In Revelation 21:2—22:5 Christ is revealed as the universal and eternal Husband of the New Jerusalem, the universal and eternal wife. This is the last item of Christ unveiled in Revelation.
The main content of the New Testament is that the Triune God has an eternal economy according to His good pleasure to dispense Himself in His life and nature into His chosen and redeemed people, thereby making them His duplication so that they may express Him; this corporate expression will consummate in the New Jerusalem (Eph. 3:9; 1:9-23). The New Jerusalem, the ultimate consummation of the Bible, involves God becoming man and man becoming God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead (Rev. 21:2; 3:12). In Christ, God has become man to make man God in His life and in His nature so that the redeeming God and the redeemed man can be mingled, constituted, together to be one entity—the New Jerusalem (21:3, 22). Eventually, the triune, eternal God becomes the New Jerusalem incorporated with all of us, and we also become the New Jerusalem through the process of God’s organic salvation (Rom. 5:10). The ultimate consummation of God’s organic salvation is the New Jerusalem—the universal incorporation of the union and mingling of God with man, divinity with humanity—the processed and consummated Triune God incorporated with His regenerated, renewed, sanctified, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite elect.
The issue of the Bible’s teaching is just one entity, the New Jerusalem, as the aggregate of all the God-men (Rev. 21:7; Heb. 2:10-11; 12:22). God’s New Testament economy is to make the believers God-men for the constitution of the Body of Christ so that the New Jerusalem may be consummated as the eternal enlargement and expression of the processed and consummated Triune God (Gal. 3:26; 4:7, 26, 31). The New Jerusalem is the God-men who have been transformed, glorified, and mingled with the processed and consummated Triune God (John 17:22-23a; Eph. 4:4-6).
The New Jerusalem is a composition of divinity and humanity mingled, blended, and built up together as one entity (John 14:20, 23; Rev. 21:2-3, 9-23). All the components have the same life, nature, and constitution and thus are a corporate person. God and man, man and God, are built up together by being blended and mingled together (John 14:20, 23; 15:4a; 1 Cor. 6:17). This is a matter of God becoming man and man becoming God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
The New Jerusalem is a composition of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified people who have been deified (John 3:6; Heb. 2:11; Rom. 12:2; 8:29-30). For us to be deified means that we are being constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life and in nature to be His corporate expression for eternity (Rev. 21:11). The New Jerusalem is built by God’s constituting Himself into man to make man the same as God in life, nature, and constitution so that God and man may become a corporate entity. The New Jerusalem is God Himself enlarged with His redeemed by the way of constituting, uniting, and mingling (John 3:29a, 30a; 14:20; 15:4a; 1 Cor. 6:17). Thus, the deification of the believers is a process that will consummate in the New Jerusalem. On God’s side, the Triune God has been incarnated to be a man; on our side, we are being deified, constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life and in nature to be His corporate expression for eternity. This is the highest truth and the highest gospel (Rev. 3:12).
The subject of the Bible is a divine romance of a universal couple; the male is God Himself, and the female is God’s chosen and redeemed people (Gen. 2:21-24; Isa. 54:5; Jer. 2:2; 3:14; 31:32; Ezek. 23:5; Hosea 2:7, 19; Matt. 9:15; John 3:29). In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, God likens His chosen people to a spouse (Isa. 54:6; Jer. 3:1; Ezek. 16:8; Hosea 2:19; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:31-32) and a dwelling place for Himself (Exo. 29:45-46; Num. 5:3; Ezek. 43:7, 9; Psa. 68:18; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15). The spouse is for His satisfaction in love. As the bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem comes out of Christ, her Husband, and becomes His counterpart, just as Eve came out of Adam, her husband, and became his counterpart (Gen. 2:21-24). She is prepared by participating in the riches of the life and nature of Christ.
Christ’s betrothal and marriage life cover the church age, the kingdom age, and the eternal age. In the church age we are betrothed to Christ (2 Cor. 11:2). The wedding day will be the age of the millennial kingdom (Rev. 19:7). The marriage life will be in the New Jerusalem for eternity (21:2, 9-10).
According to its humanity, the New Jerusalem is the human wife (with the divine life and nature) of the Lamb, the redeeming God (vv. 2, 9). This human wife can marry a divine person because she has the divine life and nature. This qualifies her to match the redeeming God. On the one hand, she is human; on the other hand, she is divine. Because she is human, she can be the redeeming God’s human wife. Because she is divine, she can marry Him, a divine person.
According to its divinity, the New Jerusalem is the divine Husband (the redeeming God in His consummated embodiment, Christ, with the human life and nature) of God’s redeemed elect. The wife is human, and the Husband is divine. A human wife can marry a divine person because she has the divine person’s nature and life. The same entity can be both a husband and a wife because the New Jerusalem is divine. The divine God is a part of its constituent. Therefore, on the one hand, it is a wife; on the other hand, it is a husband. The New Jerusalem is the wife according to its humanity and the Husband according to its divinity. But as the divine Husband, the New Jerusalem has the human life and nature. In its humanity and in its divinity it is a couple, a wife and a husband.
The holy city is a corporate person, and this corporate person is a couple—the processed Triune God married to the transformed, tripartite man. This is the Spirit and the bride becoming one (22:17). Divinity and humanity are married together, mingled together, to be one entity. The holy city is a corporate person—a great, corporate God-man. The New Jerusalem is a couple with the Husband and the bride, the wife. The Husband is the wife, and the wife is the Husband because they coinhere. This is God’s eternal economy: to incorporate Himself with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified elect, to be one universal, divine, mystical incorporation, which is the New Jerusalem.
Revelation 22:17 indicates that Christ and the New Jerusalem as His wife will be a universal couple for eternity. The Spirit, who is the totality of the processed and consummated Triune God, becomes one with the believers, who are now fully matured to be the bride (21:2, 9-10). The consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God and the consummation of His regenerated, transformed, and glorified people will be a universal couple expressing the Triune God for eternity (vv. 11, 23).
Revelation 21:2 says, “I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Christ is a person, and He will marry the New Jerusalem. It is impossible for Christ to marry a physical city as His wife. This is a strong proof that the New Jerusalem is not a physical city. Here, to be adorned is to make oneself pretty. This term can be applied only to females. Only females need adornment. The New Jerusalem as the bride of Christ needs to be not only consummated but also adorned (v. 19). Today we need to adorn and consummate the New Jerusalem with God the Father as its golden base, God the Son as its pearl gates, and God the Spirit as its wall of precious stones. The New Jerusalem is adorned with pure gold, pearl, and precious stones, that is, with the Triune God as the elements. This is the consummated Divine Trinity constituting Himself into our being to make us gold, pearl, and precious stones so that He may have an enlargement for His eternal expression, the New Jerusalem.
Similarly, Song of Songs 1:10-11 reveals that Christ’s lover is transformed with the Triune God’s attributes by the remaking Spirit in coordination with the lover’s companions, the gifted members in the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12). The seeker’s hair being bound into plaits of gold indicates her submission to God through the transformation of the Spirit with God the Father in His divine nature. The plaits of gold are fastened with studs of silver, signifying Christ the Son in His all-inclusive judicial redemption. The strings of jewels on the seeker’s neck signify God the Spirit in His transforming work to become her obedience to God’s will. Perfecting others with gold, silver, and precious stones in Song of Songs 1:10-11 corresponds to building the church with gold, silver, and precious stones in 1 Corinthians 3:10-12. Eventually, what is built at the end of the Bible will be a city of gold, precious stones, and pearls to replace silver. The entire Bible speaks the same thing concerning God’s economy to produce the church as the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem. If we want what we do to be in the New Jerusalem, we need to learn how to add gold into the plaits of hair, how to make silver studs to hold the plaits of hair, and how to make strings of jewels, precious stones, to cover the naked neck. In other words, we need to learn to build with gold, silver, and precious stones. We must learn to minister the Triune God in a practical way to others for their transformation.