The New Jerusalem is designed and constructed by God. Speaking of Abraham, Hebrews 11:10 says, “He waited for the city which has the foundations, whose Architect and Maker is God.” The Greek word for architect in this verse can also be translated either builder or artificer. This indicates that God is a skillful designer and a top craftsman. As such an Architect and Builder, God certainly has not designed and built a physical city.
Ephesians 2:10 reveals that the church is God’s masterpiece. The Greek word for “masterpiece,” poiema, means something which has been written or composed as a poem. Poetry expresses the writer’s wisdom. Through the church as a poem written by Him God makes known His multifarious wisdom (Eph. 3:10). The New Jerusalem, as the ultimate consummation of the church, will be full of wisdom. God designed the New Jerusalem with His wisdom, and this city will display His wisdom for eternity.
To say that the New Jerusalem is a physical city depreciates God’s wisdom and belittles Him as the eternal, wise Architect. If we realize that the New Jerusalem is a sign which signifies spiritual and divine things, we shall begin to see the wisdom of God in this city. God is a wise Designer and Artificer who designs such a city to be a full manifestation of His multifarious wisdom. Furthermore, in His wisdom God constructs the New Jerusalem by dispensing Himself as the Architect and Maker into our being.
In the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the divine Trinity the believers will be the sons of God as the overcomers enjoying the divine sonship to the fullest. Revelation 21:7 says, “He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be God to him, and he shall be a son to Me.” The meaning of “overcome” here differs from its meaning in chapters two and three. Here it means to overcome by believing, as in 1 John 5:4 and 5. The overcoming in chapters two and three qualifies the overcoming believers for participation in the enjoyment of the millennial kingdom as a particular reward in God’s dispensational administration, whereas the overcoming here qualifies all believers for participation as sons of God in the New Jerusalem with all its enjoyment as the common portion of God’s eternal salvation.
As the sons of God in the New Jerusalem the believers will enjoy the divine sonship to the fullest. God has predestinated us to receive sonship. When we are born again, our spirit is in the sonship, but our soul and our body are not in the sonship. This sonship will spread outward from our spirit until it saturates our whole being. When the Lord Jesus comes back, our physical body also will be saturated with the sonship and be transfigured. At that time we shall be brought wholly into sonship. Every part of our being-spirit, soul, and body-will be in the completion of sonship.
At present we are undergoing the process of sonship. We have the Spirit of the Son and the life of the Son in us, sanctifying us, transforming us, and conforming us to the image of God’s Son. Furthermore, we have the position of the Son (John 20:17) that we may have the legal right to inherit all that God the Father is and all that He has. Eventually, we shall inherit all that God is for eternity.
In the church life today we are enjoying the divine sonship to some extent. In the coming age the overcoming believers will enjoy the sonship to a fuller extent. Eventually, in eternity all the believers will enjoy the sonship to the fullest extent.
In eternity the believers will be the sons of God, not the people of God. The “peoples” in Revelation 21:3 will be “the nations” in 21:24. They will live on the new earth outside the New Jerusalem and enjoy the common blessings in the new heaven and new earth. However, the believers as sons of God will dwell in the New Jerusalem, participate in all its enjoyment, serve God and the Lamb, and reign for eternity (Rev. 22:3-5).
In the new heaven and the new earth we shall not be the peoples, the nations, but the sons. The sons of God in Revelation 21:6 and 7 are those who have been born of God through regeneration (John 1:12-13; 1 Pet. 1:3, 4, 23; James 1:18). They are built together through transformation (1 Cor. 3:9-12a; Eph. 2:20-22; 1 Pet. 2:4-6; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23-24). They will be glorified in full conformation to be a corporate expression of the Triune God (Rom. 8:29-30; Heb. 2:10; Rev. 21:11). The nations outside the New Jerusalem, on the contrary, are not born again, transformed, or glorified. Therefore, as sons of God in eternity we shall be different from the nations.
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