GENERAL SUBJECT
VITAL FACTORS FOR THE RECOVERY OF THE CHURCH LIFE
Message Eight
The Factor of Living an Overcoming Life in the Recovered Church to Consummate the Divine Economy and Become the New Jerusalem
Scripture Reading: Rev. 3:7-8, 11-12, 21; 19:7; 21:2, 9-11
I. The overcomers are produced by the overcoming Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit, and they are burdened for the building up of the Body of Christ as the preparation of the bride of Christ—Eph. 4:16; Rev. 5:6; 19:7-9:
A. The overcomers are for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem—Eph. 4:12, 16; Rev. 2:7b; 3:12, 21:
1. Without the overcomers the Body of Christ cannot be built up, and unless the Body of Christ is built up, Christ cannot come back for His bride—19:7-9.
2. The overcomers produced by Christ as the sevenfold intensified, life-giving Spirit build up the Body in this age for the initial consummation of the New Jerusalem in the kingdom age and eventually for the full consummation of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth—1:4; 2:7; 4:5; 5:6; 3:12; 21:2.
B. The Lord's promises at the end of each of the seven epistles in Revelation 2 and 3 refer both to the present enjoyment of the overcomers and to the reward given to them in the coming millennial kingdom—2:7b, 11b, 17b, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 21:
1. In order to enter into the Lord's joy and receive the Lord as our exceedingly great reward in the next age, we need to gain Him and faithfully enjoy Him today in this age—Matt. 25:21b, 23b; Phil. 3:8-9; Gen. 15:1.
2. If we do not faithfully enjoy and experience Christ as the reality of His promises today, we will not participate in their fulfillment in the kingdom age; the principle is that what we are will become our reward—1 Cor. 9:24-27.
II. As a sign, the church in Philadelphia prefigures the recovered church— Rev. 3:7:
A. The church in Philadelphia prophetically depicts the church of brotherly love, that is, the proper church life—v. 7.
B. One outstanding feature of the church in Philadelphia is that she keeps the Lord's word—vv. 7-8.
C. In Revelation 3:8 the Lord says that the church in Philadelphia has not denied His name; the Lord's word is His expression, and the Lord's name is the Lord Himself—Col. 3:16-17; Matt. 18:20.
D. The return to the pure word from all heresies and traditions and to the exaltation of the Lord's name by abandoning every other name is the most inspiring testimony in the recovered church—Rev. 3:8.
E. To the recovered church, the Lord is the One who has the key of David, the key of the kingdom, with authority to open and to shut—v. 7; Isa. 22:22:
1. This is the key of the treasury of the house of God, which is typified by the house of David for the building up of the kingdom of God—39:2; 2 Sam. 7:16.
2. The key of David is for the keeping of all the treasures of the house of God, which are all the riches of Christ for our enjoyment—Eph. 3:8.
3. The key of David opens the whole universe for God—Isa. 22:22; Rev. 3:7:
a. David represents God in establishing God's kingdom on earth and has the key of God's dominion—Isa. 22:22.
b. As the real David, the greater David, Christ has built up the house of God, the real temple, and He has set up the kingdom of God, the dominion in which He exercises full authority to represent God; therefore, He holds the key of David—Matt. 1:1; 12:3-8; 16:18-19.
c. The fact that Christ has the key of David signifies that He is the center of God's economy; He is the One who expresses God and represents Him, the One who holds the key to open everything in God's dominion—Col. 1:15-18.
III. The Lord Jesus will make the overcomer in the recovered church a pillar built into the temple of God—Rev. 3:11-12a:
A. The Lord makes us pillars by transforming us, that is, by carrying away our natural element and replacing it with His divine essence—Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18:
1. The meaning of make in Revelation 3:12 is to constitute us into something, to construct us in a creative way.
2. In the church life today, the Lord is working Himself into us and making us, constituting us, into pillars in the temple of God.
B. In Revelation 21:22 we see that in the New Jerusalem the Triune God Himself will be the temple:
1. For the overcomers to be pillars in the temple means that they will be pillars in the Triune God—3:12a.
2. This involves being mingled with the Triune God and constituted with Him— Eph. 3:16-17a.
C. Even in today's church life, the overcoming saints are pillars in the Triune God—Rev. 3:12a; Gal. 2:9:
1. These saints sometimes have the consciousness that the church is actually nothing other than the Triune God, as indicated by the golden lampstands as a symbol of the church—Rev. 1:12, 20.
2. The pillars in the church today are pillars in the Triune God; in the coming age these overcoming believers will be pillars in the temple of God, which is God Himself—3:12a; 21:22.
3. From this we see that being made pillars involves the Triune God being mingled with and constituted into the faithful believers—2 Cor. 13:14.
D. To overcome in the church in Philadelphia is to keep what we have received in the Lord's recovery to the end; if we do this, the Lord will make us a pillar in the temple of God—Rev. 3:11-12a.
IV. The overcomer in the recovered church is constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God and becomes the New Jerusalem, "the bride, the wife of the Lamb"—v. 12b; 21:2, 9-11:
A. The governing vision of the Bible is the Triune God working Himself into His chosen and redeemed people in order to saturate their entire being with the Divine Trinity for the producing and building up of the church as the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 4:4-6; Rev. 21:2, 9-10.
B. The New Jerusalem is a composition of divinity and humanity mingled, blended, and built up together as one entity; all the components have the same life, nature, and constitution and thus are a corporate person—John 14:20, 23; Rev. 21:2-3, 9-23:
1. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of the central vision of God's economy and of the high peak of the divine revelation—vv. 2, 9-11.
2. The New Jerusalem is a composition of God's chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified people who have been deified—John 3:6; Heb. 2:11; Rom. 12:2; 8:29-30:
a. For us to be deified means that we are being constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life and nature to be His corporate expression for eternity—Rev. 21:11.
b. The deification of the believers is a process that will consummate in the New Jerusalem; this is the highest truth and the highest gospel—Rom. 1:1, 3-4; 5:10; Rev. 21:2; 3:12.
C. "I will write upon him [the overcomer] the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name"—v. 12b:
1. The fact that the name of God, the name of the New Jerusalem, and the Lord's new name are written upon the overcomer indicates that the overcomer is possessed by God, by the New Jerusalem, and by the Lord; that God Himself, His city (the New Jerusalem), and the Lord Himself all belong to him; and that he is one with God, with the New Jerusalem, and with the Lord.
2. The name of God denotes God Himself, the name of the New Jerusalem denotes the city itself, and the name of the Lord denotes the Lord Himself—v. 12b.
3. That the name of God, the name of the New Jerusalem, and the name of the Lord are written on the overcomer indicates that what God is, the nature of the New Jerusalem, and the person of the Lord have all been wrought into the overcomer—John 14:19-20, 23; Eph. 3:16-17.
4. The mentioning of the New Jerusalem as a prize to the overcomer indicates that this promise will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom; the New Jerusalem in the millennium will be a prize only to the overcomers—Rev. 3:12b.