In this message we shall consider the consummation of the church.
The consummation of the church will be the New Jerusalem. Today the church is a miniature of the New Jerusalem. The proper church life in its genuineness is a small model of the New Jerusalem. The crucial matter here, however, is that the New Jerusalem will be the consummation of all of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, perfected, and glorified people.
The New Jerusalem will be the totality of God’s work in both the old creation and in the new creation. First, God created the old creation. Although the old creation became fallen, God was prepared to deal with that situation. He came to be a man, a God-man, a man with divinity mingled with humanity, to accomplish redemption. This God-man could redeem sinners, dying for them, because He had the blood to shed for them. This blood is called “His own blood” (Acts 20:28) and “the blood of Jesus His Son” (1 John 1:7). Through His all-inclusive death, the Lord released His resurrection life, and with this life He produced, sanctified, transformed, built, and glorified the people whom He had predestinated. The totality of this work, its ultimate consummation, will be the New Jerusalem. Instead of being a material city, the New Jerusalem is a symbol of the totality of God’s work.
All the members of the church are produced in the church age, that is, in the age between Christ’s first coming and His coming back. The members of the church are those who were fallen sinners and who have been saved by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8) through their God-given and God-allotted faith (2 Pet. 1:1), which has brought them into an organic union with the Triune God in Christ (1 Cor. 6:17). These members of the church have been forgiven of their sins (Acts 10:43). They have been justified by God in Christ (Acts 13:39; 1 Cor. 6:11), and they have been reconciled to God (Rom. 5:10), so they have been redeemed back to God (Rev. 5:9). Based upon this, the members of the church have been regenerated in their spirit by the Spirit of God (John 3:6) to be the children of God unto the divine sonship (John 1:12-13; Rom. 8:16) and to be the members of Christ (Eph. 5:30) unto His stature (Eph. 4:13) to be His fullness (Eph. 1:23).
The New Testament overcomers are not only produced in the church age but are also perfected in the church age. The perfecting of the New Testament overcomers is a matter of transformation through the subjective experience and enjoyment of Christ. Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” To be transformed is to have Christ added into our being to replace what we are so that Christ may increase and our natural life may decrease. As the process of transformation takes place within us, the old element of our natural being is carried away, and the glory, the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit, is added into us to replace the natural element. It is through such a process that the New Testament overcomers are perfected in this age.
The need for transformation is neglected by many Christians today. As a result, many have been kept from being transformed and perfected by the genuine experience and enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ with His unsearchable riches. As a result, there is no way for God to perfect these immature believers in the church age. However, because they are God’s chosen, redeemed, called, and regenerated people, God will not let them go. Rather, He will perfect them in the coming age of the millennium.
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