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Scripture Reading: John 14:6-20; Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; Acts 16:7; Phil. 1:19b; Heb. 9:26, 28; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24; Heb. 2:14; John 12:31; Eph. 2:15; Col. 1:20; John 12:24; Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Eph. 1:20-21; Exo. 30:22-31; John 7:39; 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 3:14; Rev. 2:7; 22:17
In the first chapter we fellowshipped concerning the definition of the Christian life. We saw that the Christian life is the life in which the believers of Christ live Christ and magnify Him (Phil. 1:20b-21a). It is also the life in which the Christians live Christ and magnify Him corporately in their locality as a local church to be a local expression of Christ as a part of the universal Body of Christ. The Christ whom the believers are living and magnifying is the center of the Divine Trinity. Why do we say that Christ is the center of the Divine Trinity? He is the center, on the one hand, to express the Father and, on the other hand, to be realized as the Spirit (John 14:6-20).
These two phrases — to express the Father and to be realized as the Spirit — are short, but they are crucial. To arrive at the second phrase, to be realized as the Spirit, took me probably more than fifty years. It was not until these past fifteen years of my ministry that I began to use this phrase. The phrase to express the Father was used not only by us but also by others. Many fundamental theologians would agree that Christ the Son is the expression of the Father. But to say that Christ the Son is realized as the Spirit brings us into a big war. Some have said that this is heresy, but this is the truth revealed in the holy Word. This truth is very mysterious. To say that the second of the Divine Trinity is realized as the third is the ultimate understanding of the Divine Trinity.
In this chapter we want to see the contents of the Christian life. The contents of the Christian life are not a simple matter. To know the contents of the Christian life, we have to know the sixty-six books of the entire Bible. Now I would like to ask, “What are the contents of the Christian life?” The contents of the Christian life are the entire Bible. I want to help us realize this in a very simple way. The first verse of the Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The last verse of the Bible says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen” (Rev. 22:21). The Bible is one book. It begins with God, and it ends with the Lord Jesus. Are God and the Lord Jesus two or one? If you say that They are two, this is not logical. How can a book start with God and end with another person?
The Bible as the content of the Christian life is the autobiography of the Triune God. The Triune God has written a record of His own history, which we should call the autobiography of the Triune God. Who is God? What is God? What has God done, what is He doing, and what will He do? Where was God, where is God, and where will God be? There is only one autobiography that speaks of God, and this autobiography is the content of the Christian life. Thus, the content of the Christian life is altogether not simple.
When I was very young, I read the Old Testament, including the minor prophets. But I did not spend much time to study these minor prophets. In the upcoming summer training of 1992, we will have a life-study of these minor prophets. There are twelve minor prophets, but we will cover only eleven of them since we have already covered Zechariah. Recently, I was working on the outlines for Hosea. Hosea is a very difficult book to read. Most of his writing is in poetic form. Verses 4 through 7 of Hosea 7 speak of the symbols of an oven and a baker. These symbols are particularly difficult to understand and interpret. I am sharing this so that we can realize that the Bible is altogether not that simple. It is too high, too deep, and too profound. The Bible is an autobiography, not a history. It is not a compiled book of theological doctrines and teachings. The Bible is an autobiography of a wonderful person — the processed and consummated Triune God. This wonderful person comprises many things.
The processed and consummated Triune God is revealed in John 14:6-20. These fifteen verses are the very center of this divine autobiography. They bring us to the center of this person whose autobiography is the Bible. We say that Christ is the center of the Divine Trinity, expressing the Father and being realized as the Spirit, based upon these fifteen verses. I learned from others that the Son expresses the Father. But I did not learn from others that the Son is realized as the Spirit. I discovered this in the divine revelation of the Scriptures.
Our Christian life is a person. His autobiography is our biography. The Bible is the Triune God’s autobiography, and before we experience it, it is our biography. But after experiencing it, it becomes our autobiography. In our Christian life, we Christians are all writing our autobiography. We are writing our autobiography by copying what is written in God’s autobiography. Eventually, the apostle Paul’s autobiography was just the Bible.
The Triune God as a wonderful person is the contents of our Christian life. He exists from eternity to eternity, having no beginning or ending. As such an eternal One, He created the universe and man. After His creation of man, He remained the same for four thousand years. One day in time He entered into a long “tunnel” to get Himself processed. That long tunnel, or long process, lasted a little more than thirty-three and a half years.
After passing through such a process, He became different. Before those thirty-three and a half years, He was only divine, not human. But after those thirty-three and a half years, He became both divine and human. In other words, before that process He was only God, not man. But after that process He became both God and man. Thus, some particular element was added into Him, and that particular element was humanity.
Before His incarnation He had divinity, but He did not have humanity. It was in incarnation that He picked up humanity and put humanity upon Himself. In His resurrection He brought this humanity with Him, and He uplifted this humanity to make this humanity a divine humanity. Now in His ascension, He is both divine and human, having both divinity and humanity. These are the basic elements of His person, and these basic personal elements are the basic contents of the Christian life.
In His process He passed through incarnation, and He also passed through a living that lasted over thirty-three years. No one can fathom the mysterious human living of this God-man. He was the very Triune God, Elohim (Gen. 1:1, Heb.), who created the universe, coming to pick up humanity and living in this humanity on earth for thirty-three and a half years. Who can imagine this? Most Christians have never spent time to muse on God’s human living. We have to consider such a great thing. God became a man and lived in His humanity on the earth continually for thirty-three and a half years. He never left during this period of time. Today we take vacations, but He never had a vacation in His human living. His human living is a great element of what He is today.
Many people move around in the course of their lifetime, but the Lord Jesus lived thirty-three and a half years altogether in the small area of Palestine. This is very meaningful. To live in a place under a certain kind of environment makes you a particular person. After living on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, God became very particular. He lived with a lot of odd people. These odd people were around Him all the time. He talked to these odd people and dealt with them. Peter and the other disciples were odd. Are we not odd also? I believe that all these odd people helped to “remodel” Him. We cannot deny that after living on earth for thirty-three and a half years, He spontaneously added another element to Himself, the element of human living. For God to live on earth among the odd people for thirty-three and a half years is a great thing.
After passing through human living, He entered into death. Death was a short part of the long tunnel of His process, but He accomplished much in this short part. He solved our problem of sin (Heb. 9:26) and sins (v. 28). He terminated our old man (Rom. 6:6), our flesh (Gal. 5:24), the entire old creation (Col. 1:20), Satan (Heb. 2:14), the world (John 12:31), and the ordinances (Eph. 2:15). There are many ordinances in the human race. The Japanese, the Chinese, and the Americans all have their particular ordinances, or customs. These ordinances are forms or ways of living and worship. These customs also include the accent of the language. Even today many dear brothers who are from Texas cannot avoid speaking in a Texan southern accent. The first time I heard y’all was when I made my first visit to Texas. Moreover, in the United States, people in the South refer to those in the North as Yankees. This is an example of the ordinances among people. Of course, today by the Lord’s grace and also by the Lord’s sovereignty, we all are here in the United States. The United States is famous as a “melting pot.” But many people have been here for years, and the United States has not been successful in “melting” them.
Thank the Lord that among us in the recovery the feeling of discrimination does not exist that much. But I dare not to say that this is entirely gone from among us. It is a shame for there to be any distinction of culture or race among us. Paul tells us in Colossians 3:10-11 that there is no room for any natural person in the new man, but Christ is all and in all. There are no Japanese, Americans, Greeks, Jews, Chinese, etc., in the new man. Paul’s word in Colossians 3 means that there is no room for any natural person to exist in the new man. But we may still keep some rooms in our thinking for Yankees, for Texans, for Japanese, or for Chinese.
Even today among us we may categorize the brothers. In our mind there are many rooms for natural persons. We may think one brother is a Texan, another brother is a Yankee, another brother is from the Midwest, and another brother is from the Northwest. Other brothers to us are Californians, and in California there are the Northern Californians, from the Bay Area, and the Southern Californians. This attitude and feeling to categorize the brothers is wrong. According to Ephesians 2:15, Christ has abolished all the ordinances through His death.
In His all-inclusive death He also accomplished a positive work. This work was His releasing of the divine life within Him as the grain of wheat (John 12:24). The divine life was concealed in His human shell. The cross broke His human shell, and the divine life within Him was released. His death was a life-releasing death. The death of Adam is dark, but the death of Christ is bright. According to the divine autobiography, His all-inclusive death has also become an element of His being. After this death, He entered into His marvelous resurrection with His ascension.
Today He is an all-inclusive person as the processed and consummated Triune God. He has divinity, humanity, human living, an all-inclusive death, and an all-inclusive resurrection. We have to add these five things together — divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death, and the all-inclusive resurrection. When these five things are added together, we have today’s processed and consummated Triune God. This One is our God, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Lord, our Master, our Head, our reality, our life, our living, and our everything. If some ask us who our God is, we should tell them all of this.
My God is a composition. He is composed of divinity, humanity, human living, an all-inclusive death, and an all-inclusive resurrection to be my God, my Redeemer, my Savior, my Lord, my Master, my Head, my reality, my life, my living, and my everything. This is my God! Then I would ask, “Where is your God?” This God of such a wonderful composition is right now within us. He is also mingling Himself with us to make us exactly the same as He is in life, nature, element, and essence, but not in the Godhead. We have to see all of this; then we will have an all-inclusive view concerning the contents of the Christian life.
I would encourage us to dwell on this short fellowship. Many Christian books are not in the central line of God’s New Testament economy. They are not helping to write “Christian biographies” according to the autobiography of the Triune God. Even we ourselves are not so clear concerning what the real Christian life is. This is why I am burdened to have such a line on the Christian life. The content of the Christian life is the processed and consummated Triune God. To be consummated is to be completed. It is to be wrought with something until there is a completion, an accomplishment of having been wrought.
The Triune God as the content of our Christian life comprises the divinity of God in His Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14). He also comprises the humanity of the God-man Jesus in His incarnation (Acts 16:7; Phil. 1:19b).
The processed and consummated Triune God is compounded with Christ’s all-resolving and all-terminating death (Heb. 9:26, 28; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 5:24; Heb. 2:14; John 12:31; Eph. 2:15; Col. 1:20; John 12:24). It would be helpful to remember these Scripture references. Hebrews 9:26 refers to the resolving of sin. Christ was offered once to take care of sin. Then Hebrews 9:28 says that Christ’s death took care of our sins. Romans 6:6 says that our old man has been crucified with Christ. Then Galatians 5:24 tells us that Christ’s death crucified our flesh and its lusts. Hebrews 2:14 says that Christ’s death has destroyed Satan, and John 12:31 says that His death judged the world. Ephesians 2:15 is the verse telling us that Christ’s death has abolished all the ordinances. These ordinances include not only those set up by us human beings but also those ordained by God. All the ordinances were taken away by Christ on the cross. Colossians 1:20 further reveals that Christ’s death has taken care of all the created things. Through His death, all the lost created things were brought back to God and reconciled to God. The above verses show that Christ’s death dealt with all the negative things in the universe. John 12:24 is a verse on the positive side of Christ’s death, telling us that Christ as the unique grain of wheat fell into the earth to die and bring forth many grains. This is the life-producing death.
The processed and consummated Triune God is also compounded with Christ’s all-producing resurrection (Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:45b). What was produced in Christ’s resurrection? First, Christ was produced as the firstborn Son of God. Second, His resurrection produced the many sons of God to be the members that constitute the Body of Christ, the church. Finally, the life-giving Spirit was produced in His resurrection. Acts 13:33 shows that Christ as the only begotten Son of God was reborn in resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God. Then 1 Peter 1:3 unveils to us that we, the believers of Christ, were born in Christ’s resurrection to be the many sons of God. Finally, 1 Corinthians 15:45b reveals that Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit in His resurrection. Thus, the resurrection of Christ produced these three main things — the firstborn Son of God, the many sons of God to be the members of Christ constituting His Body as the church, and the life-giving Spirit. This is why I say that this resurrection is the all-producing resurrection.
In addition, the processed and consummated Triune God is compounded with Christ’s all-transcending ascension (Eph. 1:20-21). There are many things that are negative to us as Christians. All the fallen angels in the air are negative to us. But Christ’s ascension conquered and subdued all these negative things. In His ascension He transcended from the earth through the air to the third heaven far above all. Thus, we can see that the elements of the processed and consummated Triune God include His all-resolving and all-terminating death, His all-producing resurrection, and His all-transcending ascension. Christ as the center of the Triune God was compounded with His death, resurrection, and ascension.
This compounded person is typified by the compounded holy ointment in Exodus 30:22-31. The compounded ointment was not merely oil. It was an ointment. Olive oil as the basic unit was compounded with four spices — myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. Messages 157 through 166 in the Life-study of Exodus cover the truth concerning the compounded ointment. I would encourage you to read or study those messages. All the elements plus all the numbers related to the compounded ointment signify Christ’s divinity, humanity, human life, death, and resurrection. Some Bible teachers recognized that the compounded ointment is a type of the Holy Spirit. But no Bible teacher in the past gave us an analysis of the compounded ointment in all its aspects. Through our own study we saw that olive oil typifies the unique God, myrrh typifies the precious death of Christ, cinnamon typifies the sweetness and effectiveness of Christ’s death, calamus typifies the precious resurrection of Christ, and cassia typifies the repelling power of Christ’s resurrection. Our God today is the compounded God.
I began to speak on this beginning in 1954. In a training in Hong Kong in that year, I told people that today in the Spirit there is the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ. I received some help from chapter 5 of Andrew Murray’s masterpiece entitled The Spirit of Christ, in which he stresses that the Spirit today includes both divinity and humanity. Since I came to the United States, this vision of the Spirit as typified by the compounded ointment has become clearer and clearer. I believe that this revelation today is in the highlight, at “noontime.”
All the contents, the elements, of the processed and consummated Triune God have been compounded together and consummated to be the all-inclusive Spirit. This all-inclusive Spirit is the consummated Triune God, the consummation of the Triune God, through Christ’s death and resurrection (John 7:39; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17; Gal. 3:14; Rev. 2:7; 22:17). John 7:39 says that the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. At that time in the Gospels, the Holy Spirit was there, the Spirit of God was there, but not the Spirit. This is because Christ had not yet been glorified. This means that Christ had not gone through His death and entered into His resurrection. Jesus was glorified when He was resurrected (Luke 24:26). First Corinthians 15:45b reveals that Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit in His resurrection. Second Corinthians 3:17 says that the Lord is the Spirit, and Galatians 3:14 says that this all-inclusive Spirit, the Spirit, is the blessing of the New Testament gospel. The blessing of the gospel is not merely redemption, the forgiveness of sins, justification, regeneration, or salvation. The blessing of the gospel is a person, and that person is the all-inclusive Spirit as the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God.
The all-inclusive Spirit and Christ’s all-inclusive death and His all-inclusive resurrection have become the three main elements of the life by which the believers of Christ live the Christian life for the church life. Therefore, to know the Christian life, we have to know these three elements.
