of light inwardly, and we would not do things nonsensically or say things foolishly. Whatever we do and whatever we say would be full of light. This is the issue of our enjoying of the divine nature. This is because one constituent in the divine nature is light. If we would all spend time to fellowship with the Lord, we would have the sensation that we are enjoying the Lord as the Spirit, and we would become a person of love. Love would saturate us. Furthermore, whatever we would say would be light, and whatever we would do would be transparent as crystal. This is an evidence or proof that we are partaking of the divine nature. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 3, “God’s New Testament Economy,” ch. 30)

Experiencing the Death of Christ
by the Power of Christ’s Resurrection

When an oyster is wounded by a grain of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the grain of sand and makes it into a precious pearl. Pearls signify the issue of Christ’s secretion in two aspects: His redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-dispensing resurrection. Without God’s revelation we can never realize that the death of Christ secretes, dispenses, to produce the gates of the city. The twelve gates are the issue of Christ’s secretion also in His life-dispensing resurrection. He resurrected to be the life-giving Spirit to dispense the divine life into the believers (1 Cor. 15:45b). This is a kind of secretion issuing in a big pearl to be the gates of the city. Both Christ’s death and resurrection have an issue, a secretion.

Both kinds of secretion (dispensing) require the seeking believers’ daily experience of the death of Christ subjectively by the power of Christ’s resurrection that they may be conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10). We have to put not just Christ’s death itself but the secretion of His death into our daily experience subjectively. We may know that we have been crucified with Christ, but we need to experience this. When a couple is quarreling, is that the talk of ones who are being crucified? When a brother talks to his wife, he has to consider that he is a crucified person.

We cannot do this in and by ourselves. None of us can practice such a thing. Everyone likes to argue. Arguments come from our natural life, from “I,” not Christ. But we should have this “I” all the time crucified on the cross. We have to put this application of the subjective death of Christ into our daily experience. We can experience His death only by the power of the resurrection of Christ.…By the power of the resurrection of Christ, we have the ability and the power to keep our pitiful self on the cross.

The New Jerusalem has twelve gates, and they should be applied to our daily life by our keeping ourselves crucified all the time in our daily experience so that we could be conformed to Christ’s death. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers,” msg. 2)

Being Transformed into Precious Stones
by Our Growth in the Divine Life

Revelation 21 shows that the wall of the city and its foundations are precious stones (vv. 18a, 19-20).…We, the believers in Christ, were created by God with dust (Gen. 2:7).…Through our regeneration by the Spirit we became stones (John 1:42). When Peter came to the Lord, the Lord told him that he was a stone. He was no longer dust.

By our growth in the divine life in Christ as the living stone (1 Pet. 2:4), we are transformed into precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12a).

In our created state we were dust, but God wants to transform us into something that is wonderful in His eyes. By His Spirit He transforms us through the renewing of our mind, emotion, and will, the components of our soul.…Day by day, we should live a life not according to our natural concept but according to our renewed mind. Our mind is renewed by the word of God. Only the word of God can renew our mind.

Protecting the Interest of the Riches of God’s Divinity
and the Attainments of Christ’s Consummation

the New Jerusalem’s transformed and built up wall functions in four main ways. First, it sanctifies all the things belonging to God. God would not let any of His things be mixed up with the things that are not of Him, so there is the need of separation. The New Jerusalem’s wall functions to separate the New Jerusalem unto God as something holy. This is why it is called the holy city.

Second, the wall protects. In ancient times the cities had walls around them for protection. The wall of the holy city protects the interest of the riches of God’s divinity and the attainments of Christ’s consummation. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers,” msg. 3)