Life and Building Teachings

Christians have been told that they will go to heaven to live in a mansion and walk on streets of gold. But the pure revelation in the Bible tells us that our ultimate destiny is much higher, richer, and more profound. It is the New Jerusalem. We must see three crucial aspects of the New Jerusalem as our eternal destiny.

In the book of Exodus, which is a book of pictures, we have a remarkable picture of baptism. The New Testament speaks in various places regarding the significance of baptism. However it is exceedingly helpful to ponder the picture of baptism in the book of Exodus.

God asked David two questions: “Are you the one who will build Me a house?” and “When did I ever ask someone to build Me a house of cedar?” The answers to these two questions give us a clear understanding of what God desires for His dwelling place.

God gives significant attention in His word to an evil city that stands in direct opposition to His purpose with His people. This city’s name in Hebrew is Babel (Gen. 11:9) and its name in Greek is Babylon (Rev.17:5). Although the city possesses a prestigious reputation of strength and splendor, the Scriptures reveal Babylon as a place that captures God’s elect and seizes their pure and single-hearted worship toward Him. For this reason God makes a call to His chosen ones, saying, “Come out of her, My people...for her sins have accumulated up to heaven” (Rev. 18:4-5).

To understand what the self is, we must consider the creation and fall of man. God created man with a spirit, a soul, and a body (Gen. 2:7; 1 Thes. 5:23; Heb. 4:12). He made man’s spirit with the capacity to contact, receive, and contain God (John 4:24; 3:6; Rom. 8:16). God formed man’s soul with the faculties of mind, emotion, and will so he could express Him. God created man’s body so he could contact the physical world. God’s intention was for man to be filled in his spirit with God’s divine life to express Him through the organ of his soul.

We must pay careful attention to an expression such as “the processed Triune God” to correctly understand what it means. This matter is in the depths of the divine revelation, based on the Word of God and not on philosophy, religious theology, nor a self-invented understanding. The Bible clearly reveals that there is one God who is immutable in His essence and attributes; He does not change (Isa. 45:5; 1 Cor. 8:4). He is eternally the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

Few Christians today understand the biblical idea of the birthright. Yet to the writers of both the Old and New Testaments, it was a tremendous matter. We believers, by virtue of our second birth, are the sons of God and participate in God’s blessings as our spiritual birthright in both this age and the next. Our birthright as Christians is to inherit all that God is in Christ. The apostle Paul told us that Christ Himself is our allotted inheritance (Col. 1:12; Eph. 1:14), that we are heirs of God (Rom. 8:17), and that we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ” (Eph. 1:3).

The Believer’s Second Garment

[Matthew 22:11] says, “But when the king came in and beheld those reclining at the table, he saw there a man not clothed with a marriage garment.” The man without a marriage garment must surely have been a saved one. How could anyone answer God’s calling, yet not be saved? As long as we have answered God’s calling, we have been saved. In verse 14 the Lord Jesus speaks of many being called, and in Ephesians 4:1 Paul points out that we, the saved ones, are the called ones. We have been called to be saved. Although the man in verse 11 was called and saved, he nevertheless lacked the marriage garment

The term the old man is used three times in the New Testament (Rom. 6:6; Eph. 4:22; and Col. 3:9). In Romans 6:6 the old man is something personal, whereas in Ephesians and Colossians, according to the context, it is clearly something corporate.

When we are saved and baptized, we put off the old man both in a personal way and in a corporate way.

In Romans 6:6 the old man refers to our natural but fallen life; it is the life of our soul, which acts independently of God. This is the “I” that Paul said was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20). Since that old “I,” the old man, was crucified with Christ, it is good for nothing but burial, which Paul speaks of in Romans 6:4. Thus, in this sense the old man is something personal.

The revelation of the Holy Spirit in the Bible includes many divine titles, such as, the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20), the Spirit of God (Rom. 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7), the Spirit (John 7:39), the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19), and the seven Spirits (Rev. 1:4). Each divine title has its own significance, revealing a different aspect of the Holy Spirit in the plan of God and in the experience of the believers. One of the most profound titles in the New Testament concerning the Spirit is “the life-giving Spirit” (1 Cor. 15:45). This aspect of the Spirit is for imparting life.