For us to live out and work out the New Jerusalem to build up Zion as the reality of the Body of Christ, we must experience Christ in His death and resurrection (to become the pearls – the gates), the Spirit in His transforming work (the jasper wall with its foundations), and be involved in the spiritual warfare.
If we read Rev. 21-22 we see a description of the New Jerusalem, who is not a physical city but a type of what God wants to obtain at the end of all His work in and with man – a corporate expression of God and man, a mingling of God and man, and a bride that will become His counterpart.
Our destiny is not to “go to the New Jerusalem” but to become the New Jerusalem, that is, we are in the process of becoming the New Jerusalem for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.
Therefore, as we live the church life today in the local churches, we should have the New Jerusalem in view, and we should live out and work out the New Jerusalem.
The features, characteristics, and items in the New Jerusalem should be applied to our Christian life today, so that we may have a foretaste of the New Jerusalem. In the church life today we should be those who not only live the Christian life and meeting life, but have the New Jerusalem in view.
Some of the main features of the New Jerusalem that we need to apply to our experience are:
- God’s Presence is in the Holy City: the criterion for every matter in the church life and our Christian life should be the Lord’s presence, His smile. We need to dwell in the Lord’s presence, live and act in the presence of Christ and according to the index of His eyes, and have His presence with us.
- The throne of God: we must be under the ruling of God by humbling ourselves, living in the mingled spirit, and maintaining a clear sky in our Christian life and church life. We need to give the Lord the preeminence in all things.
- The River of Life and the Tree of Life: we need to have the flow of life and the supply of life; the outstanding features of our Christian life and church life should be our enjoyment of God as food and drink, as our life supply. This requires that we love Him with the first love so that we enjoy Him.
- The Light of Life: God in Christ shines through the city to the whole universe; we need to be in God’s presence, enjoy Christ as our portion in the light, be transferred out of darkness into light, and be in the mingled spirit and in the church to receive the Lord’s light and shine forth His light.
- The golden street: we must partake of God’s divine nature, thus being simplified, uncomplicated, and purified. When we fellowship with the Lord and exercise our spirit, we enjoy God as the Spirit, love, and light, and we partake of God’s nature to be filled with God and express God
Experiencing the Death of Christ by the Power of His Resurrection to become a Pearl, a Gate in the New Jerusalem
In order for us to live out and work out the New Jerusalem to build up Zion 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. 21:21).
The holy city has twelve gates, each of them being a pearl; we need to experience Christ to become a pearl, an entrance into the New Jerusalem.
How is a pearl produced? A pearl is produced by a grain of sand coming into the oyster and wounding the oyster, and because it is wounded, the oyster secrets its life-juice around the sand to make it a precious pearl.
We as a grain of sand have wounded the Lord on the cross, but He holds us in this wound, in His death, and He secrets the resurrection life around us to coat us layer by layer and make us pearls for His expression.
The pearls as the gates of the city, signifying the Son’s overcoming death and life-imparting resurrection, provide an entrance into the holy city of God.
How can we become the pearls in our experience? We need to realize that Christ’s death and His resurrection have an issue, a secretion; the secretion or dispensing of the death and resurrection of Christ require our daily experience of the death of Christ by the power of Christ’s resurrection so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10).
It’s not only the death of Christ but the secretion of His death that we need to experience subjectively.
How can we do this? In ourselves, of ourselves, or by ourselves we cannot do it; rather, we like to argue, murmur, and complain. Arguments come from our natural life, not from Christ; when the old I is still alive and well, we argue, complain, and murmur.
But we need to put this application of the subjective death of Christ into our daily experience. We can experience Christ’s death only by the power of His resurrection.
We have already been crucified with Christ, but the way to remain on the cross all the time is by the power of Christ’s resurrection.
It is only by the power of Christ’s resurrection that we can remain in His death, for only by this power, this secretion of His resurrection, that we have the ability and the power to keep our pitiful self on the cross.
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).
When we remain in His death by the power of His resurrection, we become beautiful to Him, and our voice is lovely; also, we become a pearl, an entrance for others into the New Jerusalem.
Lord Jesus, we want to experience Christ in His death and resurrection so that we may become a pearl, a gate into the holy city. Thank You Lord for holding us in Your wound, in Your death, by the power of resurrection, so that You may infuse us with Your death and resurrection to make us a gate into the New Jerusalem. Amen, Lord, we want to remain in Your death by the power of Your resurrection so that something of Your death and resurrection may be infused in us and make us beautiful to You and attractive to others to bring them into the holy city!
Experiencing the Spirit in His Transforming Work to become the Jasper Wall of the New Jerusalem
For us to live out and work out the New Jerusalem to build up Zion 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 (see Rev. 21:18-20).
How can we experience the jasper wall of the city, and what specifically does this wall refer to in our Christian experience individually and corporately? As we grow in the divine life in Christ as the living stone, we are being transformed into precious stones to have the same appearance as God (see 1 Pet. 2:4; 1 Cor. 3:12a; Rev. 21:10-11; 4:3; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2).
The One sitting on the throne in the holy city has the appearance of the jasper stone, and the wall of the city also has the appearance of jasper; as we grow in the divine life, we are being transformed into the image of God to look like Him and express Him.
This is the way for us to experience being transformed to be the wall of the holy city.
What does the wall of the holy city do? On one hand the wall expresses God, and for this we are transformed by the growth in life to express God. On the other hand, the wall of the city sanctifies all the things belonging to God by separating them from the things not belonging to God.
The wall of the New Jerusalem functions to separate the New Jerusalem unto God as something holy; therefore, the New Jerusalem is called the holy city.
The wall of the holy city also protects the interests of the riches of God’s divinity and the attainments of Christ’s consummation (Rev. 21:2, 10; cf. John 17:17). For us to protect the interests of the riches of God’s divinity on earth is for us to put out the truth concerning the riches of God’s divinity.
Christ as the life-giving Spirit lives in our spirit, and by means of the life-giving Spirit with our spirit, we can experience Him, enjoy Him, contact Him, and touch Him. This is to protect the riches of God’s divinity.
Another function of the wall with its foundations is to guarantee God’s unfailing faithfulness for eternal security. The New Jerusalem has its wall standing on the twelve layers of its foundations, which were in the colors of the rainbow; this is to guarantee God’s faithfulness.
Praise the Lord for His eternal faithfulness in His word according to His covenant!
How can we become in experience part of the wall and the foundations? We were created of the dust of the ground, but we were regenerated by Christ to be living stones; now the Spirit transforms us by renewing our mind, emotion and will.
The way to become part of the foundations and wall of the New Jerusalem is by being transformed by the Spirit in our mind, emotion, and will, so that we may be renewed.
The more we are being renewed and transformed, the more we will live according to our renewed mind; we will then express God by becoming the same as He is, we will protect the interests of God and the riches of His divinity, and we become a testimony of God’s faithfulness.
Lord Jesus, keep us growing in the divine life in Christ as the living stone so that we may be transformed into precious stones to have the same appearance as God. Amen, Lord, may we be sanctified unto You as we allow Your element to increase in us and transform us, and may we become an intrinsic part of the holy city. Yes, Lord Jesus, may we be transformed daily by the renewing of the mind so that we would no longer live according to our natural concept but according to our renewed mind. Have a way in us, Lord, that we would be transformed and built up into the wall and foundations of the holy city, New Jerusalem!
To Live out and Work out the New Jerusalem Requires Spiritual Warfare
If we read the entire record concerning the New Jerusalem (and before the New Jerusalem coming down from God), together with the record in Nehemiah, we will realise that the building of God requires spiritual warfare.
In other words, to live out and work out the New Jerusalem to build up Zion as the reality of the Body of Christ requires spiritual warfare; at the time of Nehemiah, “those who built the wall and those who carried burdens took the loads with one hand doing the work and with the other holding a weapon” (Neh. 4:17).
We may think that, as we are building up the church, both our hands are occupied with the building; but actually, one hand is busy carrying the burden, while the other hand is carrying a weapon for fighting the spiritual warfare.
There are three aspects of the attack of the enemy: the first aspect is the enemy’s mocking (Neh. 2:10; 4:2-3); the second aspect is for the enemy to set up plots through the destroyers of the divine building asking for meetings and discussions (6:2); the third aspect is to cause us to be discouraged, weakened, spiritually sick, and in discord (4:10-12).
The enemy first mocks us to weaken us; what we need to do is not listen to the enemy but come to the Lord and tell Him, Lord, make me a person seeking the good of Your people, a person who is burdened for Your Body.
Then, the enemy wants to have discussions with us, but we simply need to not waste time talking to the enemy but labor on God’s building in a positive way.
Thirdly, the enemy wants to discourage us or cause to be spiritually sick in discord; we need to learn from Nehemiah to bring all things before the Lord and seek the good of His people for the building up of His house.
Nehemiah was a person who loved God, praying to contact God in fellowship; for the rebuilding of the wall of the city, he stood on God’s word, prayed according to it, and was properly aggressive to take action in resurrection (see Neh. 1:1-11; 2:4; 4:4-9; 13:1-30).
We also need to pray and contact God in fellowship, and we need to stand on God’s word, pray according to God’s word, and be properly aggressive in the things of the Lord in resurrection.
We need to be properly aggressive to build up the church as the Body of Christ and the kingdom of God.
We need to stand against the stratagems of the devil by fighting the battle in the Body with fighting prayers, praying at every time in spirit to put on the whole armor of God to build up the Body of Christ as the house of God for the glory of God and as the kingdom of God for the dominion of God for the complete fulfillment of the economy of God (Eph. 6:10-20).
Lord Jesus, cause us to be aware of the enemy’s attacks on our building up the church as the Body of Christ and as the kingdom of God. May we be those who contact You in fellowship, stand on Your word, pray according to God’s word, and be properly aggressive in resurrection to build up the church. Amen, Lord, we want to stand against the stratagems of the devil by fighting the battle in the Body with fighting prayers! We want to pray at every time in spirit to put on the whole armor of God to build up the Body of Christ as the house of God for the glory of God and as the kingdom of God for the dominion of God for the complete fulfillment of the economy of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers,” chs. 2-3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Reality of the Body of Christ (2018 Thanksgiving Conference), week 6, Living Out and Working Out the New Jerusalem to Build Up Zion as the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# The wall of jasper, crystal clear, / God’s glory by it fully shown; / His glorious light through it does shine, / And He appears as jasper stone. / The wall a separation makes, / Excluding all that is unclean; / Gold, pearls, and precious stones alone / The holy city has within. (Hymns #979)
# Now Thy wound’s redemption keeps me / Ever in Thy tender death. / Prisoned there, Thy life’s secretion / Covers me with preciousness. / Thus a pearl, through death I enter / Thine own realm of life and light; / Built to be Thy habitation, / Thine expression, Thy delight! (Song on, Lord, Thou as the living oyster)
# Fight the battle in the Body, / Never fight it on your own; / With the Body to the Head joined, / Fight the battle on the throne. / Fight the battle in the Body! / By the virtue of the Head; / Standing firmly with the Body, / Into vict’ry you’ll be led. (Hymns #885)
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