We have covered the believers’ future in the completing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of glorification. In this message and the message following we shall consider the believers’ future in the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the divine Trinity.
The central thought, the governing thought, of all these messages on the conclusion of the New Testament is the divine dispensing of the divine Trinity into His chosen people for His corporate expression. In eternity the believers will participate in the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the divine Trinity. This consummation is altogether related to the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is not a physical city, as commonly believed by Christians. Rather, the book of Revelation indicates that the New Jerusalem is a divine and spiritual sign. The revelation of the entire book of Revelation is mainly made known to us by signs (Rev. 1:1) symbolizing important persons and things, such as the golden lampstands in 1:12, signifying the churches bearing the shining testimony of Jesus Christ; the stars in 1:16, signifying the bright and shining messengers of the churches; the mysterious Babylon the Great in 17:5, signifying religious Rome; and the bride in 19:7, signifying the overcoming saints as the spouse of Christ. Hence, the New Jerusalem also should be a sign, signifying the ultimate consummation of the divine Trinity dispensing Himself into His chosen people.
If we do not have a clear vision of God’s eternal intention in His eternal economy, our interpretation of the New Jerusalem will not be accurate. The interpretation of the New Jerusalem as a literal, physical city does not fit in with the entire revelation of the Bible. The entire revelation of the Bible is that God wants to dispense Himself into man and to be mingled with man to produce a marvelous entity with Himself as the content and man as the expression. This marvelous entity is the New Jerusalem, the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the processed Triune God into His chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people.
In the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the divine Trinity in the New Jerusalem the believers are destined to enjoy the eternal life to the fullest. Today in the church life we have the enjoyment of the eternal life. In the coming age, the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens in the millennium, the overcoming believers will enjoy the eternal life in a fuller way. Eventually, in the New Jerusalem in eternity we shall enjoy the eternal life to the fullest. From this we see that the enjoyment of the eternal life is of three stages: the full enjoyment in the church age, the fuller enjoyment in the kingdom age, and the fullest enjoyment in eternity. In the New Jerusalem, which will be the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the divine Trinity, we shall enjoy the divine life, the eternal life, to the fullest extent.
In John 4:14 the Lord Jesus says, “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a spring of water welling up into eternal life.” This indicates that it is in eternity that the believers will enjoy the eternal life to the fullest extent.
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