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I. In addition to the items in the Old Testament unveiling the all-unlimitedness of Christ in God’s commission to Him, as God’s anointed One, for the universe, for fallen man, and for God’s kingdom.
II. In His perfect redemption through His death judicially and in His complete salvation by His life organically for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy, He is:
А. God, who is the source of all things and especially the source of the divine life that flows out for its dispensing into God’s elect as their life and everything — John 1:1, 14; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Col. 2:9.
B. The Word of God that defines, explains, and expresses God, speaking and revealing God by the Spirit through the Scriptures, the prophets, and the apostles through the ages in many ways — Rev. 19:13; Heb. 1:1-2a; 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:10-12; John 6:63.
C. The life contained in Himself as the Word of God (1:4a; 11:25; 14:6; 10:10b) to be the base of a believer’s life.
D. The light of life (1:4b-12; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46) to bring the divine life to the world by shining (speaking) forth God so that man may be born of God to be His children, making man God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead.
E. The flesh through His incarnation (1:14a), that is, a man fallen in sin, but Romans 8:3 tells us that Christ became the “flesh of sin” only in its “likeness,” without its sin in reality. It was in the “likeness of the flesh of sin” that God had the way to condemn sin, that is, to annihilate sin, to abolish sin.
F. The tabernacle of God (John 1:14b), which refers to Jesus as a man in the flesh to be God’s temporary dwelling place on the earth. God dwelt in Him as in the tabernacle (tent) in the wilderness, like the children of Israel had the tabernacle of God as God’s dwelling place while they were wandering in the wilderness (Exo. 25:8-9).
G. The Lamb, the Spirit, the house (Bethel), and the heavenly ladder (John 1:29-51), which form a group of what Christ is, as the Word of God speaking for God, in the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy:
1. Christ is the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world judicially (vv. 29, 36) to make whatever He did for God’s economy legal according to the righteousness of God.
2. Christ first had the dove, signifying the Spirit of God, abiding upon Him (vv. 32-33), and subsequently in His resurrection He became, organically, the Spirit of God who gives life (1 Cor. 15:45b). As such a Spirit, He transforms God’s redeemed people, who were made with clay, into stones (John 1:37-42).
3. It is for the building up of the house of God at Bethel (this house of God is the intrinsic and basic line of the Gospel of John concerning the church, the Body of Christ) that His redeemed people are transformed by the Spirit into stones organically (1 Pet. 2:5).
4. In Bethel, the house of God (the consummation of which is the New Jerusalem — Rev. 21:2), Christ is the heavenly ladder that brings heaven to earth and joins earth to heaven as well (John 1:51).
5. In doing all these things for God’s economy, Christ is the Messiah, the Christ of God (v. 41).
H. The temple of God (2:15-22), which Christ called His Father’s house, first referring to Christ individually before His resurrection and then referring to Christ with His believers as His increase corporately after His resurrection to be God’s permanent dwelling place in the spiritual world. This house of the Father is built by Christ and God with the believers as its constituents (14:2, 23).
I. The serpent lifted up on the cross (3:14), referring to Christ, who was crucified as the biting serpent for all the people bitten by the devil as the serpent, making them serpents (sinners). In His redemption God made Christ the replacement for the sinners, who are serpents in the eyes of God, to suffer God’s judgment on the cross. In type the serpent, which signifies Christ as the replacement of God’s people, is a bronze serpent, a serpent in “likeness” but not in reality. He “did not know sin” but was only “made sin” by God in its likeness (2 Cor. 5:21). Similarly, in incarnation Christ became “in the likeness of the flesh of sin,” without the sin of the flesh (Rom. 8:3).
J. The eternal life (John 3:15-16, 36). In this book, the Gospel of John, the eternal life is the basic factor of all that Christ is. Because He is the eternal life, the divine life, even God Himself, He can be what He is and is able to speak for God to carry out the full salvation of God organically for the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy, which issues in the New Jerusalem.
K. The bride, produced by regeneration and taken by Christ as the Bridegroom, is the increase, the enlargement, of Christ, who gives the Spirit not by measure and, as the immeasurable One, gives eternal life (the unlimited life) to His believers (vv. 29-30, 34, 36).
L. The spring of living water (4:14) of which God is the fountain. Whoever drinks the living water that Christ gives shall never thirst. Verse 24 in the same chapter indicates that such drinkers are the true worshippers of God, indicating that the true worship of God is to drink of Him in Christ.
The further revelation of Christ concerning His all-inclusiveness in the Gospel of John is in addition to the items in the Old Testament unveiling the all-unlimitedness of Christ in God’s commission to Him, as God’s anointed One, for the universe, for fallen man, and for God’s kingdom.
The New Testament unveils Christ in His perfect redemption through His death judicially and in His complete salvation by His life organically for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy.
Christ is God, who is the source of all things and especially the source of the divine life that flows out for its dispensing into God’s elect as their life and everything (John 1:1, 14; 20:28; Rom. 9:5). John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Then verse 14 says that “the Word became flesh.” The Word is Christ as the definition, explanation, and expression of God. In John 20:28 Thomas said to the resurrected Christ, “My Lord and my God!” The Gospel of John proves strongly that the man Jesus is the very God (1:1-2; 5:17-18; 10:30-33; 14:9-11).
Romans 9:5 says, “Whose are the fathers, and out of whom, as regards what is according to flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.” The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a subtle, evil, and satanic way to distort this verse. We must be clear that Christ is God over all, which means that He is above all the created things, and He is blessed forever. The word blessed here means praised, well spoken of, with adoration of respect and desire. We adore God with our respect to Him and our desire for Him. We worship Him in this way. We desire to have Him, and we love Him. We have to speak well of Christ as God to tell the whole universe what He is. This is our blessing Him to praise Him with our adoration. Christ is our God above all things and is worthy to be praised with well-speaking of adoration, respect, and desire.
Colossians 2:9 says, “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” This verse reveals that in Christ the man dwells all the fullness of the Godhead. The word bodily points to the physical body that Christ put on in His humanity, indicating that the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ as the One who has a human body. Before Christ’s incarnation the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him as the eternal Word but not bodily. From the time that Christ became incarnate, clothed with a human body, the fullness of the Godhead began to dwell in Him in a bodily way, and in His glorified body (Phil. 3:21) now and forever it dwells.
Christ is the Word of God that defines, explains, and expresses God, speaking and revealing God by the Spirit through the Scriptures, the prophets, and the apostles through the ages in many ways (Rev. 19:13; Heb. 1:1-2a; 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:10-12; John 6:63).
Christ is the life contained in Himself as the Word of God (1:4a; 11:25; 14:6; 10:10b) to be the base of a believer’s life. Our regenerated life is based upon the very divine life in Christ as the Word. If we are going to enjoy Christ’s life, we must come to the Word of Christ. We must pray His Word, say Amen to His Word, and sing Hallelujah to His Word.
We can be vitalized by singing the following song with an exercised spirit: “Now Christ is the life-giving Spirit. / Now Christ is the Spirit today. / Now Christ is the life-giving Spirit, / So turn to your spirit and say, / O Lord! Amen! O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah! / O Lord! Amen! O Lord, Amen, Hallelujah!” In one meeting in Elden hall in 1968, I told the saints that we can all say four words. When I spoke this, I did not know what the four words were. Then I said that we can say, “O Lord! Amen! Hallelujah!” This is a simple way to touch the Lord by turning to our spirit. We have a spirit (1 Thes. 5:23), and the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) who dwells in our spirit. Therefore, we should turn ourselves from our mind to our spirit, from our thinking to praising.
Christ is the light of life (John 1:4b-12; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46) to bring the divine life to the world by shining (speaking) forth God so that man may be born of God to be His children, making man God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead. When we receive the shining of the light of life, this shining imparts the divine life into us. That divine life becomes our authority to be God’s children (1:12-13), God’s kind, God’s species, God’s family.
Christ became the flesh through His incarnation (v. 14a), that is, a man fallen in sin, but Romans 8:3 tells us that Christ became the “flesh of sin” only in its “likeness,” without its sin in reality. It was in the “likeness of the flesh of sin” that God had the way to condemn sin, that is, to annihilate sin, to abolish sin. Christ became the flesh of sin only in its likeness, like the bronze serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness (John 3:14; Num. 21:4-9). This bronze serpent is a type of Christ, indicating that Christ was in the form of a serpent but without the serpentine nature and poison. In Numbers God told the children of Israel to lift up a bronze serpent on a pole. In this way God would condemn the real serpent; that is, He would condemn, annihilate, and take away sin.
Christ is the tabernacle of God (John 1:14b), which refers to Jesus as a man in the flesh to be God’s temporary dwelling place among men on the earth. God dwelt in Him as in the tabernacle (tent) in the wilderness, like the children of Israel had the tabernacle of God as God’s dwelling place among them while they were wandering in the wilderness (Exo. 25:8-9). The tabernacle in the wilderness is a prefigure, a type, of Christ being the real tabernacle as God’s temporary, movable dwelling place among men on the earth.
The Lamb, the Spirit, the house (Bethel), and the heavenly ladder (John 1:29-51) form a group of what Christ is, as the Word of God speaking for God, in the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy.
Christ is the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world judicially (vv. 29, 36) to make whatever He did for God’s economy legal according to the righteousness of God.
Christ first had the dove, signifying the Spirit of God, abiding upon Him (vv. 32-33), and subsequently in His resurrection He became, organically, the Spirit of God who gives life (1 Cor. 15:45b). As such a Spirit, He transforms God’s redeemed people, who were made with clay, into stones (John 1:37-42).
It is for the building up of the house of God at Bethel (this house of God is the intrinsic and basic line of the Gospel of John concerning the church, the Body of Christ) that His redeemed people are transformed by the Spirit into stones organically. First Peter 2:4 and 5 say that Christ is a precious stone, a living stone, and we come to Him that we may also become living stones for the building up of God’s house. Because of the fall, we became distorted clay. God’s way is not to reform distorted ones but to transform the clay into stones. The Lamb is for redemption. The Spirit is for transformation so that we can be stones for the building up of God’s house, Bethel.
In Bethel, the house of God (the consummation of which is the New Jerusalem — Rev. 21:2), Christ is the heavenly ladder that brings heaven to earth and joins earth to heaven as well (John 1:51). A ladder is a stairway by which people can ascend from the earth to something in the air. Christ as the Son of Man, in His humanity, is the ladder as the stairway, the way (14:6a), by which we can ascend from the earth to reach God (heaven — v. 6b). Through Him we reach God. He as such a ladder brings God (heaven) to us and joins us to God (heaven).
A ladder needs a strong base to stand on. In Genesis 28:12 and 19 the heavenly ladder that Jacob saw took Bethel as its base. Bethel is God’s house, God’s dwelling place. Today in God’s organic salvation our regenerated spirit is God’s dwelling place (Eph. 2:22), even the Holy of Holies of God (Heb. 4:16; 10:19), which Christ as our heavenly ladder takes as His base. Whenever we turn to our spirit, we sense Christ bringing God (heaven) to us and joining us to God (heaven). Thus, Christ as the heavenly ladder is the stairway to bring God to us and join us to God.
In doing all these things for God’s economy, Christ is the Messiah, the Christ of God (John 1:41). The Messiah of God, the Christ of God, is the God-appointed and God-commissioned One to accomplish God’s economy.
As the temple of God, Christ is eternal and immovable (2:15-22). The temple of God, which Christ called His Father’s house, first refers to Christ individually before His resurrection and then refers to Christ with His believers as His increase corporately after His resurrection to be God’s permanent dwelling place in the spiritual world. This house of the Father is built by Christ and God with the believers as its constituents (14:2, 23). All the believers have been transformed to be stones, so they are now the constituents for the building up of God’s eternal dwelling place. God’s dwelling place is first the church, then the Body of Christ, and consummately the New Jerusalem.
The serpent lifted up on the cross (3:14) refers to Christ, who was crucified as the biting serpent for all the people bitten by the devil as the serpent, making them serpents (sinners). In His redemption God made Christ the replacement for the sinners, who are serpents in the eyes of God, to suffer God’s judgment on the cross. In type the serpent, which signifies Christ as the replacement of God’s people, is a bronze serpent, a serpent “in likeness” but not in reality. He “did not know sin,” but He was only “made sin” by God in its likeness (2 Cor. 5:21). Similarly, in incarnation Christ became “in the likeness of the flesh of sin,” without the sin of the flesh (Rom. 8:3).
Christ is the eternal life (John 3:15-16, 36). In this book, the Gospel of John, the eternal life is the basic factor of all that Christ is. Because He is the eternal life, the divine life, even God Himself, He can be what He is and is able to speak for God to carry out the full salvation of God organically for the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy, which issues in the New Jerusalem.
The bride, produced by regeneration and taken by Christ as the Bridegroom, is the increase, the enlargement, of Christ. (Hence, the bride as the increase of Christ is also Christ Himself as 1 Corinthians 12:12 says that the Body of Christ is also Christ.) Christ gives the Spirit not by measure and, as the immeasurable One, gives eternal life (the unlimited life) to His believers (John 3:29-30, 34, 36). I have been speaking about Christ with His riches and all-inclusiveness for many years, but I never used this term — the increasing Christ. Christ increases by regenerating the redeemed sinners, making them His bride, His wife. This bride is Christ’s increase.
Adam and Eve are a type of Christ with His increase. Adam was a bachelor, a single man, but one day the Lord opened his side, took out a rib, and built that rib into Eve as a wife to match Adam (Gen. 2:20b-24). Eve was Adam’s increase, and through his wife Adam has billions of descendants, who are also his increase. Every descendant of Adam is a part of Adam’s increase. Adam is still increasing today, because the earth’s population is continually increasing. All the upcoming new babes are parts of Adam’s increase. Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14), and Eve is a type of the church as the bride of Christ (2 Cor. 11:2-3; Eph. 5:31-32). Not only the wife but also all the children are the increase of the husband. The increase of Christ today on this earth is immeasurable. Christ is still increasing.
In order for Christ to increase, we need to contact people individually to get them regenerated. We should not take the way of big speakers gathering big congregations in order to gain people. We have to contact people individually, one by one. Then gradually and steadily with the proper care, we as their parents should feed, nourish, and cherish them day by day through the vital groups. In this way Christ will increase continually. Each of us must be in a small group to produce new spiritual children.
John the Baptist said that he should decrease and that Christ should increase. We should all desire to see Christ increasing and ourselves decreasing. For this we need to speak the Lord’s word. The real intrinsic significance of speaking the word of God is to spread God. When we speak the holy Word, the truth, the divine revelation, we spread God. Christ speaks God through us, His members, by defining God, explaining God, and eventually expressing God. To express God is to spread God. Christ is the One who speaks the words of God and who gives the Spirit not by measure (John 3:34). When someone receives His words, the Spirit follows to be the reality of what is spoken. Christ increases Himself by speaking God’s word to spread God and by giving the Spirit of God to be the reality of what He spoke in order to dispense the eternal life into people, making them Godkind, the children of God, the species of God, the family of God, to be Christ’s increase. This is how Christ becomes the increasing Christ.
Christ is the spring of living water (4:14), of which God is the fountain. Whoever drinks the living water that Christ gives shall never thirst. Verse 24 in the same chapter indicates that such drinkers are the true worshippers of God, indicating that the true worship of God is to drink of Him in Christ to be Christ’s increase.
