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In this message we will cover further aspects of the experience and enjoyment of Christ in the Gospel of John. In John 19:34 we see that Christ is the redeeming and life-imparting One. The experience and enjoyment of Christ as the redeeming and life-imparting One is based upon the two aspects of the Lord’s death: the redemptive aspect signified by the blood and the life-imparting aspect signified by the water in John 19:34. This verse says, “One of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.” Two substances came out of the Lord’s pierced side: blood and water. Blood is for redemption, to deal with sins (1:29; Heb. 9:22) for the purchasing of the church (Acts 20:28). Water is for imparting life, to deal with death (John 12:24; 3:14-15) for the producing of the church (Eph. 5:29-30). The Lord’s death, on the negative side, takes away our sins and, on the positive side, imparts life into us.
We sinners became fallen and as a result were against God’s righteousness and estranged from God’s life (Gen. 3:24; Eph. 4:18). As sinners, we need to be redeemed judicially from God’s condemnation according to the righteous requirement of His law (Gal. 3:13) and to be saved organically by His life from the death brought in by sin (2 Tim. 1:10; Rom. 5:10, 12, 17, 21). Christ, as the Redeemer and Savior of fallen man, redeems and saves us through His death and resurrection. In His crucifixion, after He was pierced by a soldier, blood and water, two elements which are critical to human life, came out of Him (John 19:34). Blood is to wash away our sins for redemption, and water is to dispense the divine life into us for life impartation. All the negative things have been dealt with, and God has been dispensed into us as the eternal life.
Christ is the redeeming One who shed His blood for redemption as the Lamb of God (1:29, 36). Speaking of the Lord Jesus, John declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (v. 29). The blood which flowed out of the Lord’s side was for redemption (Heb. 9:22; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; Rom. 3:25); this was typified by the blood of the passover lamb (Exo. 12:7, 22; Rev. 12:11). As Zechariah 13:1 indicates, this redeeming blood formed a fountain for the washing of sins. The blood which flowed out was also the price of the purchase of the church (Acts 20:28).
The blood of Christ is for God’s judicial redemption in His redeeming the believers (Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:18-19), forgiving the believers’ sins (Heb. 9:22), and washing away their sins (1:3). The blood of Christ is also for God to justify the believers (Rom. 3:24; 5:9) and sanctify them positionally (Heb. 13:12; 10:29). This blood speaks something better for the New Testament believers before God (12:24). By the blood of Christ, the Lamb, we can overcome Satan, the accuser of the believers (Rev. 12:11). Thus, it is the precious blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:19).
Christ is the life-imparting One who as the life-giving Spirit released His divine life signified by the water (1 Cor. 15:45b). As previously mentioned, that blood and water came out of the Lord’s pierced side indicates that His death has two aspects: the redemptive aspect and the life-imparting aspect. The redemptive aspect is for the life-imparting aspect, which is even more wonderful than the redemptive aspect. God’s purpose is that redemption be followed by the imparting of life, for God’s intention is to dispense Himself into us as life. Therefore, redemption prepares the way for the release of the divine life so that this life may be dispensed into us for the producing of the church.
The death of Christ that imparts life released the Lord’s divine life from within Him for the producing of the church, which is composed of all His believers, into whom His divine life has been imparted. This life-imparting death of the Lord’s is typified by Adam’s sleep, out from which Eve was produced (Gen. 2:21-23), and is signified by the death of the one grain of wheat that fell into the ground for the bringing forth of many grains (John 12:24) to make the one bread — the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). Hence, it is the life-releasing, life-propagating, life-multiplying death, the generating and reproducing death.
Through His death on the cross Christ’s divine life was released. Hence, His death was a life-releasing death. Because His divine life has not only been released out of Him but also imparted into us, His death was a life-imparting death. On His side it was a life-releasing death; on our side it is a life-imparting death. Moreover, it is a life-propagating death, for by it life is spread in many directions. Furthermore, it is a life-multiplying death, causing the multiplication of life. It is also a life-producing death, for the one grain has been reproduced in the many grains.
Water, signifying the divine life, is for God’s organic salvation. The Lord promises to give the sinners the water of life (John 4:10, 14; Rev. 21:6). Also, the Lord calls the sinners to come and drink His water of life (22:17; John 7:37-38). We were regenerated by God with His divine life (1 Pet. 1:3). This divine life saves us (Rom. 5:10b). It dispositionally sanctifies (6:19, 22), renews (12:2b; Titus 3:5), transforms (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18), conforms (Rom. 8:29), and glorifies us (8:30). We reign in it (5:17). We become kings by this divine life. We also grow with it for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:15-16). We all have to grow into the Head, Christ. Then out from Him we have something of the divine life to minister to the Body for its building up. This consummates the New Jerusalem, which is wholly supplied with the river of water of life and with the tree of life (Rev. 21:2; 22:1-2). The river of water of life signifies the Spirit of life, and the tree of life signifies Christ as the embodiment of the divine life. Both are for the supply of the New Jerusalem.
The Lord’s pierced side was prefigured by Adam’s opened side, out from which Eve was produced (Gen. 2:21-23). The blood was typified by the blood of the passover lamb (Exo. 12:7, 22; Rev. 12:11), and the water was typified by the water that flowed out of the smitten rock (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4). The blood is for redemption, forming a “fountain” in which we may be cleansed (Zech. 13:1), and the water is for regeneration, forming “the fountain of life” from which we may drink at any time (Psa. 36:9; Rev. 21:6). Outwardly we have been washed, and inwardly we have been filled with this divine life.
In short, the blood is for redemption, and the water is for imparting life. We need the blood to wash away our sins, and we need the water as the flow of the divine life to germinate us, to bring the divine life into our being, that we may have the life power to overcome so many things. His blood saves us from the guilt of sin, and His life saves us from the power of sin. As the redeeming One, Christ washes away our filthiness; as the life-imparting One, He keeps away our death.
In John 20 Christ is revealed as the resurrected One who brought His believers into God the Father and breathed the Holy Spirit into His believers.
Christ, as the resurrected One, brings His believers into God the Father, making His Father their Father and His God their God, and making them His brothers. In 20:17, after resurrection early in the morning, the Lord Jesus told Mary, “Go to My brothers.” The Lord’s word to Mary indicated that in resurrection His disciples had become the same as He insofar as they also were sons of God. Previously, the most intimate term the Lord used in reference to His disciples was friends (15:14-15). But after His resurrection He began to call them brothers, for through His resurrection His disciples were regenerated (1 Pet. 1:3) with the divine life, which had been released by His life-imparting death, as indicated in 12:24. It was through His resurrection that the Lord imparted Himself as the Spirit into His disciples. By receiving His life they were reborn, regenerated, and became His brothers, having the same life as the Lord. He was the one grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died and grew up to bring forth many grains for the producing of the one bread, which is His Body (1 Cor. 10:17). He was the Father’s only Son, the Father’s individual expression. Through His death and resurrection the Father’s only Begotten became the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). His many brothers are the many sons of God and are the church (Heb. 2:10-12), a corporate expression of God the Father in the Son. This is God’s ultimate intention. The many brothers are the propagation of the Father’s life and the multiplication of the Son in the divine life. Hence, in the Lord’s resurrection God’s eternal purpose is fulfilled.
In John 20:17 the Lord Jesus also said to Mary, “I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.” Through His life-imparting death and resurrection, the Lord made His disciples one with Him. Therefore, His Father is the Father of His disciples, and His God is the God of His disciples. In His resurrection they have the Father’s life and God’s divine nature, just as He has. In making them His brothers, He has imparted the Father’s life and God’s divine nature into them. By making His Father and His God theirs, He has brought them into His position — the position of the Son — before the Father and God. Thus, in life and nature inwardly and in position outwardly they are the same as the Lord, with whom they have been united.
Christ as the resurrected One also breathed the Holy Spirit into His believers, as the pneumatic Christ — the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Through this process He entered into His believers to be with them forever (John 14:16-20). John 20:22 says, “He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit here is actually the resurrected Christ Himself because the Spirit is His breath. The Holy Spirit is thus the breath of the Son. The Greek word for Spirit in this verse is pneuma, a word that is used for breath, spirit, and wind. Therefore, this verse can be translated, “Receive the holy breath.” On the day of His resurrection the Lord Jesus breathed Himself into His disciples as the holy breath.
The Christ who breathed Himself into the disciples is the life-giving Spirit, and the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit is breath. Some theologians use the term “the pneumatic Christ” to refer to the Christ who is the Spirit, the breath. After the Lord Jesus accomplished all of His processes, He became the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit is the pneumatic Christ. Such a One, the pneumatic Christ as the Spirit, came to His disciples and breathed Himself as the Spirit into them. From that time onward, He was truly one with His disciples, for He became the intrinsic being of His disciples essentially. In John 20:22 the resurrected Christ, the pneumatic Christ, Christ as the Spirit, entered into His believers to be the divine essence of their spiritual life and being.
The Gospel of John reveals that Christ is the Word, the eternal God (1:1) who passed through a long process eventually to become the breath, the pneuma, that He might enter into the believers. For the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose, He took two steps. First, He took the step of incarnation to become a man in the flesh (v. 14), to be the Lamb of God to accomplish redemption for man (v. 29), to declare God to man (v. 18), and to manifest the Father to His believers (14:9-11). Second, He took the step of death and resurrection to be transfigured into the Spirit that He might impart Himself into His believers as their life and their everything for the building up of His Body, the church, the habitation of God, to express the Triune God for eternity. The Gospel of John clearly reveals that Christ became flesh to be the Lamb of God and that in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Thus, in the evening of the day of His resurrection He came and breathed Himself as the Spirit into the disciples.
The Holy Spirit in John 20:22 is the Spirit expected in 7:39 and promised in 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; and 16:7-8, 13. This indicates that the Lord’s breathing of the Holy Spirit into the disciples was the fulfillment of His promise of the Holy Spirit as the Comforter (14:16). Then in chapter twenty He brought to His disciples this other Comforter, the Spirit of reality. Now the Spirit of reality has come to the disciples to be within them; now the disciples know that the Lord Jesus is in the Father and that the Father is in the Lord; now they are in the Lord and the Lord is in them. They realize that they are now one with the Triune God. Therefore, all that the Lord Jesus spoke to them in chapters fourteen through sixteen is fulfilled at this very moment. This fulfillment is that the Lord Jesus went through death and resurrection and came to the disciples as the Spirit, coming as another Comforter to be their reality that they might be one with the Triune God.
As the falling into the ground to die and the growing out of the ground transforms a grain of wheat into another new and lively form, so the death and resurrection of Christ transfigured Him from the flesh into the Spirit. As the last Adam in the flesh He became the life-giving Spirit through the process of death and resurrection. As He is the embodiment of the Father, so the Spirit is the realization, the reality, of Him. It is as the Spirit that He was breathed into the disciples. It is as the Spirit that He was received into His believers and flowed out of them as rivers of living water (7:38-39). It is as the Spirit that through His death and resurrection He came back to the disciples, entered into them as their Comforter, and began to abide in them (14:16-17). It is as the Spirit that He can live in the disciples and they can live by Him and with Him (v. 19). It is also as the Spirit that He can abide in the disciples and they can abide in Him (v. 20; 15:4-5). It is as the Spirit that He can come with the Father to the one who loves Him and make an abode with him (14:23). It is as the Spirit that He came to meet with His brothers as the church to declare the Father’s name to them and to praise Him in their midst (Heb. 2:11-12). And it is as the Spirit that He can send His disciples with His commission, with Himself as life and everything to them, in the same way that the Father sent Him (John 20:21).
In John 21:15-22 Christ is unveiled as the Chief Shepherd. In resurrection Christ worked and walked with the believers as the Chief Shepherd to build up the church by shepherding His flock (1 Pet. 5:4). As the great Shepherd in resurrection (Heb. 13:20), the Lord charged His disciples to feed and shepherd His lambs and sheep at the cost of their life and to glorify God by following His pattern of laying down His soul-life for the sheep (John 21:19b-22; 10:11, 15b).
As the Head, Christ is the Chief Shepherd (1 Pet.5:4), and in resurrection He is the great Shepherd of the sheep (Heb. 13:20). Actually, we are not the ones shepherding. When we shepherd, it should be Christ shepherding through us. If we shepherd people apart from Christ, this is not in resurrection but in the old creation. When Christ shepherds through us, our labor is in resurrection. Only Christ is resurrection. Whatever is divine is resurrection. We have to learn to shepherd people not by ourselves in the old creation but by Christ as the shepherding Chief in resurrection.
According to John 21:15-17, after restoring Peter’s love toward Him, the Lord Jesus charged him, saying, “Feed My lambs,” “Shepherd My sheep,” and “Feed My sheep.” Here, to feed the lambs is to nourish them with the riches of the inner life. To feed others, we need to enjoy the riches of the Lord’s divine life. This requires that we love Him. To believe in the Lord is to receive Him; to love the Lord is to enjoy Him. The Lord came as life and the life supply to us. We need to have faith in Him and love toward Him. This Gospel presents these as the two requirements for us to participate in the Lord.
Lamb-feeding is by the nourishing with the riches of the inner life, and sheep-shepherding is for the building up of the church. Shepherding is for the “flock” (10:14, 16), which is the church (Acts 20:28); therefore, it is related to God’s building (Matt. 16:18). Later, in his first Epistle, Peter indicated this by saying that growth, by feeding on the guileless milk of the Word, is for the building of God’s house (1 Pet. 2:2-5). He also indicated that shepherding is for God’s building by charging the elders to shepherd the flock of God (5:1-4). The growth by nourishing is for the building. The Lord is still working with His disciples in this way. Today by lamb-feeding and sheep-shepherding, the Lord is working with us for the building up of the church.
By considering three chapters — John 10, and 1 Peter 2 and 5 — we shall see that feeding the lambs and shepherding the sheep are for the building up of the church. According to John 10, the Lord laid down His soul-life that His sheep might have His divine life and be brought together as one flock. To bring all His sheep together as one is truly the building. In 1 Peter 2, Peter says that we, as newborn babes, must be fed with the guileless milk of the Word that we might grow up to be built up together as a spiritual house. Finally, in 1 Peter 5, Peter, as one of the elders, charges the elders to care for the sheep by feeding and shepherding them. Feeding the sheep is different from shepherding them. In John 21:15 the Lord said, “Feed My lambs”; in 21:16 He said, “Shepherd My sheep”; and in 21:17 He said, “Feed My sheep.” To shepherd means to take care of the sheep, and to feed means to supply food to the sheep. While we are serving the Lord today, we must not only care for His sheep but also feed them with spiritual food. It is not sufficient simply to care for and to look after the brothers and sisters; we must also feed them. In verse 15 the Lord said, “Feed My lambs,” and in verse 17 He said, “Feed My sheep.” By this we see that both the young believers and the more matured believers need the feeding. If the Lord has committed to us the burden of His flock, we must be sure to do two things — to feed them and to care for them.
After restoring Peter’s love for Him and charging him with lamb-feeding and sheep-shepherding, the Lord, by predicting Peter’s martyrdom, instructed the disciples to follow Him to death. In verse 18 the Lord said to Peter, “Truly, truly, I say to you, When you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” In saying this to Peter, the Lord was “signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God” (v. 19a). After predicting Peter’s martyrdom, the Lord said to him, “Follow Me” (v. 19b). We all must follow the Lord as the good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep (10:11, 15b). Our following Him even unto death is to glorify God (21:19). This shows us that after we have been regenerated and commissioned by the Lord, we must love the Lord at any cost and follow Him to the end at any sacrifice. By following the Lord’s pattern of laying down His life for the sheep, we shall accomplish the Lord’s purpose to feed His lambs and to feed and shepherd His sheep.
