We have seen that the third section of God’s New Testament economy is in the book of Revelation. In Revelation are the seven Spirits as the intensification of the Triune God in the overcoming church consummating in the golden lampstands in this age and in the New Jerusalem in eternity. This is the finalization of God’s New Testament economy. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of seven main things: of the entire divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures, of the eternal purpose of God, of God’s purpose in man, of the mingling of the Triune God with His redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people, of the positive types, figures, and signs of the Scriptures, of the lampstands in the Scriptures, and of all the buildings of the Scriptures.
By reading the Bible we can see God. Although God is a mystery, the Bible reveals Him to us in a great and clear way. The Bible also shows us the source of the universe. We do not need to grope like blind men to know the source of the universe, and we do not need Darwin to tell us anything. When we open the Bible, the first verse tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible also tells us where man came from. Man came from God and was created by God. As a young man reading the Bible, I received much knowledge and revelation, but I was always trying to know the result, the issue, of the sixty-six books of the Bible. According to the black and white letters, we all can see that the last item of the sixty-six books of the Bible is the New Jerusalem.
All of us, however, have been somewhat influenced by the traditional teachings in Christianity, which say that the New Jerusalem is a heavenly mansion. When I was a young believer, there was a gospel song on the New Jerusalem which told people how good heaven was. According to this song the streets in heaven were golden, and the gates were made of pearl. According to the traditional teachings, the New Jerusalem is such a physical, heavenly mansion. This concept occupied my thought, so I believed that the Bible ended with a heavenly mansion. With our mentality occupied with such a concept, we would never think that the New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the entire divine revelation. Since this item is the conclusion of the Bible, logically speaking it should be the ultimate consummation of the Bible, but the traditional teachings poisoned our understanding.
The thought I adopted as a young believer was that the New Jerusalem was simply a wonderful mansion, and I never gave any room for another thought to come in concerning the New Jerusalem. One of the teachers I was under in the Brethren assembly told us that in John 14 the Lord Jesus said that He was going to prepare a heavenly mansion. After preparing this mansion, He would come back. Since He had not come back yet, this meant that He had not finished His preparation work. This teacher then said that since the Lord Jesus took nearly two thousand years to prepare such a place, how wonderful, marvelous, and excellent that place would be. I received this teaching and I believed it. I was happy and I praised and thanked the Lord that He was preparing a wonderful and excellent place for me. This concept occupied my mind concerning the New Jerusalem, but on the other hand I questioned, “What is the result, what is the ultimate consummation, of these sixty-six wonderful books of the Bible?” By that time I had learned many of the types and prophecies of the Scriptures, but I did not know what the result of the divine revelation was. The reason for this is because this result, this ultimate consummation, was taken away by the traditional teachings of Christianity. There are hardly any Bible readers who understand the last two chapters of the Bible in a proper and adequate way. Many Christians do not spend much time on these two chapters because they think that these two chapters are a record of the heavenly mansion.
The writings of two brothers in particular gave me much help and opened up a little door or a little window for me to get into the real significance of the New Jerusalem. Gerhardt Tersteegen, in some of his hymns, referred to the New Jerusalem in a deeper way. Brother T. Austin-Sparks also mentioned something concerning the spiritual and divine significance of the New Jerusalem. It was not until approximately forty years ago, though, that I really began to get into the significance of the New Jerusalem. In 1963 I wrote a number of hymns concerning the New Jerusalem which are presently in our hymnal (Hymns, #971, 972, 975, 976, 978-980). By 1963 the Lord had given me nearly a full understanding of this last great sign in the Bible. By this time I dropped any thought that the New Jerusalem is a physical thing. If you consider the New Jerusalem as a physical thing, you make the Bible low, meaningless, and insignificant. We know the Bible contains the divine revelation; the conclusion of such a revelation, therefore, should be very high and very significant. By 1963 I can testify that I was fully clear that the New Jerusalem is altogether a spiritual, heavenly, and divine sign and not something physical.
If you are a thoughtful person, you may ask why God created man, saved man, and chose and predestinated man. If you are thoughtful, you also have to think about why God is Triune, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Why does man have a body, a soul, and a spirit? What is the purpose and what will be the ultimate consummation of all these things? In principle, we have to realize that our God is a God of purpose. He is not a God of meaninglessness, but He is quite thoughtful and purposeful. We need to see and realize what the ultimate consummation of His purpose is, not only in the universe but especially in man. The answer to all these questions is at the end of the Bible, and the answer is the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is the consummation of every positive thing. It has nothing to do with the negative things such as Satan, the fallen angels, the demons, death, sin, darkness, the grave, Hades, or the lake of fire. It has nothing to do with all these negative things. On the positive side, however, the New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of God, of God’s salvation, of Christ’s redemption, of the Spirit’s transformation, and of every positive thing in the Bible. All the positive things in the Bible consummate in the New Jerusalem, which is covered in the last two chapters of the entire Bible. God, the Trinity, the Lamb, the lamp, the tree of life, the living water, the throne, and the Spirit are among the many positive items composed together to make one universal, eternal, divine, spiritual, and heavenly unit. The New Jerusalem is surely not a physical city. The New Jerusalem is something divine, spiritual, and heavenly.
The New Jerusalem is first a sign and eventually a consummation. The entire universe needs a consummation. Even God Himself needs a consummation. You must also realize that even you need a consummation. Many sisters who are mothers have the desire to consummate in good children. Most mothers are always thinking about having good children, better children, or the best children. According to their thought, their future, their joy, their fortune, and their fate will be their children. All the mothers, however, need a change of mind in this matter. All of us need to consider the real consummation—the New Jerusalem. We all need to testify that the New Jerusalem is our consummation. I surely will consummate there, and I hope all of my children and grandchildren will consummate in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation.