The second aspect of the triune constitution is the pearls which are produced through the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life (Rev. 21:21a). The divine nature was given to us by God, but pearls are produced through the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life from the time that we entered into Christ. When we stay in the death of Christ, Christ’s resurrection life secretes itself over us, making all of us pearls. In Galatians 2:20 Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” When we say this, we stay in the death of Christ. When you say that you have been crucified with Christ, this means that you admit that you have been crucified on the cross. When you recognize this divine fact, you stay in His death. When you declare, “I have been crucified with Christ,” this means that you are staying in His death, that you would not go away from His death, and that His death is your dwelling place. When you stay, remain, and abide in Christ’s death, then it is no longer you that live but Christ that lives in you. His living and moving in you is the secretion of His resurrection life over you to make you a pearl. This secreting is a constituting. When you get up in the morning, you should stay in the death of Christ for ten or fifteen minutes; while you are staying in His death, the Lord is moving in you. This moving is His secreting of His resurrection life around you. After fifteen minutes of abiding in His death in morning watch, you will look like a pearl to your spouse. If you do not have a morning watch to stay in the death of Christ, Christ has no chance to secrete His life over you, and your appearance may be “ugly” instead of “pearly.”
If we stay in the death of Christ every day for five to ten years, we will eventually become a “big round pearl.” Sometimes because our stay in the death of Christ was a little short, His secretion of His resurrection life over us was not complete. Therefore, when others looked at us, they saw that we were pearls, but they also could still see “the rock” of our fallen nature. Also, because the secretion of the resurrection life is not that thick in us, there are still parts of our being which the resurrection life has not touched. As pieces of rock, we need to abide in the death of Christ and enjoy the rich, thick secretion of His resurrection life to make us pearls. The rock is not made into a pearl by being taught, but by being constituted with the resurrection life of Christ through His death.
I thank the Lord for encouraging me with all the saints and with all the churches. When I go back to visit a church after having been there before, I can see that the saints have enjoyed more secretion and that Christ has been constituted more and more into their very being. We have not only been taught by the ministry, but we have been ministered to with the indwelling Christ secreting His resurrection life over us all the time to make us pearly. When a mother notices that her son is growing, this encourages her. This growth comes from the mother’s feeding him with nourishing food, and this food constitutes him, becoming his intrinsic element to make him grow. Her son then becomes not only knowledgeable but also constituted.
Today in the church life we need to be taught, but more importantly, we need to be constituted. Constitution means more than knowledge. This constitution is going on all the time in the Lord’s recovery because we have heard and are hearing so many messages which minister Christ’s resurrection life to us. We need to admit that we have been crucified with Christ. When you take this fact and stay in this fact, admitting that you are dead in Him, you will be staying in His death. As long as you stay here, the resurrected Christ will secrete His resurrection life around you to make you a pretty pearl. Many of us can testify that we have seen saints in the Lord’s recovery who are not the same as they were before they came into the church life. This is because they have become constituted and not merely taught. I do not like to teach, but I love to minister some element of the Triune God into your being.
The third item of the triune constitution is the precious stones through the transformation of the Spirit (Rev. 21:18a, 19-20), from the time that we began to look to the Lord. In the New Jerusalem we firstly see the base, the golden mountain, then there are the pearly gates, and finally, there is the building, mainly with jasper and other precious stones. The gold is given, the pearl is produced by Christ’s resurrection life through His death, and the precious stones are produced by the transforming work of the Spirit.
In order to see the transforming work of the Spirit to make us precious stones we need to look at our experience. I have been practicing to remain in the death of Christ for approximately fifty years, and I am still practicing this every day. If I do not practice this, I lose the ground for Christ to secrete His resurrection life over me. When I remain in His death, spontaneously I look unto Him with an unveiled face. If you are not remaining in His death, even if you would look unto Him, your face would be fully veiled. The more you stay in His death, however, the more the veils are taken away. Then you see Him with an unveiled face. When we stay in the death of Christ, not only does Christ secrete His resurrection life around us, but also we behold Him, we look at His face, we appreciate Him, and we love Him. This affords the Spirit within us a great opportunity to move and to bring in more riches of the divine Trinity into our being to transform us (2 Cor. 3:18). Transformation is a metabolic work. The divine element is added to us and this element replaces our old nature metabolically.
The secretion of the resurrection life of Christ is good for our entering into the Triune God, but transformation is good for building. The wall is not built with pearls but with precious stone. You not only have the experience of Christ secreting His resurrection life over you, but also the experience of the Spirit supplying you with the rich element of the divine Trinity which transforms you into His image. Through this transforming work, you become not only pearls but also precious stones good for God’s building. This is constitution by the Father’s nature as the gold, by the Son’s secretion to produce pearls, and by the Spirit’s transformation to produce stones. We are not separate pieces of precious stone, but we are pieces fitted in together to become God’s building. The building up of the church is not a kind of arrangement or organization but a constitution. We are being constituted with the Father’s divine nature, with Christ’s resurrection life, and with the bountiful supply of the riches of the divine Trinity. This constitution not only changes our being, but builds all of us together in the intrinsic elements of the divine Trinity.
As God’s building, today we are the church and tomorrow we will be the New Jerusalem. The triune constitution is for the building up of the New Jerusalem to be God’s dwelling place (Rev. 21:3). God dwells in this constitution. The church today and then the New Jerusalem in the future, being the house of God, has to be a spiritual constitution with the element of the divine Trinity. This constitution is God’s dwelling place. Secondly, this constitution is God’s corporate expression (Rev. 21:11). God dwells in such a constitution and this constitution expresses God in a corporate way as a corporate Body. The function of the church today is to express God corporately, and in eternity in the New Jerusalem we will be such a corporate expression forever. This corporate expression is also a constitution with the intrinsic element of the Triune God.
Finally, the triune constitution is God’s expansion—the temple to be our dwelling place (Rev. 21:22). If God had never been expanded, how could He be the temple? John was looking for the temple in the New Jerusalem, but he saw no temple because the temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. This means that the Triune God has been expanded to be a temple. To us God is the temple for us to dwell in, to serve Him, and to stay with Him. To God, however, we are His tabernacle for Him to dwell in. The New Jerusalem is the tabernacle and in another sense it is a temple. This is a strong proof that the New Jerusalem is not a physical city but a personal entity. The New Jerusalem is the believers, God’s tabernacle, and God, the believers’ temple. He dwells in us, the tabernacle, and we dwell in Him, the temple. We serve God in God. This is God’s expansion. The New Jerusalem as a spiritual, divine constitution is God’s dwelling place, God’s corporate expression, and God’s expansion to be our temple for us to live in and to serve Him. Praise the Lord for the triune constitution.