New Jerusalem, Conclusion of the Bible
New Jerusalem is the conclusion of the Bible. God’s operation through all the ages brings forth a new creation with New Jerusalem as the center. This is Revelation 21:1 to 22:5. Afterwards are the Lord’s warnings, promised blessings (22:14, 17), “I come quickly” (22:7, 12, 20), and John’s last prayer and blessing to all the saints (22:20-21).
New Jerusalem as the conclusion is fully in the divine life. This life was pictured by the tree of life in Genesis 2 and made real by the incarnation of the Lord Jesus who is “the life” (John 1:4; 14:6). For all His believers, He as life has become “Christ our life” (Col. 3:4).
The Bible must have a full, perfect, complete, and wonderful conclusion. To reach this point, life must be mature. There will be no childishness, no immaturity, in New Jerusalem. Therefore, “let us be brought on to maturity” (Heb. 6:1).
The Lord is working in us and calling us to this maturity. His intention, His plan, which He will accomplish is that “we all arrive…at a full-grown man,” (Eph. 4:13) a corporate expression of God in Christ. For corporate maturity we each need to arrive at personal maturity.
For this Paul labored, announcing Christ “admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man full-grown in Christ” (Col. 1:28). This is the path of life unto God’s, and our, conclusion, New Jerusalem.
Bible verses quoted in these posts are from The Holy Bible, Recovery Version, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003. The text of this Bible is at text.recoveryversion.bible; this too is © by LSM. A New Testament of this Bible, with an outline for each book, 9000 footnotes, and 13,000 cross references, is available in multiple languages for free from Bibles for America, Bibles for Canada, Bibles for Europe, Bibles for Australia, Bibles for New Zealand.
