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We have seen that the offerings in the Old Testament are types of Christ as the reality and content of the church life. In John 4:24 the Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truthfulness, or truth. When I was young, I was taught that truth means “sincerity,” so we have to worship God in spirit and in sincerity. But the more one reads the Gospel of John, the more he realizes that this is not the right meaning.
In John 14:6 the Lord said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (KJV). We cannot say that the Lord is the way, the sincerity, and the life. This does not fit the concept of the Gospel of John. Later, I was taught that truth refers to the proper doctrines or teachings. Some Christian teachers say that John 4:24 means that we have to worship God in the spirit and according to the proper doctrines or teachings. But this is not a proper interpretation. The Lord surely did not mean that He is the way, the doctrine, and the life. The real meaning of the word truth in John is not according to our natural or religious concept.
John 1 says that the Word who was God became flesh (v. 1), and this One was full of grace and truth (v. 14, KJV). Verse 16 says, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” When we receive of the fullness of Christ, we have grace upon grace to enjoy. Verses 17 and 18 say, “The law was given through Moses; grace and reality [truth] came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”
Grace and truth are the items of Christ’s fullness. His fullness is the fullness of the Godhead. Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Fullness refers not to the riches of God but to the expression of the riches of God. What dwells in Christ is not only the riches of the Godhead but the expression of the riches of what God is. Christ is the embodiment of God. All that God is, is embodied in Him.
Grace and truth are in contrast to the law. This means that the law is versus grace and truth. Thus, if we are to understand the meaning of grace and truth, we have to know the meaning of the law. John tells us that the law was given by Moses. He does not say that the law came by Moses. This means that you can receive the law without receiving Moses. But grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. This means that if you are going to receive grace and truth, you have to receive this Christ. Darby’s New Translation of John 1:17 says, “Grace and truth subsists through Jesus Christ.” Grace and truth subsist through Christ, so when you receive Him, you receive grace and truth.
The law never gives you something. Instead, it always demands something of you. Grace, on the other hand, never demands but always gives. Christ came to give and to impart, not to demand. The law tells us to honor our parents. This is a demand. But grace came to us through Christ. When this One comes into us, He imparts to us the honoring of our parents. Christ does not demand that we honor our parents; instead, He supplies us with what He is to honor our parents. The law tells us to love our neighbor as ourself. This is a demand. Christ comes to impart love into us. He supplies us with love to love others. On the one hand, Christ as grace never demands but supplies. On the other hand, the law demands but never supplies. When the Lord tells us to do something, He supplies us with what He is. Whatever Christ asks us to do, He always supplies us with that matter. This is grace.
The Lord demands that we be like Him, that is, that we have the likeness of God. He demands that we behave, that we live, act, and conduct ourselves like God. According to the Ten Commandments, God is a God of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. The law demands that we be persons who correspond with what God is. The law, however, does not supply love, light, holiness, or righteousness to us. Christ, on the other hand, came to supply us with all that He is to meet what He demands. Christ as the embodiment of God came into us to impart all the fullness of God into us, including love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Christ came into us not to demand but to give, to supply, and to impart. This is Christ as grace. The law is demanding, but Christ as grace is within us giving, supplying, and imparting.
The law demands that we be what God is. We have to love others because God is love. We have to walk in the light because God is light. Since God is holy, we have to be holy. Since God is righteous, we have to be righteous. The law always demands, but Christ came as the embodiment of God to live within us and to impart love, light, holiness, and righteousness to us with all the fullness of God. This is grace.
Ephesians 5 tells the wives to submit themselves to their own husbands (v. 22). But we also have to remember that Paul charges us to do everything in Christ. Whether this charge is a law or grace to us is dependent upon what we realize. Many wedding pastors make Ephesians 5 a word of the law. But this portion of the Word is not a part of the law but of grace. Christ as grace imparts Himself into us to become our very submission. The wives’ submission to their own husbands should be nothing less than Christ. The more you love Christ, the more you take Him as your life, and the more you live by Him, the more you will spontaneously and unconsciously be sweetly submissive. This sweet submission is nothing less than Christ Himself. This is grace, not a demand.
Ephesians 5 also tells the brothers who are husbands to love their wives (v. 25). Some brothers would say that they cannot love their wives. We should not try to charge such brothers to love their wives according to the law of Moses. Moses cannot get through, but Christ can get through. We may say, “Brother, what you have told me about your wife may be absolutely true. But do you realize that Christ lives in you? Do you love Him? Do you live by Him?” The brother may respond by saying that he loves and lives by Christ to some extent. Then we can say, “I encourage you to go to the Lord again. Consecrate yourself to Him, open yourself to Him, and take Him in more and more to live by Him more and more. Then see what will come out. Forget about the command to love your wife. Just look to Him. Open up to Him more and more. Take Him as your life more and more, and see what will come out.” If he takes this fellowship, he will experience Christ spontaneously and unconsciously as the love for his wife.
Such love is imparted by Christ and with Christ and can never be separated from Christ. Since you have Christ, you have love. Love is not a law, it is a grace; it is not a demand but an imparting. The law was given by Moses, but grace came through Jesus Christ. Grace was not given by Jesus but came through Jesus. When we have Jesus, we have grace. The Gospel of John does not tell us about the law but about grace. It tells us that the Word, which is God Himself, was incarnated to be the flesh and was full of grace. If we receive Him, we enjoy grace. Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. This is like the ocean coming to the land wave upon wave. Grace is God Himself given to us and enjoyed by us.
Now we need to consider what truth is. The law is demanding, but with the law there is no reality. The law tells us to honor our parents, but the law does not give us the real honor. The law demands without providing the reality. The law tells us that we have to be holy as the Lord is holy, but it does not give us the reality of holiness. The law says that the proper human life must be holy, but it does not impart holiness. Thus, with the law there is the demand of holiness but not the reality. This is like having a menu but no food. The law is the menu; the reality is the food. Truth means “reality.” Christ is the reality of the honoring of our parents, the reality of holiness, and the reality of love.
Whatever the law demands is just a picture without anything real. The reality is with Jesus Christ. The picture was given through Moses. The reality came through Jesus Christ. The law demands that we be holy, but holiness came through Jesus. Jesus is the reality of holiness, love, righteousness, and honor. Jesus is the reality of all the contents of the law. If I give you a picture of a brother, you may say that it is nice but that you want the reality. When the brother actually comes to you, you may say, “The picture was given by Witness Lee, but the reality came through this brother.” Moses just passed on a picture to us, but the reality of this picture is Jesus Himself. When He comes, the reality comes with Him.
On the one hand, Christ is grace to us. On the other hand, He is the reality of all things demanded by the law. The law was given through Moses, but grace and reality came through this wonderful Jesus, who is the very God incarnated as a man to bring God into us. This is the central message of the Gospel of John. This Gospel tells us that the Word, who is God Himself, became flesh to bring God into us as the reality of all things demanded, mentioned, and revealed through the law.
In the law there are not only commandments but also regulations. There are regulations concerning the offerings, that is, concerning how the children of Israel had to bring their surplus to worship God. The regulations of the law forbade people to come to worship God with their hands empty (Deut. 16:16). They were required to bring something to offer to God as the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the wave offering, and the heave offering. These are different aspects of the picture in the Old Testament, which portray Christ as the reality of all the offerings. We have to enjoy Christ as the real surplus of the land of Canaan.
If we know this principle, we will be able to appreciate the relationship between the New Testament and the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there are the pictures. In the New Testament there is the explanation, the reality. When we look at the picture, everything is made clear. The entire Old Testament presents a full picture of what Christ is to us, showing us how we have to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and partake of Christ. Christ in the New Testament is the reality of this picture.
Christ is the reality of all things demanded by God in the law. This is the proper meaning of the word truth in the Gospel of John. Truth does not refer to teachings or doctrines. Truth is “reality.” Christ as the embodiment of God is the reality of all things demanded by God in the law. The law was given by Moses; reality came with Christ.
John 4:24 says that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness, or reality. This means that if anyone is going to worship God, he must worship by exercising his spirit and by realizing Christ as the embodiment of God. Philippians 3:3 says, “We are the circumcision, the ones who serve by the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.” This verse reveals that we worship God by the Spirit and boast in Christ Jesus. This is the interpretation of worshipping God in spirit and in reality. Truth means “reality,” which is Christ Himself as the embodiment of God partaken of by us.
In John 8:24 the Lord Jesus said, “Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” “I am” is God Himself. The Lord was saying that we must believe that He is the great I Am, the reality of God. Whoever does not take this reality by believing in Christ will die in his sins. In verse 28 the Lord said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and that I do nothing from Myself, but as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things.” Verses 31 and 32 say, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Verse 28 says, “You will know that I am.” Verse 32 says, “You shall know the truth.” Thus, to know the truth is to know the I Am. The truth is the great I Am. This great I Am, the reality, will set us free.
Verses 33 through 36 say, “They answered Him, We are Abraham’s seed and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, You shall become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. And the slave does not abide in the house forever; the son does abide forever. If therefore the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.” Verse 32 says that the truth shall set you free, but verse 36 says that the Son sets you free. Thus, truth is the Son, and the Son is the embodiment of God.
In John 14:6 the Lord said that He is the way and the reality and the life. The Christian life is not a matter of doctrine or teaching but of reality. In verse 17 the Lord spoke of the Spirit of reality. The Spirit is the reality of Christ as the Son of God. John 16:13 says, “When He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality.” The Spirit brings us not into doctrine but into all that Christ is as the embodiment of God.
Verses 14 and 15 say, “He will glorify Me, for He will receive of Mine and will declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He receives of Mine and will declare it to you.” This means that the fullness of the Father dwells in the Son, and the Spirit of reality takes of this fullness and declares it to us. All that the Father is and has is embodied in the Son, and all that the Son is and has is declared as reality to the believers through the Spirit.
In John 18 the Lord said to Pilate, “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, that I would testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (v. 37). The Lord did not testify to the doctrine but to the reality of God. Pilate responded by asking, “What is truth?” (v. 38a). After Pilate asked this question, he went out to the Jews and said to them, “I find no fault in Him” (v. 38b). Pilate understood the Roman law, but he did not understand the divine reality.
In view of the entire revelation of the Gospel of John, truth denotes the divine reality embodied, revealed, and expressed in Christ as the Son of God. In the New Testament we must worship God in spirit with the reality. We do not worship according to the demand of the law. The law is an empty picture. Now we have to worship God, to serve God, with Christ as the reality.
