In Spirit we Experience Christ’s Death and Resurrection to be Produced as Pearls

When we’re in the mingled spirit, we experience Christ’s death and resurrection to be produced as pearls, gates into the New Jerusalem.

For us to become a pearl as an entrance into the New Jerusalem, we need to exercise our spirit to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, so that we may experience the resurrection of Christ and be conformed to His death.

Pearls are produced by an oyster who, as a living creature, is in the death salty waters; a grain of sand wounds the oyster, and the oyster holds the grain of sand in its wound, coating it with its life juice until the grain of sand becomes a pearl.

The twelve gates of the New Jerusalem were twelve pearls, each of the gates was of one pearl. This is very significant, for a pearl has spiritual significance in our Christian life.

Christ as the living One came into the death waters of this world, and we wounded Him; He did not reject us but rather He held us in the wound of His death, and He secreted our life over us to make us precious pearls for God’s building.

Christ was wounded for our transgressions, and He died for us; we not only put Him to death because of our sins, but Christ took us to Himself and put us into Himself, and by faith in Him we are organically joined to Him in His death.

He holds us into His death, and He secretes His life over us to make us precious pearls. When Christ was on the cross, out of His pierced side came out blood and water; His blood was shed for our redemption, and His life was poured out for our regeneration.

When we believed into the Lord and were regenerated, we entered into the New Jerusalem by the gates; our regeneration through the death-overcoming and life-secreting Christ is the entrance into the city.

Praise the Lord, we have been regenerated, and now we are part of the New Jerusalem! The law which used to condemn us now approves us for we are in Christ; when we believe into Christ, we are justified by faith in Him, and His righteousness becomes our righteousness.

The law’s requirements have been met, and now we can enter into the holy city!

Even more, when we remain in the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection, enjoying the bountiful supply of the Spirit in our mingled spirit, we further enter into the New Jerusalem, and our being becomes a gate into the holy city for many others to enter in. Hallelujah!

Only by the Power of Christ’s Resurrection can we Remain in His Death to become Pearls

The pearls as the gates of the New Jerusalem signify the issue of Christ’s secretion in two aspects: His redeeming and life-releasing death, and His life-dispensing resurrection.

In Christ’s death there was a secretion of two kinds: one is a redeeming and life-releasing death, and the other is His life-dispensing resurrection.

Both of these kinds of secretion (which we can also call, dispensing) require our daily experience of the death of Christ subjectively by the power of Christ’s resurrection so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10).

For us to receive and enjoy the dispensing of Christ’s death and resurrection we need to daily experience the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection, so that we may be conformed to His death.

We have two main needs: on one hand we need to be redeemed and cleansed of our sins, and on the other, we need to receive and be filled with God’s life.

When Christ passed through death and resurrection, we as the grain of sand irritated Him, and something secreted out of that wound – there was a secretion of death and resurrection.

We may separate death and resurrection as two processes that the Lord went through, but actually in our experience these two go together. Where Christ’s resurrection is, there is the death of Christ also.

When the piece of sand enters the oyster and wounds it, this grain of sand is captured there, and the oyster reacts by secreting the life-juice; the secretion envelops the piece of sand over and over again, to make it into a pearl.

When we entered into Christ through believing into Him, something issued from Him – on one hand it is the secretion of death, the wounding of Christ, and at the same time it was a secretion of life, the resurrection life.

In 1 Pet. 3:18 we see that, on one hand Christ was being put to death in the flesh, but at the same time He was made alive in Spirit.

It’s not that three days after He was put to death, He entered into resurrection; rather, as the Lord was hanging there on the cross, dying in His flesh, He was at the same time made alive in Spirit.

As He was dying, He was resurrecting. Now we can experience His death by the power of the resurrection of Christ; by the power of Christ’s resurrection we have the ability and the power to keep our pitiful self on the cross.

We may know the teaching concerning Christ’s death, but in our experience we always “jump off the cross”; in doctrine we know that we are crucified with Christ, but what can keep us on the cross in our experience?

It is only when we enjoy the power of the resurrection of Christ that we can experience His death. It is not our determination that can keep us on the cross; rather, only when enjoy the power of the resurrection of Christ we are enabled and empowered to remain in the death of the cross.

But many times we’re like the seeker in the Song of Songs ch. 2, introspective and depressed, while Christ as our Beloved is outside, leaping like a gazelle on the mountain, calling us away from our pitiful self and to Himself.

It is only by the power of the resurrection of Christ that we can be delivered from our pitiful self.

Lord Jesus, thank You for keeping us in Yourself through our faith in You, so that You may secrete Your death and resurrection around us to make us pearls as gates into the New Jerusalem. May we as Your seeking believers daily experience the death of Christ subjectively by the power of Christ’s resurrection so that we may be conformed to Christ’s death. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we realise that it is only by the power of the resurrection of Christ do we have the ability and the power to keep our pitiful self on the cross!

Being in Spirit to be Supplied by the Spirit with the Reality of His Resurrection to be Conformed to His Death

For us to be produced as pearls, the gates into the New Jerusalem, we need to remain in the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection. Christ’s death can be experienced by us only through Christ’s resurrection, and Christ’s resurrection can be real to us only by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19-21).

In Rom. 8:3-5 we see that, when we were baptised, we were baptised into the death of Christ; then, since we have grown with Him in the likeness of His death, we will also grow together in the likeness of His resurrection.

When we are growing to the likeness of His death we’re actually conformed to His death, and when we’re growing in the likeness of His resurrection, we are conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son in glory.

Both of these aspects of His secretion take place when we enter into the death of Christ; when we were baptised into His death, there’s a secretion of two kinds – death and resurrection.

The key to enjoy all this is turning to our spirit; when we turn to our spirit, we meet Christ as the life-giving Spirit, who is the very reality of Christ’s resurrection.

For us to live in the death of Christ so that we may be produced as pearls, the gates into the holy city, we need to touch Christ in our spirit all the time by praying unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17).

When we call on the name of the Lord wherever we are and whatever we pass through, we pray unceasingly; this is the way to touch the Spirit as the reality of resurrection, and this Spirit enables us to experience His death, be conformed to His death, and be conforms to the likeness of His resurrection at the same time.

The death of Christ applied to us will conform us to the mold of His death, and His Spirit in us will conform us into the glory of His image, the image of the firstborn Son of God.

Christ’s death is the place where He has the position to secrete Himself around us, and this is the only place where we can enjoy and experience His resurrection life as a kind of life-sap secreting itself around our being to make us a wonderful piece of pearl for the entry into God’s building.

Christ was wounded for us so that He may “imprison us” in His wound, so that He may carry out His secretion over us again and again throughout our entire life to make us pearls for the building of God’s eternal habitation.

The more we are made pearls subjectively, the more we are in the New Jerusalem, and the more we are in the kingdom (see Matt. 13:45-46; John 3:5). May a rich entrance be bountifully supplied to us into the city, the building of God (2 Pet. 1:11).

May we daily experience remaining in the death of Christ, allowing the secretion of His death and resurrection to envelop us and produce us to be pearls, so that our entrance into the city may be secured.

The more we are produced as the pearls, the more we are assured we’re part of this city, and the more we are formed into God’s army.

How can we be qualified to be numbered as part of the army fighting for God’s interest? It is not by volunteering but by being qualified.

We need to remain in Christ’s death, enter into the wound of His death and allow His secretion to layer us with His life and produce us as the pearl. Then, we will become the people who are surrounding God’s testimony to be a strong and high wall to fight for His interest.

May we be those who NOT only see the layout and array of the people of Israel, and not only see the connection between the New Jerusalem and this array, but that we would be touched by the Lord and we would experience this in our daily life by remaining in the death of Christ to practically become part of this army.

Lord Jesus, we turn to our spirit so that we may enjoy You and be supplied by You as the bountiful Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen, Lord, keep us praying unceasingly, calling on Your name, so that we may touch Christ in our spirit all the time and be conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection. Lord, imprison us and keep us always in Your death; we don’t want to leave Your death but stay here by the power of resurrection until we become a pearl, a gate into the New Jerusalem!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Witness Lee, The Application of the Interpretation of the New Jerusalem to the Seeking Believers, ch. 2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 2, Israel’s Encamping in Array Typifying God’s Redeemed People Being Consummated as the New Jerusalem.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Twelve city gates are each one pearl; / Thus man is through redemption shown / Reborn and as a pearl transformed, / Entering to a realm God’s own. (Hymns #979)
  # In the clefts of the rock / I delight to be. / In the covert of the precipice / You would find me. / Lord, conform me now, / Daily to Your death. / Let me see Your countenance, / I am a dove, / In the clefts of the rock. (Song on, In the Clefts of the Rock)
  # ’Tis not hard to die with Christ / When His risen life we know; / ’Tis not hard to share His suff’rings / When our hearts with joy o’erflow. / In His resurrection power / He has come to dwell in me, / And my heart is gladly going / All the way to Calvary. (Hymns #481)