by Jesse Steele
history.
Hank: How can we experience a piece of that Life even now?
John: It begins with faith.
Hank: What else is there after that?
John: Since He is the Light, our lives can reflect His glory. The way we meet, have fellowship, gather, pray… all those things are based on the New Jerusalem and the new earth and the new sky. By making the goal our standard even today, we can experience more Life in the here and now.
Hank: Essentially, what is the New Jerusalem?
John: The New Jerusalem will be God’s house. It has many rooms, like apartments. It will host the business of Heaven and of Jesus’ Kingdom.
Hank: What business?
John: The government will be on His shoulders. There, praise and law will develop in the same Throneroom. Justice will come from the source of Life Himself. These things seem distant from each other for now, and they seem vague to us, but God plans to reveal them as they truly are. But first, we must pray and set our minds on those things.
Hank: Just thinking about it all makes me want to tell other people. I have so many friends I want to be there with me.
John: Jesus also wants them there with you and with Him.
Hank: So, maybe we shouldn’t sit around and think about this so much. We really should focus on spreading the message.
John: But thinking about it gave you that desire. Remember, work starts with belief. If you try to tell other people about a New Jerusalem that you yourself aren’t familiar with, then they won’t believe you. If you are familiar with God’s plans, then others will flock to you for understanding. The world wants Truth, not partial information. People avoid you if you don’t understand the New Jerusalem when you talk about it.
Hank: So, that’s like slowing down, turning at the on-ramp, and getting on the express way to really travel fast?
John: In your 20th century method of travel, yes.
Hank: Sorry, maybe you aren’t familiar with cars.
John: In a resurrected body we’ll be able to walk through walls like Jesus did. We haven’t even seen what all He has planned for those of us who love Him back. So, automobiles aren’t especially fascinating to me.
Hank: You’re saying that by sitting around and thinking about how good it will be, I’ll gain the knowledge to tell others and they’ll want to listen.
John: No… You can’t just “sit around”. Your time must be with Scripture and in prayer. The New Jerusalem was not invented from our own creative brainstorm sessions nor our research on what surveys say God’s Throneroom should be like. It was revealed.
Hank: So, how do we know how to envision the New Jerusalem accurately?
John: I wrote down what I saw. Read that. It’s probably where God wants you to begin.
Hank: Begin? You mean, there’s more?
John: It starts with belief—belief in the Word from the beginning. But after that, you’ll have the Teacher who will guide you in all the wisdom you’ll need… if you invest time in prayer and conform your thinking to the Word.
Hank: The Holy Spirit.
John: Yep. That’s who I mean. Any Seven of them.
Hank: Wait! Whoah whoah whoah… Paul expressly said there is One Spirit.
John: He was emphasizing unity among God’s children and that there is only One God whom we were all baptized into. But there are actually Seven Spirits of the Holy.
Hank: Why do you say that?
John: I saw them with my own eyes. There were Seven Spirits of God going out into all the earth. They affect the Seven Assemblies.
Hank: Wait… What’s with this “Seven” stuff. There’s only one Body of Christ.
John: There is only one Body of Christ, but there are Seven Assemblies in the Spirit. This is why different Christians tend to do different things.
Hank: That make some sense, I suppose.
John: Jesus is like a Vine with many branches. In Him we are one, abiding in Him. Apart from Him we are divided. Paul tried to explain that the Spirit is unified and that our differences are not to be a source of division. Rather, our differences were intended to be the government of Jesus branching-out into all the earth.
Hank: You seem to make a lot more sense out of these complex ideas when you talk with word-pictures.
John: I’m not talking in word-pictures—I saw it with my own eyes. Seeing things as they are makes them plain to understand. That’s why He showed me and that’s why He told me to write down what I saw, so you would know also. The highest truth is, itself, like a poetic painting of art.
Hank: Ya know, come to think of it… My grandfather passed on a few years ago. When it all had happened, my mother told me that, since he saw God face-to-face, grandpa knew more about God than Calvin or Luther or any theologian… just by looking at God.
John: That’s what it was like, sitting at a table with Jesus. Even His character and personality gave us a huge theology lesson.
Hank: Actions speak.
John: If we are in the Light with Him then our work will shine for others to see. That’s when they will believe the message you share. But if you don’t have it yourself, then when you try to tell others they will only be irritated with your so-called “gospel”.
Hank: A lot of people are irritated with evangelists these days and so many Christians don’t like telling people about Jesus.
John: It’s because they are spreading actions that are not rooted in their hearts. They don’t believe what they talk about. A “behavior” gospel message won’t persuade people. Religions rooted in work, rather than expressed in work from faith, was always of Satan’s doing. Satan doesn’t like things based on faith because he can’t offer the same thing. So, nothing he does ever works. You might say the only way Satan can appear to be a farmer is to glue fruit on the trees of his fields. He’s cooked and processed all his seeds, so they can’t grow. It’s why he hates work that starts with faith… he can only fake it and he can’t control the real fruit in your life when you believe the Truth.
Hank: So, if there are Seven Spirits, which one do I have?
John: God never revealed any names to me. From what I saw, they are all Spirits of the Holy Lamb sent out into all the earth. But He did name the Seven Assemblies.
Hank: So, was that all literal or figurative… the Seven Churches were named after Seven Cities…
John: It’s plain as day to Him, but maybe not to us. Most of those cities are gone, but the flame of their lamps burns ever yet. Don’t try so hard to understand things that He has not revealed. There’s plenty He has revealed to keep us busy in our prayer time with Scripture and it’s all we need to guide our way.
Hank: This all has me thinking… We go about our lives on the earth, we spread the message so people can believe and have the work…
John: …and He is very familiar with all of our work. You can believe that.
Hank: But what about all those people that the message hasn’t yet reached? It seems unfair that they can’t be saved just because we didn’t go explain it to them.
John: That’s understandable. And I agree with you.
Hank: But how can you agree? We can’t believe in One whom we have not heard about. And if we don’t believe, we can’t be saved. Just that fact alone makes me want to go tell more people, but we just haven’t told them all, many people have only heard an incorrect gospel, so they reject a “straw-man” Jesus—a Jesus “in name only”, and there are so many who never learn the truth… How can God give them eternal punishment just because we haven’t properly gotten the message that far yet?
John: Where did you get the idea that God would cast souls into eternal flame merely because the message didn’t reach them?
Hank: Well, without the message of Christ we all perish.
John: Abraham didn’t.
Hank: Yeah, but that was before Jesus, back in the Old Testament, before we could be saved by faith.
John: No, Abraham believed what God did reveal to him and credited with righteousness by his faith.
Salvation has always been by faith, even before the Law. That’s what the Law was built on: faith.
Hank: But we can only be redeemed under the name of Jesus. If they don’t know that, they can’t be saved.
John: Abraham didn’t know how to spell Jesus’ name. He didn’t even have the Ten Commandments. All he had was what God revealed to him. He believed it. That was all it took.
Hank: So, anyone can have eternal life, even without the gospel message?
John: You seem a bit confused. Let me clear some things up for you…
Hank: That’s why I’m here.
John: Abundant, Eternal Life can begin in this lifetime. It is a foreshadowing, a promise token, of what will be fulfilled in the future. Just like a seed has “promise” or “potential” of the tree it grows into. In this life, that seed is known as “faith”.
Hank: We’ve established this already.
John: But you’re missing the difference.
Hank: What difference?
John: In this lifetime.
Hank: You wrote that we must believe to be redeemed.
John: That was in my story on Jesus earthly ministry. I never mentioned Salvation by faith in my fifth writing.
Hank: You mean Revelation?
John: In my Revelation from Christ, I wasn’t shown earthly redemption, but Eternity Life.
Hank: They are different?
John: Very different, yet connected. We are in the earth and we will be with Him in Eternity Future. He always was in Eternity Past and always Will Be.
Hank: But how does that relate to salvation?
John: In terms of Eternal Life entering our temporary lives here on earth, we can only believe it because we don’t yet see it
