There are more than forty major points as aspects of the church life which we can learn from the vision of the New Jerusalem recorded at the end of Revelation.
The first point is that this city is the ultimate consummation of God’s building work from the beginning of creation throughout all generations. The first thing which the Apostle John saw in his vision was a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1). Following that, he saw the New Jerusalem descend out of heaven. Heaven and earth represent God’s work of creation, but the New Jerusalem represents God’s work of building. This means that following His initial work of creation, God has continued to work through many generations to achieve His ultimate building. Genesis 1 and 2 record God’s creation work, but from Genesis 3 to the end of the Scriptures God is continually working for His building. Let us recall the vital meaning of God’s building: it is that God is building Himself into man and building man into Himself. It is the very mingling of God and man. Throughout all generations God has been working along this line for this purpose. The Scriptures mainly reveal that God’s whole work since creation has been to mingle Himself and man together as one.
When the Word of God, God Himself, became incarnated as a man, this was an expression of the living tabernacle, a real mingling of God with man. Before this time, as we have seen, God was God and man was man. But at the time of incarnation and since that time, something has happened on this earth: God has mingled Himself with man. Most Christians are familiar with Isaiah 9:6, yet few have been impressed that a child was born on this earth whose name was called the Mighty God. If this were not recorded in Scripture, no one would believe that a child could be called the Mighty God. This child was both the tabernacle and the temple, the very building of God (John 1:14; 2:19). Divinity had been mingled with humanity-this is the real definition of God’s building.
From the time of God’s incarnation as man, especially during a period of thirty-three and a half years, there was a man on this earth with God in Him. Jesus was a real man, a typical man, yet the Mighty God was wrought into Him. God had come to be a man, and God was brought into man. However, that is not all: the Lord Jesus also brought man into God. He accomplished this by His death and resurrection. Today in the heavens there is a man in God. By Christ’s incarnation, God was brought into man; and by His death, resurrection and ascension, man has been brought into God.
While Jesus was on this earth, He was a man with God in Him; today, while Jesus is in heaven, He is the very God with man in Him. This is the mingling of God with man and man with God, and this is the meaning of God’s building. This mingling has already been accomplished. Now all we need is a mass reproduction of this mingling. We all need, experientially, to have Christ incarnated into us. Then He must bring us through death and resurrection into God. The more we pass through the cross and into the resurrection, the more we will be in God. God is in us today, but we are not very much in God. This is why God is doing His work of building on this earth today.
Today, when we preach the gospel, we do the work of incarnation; we bring God into man. Then we immediately begin the work of edification-that is, we bring people into God by the cross and the resurrection of Christ. In this way we all become the mass production of Christ. When this reproduction work is fully completed and composed together, the result is the enlarged tabernacle, the New Jerusalem.
The Bible is a composition of sixty-six books which tell us how God has been working for over six thousand years to bring His ultimate building into existence. Bible students speak of many dispensations, telling how God works in one age in a certain way and in another age in another way. Yet the ultimate result, the issue of all God’s work throughout all generations, will be the New Jerusalem. However we may interpret the dispensations, we must realize that all of God’s various ways of working will issue in a certain kind of result-the New Jerusalem. It is indeed logical that a picture of such a building is at the end of the sixty-six books of Scripture.
We have seen from Scripture how in the early stages of history there was a little tent with a little altar. Through many generations that tent has increased until ultimately there is a large tabernacle. How significant that the New Jerusalem is still called the tabernacle of God (Rev. 21:3). This tabernacle is the total mingling of God with man.
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