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Scripture Reading: John 11:25; 10:17-18; Acts 10:41; 2:24; 3:15; Mark 2:8; Luke 23:46; Heb. 2:14; Col. 2:15; 1 Pet. 3:18b-19; Phil. 3:10a; Rom. 6:9; Eph. 2:6; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29b; 1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:9-11; Exo. 30:23-25; Eph. 3:8; Rom. 8:13b; 1 John 2:20, 27; Phil. 3:10
In order to stay healthy as human beings, we need to eat the proper food and take the proper medicine. Today there has been much scientific study concerning food and medicine to help people to be healthy and stay healthy. The Bible tells us that in our Christian life, the Word of God is food (Matt. 4:4; Jer. 15:16) and medicine to us (Prov. 4:20-22). In 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus, Paul speaks of healthy teaching (1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1), healthy words (1 Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13), and healthy speech (Titus 2:8). Healthy implies the matter of life. The healthy teaching with the healthy words and healthy speech ministers the Word as the supply of life to people, either nourishing them or healing them. Because the Word is our food and medicine, we need a scientific study of it to help us to be healthy and stay healthy in our Christian life. In particular, we need a scientific study of the all-inclusive Spirit, who has been compounded with the elements of Christ’s all-inclusive death and all-inclusive resurrection.
We have seen that the all-inclusive Spirit is typified by the compound ointment in Exodus 30:23-25. This ointment is a compound of five elements. Olive oil is the basic element, signifying the unique God. This element is compounded with four other elements, which typify various aspects of the death and resurrection of Christ. Exodus is a book of types. If we do not understand the types, we cannot understand Exodus. Pharaoh was a type, Egypt was a type, and even all the calamities used by God to punish Pharaoh are types. We need to understand the truths in the Bible through its types.
One of the great types in the Bible is the type of the compound ointment in Exodus 30. We need a scientific study of such a wonderful type of the all-inclusive Spirit. Because of the scientific study of food and medicine, people are healthier and live longer today. Nearly every medicine in the United States today has been studied scientifically. Such a study of the all-inclusive Spirit with the elements of Christ’s death and resurrection really helps us to be healthy in the Christian life. In this series of messages on the Christian life, we want to present all the things that we have dug out of the Word in our scientific study.
Actually, organic things are altogether mysterious and beyond our natural understanding. Anything that is related to our physical life is mysterious, but studying the things of our physical life helps us to be healthy. It is the same with the plant life. If we study the plant life, we can do the things necessary to keep plants healthy. We want to have a scientific study of the things of the divine life so that we can be healthy in the Christian life. In this chapter we want to see the crucial things concerning the all-inclusive resurrection of Christ.
Life could be subdued by death, but resurrection conquers death; hence, resurrection is stronger than life. We have to investigate this statement. Was the Lord Jesus’ life subdued? If you say yes, I say no; and if you say no, I say yes. If His life was not subdued, how could He have been killed? In Acts 3:15 Peter told the men of Israel that they had killed the Author of life. The Lord Jesus’ life could be subdued because He was killed. Eventually, however, He was not subdued. He was subdued temporarily for three days, but after three days He was not subdued. Apparently, visibly, and physically, He was subdued. But intrinsically, invisibly, and spiritually, He was not subdued.
When He was crucified on the cross, He was stripping away all the rulers and authorities, as spoken of in Colossians 2:15. Furthermore, when He was buried physically in the tomb, His spirit was very active. After dying in the flesh, Christ was still active in His spirit to proclaim to the spirits in prison, to the rebellious angels, God’s victory through Him over Satan (1 Pet. 3:18b-19). While Christ’s body was buried in the tomb, He was active in His spirit in Hades, so He was not subdued. Eventually, He conquered death, and death was subdued. He walked out of death. Thus, on the one hand, He was subdued by death; on the other hand, He was not subdued by death.
Before His death Christ was not only life but also resurrection. Before His death He told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Christ was the resurrection before He died. This is beyond our understanding, but it is a divine fact.
Christ had authority to lay His life down of Himself, and He had authority to take it again (10:17-18). The Greek word for life here is not the eternal life but the soul-life, psuche. Visibly, Christ was arrested and put to death by others, but actually, He laid down His soul, His human life, of Himself to accomplish redemption for us. After three days He exercised His authority to take His life back in resurrection.
In the sense of His having authority to lay His life down and to take it again, Christ’s resurrection was His rising from the dead by Himself (Acts 10:41). This is on the active side. Christ had the authority to take His life back, so He rose up. The Bible says that He rose from the dead (1 Thes. 4:14a). This means that He gained the victory.
In the sense that Christ was killed by lawless men, His resurrection was His being raised up by God (Acts 2:24; 3:15). To rise up is active. To be raised up is passive. On the one hand, He rose up from the dead by Himself. But on the other hand, He was raised up by God.
First Peter 3:18b-19 reveals that while His body was buried in the tomb, Christ in His spirit, which is His spiritual nature (Mark 2:8; Luke 23:46) and which was made alive, enlivened, with new power of life, was active and went to proclaim to the fallen angels the victory achieved by God through Christ’s death on the cross (Heb. 2:14; Col. 2:15). While men were crucifying, killing, Jesus on the cross outwardly and visibly, God was also doing something to enliven Christ with new power of life. First Peter 3:18b says that, on the one hand, He was put to death in the flesh, but on the other hand, He was made alive in the spirit. His spirit was made alive by God when He was being crucified on the cross, and in this empowered spirit, He made a proclamation to the fallen angels after His death in the flesh and before His resurrection. This was a precursor to His resurrection. Before He rose up from the dead, He was active in His spirit among the dead in Hades.
By His resurrection power (Phil. 3:10a), Christ conquered death and came out of death that He may die no more (Rom. 6:9). From the day of His resurrection Christ is no longer subject to death.
The believers of Christ were raised up with Christ in His resurrection (Eph. 2:6). We have seen that Christ’s resurrection has two aspects. First, He Himself rose up from the dead. The verb here is in the active voice. Second, He was raised up by God from the dead. The verb here is in the passive voice. But we do not have two aspects, two voices, to our resurrection. We did not rise up from the dead, in the active voice. Instead, we were raised up by God, in the passive voice.
In such a resurrection three marvelous matters transpired. The first matter is that as the last Adam, that is, as the last man in the flesh, Christ became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This is a great truth in the Bible!
In 1977 we fought for the truth concerning the Triune God. We published a booklet entitled What a Heresy — Two Divine Fathers, Two Life-giving Spirits, and Three Gods! Some at that time were saying that there were two Fathers — the Father in the Gospels and the Father in Isaiah 9:6 who is called the Father of eternity. They said that the Father in Isaiah 9:6 is not the holy Father in the Trinity. Instead, according to them, to say “the Father of eternity” is similar to saying that Edison is the father of electricity. But there is not another Father in addition to the Father in the Godhead. It is heretical to say this. They also said that the life-giving Spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:45b does not refer to the Holy Spirit. But besides the Holy Spirit who gives life, is there another Spirit who gives life? Of course, there is not. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit who gives life (2 Cor. 3:6b), the life-giving Spirit.
We have spoken the truth concerning Christ being the Spirit in many messages. I am happy to hear the saints at the Lord’s table praise the Lord for becoming the life-giving Spirit. This shows that we have received the spiritual education of this divine truth. In our hymnal, there are also a number of hymns that speak of Christ being the Spirit (Hymns, #490, #491, #493, #539).
Christ in His humanity was begotten by God in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29b). John 1:18 says that Christ is the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. In His glory in eternity past, He was the only begotten Son of God. Since He was the Son of God, why did He need to be begotten of God? This was because God needed a firstborn Son.
Christ was the Son of God in eternity past, but He became flesh (v. 14). His flesh was human, not divine. This human part was surely not related to the divine sonship. His human part had to be begotten of God. For this purpose I invented a new word — sonized. Christ’s humanity had to be sonized in His resurrection. In His resurrection He brought His humanity into divinity, making this humanity something divine. Christ in His humanity was sonized, begotten by God, in His resurrection.
All the believers of Christ were regenerated by God the Father through the resurrection of Christ (1 Pet. 1:3). In His resurrection we all were begotten by God to be His many sons. The firstborn Son of God and the many millions of sons of God were begotten at the same time in one “delivery.” I once read of a woman who had seven children in one delivery, but the delivery of Christ’s resurrection delivered a countless number of sons of God.
We need to remember that the resurrection of Christ produced three big matters: the life-giving Spirit, the firstborn Son of God, and the many sons of God. The life-giving Spirit, the firstborn Son, and the many sons of God are altogether for the Body of Christ, which is the organism of the Divine Trinity.
The life-giving Spirit as the resurrected, pneumatic Christ is the reality of Christ’s resurrection (Rom. 8:9-11). In His resurrection Christ became altogether pneumatic. When Christ was in the flesh, He was visible. But He became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, and now He is invisible. The Lord Jesus is in us and in our midst in our gatherings, but He is invisible. He is pneumatic.
I learned what the word pneumatic means by seeing this word on the tire of a car. To be pneumatic is to be full of air. For us to be pneumatic as Christians is for us to be full of the Spirit, full of the divine air. Now in His resurrection the very Christ who was in the flesh is entirely pneumatic and invisible. Even though He is invisible and pneumatic today, He still has a spiritual body, a body of glory (1 Cor. 15:44; Phil. 3:21).
The resurrection of Christ is an element of the compounded, all-inclusive Spirit as the compound ointment (Exo. 30:23-25); this makes the resurrection of Christ all-inclusive in the riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8). We call the life-giving Spirit the all-inclusive Spirit because He is now the compound Spirit. In Exodus 30:23-25 we see the compound ointment as a type of the compound Spirit. This ointment is composed of oil compounded with four spices: myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. Myrrh signifies the death of Christ. Cinnamon signifies the sweetness and effectiveness of Christ’s death. Calamus, a plant that shoots up into the air out of a marshy place, signifies the resurrection of Christ. Cassia was used in ancient times as a repellent to drive away snakes and insects. It signifies the repelling power of Christ’s resurrection. Today the compound Spirit has been compounded with all of the elements of Christ’s death and resurrection.
The numbers related to the compound ointment in Exodus are also full of significance. There is one unit of olive oil and four spices. These four spices are in three units of five hundred shekels each. One indicates the unique God, three refers to the Trinity, and four refers to the creature. In this Spirit is Christ who is God, the divine One, and man, the human one. This Spirit also has all the elements of Christ’s all-inclusive death and all-inclusive resurrection. Thus, this Spirit is an all-inclusive dose.
If we are going to enjoy God, we must enjoy this compound Spirit. Our God today has been consummated to be the compound Spirit. When I was a young Christian, I was told that God is in Christ. You cannot find God outside of Christ because God is in Christ. But what is Christ? Christ today is the all-inclusive Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). In this all-inclusive Spirit, we have all that Christ is. We have the highest humanity, Christ’s resurrected humanity. Christ’s death and resurrection are also in this compound Spirit. The very Spirit working upon us and within us is such an all-inclusive compound Spirit.
The compound Spirit is the reality of Christ’s resurrection and applies the resurrection of Christ to Christ’s members through the dispensing of the divine anointing (Rom. 8:11, 13b; 1 John 2:20, 27). The all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is the reality of the resurrection of Christ. If you have this Spirit, you are in the resurrection of Christ. If you do not have this Spirit, the resurrection of Christ has nothing to do with you.
The believers of Christ should know Christ through the experience of the power of His resurrection which conforms them to His death in the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10).
All the above organic items concerning the all-inclusive resurrection of Christ are mysterious and invisible, yet they are real. For example, our physical life is real, and it is working all the time, yet we are not aware of it. When we are healthy, our organic, physical life is active and working all day long, but we are not aware of its working. On the other hand, when we are sick, we are full of feeling that something is wrong. It is the same with the working of the organic, divine life within us. Christ is within us as the pneumatic One, as the compounded One, with God’s divinity, Christ’s humanity, and all the elements of Christ’s person, of His death, and of His resurrection. Something organic is going on within us that we cannot fully understand, yet it is so real. This is altogether the moving, the acting, and the working of the pneumatic Christ who is the all-inclusive, life-giving, compound Spirit. We need to know Christ through the experience of the power of His all-inclusive resurrection, with which the all-inclusive Spirit has been compounded.
