The original and recovered church is the genuine church. The church in Corinth was a genuine church. Paul told them, “You are God’s cultivated land, God’s building” (1 Cor. 3:9). He was telling them that they were the genuine believers, the real ones who had received the Lord Jesus, who had been regenerated, and who were going to be sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified. On the one hand, they were God’s farm to grow Christ. On the other hand, they had to be transformed from plant life to minerals. They had to grow so that they could be transformed to become gold, silver, and precious stones, the material for God’s building. Paul laid the unique foundation of Christ, but the believers’ progress would depend upon how they grew and how they built upon this foundation. If they built with wood, grass, and stubble, these materials would be burned (vv. 10-13).
At His coming back, the Lord will judge and deal with not only the Catholic Church and the Protestant church but also the original and recovered church. He will summon all His genuine believers in any kind of church to His judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:10; Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 4:5) to be judged and dealt with by Him. In that judgment He will discern whether they have built with gold, silver, and precious stones or with wood, grass, and stubble. The work of wood, grass, and stubble will be consumed, and those who have worked with these worthless materials “will be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). On the other hand, those who have built with gold, silver, and precious stones will be the materials for the constitution of the New Jerusalem in the millennium and be consummated in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth.
At the Lord’s coming back, the overcomers who are transformed into gold, silver, and precious stones will be awarded to be in the New Jerusalem in the thousand years of the kingdom. Revelation shows us that the New Jerusalem will be the Paradise of God in the thousand years for the overcomers (2:7). But those who produce wood, grass, and stubble will have their work burned at the Lord’s coming back, and they will be saved as through fire. They will be disciplined by the Lord for one thousand years. Eventually, through the Lord’s patience, they will be perfected and transformed also into precious material for God’s building. At the end of the thousand years, they will also join and participate in the New Jerusalem in its consummation. This is the genuine condition and end of the original and recovered church.
Today we have a choice as to which way we will take. Will we take the Catholic way, the Protestant way, or the original and recovered way? If we take the original and recovered way, how will we take it? Will we take it in a condition of idleness? Revelation shows us that among all the genuine believers, only those who are like Paul in struggling to pursue Christ will gain and enjoy Christ. They will be the overcomers. We may be in the original and recovered church, but what kind of condition are we in? Are we endeavoring to be the overcomers to close this age? In other words, are we endeavoring to live a God-man life with ourselves and our flesh always being crucified on the cross that we may live by His divine life to express Christ? If so, we will be able to proclaim, “For to me to live is Christ. I live to magnify Christ whether through life or death by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
We should be such overcomers who are living and magnifying Christ day by day. We should be constituted as those who pursue Christ at any cost, always forgetting the past and going forward to gain Christ. To gain Christ actually means to live and magnify Christ. We can live and magnify Christ by living a crucified life toward ourselves, our flesh, our natural life, and everything other than Christ. We are crucified in every way to live Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Then we not only live Him but also magnify Him. How much we gain Him depends upon how much we magnify Him. This is the living of the God-men, who are the overcomers.
We should not say in a light way that we are God-men. This is not a light matter. We may praise the Lord for the highest peak of the divine revelation that God has become a man that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. But we should say, “Lord, I need Your mercy. I need Your abounding grace. Otherwise, how could I become God in life and in nature? Every day I need to live a crucified life to gain Christ, to magnify Christ.”
Eventually, we will be in the ultimate consummation of God’s purpose, the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-11). The New Jerusalem is constituted with three kinds of materials: gold, pearl, and precious stones (vv. 18-21). Gold signifies God in His divine nature, pearl signifies the redeeming and regenerating Christ, and precious stones signify the transforming Spirit. This is the consummated Divine Trinity constituting Himself into our being to make us gold, pearl, and precious stones that He may have an enlargement for His eternal expression, the New Jerusalem.