Each gate into the New Jerusalem was a pearl, signifying that regeneration through the death-overcoming and life-secreting Christ is our entrance into the New Jerusalem, and our entrance is a Triune entrance, signified by three entrances on each of the four sides.
The New Jerusalem is full of significance, and all the features and characteristics of this holy city can be applied to our Christian life and church life today.
The fact that the city had a great and high wall with three gates on each side, is the consummation of what we see in Numbers 2 with the encamping of the children of Israel with three tribes on each of the four sides, all centered on and facing the tabernacle.
In the New Jerusalem above each of the twelve gates there’s a name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel, showing us that the law (typified by the twelve tribes) watches over the entrance to make sure that everyone who enters fulfills its requirements.
In other words, to enter into the holy city, we need to fulfill the requirements of the law.
Even more, there is an angel at the gate to also make sure that these requirements are fulfilled. If we look at ourselves and our situation and condition, we cannot do this, for we are not able to fulfill all of God’s requirements.
But praise the Lord, Jesus Christ came and fulfilled all the requirements of God’s law, and He Himself became a way for us to enter into the holy city. When we call on the name of the Lord and believe into Him we are organically joined to the One who is qualified to enter into the city, and we will also be qualified to enter by the gates.
In other words, by regeneration we have access to the New Jerusalem and we enter by the gates into the city. Praise the Lord!
So then the law does not condemn us anymore but rather, it approves us and makes sure we fulfill its requirements, and the law also leads us to Christ, acting as a child-conductor to Christ. And the angels are there to watch us, observe us, help us, and cheer us on.
The salvation in God’s New Testament economy is like a big arena, and the spectators are the angels, who are rejoicing whenever a sinner repents, and they are ministering spirits sent by God to help us to go on with the Lord.
How much is involved with such a seemingly simple matter of the encamping or the children of Israel! And how much we need to pray that the Lord would make all these types and symbols reality in our Christian life and church life, so that we may be formed as His army journeying with Him and fighting for His interests on earth!
Our Regeneration through the Death-overcoming and Life-secreting Christ is our Entrance into the New Jerusalem
The twelve gates into the New Jerusalem were twelve pearls, and each one of the gates was, respectively, of one pearl (see Rev. 21:21).
Pearls are not created – they are produced through a long process. When an oyster is wounded by a grain of sand, the oyster secretes its life-juice around this wounding grain of sand, coat by coat, day by day, holding it in its wound, and the result is that a precious pearl is being produced.
How does this allegory apply to our Christian experience, and how can we as believers in Christ be produced as pearls?
The oyster depicts Christ as the living One coming into the death waters of this world, and we as little grains of sand have wounded Him.
He was wounded because of our transgressions; He was crushed because of our iniquities; the chastening for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we have been healed (Isa. 53:5).
Christ didn’t reject us when we wounded Him but rather, He kept us in His wound and He secreted His life over us to make us precious pearls for the building up of God’s eternal habitation and expression.
When the Lord was on the cross, where we as sinners put Him, He was pierced by a Roman soldier, and out of His side came out blood and water (John 19:34).
Blood came out from His pierced side for our redemption, for the forgiveness and washing away of our sins; and water came out for our regeneration, for us to be reborn with the divine life of God.
It is by believing into Christ and His redemptive work that we are regenerated, and regeneration is our entrance into the New Jerusalem.
The fact that the twelve gates of the holy city are twelve pearls signifies that regeneration through the death-overcoming and life-secreting Christ is the entrance into the city.
Also, the fact that each gate was a pearl, one pearl, shows that we can enter into the city only through the once-for-all regeneration accomplished by Christ’s overcoming death and life imparting resurrection.
The ones who hated the Lord Jesus and put Him to death thought they are getting rid of a heretic and a false teacher, but what really happened on the cross is that Christ allowed us to wound Him, He kept us in the wound of His death, and then in resurrection He secreted the resurrection life over us and around us, coating us with this life until we become precious pearls as the entrance into the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!
On the one hand He Himself is this great pearl of value, but on the other, we as the many believers are being produced to be the entrance into the Holy City by remaining in His death and resurrection daily.
Regeneration is the unique way for us to enter into God and into the New Jerusalem.
In this holy city there are no false believers – everyone is a regenerated believer in Christ, and the only reason they are there is because of the death and resurrection of Christ into whom they believed and which they experienced.
Thank You Lord Jesus for coming as a living oyster into the death waters, and thank You for keeping us, the sinners who wounded You, in Yourself until we become pearls. Thank You for being wounded for us, shedding Your blood for our redemption, and pouring Your life for our regeneration. Lord, we love You. We want to remain here, in Your wound, inside You as the oyster, so that You may secrete Your death-overcoming life on us and around us until we become precious pearls as the entrance into the New Jerusalem. Keep us here, Lord, in Your death and resurrection, until we ourselves become an entrance into the New Jerusalem for so many others.
Remaining in the Death and Resurrection of Christ to Experience the Triune God as our Triune Entrance into the New Jerusalem
When we believed into the Lord Jesus, we were identified with Him – we were put into Him, and He fulfilled all the requirements of the law; our regeneration is the entrance into the New Jerusalem.
By believing into Christ we have met all the requirements of the law, which is represented by Israel and is under the observing of the guarding angels.
Hallelujah for our regeneration – the Lord’s blood cleanses us from every sin, and His life regenerates us to qualify us to enter into the New Jerusalem!
This entrance is not merely once and for all; rather, we need to day by day remain in the death and resurrection of Christ, enjoying the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life, so that we may further enter into the holy city.
The way for us to not lose our temper, be victorious over sin, over our temperament, over the world, and over Satan is staying in the all-inclusive death of Christ to have the resurrection life of Christ operate in us.
Day by day we need to enjoy the secretion of Christ’s resurrection life by remaining imprisoned in His death. Where Christ’s death is, there His resurrection also is, operating in our being.
This resurrection is the secretion of the life-sap of the resurrected Christ around our entire being in the way that oysters produce pearls.
We need to remain here – “remain in the oyster” and not jump out of the death of Christ; as we stay in the Lord’s death and enjoy His life-secreting resurrection, we have a further entering into the New Jerusalem.
Our experience of the Lord’s death and resurrection becomes our entry in the New Jerusalem.
Here, in His death, the Lord has the position to secret Himself around us, and this is the only place we can enjoy and experience His resurrection life secreting itself around us to make us a wonderful piece of pearl.
As we see in Luke 15:1-32, the Triune God is our triune entrance into the New Jerusalem, for the Father, the Son, and the Spirit work together in oneness to bring us into God, into God’s interest, into the kingdom of God, and into the economy of God.
Hallelujah, the Triune God is our triune entrance into the New Jerusalem – the Son as the Shepherd seeks us as lost sheep, the Spirit as the woman sweeps in our being until He finds us as the lost coins, and the Father welcomes us as prodigal sons back.
The Triune God – the Father, Son, and Spirit – apply the salvation to us, the sinners, to provide us an entrance into the New Jerusalem.
The entrance into the New Jerusalem is triune – there are three entrances on each side, three pearls on each side.
In Christ we have access through the Spirit to God the Father (Eph. 2:18). We have been chosen in the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 1:1-2).
The entrance into the New Jerusalem is organic, not just something judicial; the Triune God dispenses Himself into us to regenerate us, meet all the requirements of the law, and qualify us to enter into the city.
Lord Jesus, imprison us and keep us always in Your death so that we may experience Your resurrection life and have an entrance into the New Jerusalem. We don’t want to leave Your death; we want to make Your death our wonderful and sweet dwelling place. Amen, Lord, we want to stay with You in Your death so that You may secrete Your resurrection life and make us precious pearls in the New Jerusalem. Amen, Lord Jesus, produce us by Your redemptive work with Your secreting life to be part of the entrance of the New Jerusalem!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1984, vol. 3, “God’s New Testament Economy,” ch. 33, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 2, Israel’s Encamping in Array Typifying God’s Redeemed People Being Consummated as the New Jerusalem.
- Further reading: warmly recommending the article, Regeneration and the New Jerusalem, in “Aspects of the New Jerusalem” via, Affirmation and Critique here.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Twelve city gates are each one pearl; / Thus man is through redemption shown / Reborn and as a pearl transformed, / Entering to a realm God’s own. (Hymns #979)
# Lord, Thou as the living oyster / Left the realm of life and light; / Seeking deep in deaths dark waters / Precious ones for God’s delight…. / Thus a pearl, through death I enter / Thine own realm of life and light; / Built to be Thy habitation, / Thine expression, Thy delight! (Song on, Lord, Thou as the living oyster)
# O God our loving Father, / You would receive back Your Son, / Christ the Son our Shepherd / And the Holy Spirit’s sweeping / To bring us back to You always. (Song on, Triune God)
About aGodMan
