In eternity the believers will express God, as a jasper stone, with His glory. Speaking of the New Jerusalem, Revelation 21:11 says, “Having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, as a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” The glory of God is the expression of God, God expressed. Jasper is the appearance of God (Rev. 4:3) and signifies God’s communicable glory in His rich life (John 17:22, 2). The light of the New Jerusalem is like a jasper stone, bearing the appearance of God to express God by her shining.
The wall of the New Jerusalem is made of jasper, and the light of the city is like jasper (Rev. 21:18, 11). In 4:3 we are clearly told that God sitting on the throne looks like jasper. Jasper, then, signifies God’s appearance. In eternity the New Jerusalem will bear God’s appearance. God looks like jasper, and the entire city will bear the appearance of jasper. This indicates that it will be a corporate and eternal expression of God.
In the consummation of the dispensing of the divine Trinity all believers will express God. We all shall have the appearance of jasper, the appearance of God. This means that in eternity we shall all bear one identity and all bear the image of God. We shall be the same as God in appearance, expressing His appearance in His glory. This expression of the Triune God will be His eternal manifestation according to His eternal economy for the divine dispensing.
To express God as the jasper stone with His glory is to enlighten the nations. For this reason, Revelation 21:24 tells us that the nations will walk by the light of the New Jerusalem. God as the light in the lamp will not shine over the nations directly. The divine light will first shine in the city and then through the city it will shine over the nations. Hence, the nations will walk in the light of the city. They will walk in the light of the believers’ shining. This is in keeping with the New Testament principle that the believers are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14) and that the worldly people should walk in our light. In eternity all the redeemed people of God will be a great light shining over the nations, and the nations will walk in this light.
At the end of this age a great part of the inhabitants of the earth will be killed. The rest will be judged by Christ at the throne of His glory when He comes back to earth. The condemned ones, the “goats,” will be cursed to perish in the lake of fire, whereas the justified ones, the “sheep,” will be blessed to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world (Matt. 25:31-46). They will not be saved and regenerated as the New Testament believers. Rather, they will only be restored to the original state of man as created by God. They will be the nations as citizens of the millennial kingdom, in which the overcoming believers will be kings (Rev. 20:4, 6) and the saved remnant of Israel will be priests (Zech. 8:20-23). After the millennial kingdom, a part of these nations, deceived by the Devil, will rebel against the Lord and will be consumed by fire from heaven (Rev. 20:7-9). The rest will be transferred to the new earth as the nations, living around the New Jerusalem and walking by its light. They will be the peoples mentioned in 21:3 and 4. They, as the created but unregenerated man, will be maintained to live forever in their created state by the healing of the leaves of the tree of life. Even to them there will be no more death (21:4). Under the shining of the New Jerusalem with the divine glory, neither will they be in darkness.
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