New Jerusalem: God Mingled with His People
The New Jerusalem is the mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite people. This aspect of the New Jerusalem brings us to the central point of the divine dispensing. In order to be mingled with us, God had to be processed. The processed Triune God is the One who has gone through incarnation, human living, an all-inclusive death, and a wonderful resurrection.*
We were redeemed by the death of Jesus on the cross and regenerated in His resurrection (1 Peter 1:3). Now we are being transformed by the Spirit’s operation in us (2 Cor. 3:18). We also are being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), and we will be glorified when He visibly returns (Phil. 3:21). All these changes are parts of our process to New Jerusalem.
But God also has to go through a process to be mingled with us in New Jerusalem. From eternity God was perfect in His divinity. There was no need and no possibility of improvement. But, as stated in the quote above, God had to take on humanity to live a model human life and to die for our redemption. Then this God-man rose from the dead and “has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
As a result of these great steps, God in Jesus Christ came into His believers and brought them into Himself. This is the divine-human mingling. Soon New Jerusalem will come forth in glory.
* This is the ninth of a series with quotes from chapter 28 of The Central Line of the Divine Revelation by Witness Lee, copyright by Living Stream Ministry.
Bible verses quoted in these posts are from The Holy Bible, Recovery Version, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003. The New Testament of this Bible, with its outlines, is at online.recoveryversion.org; this too is © by LSM.
Posted by Don on August 2, 2021
