Currently, heaven and earth are widely separated by the air in between them. The air is the dwelling place of Satan (Eph. 2:2). As those who are on the earth, we love God and work with God who is in heaven. The more we work together, the closer we become. We will work together until one day Satan, who is between God and us, will be squeezed out. Where will Satan be then? He will be squeezed out into the lake of fire. On that day, we on earth who belong to God will not go up to heaven. Rather, the eternal dwelling place that God is preparing for us will come down out of heaven. When the new heaven, the new earth, and the New Jerusalem are manifested, it will not only be something glorious but also mysterious. God and man will be completely mingled together. Heaven and earth will also be fully joined together. God and man will be inseparable, and there will be no more distance between heaven and earth. In that day heaven, earth, God, and man will be completely mingled together into one.
Just as it is hard for us to comprehend pure gold that is transparent, it is also hard for us to comprehend this concept. Nevertheless, the Bible tells us that this is so. In the new heaven and new earth when the New Jerusalem is manifested, God and man will be completely mingled together, and heaven and the earth will also be fully joined together as one. This is the New Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God in man. Furthermore, this will be the eternal dwelling place of God and man. At that time, the whole composition of the New Jerusalem will simply be God Himself.
The content of God is pure gold, and the expression of God is precious stone. The street of the New Jerusalem is pure gold, and the foundations of the wall as its expression are adorned with every precious stone. The glory of the city is the same in appearance as the One sitting on the throne. They are both like jasper stone. At the beginning in Genesis, God started His work. What kind of work was God doing? God began His work in Genesis 2. He wanted to transform Adam who was made of clay into pure gold and precious stone. Thus, the garden of Eden was the beginning of God’s work. Ultimately, God will make the garden of Eden into the New Jerusalem. In the garden of Eden God and man had not yet become one, nor had heaven and earth been joined as one. Man did not have the gold within or the precious stone without. From that time on, God began to work in man so that eventually the man of clay would have pure gold inwardly and the precious stone outwardly. On the day that the work of transformation is completely finished, the garden of Eden will have become the New Jerusalem. This is the line of thought from Genesis to Revelation. God’s work throughout the generations is to transform the garden of Eden into the New Jerusalem.
In the beginning man was neither pure gold nor precious stone but clay. For this reason, God has been working continuously to reach His goal. At the end of Revelation a city composed of pure gold and precious stones appears. In that city God and man are mingled into one and heaven and earth are joined together. This is the final destination of the saved ones throughout the ages. Hence, we must change our concept. Our concept should not be that one day we will go to a city. Rather, our concept should be to allow God to transform, build, and work Himself into us today so that we may become that city. We are not going to the New Jerusalem but are being built into the New Jerusalem.
The concept of going to heaven is a wrong concept and cannot be found in the Bible. Strictly speaking, our entering into the New Jerusalem is not simply an entering in. It is God’s working in us to the point that we have become mature and have been thoroughly dealt with to become pure gold and precious stone. At that time, we will spontaneously be in the New Jerusalem. Do not think that God will one day put us in the New Jerusalem even if we have not been thoroughly worked on by God and are still men of clay with very little of God’s life, the pure gold, inside of us. This is a wrong concept. The correct concept in the Bible is that God is working in us with His life. This requires our cooperation to allow His life to transform us inwardly so that we may be changed from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).