How glorious, how bright it shines

In all the writings of Christianity we never read that God and His elect are incorporated into an incorporation. This incorporation has three results: the Father's house, the Son's vine, and the Spirit's new child (John 14:2-3; 15:5; 16:21). All the regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified saints are the many abodes of the Father's house, the many branches of the vine, and the many members of the new man. These are English words, but the language is new. Today. we are dealing with messages that are very new and are spoken in the new language of a new culture. This culture is in the Bible, but the human mind has not grasped it. Today Christians read the New Testament without thoroughly understanding it. No one previously has seen the four ins in John 14—the Spirit as the Comforter in the disciples, the Son in the Father, the disciples in the Son, and the Son in the disciples (vv. 17, 20). Even John Nelson Darby, the "king" of biblical interpretation, said that the Father's house is a heavenly mansion. Robert Govett, who was highly appreciated by Charles H. Spurgeon, insisted that the New Jerusalem is a physical city. These great scholars of the Bible did not understand what the New Jerusalem is. More than thirty years ago I wrote a number of hymns concerning the New Jerusalem (Hymns, #972, #975-976, #978-981, #984), but it was not until the last few years, when I wrote "What miracle! What mystery!" that I saw the full picture with all the pieces of the puzzle. After that, my speaking and writing changed. We need to realize these things and spend our time, energy, spirit, and prayer to get into the new writings of the new culture with the new language.

Now we want to see the ultimate consummation of the transformation for the composition and constitution of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-3, 9-23). The conclusion of the sixty-six books of the Bible is a divine building, the New Jerusalem. This building is a gold mountain, constituted with precious stones and twelve gates of pearl. This is the issue, the consummation, of the entire revelation of the whole Bible. Surely this must be very meaningful. This is why we purposely wrote a number of hymns related to and concerning the New Jerusalem when we were composing our hymnal (see Hymns, #971, 972, 975, 976, 978, 979, 980, 981, 984). I hope that we would learn to sing all these hymns.

The Lord has opened up to us the truth of God's economy with God's dispensing. First Timothy 1:4, Ephesians 1:10, and Ephesians 3:9 all use the word economy, a translation of the Greek word oikonomia. This economy with God's dispensing will consummate in one city. When we composed our hymnal thirty years ago in 1964, I wrote a number of hymns on the New Jerusalem (Hymns, #971-972, 975-976, 978-980). Since 1984 I have given many messages on the New Jerusalem. The last nineteen chapters of the book entitled God's New Testament Economy are concerning the New Jerusalem. 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. I have been in the United States for thirty-two years, and I have published approximately four thousand messages. I have stressed the Triune God, Christ, life, and the Spirit, and the church, the Body, and ultimately, the New Jerusalem.

In Acts Jesus said, "You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth" (1:8). To witness is to speak something, which is to prophesy. To be a good witness of Christ, we must be able to prophesy. Romans 10:17 tells us, "Faith comes out of hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ," If we do not know how to prophesy, people will not be able to hear God's word. What is the word that people should hear? It is not merely, "Honor your parents," "Love your neighbors," and "Do not steal." If we go as members of a vital group to visit people and speak these things, they will reject us. We must go to people to prophesy concerning the high peak of God's revelation, including the high peak of God, the high peak of Christ, the high peak of the Spirit, and the high peaks of the divine life, the church, the Body of Christ, the constitution of God and man, and the New Jerusalem. We must know how to prophesy concerning the New Jerusalem. We can visit someone and say, "Sir, I come here with a burden to tell you that at the end of the Bible there is a city." When he asks if this is a heavenly mansion, we can say, "It is the New Jerusalem, of which the base is God, the gates are Christ, and the wall is the Spirit." He will want to hear this, and he will invite us to come again. Many years ago when we composed our hymnal, I included a number of songs on the New Jerusalem (see Hymns, #971-972, 975-976, 978-980). This indicates that I was able not only to prophesy about the New Jerusalem but also to make a song out of my prophecy. We must all be able to prophesy concerning the New Jerusalem. In 2 Timothy 4:2 Paul says, "Proclaim the word; be ready in season and out of season." To proclaim the word is to prophesy at every time, in season and out of season. In the training we are building you up to know the eight foregoing items of the truth and to prophesy concerning these things.

The writings of two brothers in particular gave me much help and opened up a little door or a little window for me to get into the real significance of the New Jerusalem. Gerhardt Tersteegen, in some of his hymns, referred to the New Jerusalem in a deeper way. Brother T. Austin-Sparks also mentioned something concerning the spiritual and divine significance of the New Jerusalem. It was not until approximately forty years ago, though, that I really began to get into the significance of the New Jerusalem. In 1963 I wrote a number of hymns concerning the New Jerusalem which are presently in our hymnal (Hymns, #971, 972, 975, 976, 978-980). By 1963 the Lord had given me nearly a full understanding of this last great sign in the Bible. By this time I dropped any thought that the New Jerusalem is a physical thing. If you consider the New Jerusalem as a physical thing, you make the Bible low, meaningless, and insignificant. We know the Bible contains the divine revelation; the conclusion of such a revelation, therefore, should be very high and very significant. By 1963 I can testify that I was fully clear that the New Jerusalem is altogether a spiritual, heavenly, and divine sign and not something physical.

The Body of Christ is also the accomplishment of man's experience of the grace in the economy of God, which is Himself as the processed Triune God, ultimately consummating in the New Jerusalem. Hymns, #979 is a sweet hymn on the many characteristics of the holy city, the New Jerusalem. For the last two thousand years, ordinary Bible readers and even Bible scholars have been puzzled by the New Jerusalem, wondering whether it is a material city or whether it refers to something else. Because of man's natural concept according to human understanding, most consider the New Jerusalem a material city. I still remember that when I was young, I sang a hymn that says one day we will enter the golden city with a golden street, pearl gates, and a jasper wall. But within my heart I said, "Did the Lord die and shed His blood just to save me into a golden city?" From then on I began to pursue to know what the New Jerusalem really is. Eventually, around 1960 I saw clearly that this city is not a physical city but a sign to express a spiritual reality that cannot be expressed with ordinary words. God began to use such signs in Genesis 2, where there is the tree of life. In the New Testament the tree of life reappears. In Revelation 2:7 the Lord says, "To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God." At the end of Revelation, the tree of life is again present in the New Jerusalem (22:2). Based upon this, I made a bold judgment that the New Jerusalem is a sign, because the tree of life within the city is a sign. Since that tree is not a physical tree but a sign, the city must also be a sign.

Furthermore, Revelation 21:22 says that there is no temple in the city of the New Jerusalem. What is the temple? The temple is God and the Lamb as the place for God's people to worship God and enjoy God. Therefore, the temple is also a sign. It is not a real building within the city; rather, God and the Lamb are the temple. Furthermore, Revelation 21:23 says, "The city has no need of the sun or of the moon that they should shine in it, for the glory of God illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb." Both the lamp and the light refer to God's glory. Therefore, both the lamp and the light are signs, not physical things. Moreover, in the New Jerusalem Christ is the Lamb. This surely does not mean that Christ in the New Jerusalem is a lamb with four legs and a tail. The Lamb is a sign. In addition, the New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God (v. 3). Eventually, the city will become a tabernacle; this is also a sign. On the one hand, it is a city with gates, foundations, and a wall; on the other hand, it is the tabernacle of God—the place where God dwells with man. Finally, this city is the bride, the wife of the Lamb (v. 2). All these indicate that the entire holy city, the New Jerusalem, is not a physical city; rather, it is the ultimate sign, the greatest sign in the Bible, signifying the aggregate, the totality, of the redeemed saints throughout the generations, who have been regenerated, transformed, and glorified, as the consummation of man's experience of the Triune God, which is the organic Body of Christ.

In Revelation 21 and 22 there is a picture of a holy city. This picture must be very significant. Over thirty-five years ago, I received the understanding of the significance, in detail, of every item of this city. Hymn #979, composed of sixteen verses, gives the details of these items. We need to see what this holy city, the New Jerusalem, is. Many in Christianity say that it is a heavenly mansion, but we need to throw away that inaccurate concept.