The Street of New Jerusalem for Eternal Fellowship
Revelation 21:21 speaks of the pearl gates of New Jerusalem and then continues, “And the street of the city was pure gold.” Many phrases in Revelation 21 begin and because all the characteristics of New Jerusalem are intertwined.
A street is a place for communication, and since the street of this city is of pure gold, the people who walk upon it will never be dirty. Today those who have bathed still need to have their feet washed (John 13:10) in order to maintain their fellowship with God. When we walk on the street of this world, we cannot avoid gathering some dust, and our fellowship with God is thus frustrated. But in that day nothing can dirty us; nothing can frustrate our fellowship with God. In eternity there will be nothing which can defile us; all our life and living will be holy.¹
Fellowship with God is a spiritual matter, involving our spirit. Descriptions include “the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Cor. 1:9), “fellowship of spirit (Phil. 2:1), and “the fellowship of your faith” (Phm. 6). For such fellowship, a physical foot washing is of no avail.
For us to maintain pleasant fellowship with the Lord and with one another, we need spiritual foot-washing — with the washing Holy Spirit, the washing word, and the washing life — carried out both by the Lord in His love and by one another in love.²
God has called us into this fellowship (1 Cor. 1:9), which is “with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” and “with one another” (1 John 1:3, 7). This fellowship is the flow of the eternal life, the life which came to us in Jesus Christ as the “Word of life” (1 John 1:1-3).
The flow of this life was portrayed by the water which flowed out of the Lord’s side on the cross (John 19:34) and by the river of water of life which flows from the throne of New Jerusalem in the middle of its street.
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 3 on John 13:5 in the Recovery Version Bible, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003.
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Posted by Don on July 25, 2022
