From Suffering to Glory

New Jerusalem is composed of gold, pearls, and precious stones. These three spiritual signs portray the Triune God wrought into His people. Created man is a clay vessel, but God can transform these vessels into precious stones for New Jerusalem.

In order to be transformed from pieces of coal into precious stones, we must be pressed and burned….This is the sovereign arrangement of the Lord, and we cannot stay away from it….We have to stay under the Lord’s sovereign arrangement to be burned every day….We cannot avoid the heat and pressure, because this is the age of transformation. We need to be transformed by burning and by pressure to become the precious stones in the New Jerusalem.*

To be pressed and burned is a suffereing. But Romans 8:17b says that we will be “joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.” And Paul adds his view of this in verse 18: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed upon us.”

Second Corinthians 4:17 adds, “our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory.” In the eternal view, our present affliction is “momentary.” This is the glory of New Jerusalem.

The present affliction is momentary “Because we do not regard the things which are seen but the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (v. 18). When we have a proper view of New Jerusalem and what God is doing to bring us there, we will rejoice.