We all must look to the Lord with an unveiled face. When we see Him thoroughly, we can reflect Him as a mirror. By this we will be transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another. This is the transformation accomplished by the Lord Spirit. Here we have another compound title of the Lord. It is not the Father God that transforms us, but the Lord Spirit. The Lord Spirit is not teaching or correcting us, but transforming and metabolizing us. He is putting the riches of His element into us to discharge all our old, natural element and replace us with Himself. He is not making us an adjusted man, but a new man! Then we will be fully mingled with God, and this total mingling is God’s habitation, God’s dwelling place. This is the basic concept of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the total mingling of God with man for His habitation.
This should help us to realize what the proper church life is. It is not the sisters coming to the meeting with their heads covered, and the brothers meeting as the head. This does not mean that I am disregarding the Bible. What I mean is that the real church life does not consist of these outward things. The real church life is to be filled up and saturated with the Lord Spirit. Why do we not say certain things? Not simply because it may be wrong, but because the Lord Spirit within us will not say them. If He will not say them, then we will not say them. Even if it is right, we still will not say them. Whether we say them or not is not based upon right or wrong, but upon the Lord Spirit. This is the basic concept of the church life. Many people today are talking about the church life, but in a way that is based upon right or wrong. In the New Jerusalem there will be no teachings of right or wrong, but the total mingling of divinity with humanity.
How can we obtain this mingling? To enter into the New Jerusalem, we must pass through one of the twelve gates. Every gate was made of one pearl (Rev. 21:21). The producing of a pearl is very meaningful. It starts in a living oyster in the death waters. Something, such as a grain of sand, enters into the oyster and makes a wound. Then, because the grain of sand abides at the wound, the oyster secretes a kind of life juice around the grain of sand. Eventually a pearl is produced by the secretions of the oyster’s life juice. This is the work of Christ, the Son of God, as the second Person of the Triune God. He came to be such a living One in the death waters of this earth. We are the grains of sand that wounded Him at the cross. But if we stay at this wound, He will secrete His life over us. In this way we all become pearls. This is a picture of regeneration. Regeneration is the entrance into the New Jerusalem. How did we get into the church? It was not by joining or by being sprinkled, but by realizing that in all this world full of death there is Someone living. This Someone died on the cross by being crucified. When we believe in Him, we abide at this wound of the cross, and the life of Jesus begins to cover us. From that time onward there is a secretion of life over us all the time. This is the gate into the church life. This includes redemption, crucifixion, resurrection, and regeneration.
Once we are in the gate, we are on the street of gold. In typology, gold signifies the divine nature of God. Once we enter into the gate of regeneration, we are immediately on the street of the divine nature. God’s divine nature becomes our way of doing things. Suppose a brother wants to have his hair cut. Should he have it cut long or short? There is no verse in the Bible telling us how to cut our hair. But our way is the divine nature. God’s divine essence is our way. We have a golden way. We need not ask anyone, but turn to the divine nature within us. The divine nature will become the way we cut our hair. We will know what kind of haircut to have. We should not take our way or anyone else’s way. We should take the golden way! There is something golden within us! We have been regenerated and have passed through the gates of pearl. Now we are on the golden street, the divine way. The divine nature within us has become our street. When we call on the Lord from deep within to contact this divine nature, we know the way to take. There is no need to tell you where the golden street is. As long as we have passed through the pearly gates, we are on it. There is only one way, for in the New Jerusalem there is only one street. The American, Chinese, and German believers are all on the same golden way. This golden street is God’s divine nature.
Many Christians today say that we must do everything according to the Bible. I was influenced to believe that. But later, as I studied more of the Bible, I realized that if everything we did was according to the Scriptures, our Bible would need thousands of chapters. It would take us years to read through this Bible. But we do not need such a thick Bible. We have the divine nature! After being regenerated, we are on the golden way. We have the divine nature within us as our living way.