Rev. 22:1-2 And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street. And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life…
God is mysterious, but He has been revealed in and through His word, the Bible. In the Word of God we see what God’s plan and purpose is, and we see that from the beginning of the Bible to the end He desires to gain only one thing – a dwelling place, a building, a corporate entity with man in which He can dwell, be at home, be expressed, and be satisfied.
The New Jerusalem as revealed in Rev. 21-22 is the consummation of all that God desires and is working on throughout the ages, and this holy city in all its aspects can be enjoyed and experienced by us in the church life today as a foretaste.
The New Jerusalem is a living composition, a corporate entity, of God and man – God is united, mingled, and incorporated with man so that God dwells in man, man dwells in God, and God is fully expressed through man.
In the New Jerusalem we see that the Triune God is its constitution, existence, enjoyment, living, and expression.
This city is constituted with gold (God’s divine nature), pearls (Christ’s redemptive and regenerating work), and precious stones (the Spirit’s transforming and building up work).
The city has its existence because there’s a river of water of life (the life-giving Spirit) flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (God the Father and God the Son flow out in God the Spirit for the existence of the city).
The New Jerusalem is full of the enjoyment of the Father as the light of life, the Son as the tree of life, and the Spirit as the river of life. The living of the holy city is triune: the Father is the source of life, the Son is the tree of life, and the Spirit is the flow of life (Rev. 22:1-2).
Finally, Triune God is the triune expression of the New Jerusalem: the Father is the source of the divine riches, the Son is the embodiment of the divine riches, and the Spirit is the realization of the divine riches, and the Triune God is expressed in full in and through the redeemed, transformed, and glorified humanity.
Today we can have a foretaste of the New Jerusalem in its triune enjoyment by enjoying the Father as the light of life shining in the Son and making us children of light, luminaries in this dark world, and shining ones who bring Christ as the light to all the nations until He as the Desire of the nations will return.
In this article we would like to see how we can enjoy Christ as the tree of life and the Spirit as the water of life to have a foretaste of the enjoyment in the New Jerusalem.
Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life – Our Eternal Portion
The New Jerusalem is not like any other city – it is designed, built up, and worked on by the Triune God Himself, and as such a city it has some particular aspects which cannot be found in any other city. This holy city is full of enjoyment: the Father is the light of life, the Son is the tree of life, and the Spirit is the river of water of life.
The fact that Christ is the tree of life growing on both sides of the river which flows in the middle of the street means that in the New Jerusalem God in Christ will be life to man in an edible form for eternity!
God’s desire has always been to be the tree of life for man to take God in as life and live because of Him: in Gen. 2:9 He put the man He created in front of the tree of life, in John 6:35 and 57 He comes to be man’s life and life-supply so that man may take Him in and live because of Him, and in Rev. 2:7 He rewards His overcomers with eating of the tree of life.
God offers Himself to man in an edible form so that man may have God’s life, have it abundantly, and enjoy God’s life forever (John 10:10).
The fact that the tree of life grows along the river of water of life indicates that, as the Lord told us in John 15, the tree of life is a vine tree. The tree of life is not a palm tree, lovely to look at but difficult to get its fruit, but a spreading vine tree, reaching man, providing fresh fruit every month, and bringing God as life to man all the time.
As we eat the tree of life, we ourselves become the branches of the tree – we become branches in the vine, abiding in Christ to enjoy His life-juice (Rev. 22:2; John 15:5).
We eat the tree of life and we become part of the tree of life to bring God as life in the form of food to others also! For eternity we will enjoy the fresh fruits of the tree of life – for eternity God in Christ will be our enjoyment as life!
Enjoying the Spirit as the Water of Life flowing out to reach us
From the throne of God and of the Lamb in the center of the city flows a river of water of life, bright as crystal, spiraling down in the middle of the street and reaching all the gates (see Rev. 22:1). The river of water of life is nothing else but the flowing out of the Triune God as the Spirit.
The living water is the Spirit, whom was not yet before Christ’s resurrection but whom Christ became through death and resurrection (John 7:37-38). Today God is in Christ as the Spirit – the Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God reaching His redeemed people for their enjoyment.
We can now contact God in spirit and drink of Him as living water, and this is our real worship to God. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness; our worship of God is our drinking Him as the Spirit (see John 4:10, 14, 24).
Therefore with joy today we can draw water out of the wells of salvation and say, Praise the Lord! We can call upon the Lord’s name and drink of Him (see Isa. 12:2-6). God in Christ flows as the Spirit into man to reach man wherever man is to quench man’s thirst.
Furthermore, when we drink of the living water, this water becomes in us a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life (John 4:14). When we drink the living water, this water operates in us and bubbles in us, springing up into eternal life, the totality of which is the New Jerusalem.
When we drink the Spirit by the exercise of our spirit, we are becoming the New Jerusalem and we are flowing into the New Jerusalem. Today we can have a foretaste of the enjoyment of the river of water of life in the New Jerusalem by exercising our spirit to drink the Spirit, and we will offer a genuine worship to the Father for His satisfaction.
The Triune God is the Triune Living of the New Jerusalem
Phil. 1:19-21 For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death.
A city is not merely for looking at or admiring its constitution, but for people to live in. In the New Jerusalem the people of God are living with God and in God, and the Triune God is the triune living of the New Jerusalem.
As seen in Rev. 22:1-2, the Father is the source of life, the Son is the tree of life, and the Spirit is the flow of life. Today we can live out the Triune God in many ways and aspects for the New Jerusalem:
1. We need to live out the Father as the source of life on the throne, taking God as our source, our Redeemer, and our Head so that we may enjoy the flow of life for our organic salvation. Today we can enjoy the “much more” salvation spoken of in Rom. 5:10 by taking God the Father as our source, being under His authority, and enjoying the flow of life coming from Him for our day-by-day and moment-by-moment salvation.
Also, we can live out the Father as love and as light by keeping ourselves in the fellowship of the divine life, the inner flow of the divine life (see 1 John 4:8, 16; 1:5, 2-3). By maintaining a good fellowship with God and with man through the exercise of our spirit mingled with the divine spirit, we can enjoy the inner flow of life and live out the Father as love and as light.
2. We need to learn to take Christ as everything for His magnification. Christ is the tree of life as everything to us, and in our daily living we need to live, work, speak, behave, and do everything by taking Christ in as life and as everything so that He may be magnified in us in all things (see Phil. 1:19-21).
Christ is the secret to being content in all things, whether good or bad (Phil. 2:5). As we take Christ as our everything, we are being saved from being put to shame – to magnifying Christ; we are saved from murmuring and reasoning to being luminaries; we are being saved from our own righteousness to knowing Christ and having Him as our righteousness; and we are being saved from not thinking the same thing to Christ and to the one accord in the divine life with all the saints (see Phil. 3:8-9, 13-14, 20-21; 4:8, 11-13).
3. We need to live out the Spirit as the bountiful supply. The Spirit today is the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ as the flow of the divine life in our being to supply us with everything we need so that we may live Christ (see Phil. 1:19; Rev. 22:1). In the believers today there is a flow of the divine life, the fellowship of life, which consummates in the river of water of life in the New Jerusalem (see 1 John 1:2-4; 1 Cor. 1:9; 12:24; Rev. 22:1).
God called us into the fellowship of Christ, the flow of the divine life, and if we stay in this fellowship we have oneness, we are attune into the same mind and same opinion. This one flow of the river of water of water of life is also the one stream of the Lord’s work for His one move through His one ministry to produce and build up His one Body for His one testimony (see 1 Cor. 16:10; 4:17; Acts 2:42).
Lord Jesus, we come to You as the tree of life to partake of You, enjoy You, and take You in as life. You are our life and our everything. Lord Jesus, You are our portion, our good land, our enjoyment, and our rest. Keep us taking You in as life. We want to drink of You as the Spirit by exercising our spirit to worship You. Lord, keep us drinking the water of life! Keep us receiving You as life, enjoying You as life, and living You out in our daily life for Your magnification and glory.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, God’s New Testament Economy (chs. 42, 44), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Aspects of the Christian Life and Church Life Seen in the New Jerusalem, week 7 / msg 7, The Triune God as our Constitution, Existence, Enjoyment, Living, and Expression.
- Further reading: recommending, The Divine Stream (by Witness Lee).
- Hymns on this topic:
# How real it is that God is now the Spirit / For us to touch, experience day by day! / Astounding fact, with God we are one spirit, / And differ not in life in any way! (Hymns #608)
# The divine Trinity spreads through our soul, / To saturate our whole being, life’s goal; / We become members, the Body of Christ, / Built up together by Christ’s saving life. (Song on, Being Saved in His Life)
# Oh, what a thought! Oh, what a boast! / Christ shall in me be magnified. / In nothing shall I be ashamed, / For He in all shall be applied. / In woe or blessing, death or life, / Through me shall Christ be testified. (Hymns #499)
# Thy Spirit will me saturate / Every part will God permeate, / Deliv’ring me from the old man, / With all saints building for His plan. (Hymns #501)
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