The next aspect of this organic building is its gates with its availability (21:12b-13, 21a).
The Old Testament saints, signified by the pearls, produced by God the Son through His redeeming and life-releasing death and His life-dispensing resurrection, are the gates. Here we need to see that Christ’s death has two functions: to redeem and to release the divine life. Many in Christianity speak only of the redeeming function of Christ’s death but not of the life-releasing function. Have you ever heard that Christ’s death has released the divine life so that it can be dispensed into us? Consider the illustration of a grain of wheat which falls into the ground and dies (John 12:24). In that death two things are going on simultaneously: the destruction of the shell of that grain of wheat and the release of the life from within the grain for dispensing. This corresponds to what is said in Ephesians 2:15 concerning Christ creating in Himself the new man. The creation of the new man through the death of Christ implies both the termination of our fallen humanity and the release of the divine life for dispensing. The principle is the same with what is revealed concerning the death of Christ in 1 Peter 3:18, which tells us that Christ was put to death in the flesh but was made alive in the Spirit.
A pearl is produced by an oyster. An oyster (Christ) lives in the salty water (the world of death) and is wounded by a grain of sand (crucified for the sinner) to produce a pearl by secreting its life juice (dispensing His life element). Christ lived in this world of death and eventually was wounded, crucified, for us sinners. Through this wound He released His life so that in His resurrection it could be dispensed into us to make us pearls.
The gates are in the number of twelve (eternal completion and perfection in administration), which is composed of three (the Triune God) times (mingles) four (man as God’s creature), signifying that the Triune God mingles with man as His creature for His administration to accomplish His economy.
The twelve gates are on the four (man as God’s creature) sides of the organic building, three (the Triune God) on each side, signifying the availability of this organic building toward mankind universally.
The twelve gates bear the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. This indicates that the entry of the twelve gates, which is the entry of the entire building, is according to the requirements of Israel’s law, which conducts the believers in Christ to Christ (Gal. 3:24), and that the Old Testament saints are constituents of this organic building, to be the initial section of this building for the establishment of its entry for the saints to participate in this organic building as God’s good pleasure and His ultimate goal. Here we see that, as a people, Israel became the entry for the Gentile sinners to enter into God’s grace. Such an entry has four directions, indicating that the entry is toward the whole world and to all the nations.
We need to be impressed with the fact that this entry is composed with the Triune God mingled with the tripartite man. Israel is the entry because they were the first ones joined to God. Having been joined to God, they then became an entry for the Gentiles to enter into God’s grace. In the next chapter we will see that the wall and the foundations with the precious stones refer to the Gentile believers.
The building of the New Jerusalem includes the gates and the wall. The gates are the initial building, and the wall is the completion of the building. God the Father is the base with the street; God the Son produces the pearls for the gates; and God the Spirit transforms the saints to be the precious stones for the wall. This is the Triune God mingled with the believing Israel and the believing Gentiles to produce the New Jerusalem as a unique, divine, and organic building.
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