I hope that we all have been impressed with the picture that we have seen concerning the New Jerusalem. The holy city is a golden mountain and around this mountain is a wall built with jasper. The city itself lies “foursquare” (Rev. 21:16) with its length, breadth, and height equal. At the bottom of the wall are twelve layers of precious stone as the wall’s foundation. On each of the four sides of the wall are three pearl gates. On the top of the city is a throne and this throne is the throne of God and of the Lamb. The Lamb is the lamp of the city and God is within the Lamb as the light. Out of the throne proceeds the river of water of life and this river is in the middle of a golden street which goes down the mountain in a spiral fashion. On the two sides of the river grows the tree of life, which is a vine spreading and proceeding along the flow of the water of life, producing new fruit each month, for God’s people to receive and enjoy.
Such a picture has helped us to see the entry into the city, the constitution of the city with the divine element of the Triune God, and the existence of the city. Now we need to see the living of the New Jerusalem. The living of the city is also triune. In the New Jerusalem we see that the One sitting on the throne is the source of life. This refers to God the Father who is within the Lamb as the light and who is the source of life (John 5:26). Proceeding out of the throne is the river of water of life. John 7:38-39 indicates that the river of water of life denotes the Spirit of life. In this river grows the tree of life which refers to the Son. Thus, we see the triune living of the New Jerusalem—the Father sitting on the throne as the source, the Spirit flowing out of the Father as a river, and the Son as the tree of life growing in the Spirit to express Himself for the life supply of the entire city. Actually, the city’s living is the Triune God’s living. In eternity in the new heaven and the new earth, the Triune God and His redeemed people are one entity. The Triune God and His chosen, redeemed, called, forgiven, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people will be mingled together as one for eternity.
Some believers may feel that God is one entity and that they are another entity. However, we must realize that God is not only with us and in us but also mingled with us (1 Cor. 6:17). Many Christians do not believe in the truth of mingling. They contend that it is a heresy to say that a person is mingled with God and that this is to make yourself God. They feel that to say that God is mingled with man is to lower down God by making Him a man. The Bible, however, tells us that the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The Word is God and flesh is man, which means that God made Himself man and was a man. God became a man and He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years as a man. In the last three and a half years of His earthly life, He traveled and ministered. He was a genuine, perfect man with a stomach to digest food, with tears to shed, and with blood to shed on the cross for our sins. To say that God became a man is not to lower down God, but to honor and respect Him. What a wonder it is that God became a man, that the Creator became a creature! What a glory that our God made Himself a man!
To say that we are mingled with God, though, does not mean that we become God in His deity and that we are qualified to be the object of people’s worship. This is a top blasphemy and is utterly heretical. To say that we have been born of God, though, and that we have the life of God and the nature of God is a divine, scriptural fact (John 1:13; 1 John 5:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:4). Since we all were born of a man, this makes us a man. Whatever is born of a dog is a dog. Because we were born of a man, we have a man’s life and a man’s nature. In like manner, the fact that we have been born of God means that we have God’s life and God’s nature and that we are the sons of God. If you say that you are God and that you are deified with His deity and Godhead to be an object of worship, this is heresy. However, if you say that you are like God in your being (1 John 3:2), having His life and nature, this is the truth according to the divine revelation.
The New Testament tells us that the Lord Jesus is God and the Son of God; also the Lord Jesus is man as well as the Son of Man. Some of the church fathers have used the term “deification” to describe the fact that we have been mingled with God and that we are partakers of God’s life and nature. When you use the word deified, though, if you mean that you have been made God in His Godhead to be an object of worship, this is heresy. On the other hand, if your denotation is that through regeneration you have received God’s life and nature and that now you are a son of God, this is altogether safe and scriptural. We all have to admit and boast of the wonderful fact that we have been born of God. We have received His life and His nature, and we are now partakers of the divine nature, enjoying the divine nature daily. We and our God are mingled together as one entity.
On the one hand, we are one with God, being mingled with Him. On the other hand, He is the object of our worship and we are His worshippers. First Corinthians 6:17 tells us that “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” The New Testament also tells us that God dwells in us and that we are dwelling in God (1 John 4:15). The fact that we are in God and God is in us is coinherence. Coinherence is even deeper than mingling. Even today we and God are not two entities but one. When eternity comes, we will not be an entity separate from God, but we will be one with God, thus one entity. This one divine entity is the New Jerusalem.
We can see God in the New Jerusalem in His Trinity, and we can see ourselves in the New Jerusalem in a triune way. Our entry into the New Jerusalem is triune, our constitution is triune, our existence is triune, and now we must see that our living is triune. We live triunely with the Father, with the Son, and with the Spirit. The church life today as a precursor of the New Jerusalem should be the same. The church life is a miniature of the New Jerusalem, but in its nature and in the intrinsic element of the triune living, the church today should be exactly the same as its full consummation. Individually we are a small New Jerusalem and corporately as the church life we are also a miniature New Jerusalem.