Msg. 13 Living Out and Working Out the New Jerusalem

THE UNIQUE WORK IN GOD’S ECONOMY

Message Thirteen
Living Out and Working Out the New Jerusalem

Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 1:30; Rev. 21:2, 9-11, 18-20; 22:1-2a

I. The vision of the New Jerusalem is the vision of the age; to live and serve God according to the vision of the age in the ministry of the age is to live out and work out the New Jerusalem—Acts 26:19; 22:15; Rev. 21:9-11:

A. “After my study of the Bible for the past sixty-nine years, what have I seen? I would say that I have seen the New Jerusalem. This is my vision, this is my revelation, and this is my ministry” (The Practical Points concerning Blending, pp. 25-26).

B. The New Jerusalem is the total composition of the entire revelation of the Bible and the ultimate goal of God’s eternal economy—Eph. 2:10; Rev. 21:2.

C. Every local church should be a miniature of the New Jerusalem, and every believer should be a “little New Jerusalem”; whatever is ascribed to the New Jerusalem should be both our corporate and personal experience—cf. 22:1-2a.

C. To live out the New Jerusalem is to become the New Jerusalem; to work out the New Jerusalem is to build the New Jerusalem—19:7; 1 Cor. 3:12a.

II. Today our work for the Lord with its issue should be governed and directed by the vision of the New Jerusalem; what is unveiled in the description of this unique city should be the model of what we are and how we work—3:12; Rev. 21:2, 9-23:

A. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of the organic building up of the Body of Christ in the local churches; the local churches are the procedure for God to accomplish the building up of the Body of Christ for the building of the New Jerusalem—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12-13, 27.

B. The New Jerusalem is the universal golden lampstand—Rev. 21:18b, 23:

1. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the lampstands in the Scriptures—Exo. 25:31-37; 1 Kings 7:49; Zech. 4:2; Rev. 1:20; 21:18b, 23.

2. The churches as golden lampstands will be consummated in the New Jerusalem, the aggregate of all the lampstands—1:20; 21:18b, 23.

3. The New Jerusalem, a mountain of gold, is the universal golden lampstand holding the Lamb as the lamp shining out God as the light—vv. 18b, 23; 22:1, 5.3.

C. The New Jerusalem is the eternal Bethel—Gen. 28:10-22; Rev. 21:3, 22:

1. Jacob’s dream was a dream of God’s goal, a dream of Bethel, a dream of the house of God, which is the church today and which will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal dwelling place of God and His redeemed elect—Gen. 28:10-22; 1 Tim. 3:15; Rev. 21:3, 22:

2. Christ, in His being the heavenly ladder at Bethel, speaks to us how God desires to have a house on the earth constituted with His redeemed and transformed elect, that He may bring heaven to earth and join earth to heaven, to make the two as one for eternity—John 1:51; Gen. 28:10-22.

3. The building of God, the house of God, is the mutual abode of God and man; God’s home is man, and man’s home is God—Isa. 66:1-2; 1 Cor. 3:16; Psa. 90:1; John 15:5a; 14:23.

D. The New Jerusalem is the eternal Mount Zion, the Holy of Holies, the place where God is—Rev. 14:1-5; 21:1-3, 16; Heb. 12:22:

1. In the church age the God-men who have been perfected and matured are Zion, the overcomers—Rev. 14:1.

2. In the new heaven and new earth the entire New Jerusalem will become Zion; the New Jerusalem, the eternal Zion, will be the Holy of Holies, the place where God is—21:1-3, 16, 22.

E. The New Jerusalem is the real and consummate Shulammite—a corporate Shulammite, including all God’s chosen and redeemed people—S. S. 6:13; Rev. 21:2, 9-10; 22:17:

1. The wonderful Shulammite, the duplication of Solomon, is the greatest and ultimate figure of the New Jerusalem—S. S. 6:13; Rev. 21:2.

2. As Solomon’s counterpart, the Shulammite became the same as Solomon in life, nature, and image, as Eve was to Adam—Gen. 2:20-23:

III. The unique work in the Lord’s recovery is to work out the New Jerusalem—the ultimate goal of God’s economy—Rev. 21:10-11:

A. The degradation of the church is mainly due to the fact that nearly all Christian workers are distracted to take something other than the New Jerusalem as their goal; we should do only one work, which is to make God’s chosen people beings in the New Jerusalem—3:12.

B. Today our work for the Lord with its issue should be governed and directed by the vision of the New Jerusalem; what is unveiled in the description of this unique city should be the model of what we are and how we work—3:12; 21:2, 9-23.

C. The New Jerusalem is the consummation of the organic building up of the Body of Christ in the local churches; the local churches are the procedure for God to accomplish the building up of the Body of Christ for the building of the New Jerusalem—1 Cor. 1:2; 12:12-13; Rev. 21:2.

IV. “The processed and consummated Triune God, according to the good pleasure of His desire and for the highest intention in His economy, is building Himself into His chosen people and His chosen people into Himself, that He may have a constitution in Christ as a mingling of divinity with humanity to be His organism and the Body of Christ, as His eternal expression and the mutual abode for the redeeming God and the redeemed man. The ultimate consummation of this miraculous structure of treasure will be the New Jerusalem for eternity”—inscription on Witness Lee’s tomb.