The fifth aspect of the New Jerusalem’s application to the believers is the triune enjoyment. This is the most crucial aspect of the application of the New Jerusalem. According to the record in Revelation 21 and 22 the main stress of the New Jerusalem’s application to us is the aspect of the triune enjoyment. The enjoyment of the New Jerusalem is of the Triune God, the very Godhead of the Trinity. The items of our triune enjoyment are the divine light (Rev. 21:23a; 22:5), the divine river (Rev. 22:1), and the divine tree (Rev. 22:2a, 14; Gen. 2:9).
Any type of beautiful scenery needs light, a river, and trees. The earth lives by these three items. If there were no light, no water, and no trees, there would be no life. Also, we ourselves live by light, by water, and by food. These three items are necessities to the earth and to us human beings. In the same way, the New Jerusalem will live by God as light, by God as water, and by God as food.
Light refers to God the Father. First John 1:5 tells us that God is light, and according to the context of this verse, God mainly refers to God the Father. While love is the nature of God’s intrinsic essence, light is the nature of God’s outward expression. In the New Jerusalem light refers to God Himself to illuminate the entire city for His expression. Revelation 21:23 tells us that the city has no need of the sun or of the moon. This indicates that in the new heaven and the new earth the sun and moon will still be there. The fact that the tree of life in the New Jerusalem yields its fruit each month also indicates that in the new heaven and new earth the moon will still be there to divide the twelve months. The sun will also be there to separate day and night into periods of twelve hours each. Isaiah 30:26 tells us that in the coming days, “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold.” In the New Jerusalem, however, there will be no need of the sun or of the moon. The light in the city will be God Himself as the light of life (John 1:4; 8:12). Since such a divine light will illumine the holy city, it has no need of any other light, whether created by God or made by man (Rev. 22:5). The God-created and man-made lights will not be needed in the New Jerusalem because we have God, who is much brighter than the sun and the moon and even more bright than the man-made lamps.
God as the divine light, the light of life, is contained in the Lamb as the lamp (Rev. 21:23b). An electrical light always needs a bulb or a lamp to contain it; otherwise, there is the possibility of a person being electrocuted. In the New Jerusalem, the redeeming Lamb is the lamp, and God is within Him as the light. This indicates that without the redeeming Christ to contain the divine light, the divine light would “kill” us. With the redeeming Christ as the lamp, however, the divine light does not kill us; it illumines us. The killing becomes a kind of enlightening through the redemption of Christ. First Timothy 6:16 tells us that God dwells in unapproachable light. In Christ, though, God becomes approachable. Outside of Christ, God’s shining is a kind of killing, but inside of Christ God’s shining is a kind of illumination. Since the day we were saved, we began to enjoy God as the divine light in the redeeming Christ illumining us all the time. Even today we should enjoy God in this way.
Today we Christians actually have God Himself within Christ as our light. We do not need philosophy, the human-made light, and we do not need ethical teachings such as that of Confucius. We do not need any kind of religious teaching because we have God Himself within us. Do you need someone to tell you to love your parents? Do you not have a divine light in you all day long shining within you to let you know that you have to honor your parents? We have to realize, though, that Paul still tells us to honor our father and mother (Eph. 6:2). If all Christians have God as the light within them, why does the New Testament still teach many things? Beginning in Ephesians 5:22 through 6:9 Paul unveils the kind of living needed in ethical relationships. He talks about the relationship between wife and husband, between children and parents, and between slaves and masters. These charges are not given in the first chapter of Ephesians, but in the last two chapters. Before giving us this kind of teaching, Paul says in Ephesians 5:14, “Wherefore He says, Awake sleeper, and arise from among the dead, and Christ shall shine on you.” The New Testament does not reveal the teaching to us first, but the divine light. Because we are still in the old creation, we still need this teaching. When we get to the New Jerusalem, however, there will be nothing old and there will be no teaching there. If we would care for the new creation and the inner anointing all the time, there would be no need of teaching. Because we are in the old creation, however, many times we need some teaching to remind us to awake from our sleep.
According to the principle of the new creation, we have God in us as light. In Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5). When you are fellowshipping with God, you do not need any other light. As long as you have Him He is the very light to you and you do not need any teaching or doctrine. As long as you have the very God who is light to you in your fellowship with Him, there is no need of anything else.
In the New Jerusalem gold symbolizes God’s divine nature, and light refers to His divine shining. This shining is in the redeeming Lamb as the lamp to hold the divine light for our benefit that we may enjoy God as the shining One in the redeeming Christ. Revelation 21:11 indicates that God as the light shines through the New Jerusalem. This verse tells us that “her light was like a most precious stone, as a jasper stone, clear as crystal.” The word for “light” in this verse is “luminary” or “light-bearer” in the Greek. The entire wall of the New Jerusalem is built with jasper (Rev. 21:18), and the light of the New Jerusalem is like jasper stone, bearing the appearance of God (Rev. 4:3) to express God by her shining. God in the redeeming Lamb is the light, and the entire city is a luminary, a great light-bearer. This means that God as the divine light shines within and through the redeeming Christ, and this shining enlightens the entire city. Then the entire city becomes a light-bearer. This bearing of God’s light becomes an expression, and this expression is God’s goal. This is why Revelation 21:11 also tells us that the holy city has the glory of God. Glory is God expressed. In the New Jerusalem God is light, and His shining is His glory. The shining is the coming out of the light, so when God shines in the city God is expressed in glory, first in Christ and through Christ, and then in the city and through the saints. God is the light, Christ is the containing lamp, and the city’s wall bears the divine light to express God.
We need to apply this picture to our daily life. Today we have God in the redeeming Christ shining within us, and we are being transformed to be transparent. In our old creation we are opaque, but in our new creation we are transparent. Second Corinthians 3:18 says we are being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. Eventually we will have the appearance of jasper and will fully express the “jasper God” (Rev. 4:3).
A certain saint may be a very good person, but he may still be opaque and not transparent because he remains in the old creation so much. Because of this, not much transformation has transpired in his being. When you are with another saint, though, you may sense that with him everything is transparent since he has experienced much transformation in life. Many times when you come to a certain brother, you cannot get any light. Your coming to another brother, however, may bring you into the light. Even before he begins to talk to you, you are in the light. When you are home, you are in darkness. But when you come to this dear saint, your coming means light to you. When you come to him everything is clear, darkness is gone, and there is light. Opaqueness is over and everything is transparent. We all need to be transformed to such an extent that we are full of light and transparent.
In the Bible darkness is a type of punishment. God punished the Egyptians with a thick darkness for three days (Exo. 10:22), and in the future God will punish the Antichrist and his kingdom with darkness (Rev. 16:10). Part of the enjoyment in the New Jerusalem is that there will be no night. The city will be full of light and this light is God the Father. He will not only be the nature of the New Jerusalem but He will also be the shining light as an enjoyment to the entire city. The first enjoyment in the New Jerusalem is God as our light. Our experience today is the same. When we are left in darkness, this is a real punishment. When we open our entire being to Him, however, we are in the light, and the light is God Himself enjoyed by us in our daily life. This is the first aspect of the triune enjoyment.