Abraham entered into the good land of Canaan. When his descendants fell away from that good land, God brought them out of their fallen place and restored them to the good land. What was the ultimate consummation of the entering into the good land by the children of Israel? It was the temple. On the one hand, the temple was God’s expression, and, on the other hand, it was God’s kingdom, government, and administration. There, with the temple, we can see God’s expression and God’s kingdom. There, with the temple, God and all His people were able to rest and be satisfied. The good land is a combination of the proper earth and the proper people with God’s dwelling place built up to express God and to exercise His authority in the universe. This is the good land.
In the Old Testament we see a miniature of the good land: an elevated land surrounded by death water and filled with God’s dwelling place. There in that land were God’s expression and administration. This is the miniature in the Old Testament. The fulfillment of this figure is found in the New Testament. Ultimately, in the New Testament, God will have a new earth. He will not just have a tract of land but a whole new earth, an earth resurrected and elevated above all death. In this new earth there will be no more sea, no more death, and no more night (Rev. 21:1, 4, 25). All sea, death, and night will be gone forever, and there will be a clean, clear, dry land with a pure river flowing through it. The New Jerusalem will be there. That will be God’s eternal habitation, expression, and administration. There God will be fully expressed and His authority will be completely exercised. That will be the fulfillment of the good land. Where is our good land? It is there on the new earth.
Praise the Lord that the church life today is a foretaste of the new land with the New Jerusalem. The church life today is on the new land. Anaheim may be old, but we are on new, elevated land. This is a foretaste of the coming New Jerusalem. Are we not in the New Jerusalem today? We are. We are not in the full taste New Jerusalem, but we are in the foretaste New Jerusalem, the church life. This is our good land today. What the Jewish people had was only a type, a prefigure, of the good land. In the New Jerusalem there will be the fulfillment and the full taste of the good land. What we have in the church life today is real, but it is not yet full. We are in the reality, not in the type, but this reality is just the foretaste. In nature, the foretaste is exactly the same as the full taste. So, in foretaste, we are in the New Jerusalem and we are on the new earth.
Many of us were in the region of old religion. Some were in Catholicism and others were in Judaism. When you were in that old region, in your Chaldea, did you have the sensation that you were in the New Jerusalem? Did you have the feeling that you were tasting the New Jerusalem? The taste in the New Jerusalem is mainly the living water and the tree of life. In the New Jerusalem our taste will mainly be that of the living water for us to drink and that of the tree of life for us to feed upon. What drinking we have enjoyed since coming into the church life! The water we drink in the church life is much better than any earthly beverage. No drink on earth can compare with what we are drinking in the church life. Moreover, day by day we are enjoying the Lord Jesus as our tree of life. Who can be as pleasant and joyful as we are? We are truly in the foretaste of the New Jerusalem. Did you enjoy this taste when you were in Judaism? Did you have the taste of the New Jerusalem when you were in Catholicism burning candles and making confession to the priests? Did you have it when you were sitting in the pews in the so-called Protestant denominations? Did you have it when you were in the free groups where you found it so easy to be dissenting? Where can you have the taste of the New Jerusalem? Only in the proper church life. To us, the church life is the good land. In this good land we have God’s dwelling place, rest, expression, authority, kingdom, and dominion. The church life is where we all can rest. Day by day I am resting, not working. While I am working, I am enjoying the rest. This is why it is difficult for me to be worn out, to be tired out, because I am resting, not working. Every cell in my body and every drop of my blood is resting. Oh, what an enjoyment this is!
The church life is our real rest and enjoyment. We are surely in the good land, in the land flowing with milk and honey. The milk and honey are the produce of two kinds of lives—the animal life and the plant life. This signifies the rich life of Christ. Christ’s life is the animal life for redemption and the plant life for regeneration. We are now enjoying the milk and honey life flowing in the good land.