All the regenerated believers constitute the bride of their Redeemer as His increase, His enlargement (John 3:3,5-6,14, 29-30). As a young believer I was taught in a thorough way concerning regeneration, but no one told me that the regenerated believers constitute the bride. Many believed in the Lord Jesus by the time of John 3. They had been regenerated and had received the eternal life. As a result, the disciples of John became jealous and told John that all were coming to Jesus (John 3:26). John then told his disciples that He who has the bride is the Bridegroom and he indicated that everyone who was regenerated should go to Him since He was the Bridegroom. This indicates that all the regenerated believers are composed together to be the bride to match the Bridegroom as His increase. Following this John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Many of those in inner life circles interpret this verse wrongly to mean that we all have to be decreased and that Christ has to increase. The increase in John 3:30, however, is the bride in verse 29, which is a living composition of all the regenerated people. All the believers regenerated by the Triune God should be attached to Him as the Bridegroom. The believers should not have been detached from their Bridegroom to form a religion, taking John as the head. For many years I could not understand why God was seemingly so cruel in allowing John to be put into prison after using him. Then I began to see that John had to be put into prison; otherwise, there would have been two bridegrooms— Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. Since John the Baptist had carried out his ministry to introduce Jesus Christ, it was necessary that he must decrease. All the regenerated ones should not have come to John to attach themselves to him. They all needed to go and attach themselves to Jesus, the Bridegroom.
The millennium will be the wedding day in which the overcoming saints will participate (Rev. 19:7-9). To the Lord a thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8), so the millennium will be the wedding day of the Lamb with the church as His bride. A wife is a bride for one day, but after the wedding day she is no longer the bride. The millennium of one thousand years will be one day for the Lamb to marry His bride. In the new heaven and new earth, all the saints of both the Old Testament and the New Testament will be the New Jerusalem, enjoying the divine married life with the Triune God for eternity.
Galatians 4:26-28 and 31 reveal the New Jerusalem as the mother of the believers. This mother is the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem (4:26). It is impossible for a physical city to be a mother bringing forth children. The New Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above, is our mother. In Galatians 4 Hagar symbolizes the old covenant of law that condemns and brings in death, bringing forth the children unto slavery (vv. 24-25) while Sarah symbolizes the new covenant of grace that justifies and brings in life, bringing forth children unto freedom (vv. 26-28, 31). The New Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above, is our mother and this mother is the new covenant of grace. This new covenant is our mother because it brought us forth as children of freedom.
The children brought forth by the old covenant of the law were the children of Hagar, but the new covenant of grace brings forth children of freedom by God as grace to enjoy the Triune God, not by human effort to keep the law. Also, her children become her components. This is a great mystery in the Bible that the children of the mother become the components of the mother.
The center of the New Jerusalem, who is the mother of the believers, is God and the Lamb on the throne (Rev. 22:1). This is the Triune God as the center and the element of the mother of the believers. The element of the new covenant of grace is also the Triune God. Grace is nothing less than God Himself for our enjoyment. When God is revealed, this is truth, and when God is enjoyed by us, this is grace. The new covenant brings us God for our enjoyment, so it is called the new covenant of grace. Furthermore, the real element, essence, and nature of the children of freedom is the Triune God. The element and substance of the components of the mother is also the Triune God. Finally, the center, substance, element, and essence of the ultimate consummation of the Scriptures, the New Jerusalem, is the Triune God. This shows us that the mother of the believers, the new covenant of grace, the components of the mother, and the New Jerusalem are all one. Throughout the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation we see one divine wonderful Person—the Triune God. The ultimate consummation of the divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures and of everything the Triune God has done and achieved is the New Jerusalem, which is the composition of the Triune God mingling Himself with the tripartite man. The New Jerusalem as the divine composition of the Triune God mingling Himself with His redeemed, transformed, tripartite man is the ultimate, universal consummation of all of God’s divine revelation and His divine doing.
The Triune God firstly created everything including man, and He permitted Satan to be there as the troublemaker in the universe. God’s enemy Satan caused man to fall. Then God became incarnated to be a man to redeem His fallen creature and He lived with man as a man. This Triune God-man then went to the cross, dying an all-inclusive death. On the cross He was our substitute, bearing our sins to redeem us from our sins back to God. After His death in the flesh, Christ made a tour of Hades and proclaimed His victory to the rebellious angels (1 Pet. 3:19-20). This wonderful One came out of death and entered into resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit to enter into all the believers. He regenerated us and He is now transforming and conforming us to His image by making us a divine composition which is today’s church, tomorrow’s kingdom, and eternity’s New Jerusalem. The history of the entire universe is focused on the Triune God dispensing Himself into His chosen and redeemed people and mingling Himself with them to produce a universal fullness to express Himself. Our eyes need to be opened in order to see such a vision.
To take the new covenant and to keep it is to come to the heavenly Jerusalem and to the church (Heb. 8:7-13; 12:22-23). The new covenant, the heavenly Jerusalem, and the church are one. In order to understand this we must see the link between Galatians and Hebrews. Galatians deals with Judaism, warning the believers not to backslide into Judaism but to stay in grace. Hebrews charges us not to drift into the old covenant but to remain in the new covenant. Chapters seven through ten of Hebrews are on the better covenant, the new covenant. Hebrews 8 indicates that the old covenant is over and the new covenant has come in to replace it. Then in Hebrews 12 Paul tells us that we have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, and to the church (vv. 22-23).
Based upon our fellowship thus far, we can understand that to come to the new covenant is just to come to the New Jerusalem. Without Galatians 4 as a background, it would be hard to understand this. Galatians 4 clearly shows us that the mother of the believers which is the Jerusalem above, the New Jerusalem, is also the new covenant of grace as symbolized by Sarah. To come to the new covenant is not only to come to the New Jerusalem but also to come to the church (Heb. 12:23). To keep the new covenant is to remain in the New Jerusalem. We need to realize that we are not going to the New Jerusalem but we are in the New Jerusalem already. We have come! The tense of the verb in Hebrews 12:22 is the perfect tense, “have come,” not the future tense. We know that we have come to the New Jerusalem because the New Jerusalem is the new covenant. Because we have taken the new covenant, we have entered into the New Jerusalem. The taking of the new covenant is the entering into the New Jerusalem.
The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God passing through the long process of His new covenant. Without the Triune God, the new covenant is just an empty shell. The Triune God in His new covenant is imparting and dispensing Himself into all of us all the time, making us His components, the components of His ultimate consummation. The ultimate consummation will not be the Triune God Himself alone, but it will be the mingling of the Triune God with His redeemed, tripartite man—this is the New Jerusalem. We all have to be wrought with God and by God that we might be fully transformed, saturated, and conformed to Himself. Then we will be participating in that ultimate consummation. Thank Him that today we are in this mingling of God with man, which is today’s church life. We should remain here and should not be distracted by anything.