Sufferings and Transformation for New Jerusalem (5)
Babylon is a counterfeit of New Jerusalem. Babylon is “gilded with gold and precious stone and pearl” (Rev. 18:16). These are the same materials that we see in New Jerusalem, but New Jerusalem is constituted throughout with them, not merely gilded.
We humans were born into the natural realm, the old creation. We who believe into Christ Jesus have been reborn into the new creation, yet we still have much of the old creation in us. Therefore, besides regenerating us, God must do a work the NT calls renewing and transformation. The result of this work is that we are constituted with the materials of New Jerusalem.
In many of God’s children who have walked with Him for ten or twenty years, there is something which God has wrought through the Holy Spirit. It is not just that God has imparted something to them, but they themselves have become that something; it is their very constituent. They have been disciplined by the Holy Spirit for many years. By passing through many trials and experiences, the Holy Spirit has formed a certain kind of life in them….They not only possess the life that is given to them by God, but they also have a transformed life which the Holy Spirit has wrought within them.¹
Romans 12:2 tells us that we are “transformed by the renewing of the mind” and Titus 3:5 that renewing is “of the Holy Spirit.” This renewing goes on through our whole Christian life.
“Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying [or being consumed, being wasted away, being worn out²], yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The consuming of the outer man is part of God’s process to bring forth the precious stones for New Jerusalem. Let us not lose heart!
¹ From chapter 5 of The Glorious Church by Watchman Nee, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, available at www.ministrybooks.org/ and www.livingstream.com/en/the-church/8012401-glorious-church-the.html.
² A portion of footnote 2 on 2 Cor. 4:16 in the Recovery Version Bible, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003.
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Posted by Don on July 6, 2022
