New Jerusalem has twelve foundations with the twelve names of the twelve apostles. This is the second post on what they represent of our Christian experience.

The Bible does not uplift the human qualifications of the apostles. Several were poor, uneducated fishermen. Matthew was a despised tax collector. They did not become apostles by their human qualifications but due to God’s mercy.

Paul’s education and upbringing did not make him an apostle. He rejected all of that, as he stated in Philippians 3:4-11, because of the riches he received by revelation from Christ.

The apostles are also the real witnesses of God’s mercy. When we consider the twelve foundations, we must recognize the mercy of God….Praise God that His mercy is so far-reaching that it has reached poor sinners like us!…If we are humble, we will realize how truly pitiful we are before the Lord and how worthless in His eyes. We need His mercy….It has nothing to do with our qualifications; it is all the Lord’s mercy….What a mercy! These twelve foundation stones will eternally declare God’s mercy. We must know the mercy of God!*

Like the apostles, we are objects of God’s mercy. Our qualification is not anything of ourselves. God says, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy….So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy (Rom. 9:15-16).

God’s desire is to “make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory,” (Rom. 9:23). The ultimate stage of His glory is New Jerusalem. It is God’s mercy that we can participate in that glory.

* Excerpt from The Vision of God’s Building by Witness Lee, chapter 19, © LSM.

Bible verses quoted in these posts are from The Holy Bible, Recovery Version, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim CA, 2003. The New Testament of this Bible, with its outlines, is at online.recoveryversion.org; this too is © by LSM.