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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:12; 4:15; 6:1; 8:1-2, 9; 9:8, 14-15; 12:9; 13:14; John 1:14, 16-17; 1 Cor. 15:10; Gal. 6:18
Grace in its highest definition is
God in the Son to be enjoyed by us;
It is not only something done or giv’n,
But God Himself, our portion glorious.
God is incarnate in the flesh that we
Him may receive, experience ourself;
This is the grace which we receive of God,
Which comes thru Christ and which is Christ Himself.
Paul the Apostle counted all as dung,
’Twas only God in Christ he counted grace;
’Tis by this grace — the Lord experienced —
That he surpassed the others in the race.
It is this grace — Christ as our inward strength —
Which with His all-sufficiency doth fill;
It is this grace which in our spirit is,
There energizing, working out God’s will.
This grace, which is the living Christ Himself,
Is what we need and must experience;
Lord, may we know this grace and by it live,
Thyself increasingly as grace to sense.
At the beginning of this book we pointed out that there are three major types in the Bible portraying the way by which God fulfills His purpose. These types are the good land of Canaan, the temple, and the bride. We have seen that the people who are living in the presence of God, in the shekinah glory of God, are the temple for God’s rest and the virgins for Christ’s satisfaction. In this chapter we want to see the all-inclusive type of Christ — the good land. We have to see how Christ as the grace of God is the very good land for us to enter into, to enjoy, to experience, to partake of, and to possess.
In 2 Corinthians we have the terms of the temple and the virgin but not the term of the good land. How could we say then that Christ is the good land for our enjoyment in 2 Corinthians? We have to realize that in 2 Corinthians we see a group of people who have attained to the uttermost to fulfill God’s purpose. In 1 Corinthians Paul likened the Corinthians to the children of Israel. They had left Egypt by experiencing Christ as the Passover (5:7), and they were wandering in the wilderness, experiencing Christ as the heavenly manna and as the spiritual rock that flowed out the living water (10:3-4). But there is no reference in 1 Corinthians to the good land of Canaan, which the children of Israel eventually entered into and possessed. Where is the record of entering into the good land? It is in 2 Corinthians. Although the term of the good land is not used in this book, spiritually speaking, we can see the good land in 2 Corinthians. The good land in this book is Christ Himself as the very embodiment of the processed Triune God given to us as the divine grace for our enjoyment. In this book we see some persons who possessed Christ as their God-given portion. These persons entered into the land promised and given by God, and they were enjoying this land, which is Christ Himself.
In this book Christ is the grace. In 13:14 Paul says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” According to the proper sequence, the love of God should be first. Here the grace of the Lord is mentioned first because 2 Corinthians is on the grace of Christ (1:12; 4:15; 6:1; 8:1, 9; 9:8, 14; 12:9). The grace of the Lord is the central thought, the subject, of this book. In 12:9 the Lord told Paul that His grace was sufficient for him.
It may be that the term grace is quite familiar to us, but we may have a very shallow understanding of this term. Many Christians consider that grace is unmerited favor, something given to us by the Lord freely. I have no objection to this. For instance, Christ’s dying on the cross for our sins was something done for us freely. Undoubtedly, this was really grace. Forgiveness and justification are things given by God to us which are of grace. But we must see that the New Testament shows us that grace is nothing less than Christ Himself (1 Cor. 15:10; cf. Gal. 2:20-21) as the very embodiment of the processed Triune God for our enjoyment. Christ has come not merely to do something for us objectively, not merely to bring some good things from God to us freely. The purpose of the work of Christ was so that He could come into us. His dying on the cross was not the purpose but the means to fulfill the purpose of Him coming into us for our enjoyment in order that we may enjoy Him as our life, our life supply, our strength, and our everything. Grace is Christ coming into us as our full enjoyment.
In 2 Corinthians 8:1 Paul said, “Furthermore we make known to you, brothers, the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia.” We might think that the grace given means that many good things were given to them by God, but the next verse shows us what this grace was. “That in much proving of affliction the abundance of their joy and the depth of their poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality” (v. 2). The grace was not something given to them, but it was that they had the strength, the energy, to give something to others while they were so poor. In poverty and affliction they were willing and able to give something to others. This is grace. It may be that when we receive something given by God through others that we would say, “Praise the Lord, this is a great grace.” Actually, this is childish talk. If we are mature in the divine life, we will realize that the greatest grace is not that we receive something but that there is Someone within us energizing us and enabling us to give something to others. Grace is not something received outwardly but Someone within, energizing, enabling, and strengthening us to do something for the Lord.
Another good example of grace is in chapter 12. In verses 7 through 9 Paul said, “There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, that he might buffet me, in order that I might not be exceedingly lifted up. Concerning this I entreated the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you.” We might think that if the thorn were taken away, that would be a real grace. If we had some illness, we might ask the Lord to heal us, to take away our illness. If our illness were gone the next day, we would be excited, praising the Lord for His grace. But this is not the grace mentioned in 2 Corinthians. The grace that Paul experienced was related to a thorn in the flesh which troubled and buffeted him all the time. The Lord was not willing to take the thorn away but told Paul that His grace was sufficient. If we were Paul, we might have argued with the Lord: “Lord, if Your grace is sufficient, it has to be sufficient to take the thorn away.” However, if the thorn is taken away, we could never experience the sufficient grace. We could never taste how sufficient this grace is. The grace mentioned here is not something done by the Lord or given by the Lord. It is simply the Lord Himself within us, supporting us, energizing us, and strengthening us to face the trouble, to meet the situation. This is a living grace, a real grace, and is nothing less than Christ as the very embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead (Col. 2:9) for our enjoyment.
I have seen a number of dear sisters who really loved the Lord, yet their husband would not go along with them. It seemed that the more they prayed for their husband, the more their husband became worldly. At first I could not understand the reason for this. Eventually, I found out that the more these dear sisters were troubled, bothered, and perplexed by their husband, the more they knew the Lord and the more they experienced the Lord as their grace. Whenever they opened their mouth to speak just a little bit, in their presence you had the sense that the Lord was there.
Our human understanding cannot realize this because the divine thought, the divine concept, is very much different from ours. We hope that certain things might be accomplished by the Lord for us by “His grace.” Eventually, however, nothing is done. Nothing is accomplished. Our environment and our situation do not change. We may say that we are fully disappointed, but it may be that we are still not disappointed enough. We may need to be disappointed more until we learn how to experience the grace of the Lord. We need to learn not to expect to receive anything outwardly or to have anything done by the Lord for us but just to enjoy the Lord Himself as the grace of God.
God assigned one co-worker another co-worker who was peculiar and troubling to him. He asked the Lord many times to be gracious and merciful to him so that he would not have to work with this brother. After many years, there was no answer to this prayer, no taking away of his fellow worker. Eventually, this brother was subdued by the Lord and realized that he had to accept this “thorn.” Then he prayed, “Lord, how I thank You for this precious, dear “thorn” upon me. Through this I can experience You more and more as my grace.” He learned the lesson of how to enjoy the living Christ as grace, the embodiment of all the fullness of the Godhead within him for his enjoyment.
Out of the enjoyment of Christ Himself as grace comes forth the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ cannot come forth, cannot be brought into our practical experience, by teachings alone. The practical life of the Body of Christ could only come forth out of the enjoyment of Christ as the grace of God. The more we enjoy Him, the more we will possess of Him. Out of this possession of Christ as our grace, the practical church life will be produced.
The temple, the building of God, for God’s rest, for God’s expression, and the virgin for Christ’s satisfaction come forth out of the enjoyment of Christ as the grace of God, which is typified by the good land of Canaan. The grace of Christ is the enjoyment of the land. When we enjoy Christ as the grace of God, we are enjoying the riches of the good land. As we enjoy the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8), He will be wrought into us. Then our whole being will be thoroughly saturated with all the elements of Christ as we enjoy Him day by day. Out of this inward enjoyment and possession of Christ comes forth the building of the Body, which is the virgin, the bride to Christ, for His satisfaction and the temple, the dwelling place of God, for His rest. The practical church life cannot be realized merely by teachings or visions but by the enjoyment of Christ as the grace of God.
We must have a bird’s-eye view of the entire book of 2 Corinthians so that we can see the way to enjoy Christ. Some would answer that to enjoy Christ we need to pray-read the Word and exercise the spirit. This is true, but to really enjoy Christ in a rich way, we must be persons who are symbolized by the ten aspects that we have seen in the preceding chapters. We have to be captives, letters, mirrors, vessels, ambassadors, co-workers, a temple, a virgin, lovers of the church, and tasters of Christ. If we are going to enjoy Christ, we must be captured, conquered, and subdued by Him. Regardless of how much we try to exercise our spirit, if we are not captives of Christ, it will be hard for us to enjoy much of Christ as grace. The exercise of the spirit and pray-reading may not help us much because we are not yet subdued or captured by Christ. We also have to be letters under His writing all the time in the spirit. As mirrors we have to be unveiled from religion with all of its traditions to behold and reflect the Lord. Then we need to be vessels, on the one hand, to contain Him and to receive Him into us again and again, and on the other hand, to be broken, reduced, consumed, all the time. We have to be ambassadors under His authority, representing Him for His interest on this earth, and we have to be co-workers bound together with Him as one. There should be no more freedom and no more separation between us and the Lord. Then we will be a temple, wholly, thoroughly, and ultimately separated unto Him to perfect holiness in the fear of God. We also need to be pure, chaste, and simple virgins to satisfy Him, and spontaneously we will be lovers of the church of which we are members. We will love the church unconditionally regardless of how the church treats us. Finally, we need to be tasters of Christ all the time. By all these aspects, we can enjoy Christ. If we have all these aspects, whenever we exercise our spirit, we will taste Christ. Whenever we pray-read the Word, we will take into us the sweet foretaste of Christ. This is the message of 2 Corinthians.
At the end of this Epistle, Paul wrote, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (13:14). The three of the Godhead are one, and love, grace, and fellowship are not three separate matters, but three aspects of one thing. God the Father is in Christ (John 14:10), and Christ is the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17). Likewise, the love of God is in the grace of Christ, and the grace of Christ with the love of God is in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The love of God is the source, since God is the origin; the grace of the Lord is the course of the love of God, since the Lord is the expression of God; and the fellowship of the Spirit is the impartation of the grace of the Lord with the love of God, since the Spirit is the transmission of the Lord with God for our experience and enjoyment of the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with Their divine virtues. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit transmits the grace of Christ with the love of God in it into us.
This is why Galatians 6:18 says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.” God is in Christ, Christ is the Spirit, and the Spirit is in our spirit for our enjoyment. God to us is the love, Christ to us is the grace, and the Spirit to us is the fellowship, the transmission, transmitting all that Christ is as grace, with all that God is as love in Him, into us for our enjoyment. All that God is in His trinity is now being transmitted into us for our enjoyment. This is the good land, the rich land, flowing with milk and honey with all the riches of the processed Triune God. These riches for our enjoyment include the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the transmission of the Holy Spirit for our experience.
I hope that we can bring all this fellowship to the Lord in prayer so that we all might be brought into the realization of the riches of Christ in 2 Corinthians. Then there will be a living expression of the Body of Christ in many localities by the experience of Christ. Praise Him! He is the grace as the good land for our enjoyment to produce the temple for God’s rest and the virgin for Christ’s satisfaction.
