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Scripture Reading: John 1:1, 14a, 29; 3:14; 12:24, 28, 31-33; 19:34; Rom. 8:3; 6:6; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 2:14; 9:26b, 28a, 14; Col. 1:15, 20; Eph. 2:15-16; Mark 15:25, 33-34; 1 John 1:7
We have seen that Christ’s incarnation, human living, conception, and ministry were all related to God’s economy. The man Jesus was a composition of the Triune God, the embodiment of the entire Triune God. He was with the Father, and He was fully constituted by the Holy Spirit. He was the embodiment of the Triune God, the very embodiment of life as the tree of life for us to eat so that God may dispense Himself into us, His eaters. In this chapter we want to fellowship concerning another crucial, excellent, and marvelous matter in the New Testament — the all-inclusive death of Christ. The death of Christ was not a common death but an all-inclusive death because Christ Himself is all-inclusive. As the all-inclusive One, He died an all-inclusive death.
We may ask why there was the need of such an all-inclusive death. When Christ came with the Father and by the Spirit, there were many negative things existing in the universe. God’s intention was to dispense Himself into man, but man was occupied, surrounded, and even utilized by negative things.
There are at least eight negative things in the universe that Christ needed to deal with on the cross. The first item of these negative things is Satan, the devil, God’s enemy, God’s adversary. Man was created by God, and God intended to dispense Himself into man. But man was captured, taken over, and usurped by Satan. Satan took man as his captive and is keeping man under his usurping hand. Along with Satan, there is the negative item of the world. The world is a satanic system and organization that occupies God’s people. The third item is sin. In this universe and on this earth, within and among men, is something personified, something living, and something powerful and very evil. This is sin. The fourth negative item is the flesh. Our flesh is evil, rotten, corrupted, ugly, and rebellious against God. The fifth negative item is the old man. Regardless of how young we are, we are still a part of the old man. The old creation is another negative item that Christ had to deal with through His death. All the items in the universe have become old. We can see the corruption in the entire creation; everything is dying or decaying. Seventh, on this earth among mankind there is no unity, no peace. There is an organization called the United Nations, but the nations are altogether not united. The nations of the world are fighting against one another, and this division comes from Babel. The final negative item, which is the last enemy (1 Cor. 15:26), is death. As the people made by God for His own purpose, we were all occupied, surrounded, and taken over by these eight things. For God to dispense Himself into man, He surely had to clear up and rid the universe of these eight items.
The only way that God could clear up these eight items was by Christ’s marvelous death. This wonderful person, Jesus Christ, the very embodiment of God, died to rid the universe of all these negative things. By His death He cleared up all these negative things, and this is why His death is all-inclusive. His death destroyed Satan, judged the world, condemned sin, crucified the flesh, crucified the old man, terminated the old creation, and abolished all the ordinances that caused divisions in the human race. His death has even destroyed death. Hallelujah for such an all-inclusive death!
Now we need to see who it was that died on the cross. We may realize that Jesus Christ as our Redeemer and Savior died on the cross, but we need to go deeper to realize that He died on the cross as the God-man. His constitution is divine and human. He is a living constitution of two essences and of two elements with two natures, so He was the God-man. As such a One, He died on the cross.
In the first century while the apostle John was still on this earth, there was a great heresy invented by Cerinthus, telling people that when Jesus died on the cross, Christ left Him. That would have meant that when Jesus died on the cross, He was purely and merely a man with no divine essence, no divine element. This heresy is addressed by John in 1 John 2:22, which says, “Who is the liar if not he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.” The divine essence was a part of Christ’s constitution. You can take a person’s belongings, but you cannot take away his human nature since this is an intrinsic part of his being. Jesus is constituted with the divine essence and the human essence, and these essences could never be taken away from Him since they are an intrinsic part of His divine and human being. We should not forget that the One who died on the cross for us was both God and man — the God-man. This God-man died on the cross as seven wonderful items.
First, He died on the cross as the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). As the Lamb of God, He took away the sin of the world, including all sins (1 Cor. 15:3).
John 3:14 tells us that Jesus also died on the cross as a serpent: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The Lamb of God is a figure of speech, and the serpent is also a figure of speech. When the Lord Jesus died on the cross, He was in the form of the serpent in the eyes of God. This is because we sinners have all become serpents. We all have been poisoned by the old serpent, Satan. When the children of Israel sinned against God, they were bitten by serpents (Num. 21:4-9). God told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent on their behalf for God’s judgment, that by looking upon that bronze serpent all may live. As descendants of Adam, we have been poisoned by the old serpent, and the serpent’s nature is within us.
Matthew 16:23 tells us that the Lord Jesus rebuked Peter, saying to him, “Get behind Me, Satan!” Peter was not a bad man, and he was trying to show love to the Lord Jesus. After the Lord told the disciples that He had to pass through suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection, Peter “began to rebuke Him, saying, God be merciful to You, Lord! This shall by no means happen to You!” (v. 22). Even when Peter was loving the Lord Jesus, he was a serpent. The Lord rebuked him by calling him Satan. Not only when we do evil things but also when we do good things, we may be like Satan. Satan is the rebellious one against God, and this rebellious nature of Satan is in our fallen nature. When we do bad things, we are against God. When we do good things, we may also be rebellious against God. It is not a matter of bad or good but a matter of our nature. According to our fallen nature, we all are serpents.
The serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness was a bronze serpent. It had the form of the serpent without the poison of the serpent. In Romans 8:3 Paul tells us that God sent His own Son “in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” The flesh of sin is the serpent. We all have the flesh of sin, and we are still living in the flesh of sin. This flesh of sin in God’s eyes is a serpent because in the nature of the flesh of sin is the evil nature of Satan. The flesh of sin in nature is the same as Satan. Thus, Satan is the serpent, and our flesh of sin is also the serpent.
The Lord Jesus as God became flesh. He joined Himself to fallen and sinful humanity, yet He was without sin (Heb. 4:15). We realize from the Word that flesh is not something good but something bad. John says that God became flesh (John 1:1, 14), but Romans 8:3 tells us that Jesus was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin. The Son of God did indeed become flesh; however, He was only in the likeness of the flesh and had no participation in the sin of the flesh (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15). This is exactly like the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses for the sinful Israelites, which was in the form, the likeness, of the actual serpent, but without its poison. Jesus died on the cross as the bronze serpent to condemn sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3). Through His death on the cross, the flesh of sin was condemned; the old serpent, Satan, was destroyed; the power of death was judged; and even death itself was destroyed. The world was also destroyed on the cross. His death on the cross as the Lamb of God took away sin with sins. His death on the cross as a serpent was to judge the flesh of sin, to destroy the old serpent, Satan, to condemn the world, and to destroy the power of death. In the eyes of God He was sin. Second Corinthians 5:21 tells us that God made Him sin on our behalf. God condemned sin in the flesh of Jesus.
The Lord Jesus also died on the cross as the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45b). After Him there was no more Adam. As the last Adam, He terminated Adam. Adam was terminated in Him because He was the end of Adam. As the last Adam, as a man in the old creation, He died on the cross for us in the old creation, crucifying our old man on the cross (Rom. 6:6). As the very God, He became flesh, and that flesh was the old man, not the new man. Man was created by God and was very good in God’s eyes (Gen. 1:27, 31), but due to the fall, man became old. The old man is the flesh. When Christ died on the cross, He crucified the old man.
He also died on the cross as the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15). He is the Firstborn of all creatures, so His death can reconcile the entire creation unto God (v. 20).
Ephesians 2:14-16 tells us that Christ died on the cross as the Peacemaker to abolish all the separations among the human race. This is why today in the church life we do not have any separation. All the different races are now one in Christ. We do not need the United Nations. The United Nations does not work to break down the separating walls, but the church life works. In the church life there are people from all colors, races, and countries enjoying the divine oneness. Christ died on the cross as the Peacemaker, and now we have the oneness and peace in the church life.
Thus far, we have seen that the Lord Jesus died on the cross as the Lamb, a man in the flesh, the bronze serpent, the last Adam, the Firstborn of all creation, and the Peacemaker. Do not say that I teach these things but that the Bible teaches these things. By using the verses in the Scripture Reading, you can present Christ’s death on the cross as these six items.
The final item of Christ in His death on the cross is in John 12:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Here the Lord Jesus likened Himself to a grain of wheat. If the grain of wheat does not fall into the earth and die, it remains one grain. But if it dies, it grows up into many grains. All the foregoing six items of Christ’s death are involved with clearing up the negative things in the universe. This last item is altogether on the positive side to release the divine life. His death on the cross as a grain of wheat released the divine life from within Him to impart, to dispense, this life into all His believers. He died as the first six items to clear up the universe and to clear up the way that He might impart, that He might dispense, the divine life into you and me.
This grain of wheat is a grain of the eternal life. If He had died on the cross only as a man and not as God, He could not be such a grain of wheat. He died on the cross as the God-man. This man was the shell of the grain, and God was the inner life within the grain. Thus, the God-man is a grain of wheat having both the shell and the life within. He died as the grain of life to release the divine life from within Him in order to dispense God into all of us as the divine life. His all-inclusive death is altogether for the dispensing of God into His redeemed people.
We have seen that when Jesus was conceived and born of the Holy Spirit, He was constituted essentially with the divine essence. This essence as a part of His constitution can never be separated from Him. He went to the cross as such a person constituted with both the divine essence and the human essence. When He was twelve years old, He was a person of such a constitution; when He was thirty years old, He had such a constitution; and when He went to the cross to die, He still had such a constitution. It was the God-man who died on the cross. This is essential. But economically, when He was thirty years old, after His baptism, the Father spoke from the heavens, and the Spirit came to descend upon Him (Matt. 3:16-17). That was not essential but economical. When He went to the cross, He went essentially with the divine essence and with the human essence.
He was nailed on the cross for six hours. Mark 15:25 tells us that it was at the third hour, which is 9 A.M., that they crucified Him. He was on the cross from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. (v. 33). These six hours are divided into two periods of time. The first period of time was from 9 A.M. to noon. In those three hours man persecuted Him, mocked Him, and ridiculed Him. That was His martyrdom, not His redemption. Man nailed Him on the cross, and for the first three hours He suffered martyrdom. At noon, the sixth hour, “darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour” (v. 33). At noon the entire universe became dark, which was a sign that God came in to judge Him (Isa. 53:4b, 10). In the final three hours of His crucifixion, this God-man in the eyes of God was the Lamb, the serpent, a man in the flesh, the last Adam, the Firstborn of all creation, and the Peacemaker. It was in these three hours that God condemned sin in the flesh, destroyed the serpent, and judged the power of death. It was during that period of time that God forsook Him economically, so at the ninth hour Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mark 15:34). Essentially, the divine essence could never leave this God-man. That divine essence had been constituted into His being and was part of His constitution. But economically God left Him. After His baptism, while He was standing in the water, the Spirit as a dove descended upon Him not essentially but economically. In the same way God forsook Him economically in the last three hours on the cross while God was judging Him as sin and as the bronze serpent.
The One who was dying on the cross as our Substitute was the God-man. The One who shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins was the God-man. First John 1:7 says, “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.” To say “the blood of Jesus” is not adequate. First John 1:7 refers to the blood of Jesus His Son, the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. As our Substitute to redeem us, Jesus died on the cross as a man. Only man’s blood can redeem man. Jesus was a man, and His blood was genuine human blood. But if He were only man, the efficacy of His blood would be limited. He could have only died for one person and not for millions upon millions of people. The blood of the man Jesus could redeem millions of people because He was not only man, but He was a God-man. Man is limited, but God is eternal. In time and space there is no limitation with God. As the God-man, He shed the genuine blood of man to redeem man, and yet this blood was God’s own blood (Acts 20:28) to insure that the efficacy of His redemption is unlimited and eternal. The eternal efficacy of His blood is secured by the divine essence.
Hebrews 9:14 tells us that in His death He offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit. As the God-man, He was offering Himself to God, but He did it through the eternal Spirit. This is economical. When He began to minister, He needed the power of the Spirit, so the Spirit descended upon Him economically. Now He was going to die. For such a great commission He needed the power of the eternal Spirit to offer Himself as an offering to God.
John 19:34 tells us that two substances came out of the Lord’s pierced side: blood and water. Blood is to wash away our sins for redemption, and water is to dispense the divine life into us for life impartation. We need to praise the Lord for the blood and the water. All the negative things have been dealt with, and God has been dispensed into us as the eternal life. The blood was typified by the blood of the passover lamb (Exo. 12:7, 22; Rev. 12:11), and the water by the water that flowed out of the smitten rock (Exo. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4). The blood formed a fountain for the washing away of sin (Zech. 13:1), and the water became the fountain of life (Psa. 36:9; Rev. 21:6). Based upon the cleansing blood we can now enjoy the eternal life as the living water. Thank the Lord for His marvelous all-inclusive death.
