REGENERATED MAN,
GOD’S BUILDING MATERIAL
For God to have a building, the center of His creation, man, needs to be regenerated. Regenerated man becomes God’s building material. God did not impart Himself into any item of His creation. In His old creation He did breathe the breath of life into man (Gen. 2:7), but that breath was not something of His essence or nature. It was only His breath. That breath of life, neshamah (Heb.), became the spirit of man; as Proverbs 20:27 says, "The spirit (neshamah) of man is the lamp of the Lord." Nothing of God’s essence was imparted into man until the New Testament time and the completion of the full redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then God came to impart not only something of Himself, but also Himself into man that man might be regenerated by Him (John 3:5), born of Him (John 1:12-13).
When we were born of our earthly father, our father’s essence and nature were imparted to us. We are now regenerated persons, the offspring of God. We are children born of God, not sons adopted by an adopting father. We have been begotten of a begetting Father. Whatever the Father is has been imparted into us, His children.
The only thing of His which we do not have is His Godhead. He is the very God. Even though we were born of Him, we do not participate in His Godhead. To say we are deified in the sense of having His Godhead is blasphemy. We worship Him. But we ourselves are not the object of any man’s worship and never can be. That would be blasphemous.
However, we should have the boldness to say, "Hallelujah! I have God’s life (Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:12) and God’s nature (2 Pet. 1:4). In life and in nature I am the same as my God, because I have been born of Him." His life is our life, and His nature is our nature. Hallelujah! We are the excellent children of God (Rom. 8:16; 1 John 3:1). The last verse of Hymn 608 says that with God we "differ not in life in any way."
The natural material out of God’s creation is not qualified to be used for His building material because it has nothing of God’s essence. What God uses for His building must have His essence.
A GOLDEN MOUNTAIN
In our daily life we are bothered by dust. I like Texas, but one thing I do not like is that it is too windy. Too much wind brings dust. When we are in the New Jerusalem, though, there will be no dust. The New Jerusalem, the holy city, is a golden mountain (Rev. 21:18). This mountain is about thirteen hundred fifty miles high, the approximate distance from New York to Dallas. The New Jerusalem is twelve thousand stadia high (Rev. 21:16); one stadion equals six hundred feet. Have you ever seen such a high mountain? It would take fifty days to climb it on foot, if you traveled twenty-seven miles a day.
(The Basic Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, Chapter 8, by Witness Lee)
