The New Jerusalem is the Eternal Bethel, the Fulfillment of God’s Dream

Did you know that God has a dream? He dreams of being fully joined and mingled with man as one entity to become the New Jerusalem, a built-up city, as the consummation of His economy (Rev. 21:2).

Our God is a Person with a dream, and His dream is the greatest dream of all. He told Jacob to go to Bethel (Gen. 35:1) and He revealed to Jacob what He desires – He wants to obtain a dwelling place on earth where God is brought to man and man is brought to God (see Gen. 28).

What God desires – and He will obtain it – is the New Jerusalem as the eternal Bethel, the house of God, the mutual dwelling place of God and man, where man dwells in God and God dwells not only with man but in man.

Today God is working on fulfilling His dream – He is building up the church (Matt. 16:18).

Until He obtains what He is after, God is homeless – His home is in man and He is not at rest until He gains a corporate people who are so one with Him and so mingled with Him that He can be incorporated with them (to live in them and they in Him).

Lord, open our eyes that we may see Your dream. Make Your dream become our dream, and may we desire what You strongly desire. Lord, gain Your home and dwelling place in man! Lord, bring in the New Jerusalem, Your eternal Bethel, the mutual dwelling place of God and man!

God’s Dream Becoming Our Dream

Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28:10-22 was a dream of God’s goal, a dream of the house of God.

What God desires is not just to have a people who worship Him and obey Him – He desires to have a house, a home, with man and in man, and this home is the church today (1 Tim. 3:15) consummating in the New Jerusalem as the eternal dwelling place of God and His redeemed elect (Rev. 21:3, 22).

The entire Bible expound and explain what God does to fulfill His dream. God is homeless until He obtains a home in man, and He has no resting place until He gains the church as a built-up Body for Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem.

Throughout history and in all generations God is tirelessly working to fulfill His dream. All the believers cooperate with the Lord to fulfill His dream by allowing Him to mingle Himself more with them! When God is mingled with man, that is the house of God!

Christ came as the heavenly ladder (see John 1:51) to bring God into man and man into God and to join man and God as one. Christ is now the vertical way for people to contact God and for God to visit people and be mingled with man.

What about us? What is our dream? We may have a dream related to the physical and human things, or something related to our career, family, future, etc.

As we are mingled with God more every day, God’s dream becomes our dream and we desire what He desires – the New Jerusalem!

Our Dream is to Become the New Jerusalem!

All the saints in the Old Testament saw something of God’s dream – this is why they kept going on. Abraham saw God’s dream, Moses saw the unseen, and all the others the same – but they never entered fully into it but rather fulfilled their course looking forward to see God’s dream being fulfilled (see Heb. 11-12).

We have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly New Jerusalem! We are all being cheered to go on and fulfill God’s dream by all the angelic hosts in the heavens, and our dream is to become the New Jerusalem!

Taking up from where our forerunner saints left, we run in the race and all the Olympic heavenly crowd is cheering us to continue in this divine dream!

We live the New Jerusalem on the earth by NOT having a permanent dwelling place but living in tents, ready to move for God’s interest.

We work out the New Jerusalem by not having a permanent kingdom or a base for our work but working as mature lovers of God in all of God’s field!

Let’s dream this dream! If we live, let’s live in the dream, and if we were to rest with the Lord, let us rest in this dream!

When we die we don’t just “die and that’s it” – we go to “the waiting room”, waiting together with all the other saints for this dream to be fulfilled! We walk into the sunrise – we don’t ride into the sunset! One more step and we will be in glory!

The Lord Jesus cut the way to Mount Zion, and now we follow Him, together with all the saints that went before us! There will be no separation between God and man – man and God will be ONE for eternity! Hallelujah!

A Mutual Dwelling Place of God and Man for Eternity

In Genesis 28, John 1, and Rev. 21 we see how God desires to have a house constituted with His redeemed and transformed people by having Christ as the heavenly ladder to bring heaven to earth and earth to heaven and join earth to heaven.

In eternity future the New Jerusalem will be standing in the whole universe as something that is uplifted toward the heavens upon which the angelic family will ascend and descend to bring heaven to earth and join earth to heaven.

The ladder in Jacob’s dream is the ladder the Lord Jesus spoke of in John 1 and it consummates in a city, the New Jerusalem, the house of God and the mutual dwelling place of God and man!

All God’s people desire to dwell in the house of God to behold His beauty and inquire in His temple (Psa. 27:4), and God’s desire is to be with man and live in man by making His home in man’s heart (Eph. 3:16-19).

If today we mean business with the Lord, we will experience the mingling of God with man. We will see that God has the church, but He still is a homeless God just as many people on earth are homeless, restless, and wanderers.

We need to be those faithful to see the mingling of God among us and afford others such a dream, bringing them also in this divine mingling!

Our dream is to become the New Jerusalem, God’s eternal habitation, God’s dwelling place in man! We want to dwell in God not only now and then when we remember, but forever and ever!

Lord Jesus, come in and make an abode with us today! Make Your home in our heart, and mingle Yourself more with us every day. Lord, gain Your dwelling place in man, and increase Your house on earth by gaining more human beings to be mingled with You! More mingling of divinity with humanity today! O God, You have been our dwelling place in all generations! Find Your home in us, as we find our home in You!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from brother Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message and portions in, The Building of God (ch. 2), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Unique Work in the Lord’s Recovery, week 9 (entitled, The Consummation of the Unique Work in the Lord’s Recovery—the New Jerusalem).
• Further reading on this topic:
  # Life-study of Genesis, msg. 77;
  # The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 262, 264;
  # Come Forward to the Present Reality of New Jerusalem (via, newjerusalem12.wordpress.com);
• Hymns on this subject:
  # God has a dream, this is what He’s wanting. / God has a dream, and we are part of it. / God has a dream…that we may be one with Him.
  # Lord Jesus, I long in Thy presence to live, / From morning to evening my one world Thou art.
  # Lord, I give myself to You again today / Lord, on this consecration path I choose to stay.
• Pictures credit: Mountain in USA (by a friend) and Heb. 12:1 (source here).