In His economy God would not accomplish anything merely by Himself. In His economy He has determined to do everything in and with humanity. God’s old creation was carried out in six days, but to accomplish His economy to gain the New Jerusalem takes God at least seven thousand years. It takes God so long because He needs man. He needs human cooperation.

We were caught by the Lord for the carrying out of His economy. Many years ago I was endeavoring to gain the best education. I knew that, humanly speaking, education was my future. One afternoon in my home town I heard a young lady preach the gospel in a large meeting place to an audience of over one thousand people. I was nineteen years old and she was twenty-five years old. I was very curious to hear what she would speak. In that meeting, as a young ambitious man, I was caught, “hooked,” by the Lord Jesus. As I was walking back home from the meeting, I consecrated my entire life and future to the Lord. I told Him that I wanted to go throughout the villages to preach Christ. I was “hooked” by Him.

While this enterprising Triune God is on the way to accomplish His economy, He passes through the earth, and here and there, there and here, He gained us for His heart’s desire. He redeemed us, washed us, justified us, and reconciled us to Himself. He regenerated us by entering into us in a hidden way. When we heard the gospel, repented of our sins, and believed into Christ, we were not conscious that God came inside of us. But this is what happened when we were regenerated. From that time onward, He has been sanctifying us, renewing us, transforming us, and conforming us to the image of the firstborn Son of God. As we are in this process, we are waiting for and expecting the time when He will come to glorify us. When He glorifies us, He will bring our entire being into His glory to make us absolutely the same as He is in every way. Of course, we do not and will not have His Godhead for people to worship us. We are not to be worshipped by anyone, but we do have God’s life (1 John 5:12) and God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4). We are holy as He is, spiritual as He is, and divine as He is. We regenerated Christians are both human and divine. As the human and divine ones, we all become a part of the New Jerusalem. This is the way God takes to consummate His economy, to complete His wonderful masterpiece, the New Jerusalem.

The divine design and composition of the New Jerusalem is marvelous. Gold signifies God in His divine nature, and the entire mount of the New Jerusalem is gold (Rev. 21:18). God in His nature is the base for the building up of the New Jerusalem. The city is also built with precious stones. The foundation of the city is twelve layers of precious stones (vv. 19-20). On these twelve layers are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (v. 14). The twelve layers of the foundation have the appearance of a rainbow, signifying that the city is built upon and secured by God’s faithfulness in keeping His covenant (Gen. 9:8-17) and that the foundation of the city is trustworthy and reliable.

The city also has twelve pearl gates (Rev. 21:21). Pearls are produced by oysters in the waters of death. When an oyster is wounded by a grain of sand, it secretes its life-juice around the grain of sand, making it into a precious pearl. This depicts Christ as the living One coming into the death waters, being wounded by us, and secreting His life over us to make us into precious pearls for the building of God’s eternal expression.

The New Jerusalem is not only a composition but also a constitution of God and man. God has been constituted into man, and man has been constituted into Him. God dwells in man and man dwells in Him. God and man coinhere, that is, they mutually indwell each other. Eventually, the New Jerusalem is the mingling of God and man. In the whole universe, there will be a big cube, the New Jerusalem, which is the mingling of divinity with humanity.
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