ASPECTS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE AND CHURCH LIFE SEEN IN THE NEW JERUSALEM
Message Three
The Pearl Gates and the Golden Street
Scripture Reading: Rev. 21:18, 21;
S. S. 2:14; Phil. 3:10; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Pet. 1:4
I. The twelve gates of the New Jerusalem are twelve pearls—Rev. 21:21a:
A. Pearls are produced by oysters in the waters of death; when an oyster is wounded by a grain of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the grain of sand and makes it into a precious pearl.
B. This depicts Christ as the living One coming into the death waters, being wounded by us (Isa. 53:5), and secreting His life over us to make us into precious pearls for the building of God's eternal expression.
C. That the twelve gates of the holy city are twelve pearls signifies that regeneration through the death-overcoming and life-secreting Christ is the entrance into the city.
D. Just as the grain of sand remains in the inward wound of the oyster, we need to remain in the death of Christ; His death is our abode, our dwelling, our residence, our rest, and our unique place of protection:
1. As long as we remain and stay in the death of Christ, we will never lose our temper; we can gain the victory over sin, over our temperament, over the world, and over Satan in the death of Christ.
2. If the grain of sand stays away from the wound of the oyster, it is not in the position to enjoy the secretion of the life-sap of that oyster; this picture shows us that we are imprisoned in the death of Christ by His secreting power and that this secretion is the move of His resurrection life.
3. As long as we remain in His wound, in the death of His cross, His life reacts, and this reaction is a secretion of His resurrection life; the secretion of His resurrection is in the life-giving Spirit, who is the reality of His resurrection.
4. Because of His great love with which He loved us, His wound (His death) caused by us became our prison; as we stay in the Lord's death and enjoy His life-secreting resurrection, there is a further entering into and becoming of the New Jerusalem.
E. Pearls signify the issue of Christ's secretion in two aspects: His redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-dispensing resurrection:
1. Both kinds of secretion (dispensing) require the seeking believers' daily experience of the death of Christ subjectively by the power of Christ's resurrection that they may be conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10) and their daily experience of the resurrection of Christ subjectively by the bountiful supply of the Spirit (the reality of resurrection) of Jesus Christ that they may be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God (1:19; Rom. 8:29).
2. We can experience His death only by the power of the resurrection of Christ; by the power of the resurrection of Christ, we have the ability and the power to keep our pitiful self on the cross.
3. Christ's death can be experienced 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. 1:19-21a.
4. It is only through prayer that we can remain on the cross by touching Christ in our spirit continually as the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit who is the reality of His resurrection—1 Thes. 5:17.
F. Song of Songs depicts that Christ wants His seeker to remain in the cross, to remain in His death, to remain in a crucified condition continually—2:14; Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:10-11:
1. To remain in the death of the cross is a difficult matter, like entering into the clefts of the rock and the covert of the precipice high in the mountains by a rugged road—S. S. 2:14.
2. In order to empower and encourage His lover to rise up and come away from her low situation in her introspection of the self, Christ empowers her by showing her the power of His resurrection, and He encourages her by the flourishing riches of His resurrection—vv. 8-13.
3. It is by the power of Christ's resurrection, not by our natural life, that we, the lovers of Christ, determine to take the cross by denying our self—Matt. 16:24.
4. It is also by the power of Christ's resurrection that we are enabled to be con-formed to His death by being one with His cross—Phil. 3:10.
5. The reality of resurrection is the pneumatic Christ (John 11:25; 20:22), who as the consummated Spirit indwells and is mingled with our regenerated spirit (1 Cor. 6:17); it is in such a mingled spirit that we participate in and experience the resurrection of Christ, which enables us to be one with the cross in order to be delivered from the self and transformed into a new man in God's new creation for the fulfillment of God's economy in the building up of the organic Body of Christ.
II. The street of the holy city, like the city itself, is pure gold, which symbolizes the divine nature—Rev. 21:18, 21; 2 Pet. 1:4:
A. Since gold signifies the divine nature of God, the city's being of pure gold signifies that the New Jerusalem is altogether of God's divine nature and takes God's divine nature as its element—Rev. 21:18b.
B. That the river of water of life proceeds "in the middle of its street," which is of pure gold, signifies that the divine life flows in the divine nature as the unique way for the daily life of God's redeemed people—22:1; 21:21b:
1. Where the divine life f lows, there the divine nature is as the holy way by which God's people walk; and where the holy way of the divine nature is, there the divine life is f lowing.
2. The divine life and the divine nature as the holy way always go together; thus, God's river of water of life is available along this divine way, and we enjoy the river by walking in this way of life.
C. The divine nature is what God is: God is Spirit (John 4:24), God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and God is light (1:5); Spirit denotes the nature of God's person, love denotes the nature of God's essence, and light denotes the nature of God's expression:
1. When we partake of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), we enjoy God as the Spirit, as love, and as light.
2. If we spend an adequate amount of time with the Lord in the morning, we will have the sensation that we are enjoying the Lord as the Spirit, and we will become a person of love; furthermore, whatever we say will be light, and whatever we do will be transparent as crystal.
D. The divine life and the divine nature are inseparable; the divine nature is the substance of the divine life and is within the divine life—1 John 1:1-2; 5:11-13.
E. As the children of God, we are God-men, born of God, possessing the life and nature of God, and belonging to the species of God—3:1; John 1:12-13.
F. A partaker of the divine nature is one who enjoys the divine nature and participates in the divine nature:
1. To partake of the divine nature is to enjoy what God is; to be a partaker of the divine nature is to be a partaker of the riches, the elements, and the constituents of God's being.
2. If we would be partakers of the divine nature, we need to live by the divine life within which is the divine nature—v. 4; 10:10; 11:25; 6:57b.
G. We enjoy the divine nature through God's precious and exceedingly great promises, such as in 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.
H. Being a partaker of the divine nature has a condition—that we escape the corruption which is in the world by lust; we need to live in the cycle of escaping and partaking and of partaking and escaping—2 Pet. 1:4.
I. 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 expressing Him in all that we are and do—v. 3.
J. As we partake of the divine nature, enjoying all that God is, the riches of the divine nature will be fully developed so that we may have a rich entrance into the kingdom of God—vv. 5-11.