In the previous eight lessons we covered the first aspect of the believers’ future in the completing stage of God’s full salvation, the stage of glorification. In this lesson and the lesson following we will consider the second aspect of the believers’ future in the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The entire revelation of the Bible is that God wants to dispense Himself into man and to be mingled with man to produce a marvelous entity with Himself as the content and with man as His expression. This marvelous entity is the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the processed Triune God into His chosen, redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people. In eternity the believers will participate in this ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity. This consummation is altogether related to the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is not a physical city; rather, it is a divine and spiritual sign, signifying the ultimate consummation of the Divine Trinity dispensing Himself into His chosen people.
In the ultimate consummation of the dispensing of the Divine Trinity, the New Jerusalem, the believers are destined to enjoy the eternal life to the fullest extent. In the church life we have the enjoyment of the eternal life. In the coming age, the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens in the millennium, the overcoming believers will enjoy the eternal life in a fuller way. Eventually, in the New Jerusalem in eternity we will enjoy the eternal life to the fullest. From this we see that the enjoyment of the eternal life is of three stages: the full enjoyment in the church age, the fuller enjoyment in the kingdom age, and the fullest enjoyment in eternity.
In John 4:14 the Lord Jesus said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life.” This indicates that in eternity the believers will enjoy the eternal life to the fullest extent.
After the millennium the old heaven and the old earth will pass away through fire and will be renewed into the new heaven and new earth (2 Pet. 3:10-13), into which the New Jerusalem will come for God’s eternal expression. The believers’ enjoyment of the eternal life to the fullest extent will be in the new heaven and new earth. The new heaven and new earth (Isa. 65:17; 66:22) with the New Jerusalem as the center will be the new universe, which God will renew out of the old heaven and old earth. Although the heaven and earth created by God have become old because of Satan’s corruption, God’s purpose in creating heaven and earth cannot be stopped. On the one hand, God will exercise His almighty power to judge the Satan-corrupted old heaven and old earth; on the other hand, He will renew the judged old heaven and old earth into the new heaven and new earth.
Eventually, the old creation with the old heaven and the old earth will pass away. Everything of the old creation will be over. This is the issue, the result, of Christ’s death. Christ’s death as the grain of wheat terminated the old creation and released the divine life to germinate the new creation (John 12:24). The new creation is eventually realized in its ultimate consummation in Revelation 21 and 22, where the old heaven and the old earth have passed away and the new heaven and the new earth have come in. This is a new beginning with a new universe, and the New Jerusalem is in the center of this new universe. At that time the old heaven and old earth will be renewed into a new universe suitable for God to manifest the accomplishment of His eternal purpose and in which He can express Himself eternally and fully. In this new and eternal environment the believers will enjoy the eternal life to the fullest extent.