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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:
O. The Shepherd, the door, the pasture, and the flock — 7, 9, John 10:11, 14, 16:
1. Christ, with the commission He received of God to accomplish God’s eternal economy, has to be the Shepherd of the flock of God, which is His Body that consummates the New Jerusalem.
2. To be such a Shepherd He has to be the door for the release of so many sheep of God’s flock in Judaism. He was also the door for the Old Testament saints such as Abraham (John 8:56) and even Moses to enter in through their expectation of the coming Messiah.
3. Now after setting them free from the Judaistic fold, He feeds them with Himself as the rich pasture in life.
4. This is for them to be flocked together with God’s other sheep (the Gentile believers) to be His one organic Body to arrive at the ultimate goal of God’s economy — the New Jerusalem.
P. The resurrection and the life — 11:25:
1. At the death of Lazarus, his sister Martha counted on the matter of time, not on the person of Christ.
2. Christ, as the embodiment of God, is the resurrection all the time, even before He was resurrected.
3. Not only was the resurrecting of Lazarus His exercise as the resurrection, but also all the miracles done by Him were the exercise of Himself as the resurrection.
4. Resurrection is mainly to overcome death and all the things belonging to death. Blindness, dumbness, deafness, and all kinds of sickness belong to death.
5. Before Martha came to Him, Christ was the resurrection when He did the many miracles of healing. Today with His believers everything He accomplishes is the exercise of Himself as the resurrection. Regenerating, sanctifying, renewing, transforming, conforming, and even glorifying are the exercise of Christ as the resurrection who is life eternal.
Q. The one grain of wheat (12:24), which refers to Himself as the divine seed to produce many grains (the people who receive Him) to become His many members who constitute His organic Body, which consummates in the New Jerusalem.
R. The way, the reality, and the life (14:6). John 14—16 is a long discourse of Christ on the night before His crucifixion. That discourse is concerning the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God, the constitution of the processed Triune God with His regenerated, sanctified, renewed, and transformed people. To participate in this organism, the divine and human constitution, we need the way, the reality, and the life, all of which are the exercise of Christ as the eternal resurrection:
1. The way is Christ in resurrection to be our reality and life. Vanity, as described by Solomon in Ecclesiastes, and death, as explained by Paul in his Epistles, can never be the way for anyone to participate in the organism of the processed Triune God.
2. The reality is all that God is, which becomes the person of Christ. The way to participate in the divine and human constitution, which is the organic Body of Christ, is to enjoy all that the person of Christ is, which is His unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8).
3. Life is the divine element of the person of Christ. If we have Christ, we possess the divine element, which is His divine constitution of all the attributes of what God is. In regeneration we have received this life, and in the growth of the divine life through sanctification, renewing, transformation, etc., we participate in the reality of Christ, which is the way for us to enter into the Body of Christ, which is the Father’s house that consummates the New Jerusalem.
S. The Comforter, referring to Christ coming in the flesh to be the first Comforter (Paraclete) to take care of our cases and affairs and to Christ realized as the Spirit to be our second Comforter both in us and in heaven before God the Father — John 14:16-17; 1 John 2:1.
T. The all-inclusive consummated Spirit — John 20:22:
1. This consummated Spirit is Christ’s breath.
2. He is the Holy Spirit of God processed through Christ’s death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), who is the consummation of the earthly ministry of Christ and the ending of Christ’s speaking from His incarnation, God becoming the flesh, to His transfiguration of the flesh, the last Adam becoming the life-giving Spirit (see chapter 8 on the consummated Spirit).
We have seen that the Gospel of John can be divided into three sections according to what Christ is. The first section in chapters 1 through 4 is on twelve items of what Christ is: God; the Word; life; light; the flesh; the tabernacle; the group of the Lamb, the Spirit, the house, and the ladder; the temple; the serpent; the eternal life; the Bridegroom; and the fountain of living water. The second section in chapters 6 and 7 is on Christ as our enjoyment, signified by the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. The third section in chapters 8 through 14 is a section of Christ’s divine care. In His divine care for us, He is first the Shepherd and then the Comforter.
The Greek word for Comforter is Paracletos. It refers to one who is at your side to take care of you in every way. The word carries the sense of consoling and consolation. It is used in the Gospel of John (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7) for the Spirit of reality as our Comforter within us, the One who takes care of our case and our affairs. It also refers to one who offers legal aid as an advocate. First John 2:1 says that if we sin, we have Christ as an Advocate (Paracletos) with the Father. In this sense we have Christ as a Lawyer, an Attorney, in the heavenly court to take care of our cases. Also, in our inner life we have innumerable needs that require His care as our Comforter.
The Lord’s shepherding, revealed in John 10, actually begins in chapters 8 and 9. In chapter 8 there is a woman caught in the act of adultery. In chapter 9 there is a man blind from birth. This blind man was a sheep who was led out of the Judaism-fold. The sheep shepherded by Christ in chapter 9 is a male, whereas the one in chapter 8 is a female.
She was caught in the act of adultery by the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees (vv. 1-11). They brought her and set her in the midst of where the Lord was teaching in the temple. Then they asked the Lord, “In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. What then do You say?” (v. 5). At first the Lord would not answer. Instead, He stooped down and wrote with His finger on the ground. This was a sign done to humble and calm the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees. It might have been that the Lord was writing, “Who among you is without sin?” When they persisted in questioning Him, the Lord said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (v. 7). After He said this, He stooped down and wrote on the ground again, and all the accusers of the woman left one by one, beginning with the older ones. Then the Lord stood up and said to the woman, “Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you” (vv. 10-11a). What a sweet word! According to the law, such a sinner should be stoned; but Christ, who came full of grace and reality, would not condemn her. Instead, He said, “Go, and from now on sin no more” (v. 11b).
If I were the woman, I might say, “Lord, thank You for Your forgiveness, but how can I sin no more?” This is why chapter 8 goes on to show us how to be freed from sin. In this chapter the Lord said three times that He is the great I Am who can set people free from sin. In verse 24 He said, “Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” Verse 28 says, “Jesus therefore said to them, 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.” Then verse 58 says, “Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham came into being, I am.” Seemingly, the Lord was mistaken in grammar. He should have said, “Before Abraham came into being, I was.” But with the Lord there is just one tense — the present tense. With Him there is no element of time. He does not say, “I was.” Instead, He says, “I am. I am forever. I am in eternity past. I am in eternity future.” This great I Am not only will forgive you but also will set you free from sin. John 8:32 says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Then verse 36 says, “If therefore the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed.” As the I Am, the Lord is the One who is able to free us from sin.
In the age of grace Christ is qualified to forgive and redeem judicially. He is also qualified to set us free from sin organically. This is the proper shepherding. In our vital groups we need leaders who know how to shepherd sinners who need the forgiveness of sins and the setting free from sins. If all the saints practice this kind of shepherding, the vital groups will be flourishing. When the Lord Jesus was teaching in the temple in John 8, He was shepherding a lost sheep in sin who was shamefully caught by the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. He shepherded her first by telling her that He did not condemn her. Then He shepherded her further to free her from sin.
In chapter 9 there is the Lord’s shepherding of a blind man in religion. After the Lord healed this man, the Pharisees said to him, “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.” But he responded by saying, “Whether or not He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (vv. 24-25). The Lord shepherds us by forgiving our sins, setting us free from sin, and opening our eyes to see. If we are not certain about the divine things, this means that we are still blind and need our eyes opened by the Lord.
The Lord Jesus revealed in chapter 10 that He is the Shepherd, the door, and the pasture (vv. 11, 14, 16, 7, 9). The door is for people to go in and come out. When they come out, He is the pasture to them. This means that He is a feast for the shepherded sheep. Christ was the door in the Old Testament age for His people to enter into God’s economy by being kept in the custody of the law. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and their descendants such as David, Solomon, Isaiah, and Jeremiah entered into the fold of the law in a positive sense. Christ, the Messiah, was a door for the positive Old Testament saints to go into the God-prepared fold to be kept there until He, the Messiah, would come in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, Christ was the door to go in. In the New Testament, He is the door to come out. One of those who came out was the blind man healed by the Lord in John 9.
Christ, with the commission He received of God to accomplish God’s eternal economy, has to be the Shepherd of the flock of God, which is His Body that consummates the New Jerusalem.
To be such a Shepherd He has to be the door for the release of so many sheep of God’s flock in Judaism. He was also the door for the Old Testament saints such as Abraham (John 8:56) and even Moses to enter in through their expectation of the coming Messiah.
Now after setting them free from the Judaistic fold, He feeds them with Himself as the rich pasture of life. This pasture equals the feasts in chapters 6 and 7.
This is for them to be flocked together with God’s other sheep (the Gentile believers) to be His one organic Body to arrive at the ultimate goal of God’s economy — the New Jerusalem. If we feast on Christ as the pasture, we like to be flocked together with others. The more we enjoy Christ, the more we like to fellowship with others. If we feed upon Christ as our pasture in the morning, enjoying Him as the feast, we will eagerly go to the meeting in the evening.
John 10 is on shepherding, and John 11 shows that shepherding must be with resurrection life (v. 25). If we are natural, full of the natural view, natural philosophy, and natural logic, we cannot feed others. We will be dead, and that death will kill the meetings. If we are persons in resurrection, we are in life. Actually, resurrection and life are one. They are “twin brothers.” When we are in life, we become persons who shepherd others.
At the death of Lazarus, his sister Martha counted on the matter of time, not on the person of Christ. She said to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 21). That meant that Martha was asking the Lord why He had not come earlier. To her understanding, whether her brother would die or live was a matter of time. She did not see that Christ Himself, the person, is the resurrection.
Christ, as the embodiment of God, is the resurrection all the time, even before He was resurrected. Whether Lazarus died or lived, Christ is always the resurrection.
Not only was the resurrecting of Lazarus His exercise as the resurrection, but also all the miracles done by Him were the exercise of Himself as the resurrection. When He healed the blind man, that was His exercise of Himself as resurrection. A living person in resurrection has the light of life to see.
Resurrection is mainly to overcome death and all the things belonging to death. Blindness, dumbness, deafness, and all kinds of sickness belong to death.
Before Martha came to Him, Christ was the resurrection when He did the many miracles of healing. Today with His believers everything He accomplishes is the exercise of Himself as the resurrection. Regenerating, sanctifying, renewing, transforming, conforming, and even glorifying are the exercise of Christ as the resurrection who is life eternal.
Christ is the one grain of wheat (12:24) for death resulting in resurrection. This refers to Himself as the divine seed to produce many grains (the people who receive Him) to become His many members who constitute His organic Body, which consummates in the New Jerusalem. If one grain of wheat remains whole, it is only one grain. But when it falls into the earth and dies, it will grow and bring forth many grains in resurrection. These many grains are to be ground and blended into flour to make a loaf, which signifies the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). Although we are the many grains, we do not like to be ground in order to be blended. But we need to be broken. Then we can be blended with others. We should not remain as whole grains. We have to be broken and ground into fine flour so that we can be blended with others for making a loaf. This loaf is the Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem.
In John 14:6 the Lord said that He is the way, the reality, and the life. In order to understand this verse, we must take care of its context. The context begins from chapter 8, which is concerning the Lord’s shepherding. In His shepherding care for us, He is the way. Without Him there is no way for us to shepherd others. He is not only the way but also the reality. The way without the reality is vanity. The way needs the reality, and the reality needs the life. If it is a dead reality, it is still vanity. It must be a living reality. We need to experience Christ as the way, the reality, and the life for us to shepherd others.
Someone may come to us and say, “I hate to lose my temper, but I lose my temper all the time. What can I do?” We should help him to enjoy Christ by calling on His name and by opening up His Word to digest one or two verses by pray-reading them. In other words, we need to help him to be fed and satisfied with Christ. The very Christ who satisfies us is the way for us not to lose our temper. We need to shepherd people in this way in the vital groups. According to ethical logic, a person should learn how to be patient and endure to overcome his temper, but this does not work. We all need to exercise to take Christ as the way. Then He becomes our reality as our satisfaction, our pleasure. Then we have the life supply to live Him for the whole day.
John 14 through 16 is a long discourse of Christ on the night before His crucifixion. That discourse is concerning the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God, the constitution of the processed Triune God with His regenerated, sanctified, renewed, and transformed people. To participate in this organism, the divine and human constitution, we need the way, the reality, and the life, all of which are the exercise of Christ as the eternal resurrection.
The way is Christ in resurrection to be our reality and life. Vanity, as described by Solomon in Ecclesiastes, and death, as explained by Paul in his Epistles, can never be the way for anyone to participate in the organism of the processed Triune God.
The reality is all that God is, which becomes the person of Christ. The way to participate in the divine and human constitution, which is the organic Body of Christ, is to enjoy all that the person of Christ is, which is His unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8).
Life is the divine element of the person of Christ. If we have Christ, we possess the divine element, which is His divine constitution of all the attributes of what God is. In regeneration we have received this life, and in the growth of the divine life through sanctification, renewing, transformation, etc., we participate in the reality of Christ, which is the way for us to enter into the Body of Christ, which is the Father’s house that consummates the New Jerusalem.
The Comforter refers first to Christ coming in the flesh to be the first Comforter (Paraclete) to take care of our cases and affairs. In His first stage He was the first Comforter; in His second stage He is the second Comforter. The first stage is Christ in the flesh, from His incarnation to His death, and the second stage is Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. In the second stage Christ as the Spirit is our second Comforter both in us and in heaven before God the Father (John 14:16-17; 1 John 2:1).
In John 14 the Lord said that He would ask the Father to give us another Comforter, that is, the Spirit of reality. The Lord said that when the Spirit of reality came, He would be not only with us but also in us. Verse 20 says, “In that day [the day of resurrection] you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” Christ is in the Father, and we are in Christ. This means that we are in the Father also by being in Christ. We and He are in the Father at the same time. Also, Christ is in us. Since Christ is in the Father, the Father is also in us with Christ. This is not merely union or mingling but an incorporation. The Triune God has been incorporated into us, and we have been incorporated into the Triune God. John 14:20 reveals three parties with three “ins.” This is a divine and mystical incorporation.
Christ is now the all-inclusive consummated Spirit (20:22). In the Gospel of John, a book of the divine, mystical life in the divine, mystical realm, Christ is first the very God (1:1), and He eventually is consummated as the all-inclusive Spirit.
In the evening on the day of resurrection, Christ came to the disciples, who were in a room with the doors shut (20:19). Then He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). The Spirit as breath was breathed into the disciples for their life. By breathing the Spirit into the disciples, the Lord imparted Himself into them as life and everything.
The consummated Spirit is the Holy Spirit of God processed through Christ’s death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), who is the consummation of the earthly ministry of Christ and the ending of Christ’s speaking from His incarnation, God becoming the flesh, to His transfiguration of the flesh, the last Adam becoming the life-giving Spirit. In the next chapter we will fellowship about the consummated Spirit in more detail.
