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Scripture Reading: Acts 2:1-4, 17a, 18a, 33; 1:5b, 8a; 10:44-46; 11:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:13; Acts 10:47-48; 2:38, 41; 16:33; 19:5; Matt. 28:19; Gal. 3:27-28; Eph. 1:23; 5:23b; Rev. 19:7, 9; John 3:29-30; Gen. 2:20b-23; Eph. 5:24-25, 31-32; Rev. 21:2, 9-10; Eph. 2:15-16; 4:22-24; Col. 3:9-11
During the past twenty centuries there have been many disputes and divisions in Christianity. These have been the result of a lack of the proper knowledge concerning the apostles’ teaching. The New Testament is a very clear book, and its entire contents are the apostles’ teaching.
Some may argue that there are many other things in the New Testament, such as baptism. Over the centuries Christians have disputed over the kind of water — hot, cold, fresh, or salt water — in which people should be baptized. Some Christians have become preoccupied with many small details concerning baptism. For example, the Greek word for baptism indicates that baptism should be by immersion, but some Christians have argued over whether a person should be immersed in the forward or backward direction. Christians have also argued over such matters as the number of times a person may be baptized. This kind of preoccupation shows that these believers do not know what the apostles’ teaching covers.
In the United States there is a constitution, yet not everyone is qualified to interpret it. In this country there are nine very skilled Supreme Court justices who have the responsibility of interpreting the Constitution. Our laws acknowledge that they are qualified to be the ones who interpret the Constitution. Regarding the apostles’ teaching, it seems that everyone feels qualified to interpret it. A recent publication was put out by some opposing ones indicating that God’s economy is in opposition to deputy authority. Such a writing is a sign that there is division among us. A few brothers and sisters have caused a division in the Lord’s recovery, and they are speaking and writing quite freely. Therefore, we must have a clear view of the apostles’ teaching in order to counter them with the truth.
We have studied the history of the Brethren, especially of those who were with John Nelson Darby. If something had happened among them like the situation we are encountering today, they would have promptly excommunicated the instigators. From our very beginning, more than sixty years ago, we realized that this was not the proper approach. Although through the years we have suffered from the dissenting and opposing ones, we would not pursue the practice of excommunication. In Romans 16:17 Paul begs us to “mark those who make divisions and causes of stumbling contrary to the teaching which you have learned, and turn away from them.” Titus 3:10 says, “A factious man, after a first and second admonition, refuse.” A factious person is a sectarian person. We should warn such a person once, then a second time; if after that he does not repent, we should refuse him. Refusing any kind of division is similar to the medical practice of quarantining. To keep oneself away from anything divisive is to exercise to quarantine the divisive ones.
If a family member becomes very sick with a contagious disease, the family will not excommunicate that member. However, that member needs to be quarantined in order that others in the family would not become infected. The quarantining does not mean that the family no longer loves the ill member. On the contrary, this is a means of expressing love toward that member and toward all the other family members. The quarantine is exercised to keep that member safe and to keep the whole family from being contaminated with the illness.
Because of the present situation among us, I felt burdened to speak to the saints at the end of the 1989 winter training regarding the apostles’ teaching and the New Testament leadership. As I was speaking, I realized that those meetings were not adequate to cover these two matters; thus, we will spend time during this term of the full-time training to cover them in a more thorough way.
The apostles’ teaching is the entire speaking of God in the New Testament. The entire speaking of God in the New Testament concerns God’s New Testament economy from the incarnation of God to the consummation of the New Jerusalem. God’s New Testament economy has been unveiled to us in the Lord’s recovery.
The first four sections of God’s New Testament economy are the incarnation of the Triune God, the all-inclusive death of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the ascension of Christ. The fifth section is the most complicated and the most complicating section. Many of the disputes and divisions are centered on this section.
The first four sections of God’s New Testament economy are altogether concerning Christ. Christ is God incarnated. The incarnation includes Christ’s human living. The next three sections of God’s New Testament economy — the all-inclusive death of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the ascension of Christ — also concern Christ Himself. The next section, the fifth, concerns the church. In the past, many saints have declared that they are for Christ and the church. This may have become a slogan to many of us. If we say that we are for Christ and the church, we must know who Christ is, and we must know what the church is. The sixth and seventh sections of God’s New Testament economy concern the kingdom and the New Jerusalem, respectively.
In this chapter we will begin to consider the apostles’ teaching concerning the church. After the ascension of Christ, the Holy Spirit was poured out for the baptizing of all the believers into one Body (Acts 2:1-4, 17a, 18a, 33; 1:5b, 8a; 10:44-46; 11:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:13), making the believers the Body of Christ, having Christ as the Head (Eph. 1:22-23; 5:23b), and making them the bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7, 9) and the universal new man (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24).
The first page of the New Testament begins with the incarnation of God. The last page of Revelation is concerned with the New Jerusalem. The incarnation of God includes Christ’s human living. Human living is a prolonged section of incarnation. After the incarnation of God are the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the baptizing of all the believers into one Body, the church. The sixth section of God’s New Testament economy is the kingdom, and the final section is the New Jerusalem. God’s New Testament economy consummates with the New Jerusalem. This is all that the New Testament teaches. The New Testament is the apostles’ teaching. The apostles’ teaching is the entire speaking of God in the New Testament, and this speaking concerns God’s New Testament economy from the incarnation of the Triune God to the consummation of the New Jerusalem. Between these two ends are Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, the outpouring of the Spirit, and the kingdom.
In the incarnation of the Triune God, God was born of a virgin (Matt. 1:18, 20) so that He could partake of man’s blood and flesh in order to bring God into man that He might mingle Himself with man and pass through human living. This is incarnation.
The all-inclusive death of Christ solved all the problems between man and God and accomplished God’s eternal redemption, signified by the blood flowing out of the crucified Jesus (Heb. 9:12; John 19:34). This all-inclusive death also released the divine life as the eternal life, signified by the water flowing out of the crucified Christ (v. 34).
First, the resurrection of Christ testifies that God is satisfied with His death for us and that we are justified by God in Him and with Him (Rom. 4:25b). Second, the resurrection begot Jesus the man as the Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4). Third, the resurrection imparted the divine life into the believers of Jesus Christ and begot them as the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:29; John 12:24b). Fourth, the resurrection made Christ the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Finally, the resurrection consummated the Triune God and made the Spirit of God the ultimate consummation of the Triune God as the Spirit (Matt. 28:19; John 7:39; Rev. 22:17).
The ascension of Christ had a secret part and an open part. The secret part was for Christ to be presented to God as the firstfruits of the harvest and for God to taste His freshness in resurrection (Lev. 23:10-11). The open part of the ascension was for Christ to be crowned with glory and honor (Heb. 2:7), to be made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), to be made a Leader and Savior (5:31), and to be made Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22). This is the consummation of Christ as the Savior.
God was incarnated, lived on the earth, and experienced human living. He went to the cross to die an all-inclusive death, solving all the problems between man and God. He resurrected to be the life-giving Spirit and to be the firstborn Son of God, generating us to be the many sons of God. On the morning of the day of His resurrection, He ascended secretly, and forty days later, He ascended openly. All the things concerning God’s plan and redemption were fully accomplished. After such a marvelous accomplishment there should have been a great celebration. Ephesians 4:8 gives us a hint concerning such a celebration: “Therefore the Scripture says, ‘Having ascended to the height, He led captive those taken captive and gave gifts to men.’” This is a small window through which we can see a parade, a celebratory procession, celebrating Christ’s victory, which He accomplished in His death and in His resurrection. In Christ’s ascension He led a procession celebrating His victory.
Furthermore, in His ascension He reached the heavens as the consummated God. After the ascension the Triune God was altogether consummated. Before the creation of the world, in eternity past, God had only His divinity. He did not yet have the human nature or the experience of human living. He had not yet gone through an all-inclusive death. He did not yet have the element of humanity or the element of death, and although He was the resurrection (John 11:25), He had never experienced resurrection. Furthermore, there had been no ascension because there had been no descension. After Christ’s ascension the Triune God became full of many elements. He now has the divine element, the human element, the element of death, the element of resurrection, and the element of ascension.
If you compare God before His process and God after His process, you will find that there is quite a difference. Before His process He was the “raw” God. To say that God in eternity past was raw is not heresy but the truth. God was raw because He was not yet “cooked”; He was not yet processed. The cooking of a raw fish adds many elements to it. For example, in Spanish cooking, a number of spices might be added to the fish. Instead of going into an oven, God went into the womb of a virgin. He did not stay there for two hours; rather, He stayed there for nine months. What a long process He passed through! He lived more than thirty years on this earth. Even in His death the process lasted six hours, from nine o’clock in the morning to three o’clock in the afternoon. Then He entered into resurrection, and He ascended. This was quite a procedure composed of several long processes. God is now in His ascension. He is now the consummated God. He was the raw God, but after being cooked, He became the consummated God.
This consummated God is not divided into three separate persons. Acts 2:33 says, “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He has poured out this which you both see and hear.” It may seem that on the day of Pentecost only the Holy Spirit was poured out, but we must not forget that Christ received the Holy Spirit from the Father. The New Testament principle is that when the Spirit comes from the Father, the Father comes with Him. If we were to be sent by the Lord Jesus to Africa, would we go alone? When the Lord sends us to knock on people’s doors, do we go alone? Does the Lord Jesus remain in the heavens as we go out? We must believe that as we go, He goes as well. When Christ received the Holy Spirit from the Father, the Father came with the Holy Spirit. Christ poured out the Spirit with the Father.
When He poured out the Spirit with the Father, He did not remain in the heavens. When the Lord Jesus received the Spirit from the Father, the Father was with the Spirit. When the Lord poured out this Spirit, the Lord was with the Spirit. Thus, the Spirit, the Son, and the Father — the entire Triune God — were poured out. The Spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost was the consummated Spirit, who is the consummation of the Triune God.
When I was a young person in Christianity, I learned their theology, which taught that the Father was sitting on the throne, and the Son came down to the earth. I was taught, further, that the Father gave the Spirit to the Son and that the Spirit alone was poured out, the Father remaining on the throne and Christ remaining in the heavens. This is the teaching of Christianity, but it is not the teaching of the New Testament. According to the New Testament, when Christ ascended to the heavens, He received the Holy Spirit from the Father and with the Father. The Holy Spirit comes from the Father, and the Father comes with the Holy Spirit. The Father is one with the Spirit (Matt. 10:20). The Lord Jesus poured out this Spirit, who is one with the Father, in such a way that the Lord was one with the Spirit and with the Father. Eventually, the One who poured out was the One who was poured out, and this One is the Triune God in His consummation. That which was poured out on the day of Pentecost was the consummated God in His consummation. He poured Himself out as the Triune God upon all His believers, including the Jews, the Gentiles, the believers in ancient times, and the believers in the present time. We all were baptized in that consummated Spirit, who is the consummation of the Triune God, and we all were baptized into one Body.
Acts 2:1-4 records the accomplishment of the outpouring of the Spirit: “As the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled, they were all together in the same place. And suddenly there was a sound out of heaven, as of a rushing violent wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which were distributed; and it sat on each one of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, even as the Spirit gave to them to speak forth.” A few verses later, Acts explains clearly that what occurred there was definitely the outpouring of the Spirit: “It shall be in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh” (v. 17a). The next verse continues, “Indeed upon My slaves, both men and women, I will pour out of My Spirit in those days” (v. 18a). Verse 33 tells us that what was poured out was not just the Spirit alone but the complete Triune God — the Spirit with the Father and with the Son. This is the fulfillment of Acts 1:5, where the Lord prophesied, “You shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Then in verse 8 the Lord said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
The accomplishment of the Lord’s prophecy took place first with the Jews on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, and later, as revealed in Acts 10:44-46 and 11:15-17, with the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius. These passages in Acts 2 and in Acts 10 and 11 show a complete baptism, with all the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers through all the generations being baptized together into one Body. Paul confirms this in 1 Corinthians 12:13: “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” This is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of all the believers into one Body for the formation of the one Body.
The baptizing of all the believers into one Body universally is the corporate aspect of baptism. In addition to this aspect, there is an individual aspect, which is the application and realization of, and participation in, the corporate baptism (Acts 10:47-48; 2:38, 41; 16:33; 19:5; Matt. 28:19; Gal. 3:27-28). Every believer should be baptized. In Matthew 28:19 the Lord Jesus said, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” We must be baptized into the Triune God. To be baptized into the Triune God is to be baptized into Christ, because Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9). One cannot be baptized into Christ and say that he has not yet been baptized into the Father and the Spirit. As long as one is baptized into Christ, he is baptized into the Father and into the Spirit as well.
The corporate baptism of all the believers into the one Body was applied to us at the time we believed into Christ. A Jew who believes into Christ receives the application of the baptism that occurred on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, and a Gentile believer receives the application of the baptism that occurred in Cornelius’s house. The application of the corporate baptism is through our believing. As such, it is the realization that we have been baptized, and it becomes a participation in the corporate baptism that took place two thousand years ago.
Most Christians have never seen this, even though it has been in print for over nineteen hundred years. Thank the Lord that He has given us the light to see these things in these days. Approximately sixty years ago, I read some writing that said that our baptism is the application of what took place in Acts, but at that time I did not have as much comprehension of the meaning as I have today. Whenever we immerse someone, that immersion is the application and realization of what occurred two thousand years ago, and it is the participation in that corporate baptism. Hallelujah, we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit! We were baptized in the consummated Triune God two thousand years ago. Our individual baptism is the application and realization of, and participation in, that baptism. This is the apostles’ teaching.
To insist on certain practices such as tongue-speaking is to go beyond the apostles’ teaching. Such insistence becomes a different teaching (1 Tim. 1:3) and a wind of teaching (Eph. 4:14) that blows the saints away from the Body of Christ, thus causing division.
All the believers were baptized into one Body in order that they might be the Body of Christ having Christ as the Head (1:23; 5:23b). The Body is the fullness of Christ, the One who fills all in all. If we care only for the Head and not for the Body, there will be no fullness. The phrase the fullness of the One who fills all in all indicates that Christ is universally great. His greatness has no limit, because He fills all in all.
The Body of Christ is also the full growth, the rich surplus, of Christ. A person may have a normal-sized head and a small body, like that of a dwarf. Such a body does not have the full growth. If there is the full growth of the body, there is also a surplus. Therefore, the church as the Body of Christ is Christ’s full growth and Christ’s rich surplus.
The Body of Christ is also the extension, the spread, of Christ. On one hand, Christ is like a pine tree, shooting toward the sky. He is also the vine (John 15:1a, 5a), spreading to cover the entire earth. A number of years ago some brothers in England took me to see a large vine of their queen, and one of them asked me if I was impressed at its size. My reply to him was that that vine was not nearly the size of the true vine that is spreading all around the globe. Today Christ is extending Himself as the vine, the Body of Christ, the church, all over the earth.
The Body is also the continuation of Christ. Christ has not been terminated; rather, He is continuing today. The Body of Christ is the reproduction, duplication, and multiplication of Christ. Every reproduction is a duplication. As in xeroxing, every duplication becomes the reproduction, or multiplication, of the original, or master, copy. This is a picture of the church as the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is also the expression of Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God. The body of a person is the expression of that person. Because of this, it is sometimes possible to recognize a person even though he is turned away so that his face is not visible. The Body of Christ expresses the One who is the embodiment of the Triune God.
The church is also the bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7, 9). The bride is the increase, the enlargement, of Christ (John 3:29-30). A man who is single is not complete, because he is only half of a couple. Marriage makes a man and a woman a couple. In the eyes of God it is not good for man to live alone (Gen. 2:18). Thus, God built a wife for man so that the couple could be complete. The first part, the man, is the source, and the second part, the woman, is the enlargement of the first part.
The bride of Christ is the counterpart of Christ, typified by Eve as the counterpart of Adam (vv. 20b-23; Eph. 5:31-32). Eve was not created; she was a rib that was taken out of Adam. God built the rib into a woman to match the man. The man is the husband, and the woman is the counterpart of that husband. After Eve was built, she and Adam became one. The same is true of the church in relation to Christ.
The bride is the wife of Christ, and this wife will be consummated in the New Jerusalem (vv. 24-25; Rev. 21:2, 9-10). This wife has not yet been consummated, because today the church does not include Abraham, David, or any of the other Old Testament saints. In the New Jerusalem all the saints, including the Old Testament and the New Testament saints, become the consummated wife of Christ.
The church is also the universal new man (Col. 3:10; Eph. 4:24). The Head of this new man is Christ, and the Body of this new man is the church. The new man is created of the Jews and the Gentiles as one Body through Christ’s death (2:15-16). Before Christ’s death there was a definite partition between the Jews and the Gentiles, but Christ died on the cross to take away the partition and put the two together as one Body. In His death and resurrection He terminated these two parties in the old creation and germinated them in the new creation, making them not just a body but a new man. These matters are all quite meaningful, and these matters are the apostles’ teaching.
Colossians 3:11 says, “Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all.” All...in all in this verse signifies something different from all in all in Ephesians 1:23. In Ephesians all in all refers to the universe, whereas in Colossians it refers to Christ’s Body. In Christ’s Body there are many members, and Christ is all the members. Christ is you, and Christ is me. Christ is every member in His Body. Christ is also in us. He is in you, He is in me, and He is in every member of His Body. The entire new man is just Christ. Paul says that to him, to live was Christ (Phil. 1:21).
The universal new man is being consummated by being renewed through the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man (Eph. 4:22-24; Col. 3:9-10). The new man has not yet been consummated, because something of the old creation still remains in us. Therefore, we must be renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16) by putting off the old man and by putting on the new man. Day by day something of our old man should be put off, and something of the new man should be put on. The new man has not yet been completed; the new man is still under the process of being renewed.
One of the most difficult things for us to put off is our racial character. Whether we are Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English, Dutch, or American, we all have our particular racial character. For example, the Americans are very frank. We may say that it is possible to see through to the very marrow of their bones. On the other hand, it seems as if the Chinese wear many layers of clothing so that nothing shows through. If day by day we put off the old man and put on the new man, the only character we will possess will be the character of Christ. As we are being renewed day by day, the new man is being consummated.
