Partaking of and Walking According to the Divine Nature to Richly Enter God’s Kingdom

Eph. 5:8 For you were once darkness but are now light in the Lord; walk as children of light.

Through regeneration we have received the divine life and the divine nature, and now day by day we are practicing to live and walk not by our old nature with its habits but by the new divine nature with all its virtues.

In Eph. 2 we see that we were once children of wrath by nature, but now we are children of light and children of God, those who walk by the spirit.

In 2 Peter 1 we see that, on the one hand, we were given all that partakes to life and godliness, and on the other hand, we have become partakers of the divine nature, we need to develop the divine nature by adding in faith virtue, in virtue, knowledge, in knowledge, self-control, in self-control, endurance, in endurance, godliness, in godliness, brotherly love, and in brotherly love, love.

Through regeneration we have received the divine life with the divine nature, but daily we need to walk according to the divine nature – which divine nature is what God is. God is life, love, and Spirit, and as we spend time with the Lord in an adequate way in the morning, our living during the day will be full of light and love, and we will walk by the spirit.

The nature of God’s expression is light, the nature of God’s essence is love, and the nature of God’s being is Spirit. Through regeneration we were born again, born of God, and we became children of light, children of love, and we were born of the Spirit.

We now have God’s nature in us, and as we spend time with the Lord, our whole being is filled with light, we love with God’s love, and our walk is according to the Spirit in our spirit.

To walk on the golden street in the New Jerusalem is to walk according to the divine nature, and this is something we should do every day by putting off our old man and putting on the new man, which is according to God in righteousness (the outward manifestation) and holiness (the inward nature).

We no longer walk according to the vanity of our mind, according to the lusts of our flesh, but we learn Christ, one with Him in His death and resurrection, by learning to walk according to the divine nature of God in our spirit.

Walking According to the Divine Nature – Walking According to What God Is

To walk according to the divine nature means to walk according to what God is.

The Bible tells us that God is Spirit (John 4:24), God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and God is light (1 John 1:5). In His Person, God is Spirit; the nature of God’s person is Spirit. In His essence, God is love; love is the nature of God’s essence. In His expression, God is light; light is the nature of God’s expression.

As believers in Christ born of God with His divine life and nature, we are children of light, children of love, and we need to walk not foolishly but by being filled in spirit (see Eph. 2). I enjoyed the following paragraph from brother Lee’s, God’s New Testament Economy,

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. (God’s New Testament Economy, pp. 316-317)

The Christian life is not merely a moral life, a life in which we don’t argue with the people around us, a life in which we don’t rebuke our children out of ourselves, etc, but a life in which we live as children of light and as children of love, those who are seeking to be filled in spirit.

Our Christian life is a life of walking on the golden street in the New Jerusalem, a life of walking according to the divine nature.

We daily walk on the golden street upwards toward the throne, living and walking according to the divine nature, and the living water flows down toward us from the throne to enable us and energize us to move up even further. We no longer walk as when we walked before as unbelievers, according to the age of this world.

We were children of wrath by nature – there was something wrong not only with our life but with our nature! But now after being regenerated by the divine life and becoming children of light and of love, we no longer walk in the vanity of our mind according to the lusts of our flesh but we put off the old man (the former manner of life) and put on the new man (the divine nature) which is according to God.

We need to have a daily walk according to the divine nature, and this nature manifests itself in many ways like not lying, not living in the vanity of the mind, living in righteousness and holiness, being full of life and of light, and being full of love.

When we walk according to the divine nature we do not sin simply because the divine nature cannot sin, and we can forbear and love one another because God’s nature in us is full of love.

As Children of God, we Partake of and Participate in the Divine Nature

As believers in Christ, we are children of God – God-men, born of God, possessing the life and nature of God, and belonging to the species of God (see 1 John 3:1; John 1:12-13). Now by nature we are children of God, and as we walk according to the divine nature we are becoming God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

As partakers of the divine nature, we need to enjoy the divine nature and participate in the divine nature (see 2 Pet. 1:3-8). We were given the divine power which includes everything pertaining to life and godliness, and this is the seed power given to us when we received the divine life.

We enjoy the divine nature through God’s precious and exceedingly great promises (see Matthew 28:20; John 6:57; 7:38-39; 10:28-29; 14:19-20, 23; 15:5; 16:13-15; 2 Corinthians 12:9; and Ephesians 3:20). By these promises we are enabled to escape the corruption which is in the world by lust.

Therefore, we need to develop the divine nature in faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly love, and love. The divine nature is in us through regeneration, but we need to develop it – it needs to abound, and when these virtues abound in us, they will constitute us.

As we walk according to God’s nature in the golden street, we abound more and more in God’s nature in faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, endurance, godliness, brotherly love, and love. Eventually, we abound in love, which is God Himself, and we are altogether into God’s nature fully walking in the street of gold.

By having all these virtues in us, we have a rich and bountiful entrance into the kingdom – this means that, as we walk on the golden street upwards toward the throne, we will eventually be one with the throne in God’s kingdom.

On the one hand, we need to escape the corruption which is in the world by lust; on the other hand, we need to partake of the divine nature; we are in a cycle of escaping to partake and partaking to escape (2 Pet. 1:4).

If we enjoy God and partake of the riches of his being, we will be constituted with the divine nature, becoming the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead, and we will express God in all that we are and do.

As we walk according to the divine nature, the street of gold, we become part of the New Jerusalem, which is of gold – the whole city is gold, the whole city has the nature of God.

This development of the divine virtues and enjoyment of the riches of God’s being give us a rich entrance into the kingdom of God.

Lord, we want to escape the corruption which is in the world by lust – by partaking of the riches of Your being! Thank You for granting to us everything that relates to life and godliness! Thank You for the precious and exceedingly great promises You gave us that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature. We want to be diligent to develop the divine nature in us by living according to the divine nature and partaking of the riches of Your being until we become the same as You are in life and nature. Lord, keep us walking on the golden street toward the throne, drinking the river of water of life, until we have a rich entrance into Your kingdom!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, God’s New Testament Economy (ch. 30), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Aspects of the Christian Life and Church Life Seen in the New Jerusalem, week 3 / msg 3, The Pearl Gates and the Golden Street.
• Further reading: recommending msgs 7, 100, 157, and 209 in, The Conclusion of the New Testament, and msgs. 2-3, 5, and 7 in Life-Study of 2 Peter.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Given us, given us, God has given us / Precious faith, power divine, greatest promises. / We believed, we received, now we have all three; / By these we may grow unto maturity. (Hymns #1211)
  # What e’er thou lovest, man, / That too become thou must; / God, if thou lovest God, / Dust, if thou lovest dust. / Go out, God will come in; / Die thou and let Him live; / Be not and He will be; / Wait and He’ll all things give. (Hymns #477)
  # God’s eternal economy / Is to make man the same as He is / In life and nature, / But not in the Godhead / And to make Himself one with man / And man one with Him / Thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression / That all His divine, that all His divine / Attributes may be expressed in human virtues. (God’s eternal economy)