THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE

The New Jerusalem
Message Two—The New Jerusalem—the Consummation of God’s New Creation
in Resurrection

Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:5a, 1-2; 3:12; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; 2 Cor. 4:16; Rev. 21:17; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23, 45; 2 Cor. 1:9; Phil. 3:10-11

I. The New Jerusalem as God’s holy city is God’s universal building for His new creation out of His old creation; the New Jerusalem is the building of God’s new creation—Rev. 21:2, 10; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15:

A. In the Bible there are two creations—the old creation and the new creation— 2 Cor. 5:17:

1. The old creation does not have the divine life and nature, but the new creation has God within it as its life, nature, appearance, and expression.

2. The old creation as an empty vessel has no content of God, but the new creation as a corporate vessel has God as its content—Eph. 1:22-23; 3:19b.

3. The old creation was old because God was not part of it; the new creation is new because God is in it—4:22-24.

4. God’s eternal purpose is not just to redeem, to bring back, to repossess, the fallen old creation, but to regenerate man to make him the new creation—John 3:3; 1:12-13; 2 Cor. 5:17.

5. God’s goal is to produce the new creation out of the old creation.

6. The new creation is the old creation transformed by the divine life—Gal. 6:15.

7. The new creation—the mingling of God with man—takes place when the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit is wrought into our being; this is the mingling of divinity with humanity—1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:16-17a.

B. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of all the works of God’s new creation out of His old creation in four ages: the age before the law, the age of the law, the age of grace, and the age of the kingdom—Rev. 21:1-2.

C. As the new creation, the New Jerusalem is new because it is full of God—vv. 10, 5a:

1. Everything designated new in the New Testament indicates or implies that God has been wrought into these items—Matt. 9:16-17; Col. 3:10.

2. The New Jerusalem is new because, as God’s new creation, it has God’s nature of newness—Rev. 21:2, 5a.

3. Since newness is God, to become new is to become God by having God wrought into us—Rom. 6:4; 7:6; Eph. 4:24.

4. The New Jerusalem will be the ultimate consummation of the realm of newness, which is Christ—2 Cor. 5:17.

D. We are in the process of being thoroughly and absolutely renewed to become the New Jerusalem—4:16; Rev. 3:12:

1. To be renewed is to have God’s ever-new essence dispensed into us to replace and discharge our old element—Rom. 12:2.

2. The mingled spirit—the renewing Spirit mingled with our regenerated spirit—is spreading into our mind to renew our entire being—Eph. 4:23.

3. We are in transit from the old creation to the new creation; we are passing through a tunnel out of the old into the new.

4. Through the process of renewing, we are transferred from the realm of the old creation into the realm of the new creation to become the New Jerusalem—Col. 3:10; Rev. 21:2.

E. The new creation comes into being by resurrection—2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Cor. 15:20, 23, 45:

1. First Corinthians 15:45 implies the old creation with the soul as the center and the new creation with the Spirit as the center.

2. The germinating element of the new creation is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit.

3. The life-giving Spirit is the center and lifeline of the new creation—v. 45; 2 Cor. 5:17.

II. In the New Jerusalem as the consummation of the new creation, everything will be in resurrection; the entire city will be in resurrection—Rev. 21:17:

A. The principle of resurrection is that the natural life is killed and the divine life rises up to take its place—Gal. 2:20.

B. God Himself is resurrection, and we need to know Him as the God of resurrection—John 11:25; 2 Cor. 1:9; 4:14.

C. Christ’s resurrection is His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit to enter into His believers, His germination of the new creation to impart the divine life into His believers for their regeneration, and His propagation to produce the church as His reproduction—1 Cor. 15:45b; 1 Pet. 1:3; John 12:24:

1. The result of Christ’s transfiguration, germination, and propagation is that He lives in His believers—John 14:19b-20; Gal. 2:20.

2. Christ’s germination of the new creation is His propagation, His multiplication; this germination is the reproduction of the pneumatic Christ—John 12:24; 14:17-18; 20:22.

D. To be in resurrection means that our natural life is crucified and that the God-created part of our being is uplifted to be one with Christ in resurrection—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17a; 1 Cor. 6:17.

E. We should aspire “to attain to the out-resurrection from among the dead”—Phil. 3:11:

1. To arrive at the out-resurrection indicates that our entire being—spirit, soul, and body—is gradually and continually resurrected.

2. To be in the out-resurrection is to leave everything of the old creation and to be brought into God—2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15.

F. The life-giving Spirit is the reality of resurrection—1 Cor. 15:45b:

1. If we are in the life-giving Spirit, we are in resurrection.

2. When we walk according to the Spirit, we walk in resurrection—Gal. 5:25.

 

Ministry Excerpts:

THE NEW JERUSALEM BEING THE CONSUMMATION
OF ALL THE WORKS OF GOD’S NEW CREATION
OUT OF HIS OLD CREATION

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 AGES IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Age before the Law, from Adam to Moses

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, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Eventually, they all became parts of the new creation.

The Age of the Law,
from Moses to Christ’s First Coming

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 AGES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Age of Grace, from Christ’s First Coming to His Second Coming

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 Age of the Kingdom,
from Christ’s Second Coming to the End of the Old 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 BEING GOD’S ULTIMATE ORGANISM

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 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 this 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 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! (Organic Union in God’s Relationship with Man, ch. 6)

In Philippians 3:8-11 a number of matters are covered. Nevertheless, there is just one outstanding point—to be conformed to the death of Christ so that, by any means, we may attain unto the out-resurrection from among the dead. For this, we first need the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. By means of such an excellency, we shall be willing to count all things loss in order to gain Christ and be found in Him in a condition of not having our own righteousness out from the law, but having the righteousness that is God Himself lived out of us. Then we shall experientially know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. We shall also be conformed to His death in order to arrive at the out-resurrection from among the dead.

EXPERIENCING CHRIST
IN THE PROCESS OF RESURRECTION

Arriving at the out-resurrection means that our entire being has been gradually and continually resurrected. On the day the Spirit of God came into us to regenerate our spirit, the process of resurrection began. Firstly, God resurrected our deadened spirit. From that time onward, He has been working within us to resurrect every part of our being, our mind, emotion, and will. Eventually, even our body will be resurrected and transfigured. This means that we shall be fully resurrected out of our old being into the new creation. This is God’s economy, God’s intention, God’s goal. Through this process Christ will be thoroughly wrought into us. It is in this way that we experience Christ.

Experiencing Christ is not merely a matter of enjoying His love, grace, or help. To experience Christ is to have Christ wrought into our being to resurrect us out of our old being into the new creation. When the New Jerusalem comes with the new heaven and the new earth, every part of our being will be a new creation. The way to become the new creation is to have our being processed in resurrection from the old creation to the new. All of us are partly resurrected. This means that another part is still unrenewed and yet remains in the old creation. Therefore, we are in the process of resurrection to be renewed from the old creation to the new creation. This process of resurrection enables us to participate in Christ and to partake of Christ. This is the experience of Christ.

The experience of Christ is not something so superficial as merely receiving grace, obtaining help, or enjoying love from the Christ in the heavens or from the Christ in us. To experience Christ is to be conformed to His death. In this death we are processed in resurrection from the old creation to the new creation. Eventually, the new creation will simply be Christ wrought into our being and enlarged in us. (Experience of Christ, ch. 20)