Prayer: Lord, we worship You that You have brought us through so many days. Today You have brought us to the end, to the consummation, of the central line of God's revelation. Lord, do cleanse us with Your precious blood, and cover us with Your prevailing blood. We trust in You for this last meeting. Give us a good ending. You are the Alpha, and You are the Omega. We trust in You as our ending. Lord, do cover us that we may be really protected in this hour, listening to Your word. We do not want to merely hear Your word. We also want to see something. We want to enter into the intrinsic revelation of Your Body, the church, which will be consummated in the New Jerusalem. We want to feel the same way that You do, according to Your feeling, and we want to understand the same way that You do, according to Your understanding. Lord, we are the New Jerusalem. We are the Body. We are Your counterpart. Lord, unveil everything that is on Your heart tonight in this meeting. Help us in the speaking. Lord, we realize we are so weak in this matter. Stand with us as one spirit. Amen.
In this message we have come to the end of the Bible. Any good writing always closes with something of the real thing it talks about. If we are going to understand what the Bible talks about, we have to go to the end to see how it concludes.
Most Bible readers appreciate the beginning of the Bible, but they do not pay much attention to the end of the Bible. This is because their understanding deprives them of the preciousness of the ending of the Bible. Their understanding is that the Bible ends merely with a heavenly mansion. This is very objective, having very little to do with us subjectively. According to this natural understanding, God spends many years and does so much just to prepare a mansion for us. This is why not many pay attention to this part of the divine revelation. This shows us that the proper understanding means everything.
Many years ago, I began to realize that the end of the Bible could not be a physical city as a mansion into which we will enter to live for eternity. If the Bible really ended this way, it would be so low. After having studied the Bible for a number of years, I realized to some extent the preciousness of the Bible and the contents of the Bible. Based upon this principle, I realized that the concluding figure shown at the end of the Bible must not be that low or that simple. It must be something very significant, very precious, and very mysterious.
I began to hunt for material and books on the New Jerusalem from past writers. I found something of the truth concerning the holy city in the writings of Tersteegen, a German writer. Tersteegen indicated that the New Jerusalem must be something about the believers in Christ themselves. That opened my eyes a little bit. Brother Austin-Sparks said a little more. He pointed out that the New Jerusalem should be a figure, just as in the beginning of the Bible, God also uses figures such as the tree of life (Gen. 2:9). In the whole universe, there is not such a physical tree—the tree of life. There are apple trees and peach trees. There are many kinds of trees, but who has ever seen or heard of a tree of life? What is life? Life is mysterious. Thus, Brother Austin-Sparks said that this must be a figure of speech. A figure of speech is used to speak of something that is somewhat unseen, somewhat mysterious, and somewhat hidden, concealed. Because something cannot be easily realized or apprehended, it is not possible to express what that thing is in normal terms. This is why figures of speech are used. The tree of life is a figure of speech.