Apostles and Elders Organizing the Church

[Rev 21:1-8 KJV] 1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God [is] with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, [and be] their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. 8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Revelation 21.5-8 The Difference between the Saved and Those Who Perish

Even though this subdivision is closely related to the preceding one (vv.2-4), the people in verse 6b are nonetheless quite different from those in verse 3.

21.5 The one who sits on the throne is most likely God.

The word “write” means to have it written in this book. Such a command reveals the great significance of this subdivision.

21.6 “They are come to pass” [ASV]—Whatever is recorded in this book must come to pass. God will bring heaven and earth to His original design. He is the Alpha and the Omega, therefore all shall be fulfilled.

21.7 The “overcometh” here is not the same as that of chapters 2 and 3, for in chapters 2 and 3 it is an overcoming by works, that is, an overcoming that involves a comparing of believers with believers; whereas here it is an overcoming that involves a comparison of believers with the unbelieving world (cf. 1 John 5.4 which mentions overcoming the world through faith).

In what respects are the people spoken of in 21.6-8 different from the people who appear in verses 2 and 3? Please note the following observations.

(1) From 21.3 we learn that John saw in a vision that the tabernacle of God is with men, that is to say, God is dwelling with the many peoples on earth. The people mentioned in 21.6b are said to be those who are athirst after they have heard the good news described above.

(2) The men shown in verses 2 and 3 are God’s peoples who dwell on the new earth, while those shown in 21.7 are God’s sons who live in the city.

(3) The men mentioned in 21.3 are simply those peoples on earth who share together the common blessings; but the men referred to in 21.7 are not only sons of God, they are also God’s servants and kings unto Him (22.3,5).

(4) “They shall be his peoples” (21.3) signifies something corporate and common; “He shall be my son” (21.7) represents something personal and intimate.

(5) “They shall be his peoples” (21.3) is that which appears to be spoken in the third person, whereas “I will be his God, and he shall be my son” (21.7) seems to be a direct way of speaking.

(6) The men spoken of in 21.3 dwell on God’s earth, but those mentioned in 21.7 live in God’s house.

Positional difference among Christians is limited to the time of the millennial kingdom. In the new heaven and new earth, all believers are equally positioned.

21.8 “The fearful”—these are those who know they can be saved if they believe, yet dare not believe for fear of men. “Unbelieving”—these are those who just do not believe. “Abominable”—a reference to not only those who worship idols but also to those who worship celestial bodies. “Sorcerers”—those who have communications with demons.

“The lake that burneth with fire and brimstone”—In the new heaven and new earth there is no sea, yet there will still be the lake of fire.

In the Bible can be found a kind of prayer which is the highest and the most spiritual, yet few people notice or offer up such utterance. What is it? It is “authoritative prayer.” We know prayer of praise, prayer of thanksgiving, prayer of asking, and prayer of intercession, but we know very little of prayer of authority. Authoritative prayer is that which occupies a most significant place in the Word. It signifies authority, even the command of authority.

Now if we desire to be men and women of prayer, we must learn this authoritative kind. It is the type of prayer which the Lord refers to in Matthew 18.18—“What things soever ye shall bind on earthshall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Here is loosing as well as binding prayer. The movement of heaven follows the movement of the earth. Heaven listens to the words on earth and acts on the earth’s command. Whatsoever is bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever is loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven. It is not an asking on earth but a binding on earth; it is not an asking on earth but a loosing on earth. And this is authoritative prayer.

Such an expression can be found in Isaiah 45.11 which runs: “Command ye me.” How do we dare to command God? Is not this too preposterous? too presumptuous? But this is what God himself says. Doubtless we should not in the least allow the flesh to come in here. Nevertheless we are hereby shown that there is a kind of commanding prayer. According to God’s viewpoint we may command Him. Such utterance needs to be learned specifically by all students of prayer. . . .

In our day where does such prayer of command find its origin with the Christian? It has its origin at the ascension of the Lord. Ascension is very much related to the Christian life. What is the relationship? Ascension gives us victory. Just as the death of Christ solves our old creation in Adam, and resurrection leads us into the new creation, so ascension gives us a new position in the face of Satan. This is not a new position before God, for such position is obtained by the resurrection of the Lord. Nonetheless, our new position before Satan is secured through the ascension of Christ.

Note these words from Ephesians: “And made him [Christ] to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: and he [Jesus] put all things in subjection under his feet” (1.20-22a). When Christ ascends to heaven He [Jesus] opens a way to heaven, so that henceforth His church may also ascend from earth to heaven. We know our spiritual foe dwells in the air; but today Christ is already ascended to heaven. A new way is therefore opened up from earth to heaven. This way was formerly blocked by Satan, but now Christ has opened it up. Christ is now far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. This is the current position of Christ. In other words, God has caused Satan and all his subordinates to be subject to Christ; yea, He has put all things in subjection under His feet.

The significance of ascension is quite different from that of death and resurrection. While the latter is wholly for the sake of redemption, the former is for warfare—namely, to execute what His death and resurrection have accomplished. Ascension makes manifest a new position. Thank God, for we are told that He has “raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2.6). . . .

It's amazing that anyone would be an atheist or non-Christian, but then again, God affords us this free choice whom to be with, and the ultimate expression of rejecting God to go to Hell is by being an atheist, agnostic or any other kind of non-Christian. The proof is so simple...

That which does not exist can't cause anything because it doesn't exist. So nature can't start up from nothing. The evidence further supports this in that we observe trillions of cause and effects of nature, an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but no hard evidence of something from nothing. Therefore, we can be confident nature needs a cause from something if it didn't always exist. But did it always exist? How could it? If the universe or universes always existed, by that definition, you would have had an eternity to come into being before now, so you should have already happened. And self-contradictory, you would never have come into being because an alleged past eternity of cause and effects of nature would by that definition go on forever never reaching this point. Ergo, atheism and agnosticism are delusional.

So the uncreated Creator exists. But Who is He? Many claim to believe in God but do they have the right God that will actually have the power to save? The uncreated Creator cannot be less than His creation. Human beings have morals, are personal and accessible to one another. Therefore, God must be too. There are only 3 faiths that are large enough to span the globe to be considered accessible: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism. And God is not an absentee landlord since that is frowned upon so that removes any chance for deism to be true (sorry Anthony Flew you're going to Hell). Islam is clearly false because you can't come along six centuries later and claim Jesus never died on the cross without any evidence to overturn the evidence of the first century in scores of documents. Hinduism would be false because Brahma is said to be amoral, but how can the Creator be less than the created with morals? Additionally Hinduism breaks down because it is, like Islam, salvation by works, but no works can bring you to God lest anyone should boast, because that gap is infinite due to your sin nature and God can have no fellowship with sinful sinners. It is also unjust to become a frog with a frog brain if you become too sinful a human in reincarnation. Your eternal destiny determined by your frog brain choices? You are made in God's image and frogs do not mark that image.

Therefore, without even knowing anything else about Christianity, we know Jesus is God. In the past 2000 years nobody has been able to find a naturalistic explanation to account for the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles in various group settings. Group hallucinations are impossible. People don't willingly die for what they know is a lie. Swoon theory fails since that would not convince anyone Jesus is the risen Lord, plus it would make Him a liar. Jesus is either God, a liar, or a lunatic. Since He is not a lunatic or a liar, He must be God.

The reason why I am a theist is because I can't get atheism to make sense. Atheism is false to me because the universe can't start up from nothing for that which does not exist can't cause anything. And the universe can't always have existed because if it did, by that definition, you would have had an eternity to come into being before now, so you should have already happened. More contradiction: you should never have existed, because an alleged past eternity would continue to go on for eternity by its definition, so it would never reach this point of your existence. The idea of a past eternity is a construct of man's imagination having no basis in reality.

Since atheism is false and theism is true, which theism is the correct one? The correct theism has one uncreated Creator (more than one is self-contradictory) and this uncreated Creator is personal and accessible because He can't be less than us whom He created. Therefore, there are only 3 choices, because there are only 3 accessible faiths: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.

But Islam is false because you can't come along six centuries later in a cave all by yourself without any evidence and claim Jesus didn't die on the cross. Jesus' death on the cross is one of the most attested and proven facts of antiquity with scores of both Christian and non-Christian sources in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Hinduism is false because it would be unfair if due to your sin you become a frog and your destiny is determined by giving you a frog brain to decide how to behave. Furthermore, the God of Hinduism is Brahma who is said to be amoral, but how can God have morals below our own? So you get this one life to decide.

That leaves Christianity. To this day nobody has been able to find a naturalistic explanation to account for the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles in various group settings. The 4 most famous atheists in the past century Anthony Flew (later turned deist), John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg and Bart Ehrman agreed on certain facts: (1) the Apostles truly believed they saw Jesus alive from the dead, (2) group hallucinations are impossible, (3) the first churches were set up on the resurrection of Jesus, and (4) the Apostles did not willingly die for what they knew was a lie. People do not allow themselves to cease to exist based on something they don't believe.

Therefore, the only solution is Jesus is God, salvation is in Him alone, and those who reject what He did on the cross are going to Hell.

Resurrection

Let us recognize that the purpose of God in creating Adam is not simply in His having made him a living soul by having breathed into a piece of fashioned clay. No, this is very inadequate. Man does not yet have the life of God. He has the created life all right, but he does not possess the uncreated life. He is bound by time and space. He is created to a certain point, but falls short of arriving at God’s full design. For this reason, since the time of Adam, God has been working towards obtaining a man in full accordance with His plan. We notice that throughout the entire Old Testament period—ever since the time of Genesis 3 in fact—God had worked incessantly in the lives of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Samuel, David, and others for the sake of accomplishing what He had originally designed. We also perceive how God had actually apprehended those men and was able to finish His work in them. So far as God’s purpose in these men is concerned, we may say that they were apprehended by God. But so far as the man whom God designed to obtain in His eternal plan, none of them was sufficient. All these men reached a certain point but then stopped short of the goal.

But then came the New Testament era. The Son of God came to be a man: the Word became flesh. And this is the man whom God had always longed to have. The man whom He had planned to complete is now found. This man is none other than Christ Jesus. Let us always remember that Christ is the man whom God had continually expected through those many years. Christ is the complete man—God’s representative man and the typical man.

Nevertheless, while the Lord Jesus Christ was on earth there was restriction to His manhood. Though He was very different from the rest of the people on earth in that He had the divine nature and was acomplete man, yet so far as the matter of power was concerned Christ suffered the limitation of a man in that He was restricted by time and space. When the four men brought a man sick of the palsy to see the Lord Jesus, they had to uncover the roof where He was in order to reach His presence (Mark 2.3,4). When the woman who had an issue of blood wished to touch Him, she had to press through the throng before she could do so (Mark 5.25-31). On the other hand, our Lord commended a Roman centurion on his great faith because he answered, “I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed” (Matt. 8.8). This man knew that he did not need to press through to the Lord’s side in order to touch Him, because he recognized the unlimited side of the Lord. Yet so far as the human side of the Lord Jesus went, what He manifested while on earth was rather straitened in character. This does not imply that there was any imperfection in His personality; it only refers to the fact of a restriction in the release of power. He could not have been more perfect in personality, nonetheless, the manifestation of His power does seem to have been somewhat restricted. But after He died and was resurrected the Lord Jesus did arrive at the peak of completeness.

What is resurrection? Resurrection is the fact that God has gotten a man—the kind of man which He had long expected. While our Lord Jesus Christ was on earth He was a perfect man, nevertheless this perfect man was somewhat circumscribed. The man whom God had desired from the foundation of the world is not to be so confined. What God looked for was resurrection. In the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, Christ transcends all limitations. Thereafter nothing can restrict Him anymore. While He lived on earth Christ had the possibility of death. But after His resurrection death could no longer touch Him. Death and the possibility of death are both destroyed by Him. His word to the apostle John long after His resurrection is: “I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore” (Rev. 1.18). He will never die again since the possibility of death is destroyed by Him. Men can no more crucify Him; this possibility of death no longer exists. Now this is called resurrection.

Resurrection means that the man whom God in eternity sought to obtain is now found in our Lord! “Thou art my beloved Son, this day have I begotten thee,” says God. This announcement does not refer to Bethlehem; rather, it points to resurrection. When Christ was born in Bethlehem God was not able to make this announcement; after Christ is resurrected, however, God can publicly say so (see Acts 13.33). Let us therefore remember that even though the Lord Jesus was perfect in nature, character, and conduct while living on earth, He was nonetheless restricted until resurrected. Afterwards, however, all limitations were gone. And thus resurrection signifies that here is a man who has broken through all the limitations of man. The man whom God was always seeking to find is at last found on the day Christ was raised from the dead. . . .

Resurrection is the power of God: “According to that working of the strength of his might which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all . . . not only in this world, but also in that which is to come” (Eph. 1.19-21). After His resurrection the Lord sits at the right hand of the Father, far above all. He is far above every name that is named. He is far above all in this world as well as in the world to come. The man whom God had planned to have but had failed to apprehend since the foundation of the world is now found in the Lord Jesus after His resurrection. What God looked forward to possess was a man who would be like Him. Before this became factual, He had not gotten whom He had planned for. The God who is is indeed far above all, but He also wants a man to be far above all. Until there is a man who is far above all, God’s purpose is not fulfilled. After our Lord was raised from the dead He was received to the Father’s right side. Not only the restriction of death is abolished, but all other limitations are overcome. And God has nowobtained the man of His plan.

We need to see that the Lord Jesus came to be a representative man. His life on earth for thirty-odd years is representative, and so is His life after resurrection representative in nature. What He represents on earth during those thirty and more years is the moral standard of man—or more accurately, God’s moral demand on man. What He expresses to His disciples in the forty days after His resurrection is the power God will give us. So that on the one hand the Lord Jesus represents God’s ideal man who reflects the proper moral and spiritual conditions which God requires of man. Should He have come to this world and not died for us nor atoned for our sins, the Lord by so coming would have condemned us because we have all come short of the glory of God. He alone is a man who has the glory of God and who has satisfied God’s glory. He is the ideal person. By comparison, we are all sinners and are all unqualified, because He is the moral standard for every one of us. On the other hand, after His resurrection the Lord Jesus represents even more the ideal man of God. We have already commented that when God said “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” it did not refer to the birth at Bethlehem but to resurrection. On that very same day the Lord Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, “Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God” (John 20.17). This indicates to us that our becoming sons of God also commences at resurrection . . . .

What does the Holy Spirit do on earth today? He communicates the risen Christ to men. If anyone should say he knows the Holy Spirit but not resurrection we will answer that this is impossible. For today this Christ transcends all space, time, death, and every limitation. The Holy Spirit is that Spirit who has raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. The power of the Holy Spirit is therefore the power of resurrection. Wherever the work of the Holy Spirit is, there is the manifestation of the power of resurrection. Where the HolySpirit is, there is resurrection.

We ought to know the purpose of God in creating us and in redeeming us. He wishes for us to manifest the life of His Son and share in His Son’s glory. Even before the foundation of the world, God has purposed one purpose, which is to say, that He wants to have many sons just as He has the only begotten Son. And thus it states in Romans 8.29: “whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” Why has God done such things? Because He had foreordained us to be conformed to the image of His Son. This is the eternal purpose of God. He purchases and redeems us that He may possess us.

Yet God uses two means to possess us: one is on His side, the other is on our side. On His side, God sent His Son to die for us, to buy us back. According to the right of purchase, we are His bondslaves. Thank the Lord, He has bought us. God once said to Abraham, “He that is born in the house, and he that is bought with money, must needs be circumcised” (Gen. 17.13). Hallelujah, we are not only born of God we are also bought by Him.

We are bought by God and thus belong to Him, yet He sets us free. Although according to the right of redemption we belong to God, He nonetheless will not force us into service. He will let us go if we desire to serve mammon, the world, the belly, or other idols. For the moment God is inactive: He is waiting for us to move: till one day we say on our side: “O God, I am Your bondslave not only because You have bought me, but also because I will gladly serve You.” A verse in Romans 6 unveils a most precious principle concerning consecration. We become God’s bondslaves not only for the reason that He has bought us, but also for the reason “that to whom ye present yourselves as servants unto obedience, his servants ye arewhom ye obey” (v.16a).

Here, then, are the two means by which God possesses us. On the one side, we are His bondslaves because He has bought us; on the other side, we willingly and gladly present ourselves to Him as His bondslaves. As regards law, we become God’s bondslaves on the day He purchased and redeemed us. As regards experience, we become His bondslaves on the day we offer up ourselves to Him. From the viewpoint of right and ownership, we are God’s bondslaves on the day we were redeemed. From the viewpoint of practice, we are truly His bondslaves on the day when we voluntarily and gladly give ourselves over to Him.

Consequently, no one will ever be ignorant about his being a bondslave of God, for in order to be His bondslave, the believer will always need to voluntarily present himself. Such consecration is totally one’s own choice and initiative. Hence the offerer will know what he is doing. God will not coerce a person to serve Him. And that is why Paul, knowing the heart of God, does not force, he only “beseeches” (see Rom. 12.1a). God delights to see His people offer themselves willingly to Him. . . .