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Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:2-11; 1:9-11
I. God becoming flesh to bring Himself into man — John 1:14:
А. Becoming a God-man.
B. To be experienced by man as grace and reality.
II. This God-man living a human life on earth:
А. Living and expressing God in the human life — 6:57a; Acts 10:38.
B. Experiencing everything of the human life to be qualified as the Author of our salvation and our High Priest — Heb. 2:10, 17-18.
III. This God-man, in the human flesh, accomplishing the all-inclusive death on the cross:
А. A death that redeemed the sinners — Col. 1:20-22.
B. A death that released the divine life — John 12:24.
C. A death that produced the Body of Christ — v. 24.
D. A death that created the new man — Eph. 2:15-16.
E. A death that terminated the old creation — Rom. 6:6.
F. A death that destroyed Satan — Heb. 2:14.
G. A death that judged the satanic world of darkness — John 12:31.
IV. This God-man entering into resurrection:
А. Being begotten as the firstborn Son of God, having both divinity and humanity — Acts 13:33.
B. Regenerating the many sons of God, who constitute the church, the Body of Christ — 1 Pet. 1:3; Heb. 2:10, 12.
C. Becoming the life-giving Spirit — 1 Cor. 15:45b.
V. This God-man, in His resurrection, breathing Himself as the Spirit into His disciples — John 20:22:
А. To be their life and content — Col. 3:4.
B. To be with them forever — John 14:20.
C. To live together with them — v. 19; Gal. 2:20b.
VI. This God-man, having died and resurrected, ascending to the heavens — Eph. 4:8-12:
А. Bringing with Him the captives whom He took captive out of the hands of Satan.
B. Presenting these captives to God.
C. God giving these captives as gifts to Him, the ascended Head.
D. He, in the position of His ascension, giving these gifts to the church to build up the Body.
Prayer: Lord, we worship You for bringing us once again to Your Word. Open and release Your mystery to us that we would see Your eternal economy. Lord, open our heart and give us a spirit of wisdom and understanding that we would enter into Your heart’s desire in a genuine way and would see Your eternal economy. Lord, cleanse us again with Your precious blood, and anoint us again with Your holy anointing oil that both the speaker as well as the listener would enjoy Your presence and touch You. Lord, give us also the utterance to speak forth the fresh words that bear the supply of life and are full of revelation and light. Lord Jesus, we really love Your precious name. We come again to receive You. Supply us that we would all be filled by You to enjoy the riches from on high. May You gain the glory. May we be satisfied and the enemy be shamed. Amen!
In this chapter we want to see God’s economy according to the revelation in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, God gave us the types and the pictures. In the New Testament, God gave us the clear words and revelation. The whole New Testament is the revelation of God. There is no need for us to guess or to conjecture. God has already spoken to us the mystery hidden in Himself.
We know that God’s economy is to work Himself as the Triune God into us, the tripartite men, that we would have His life and nature to become the sons of God and the members of Christ to be constituted the Body of Christ, which is the church, the expression of Christ. This is the goal of God’s economy; it is what God has desired throughout the ages. This universal Body includes those who believe in Christ in all times and all ages. Christ is the Head, and we are the Body. He and we together constitute a great universal man. The One who dwells and lives within this great man is the Triune God Himself. He lives in this Body. For this reason, whenever we meet together, we feel that God is here, for this is the house of God. Here heaven and earth are joined together, and God and man are joined as one.
We have seen that in eternity past God had a plan, an intention, an arrangement, and an economy. In time He accomplishes this economy step by step. The first step was creation. He created the heavens, the earth, all things, and man. Man is the center of God’s creation. Although the heaven is high and the earth is expansive and all the things on it are lovely and beautiful, God considers man as the most precious of them all. This is because man is created in God’s image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26) for the purpose of containing God. Hence, man is according to God’s kind. Because we as men are according to God’s kind, God can be grafted into us, and we can be grafted into God. This is what the Lord Jesus meant when He said that He is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). When He enters into us, we are grafted into Him.
When did God put Himself into man after He created man? He waited four thousand years. One day in the universe and among mankind a tremendous thing happened. It was something more important than the creation of the heaven and the earth. God became flesh. The God who is the Creator of all things entered into man, being conceived of the Holy Spirit to be born of a virgin. His name was called Jesus. By becoming flesh He brought Himself into man to become a mysterious God-man. He is God, yet He is also man. He is a genuine, proper, and normal man. He was born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, and lived in a poor carpenter’s home. At the age of thirty He came forth to fulfill His commission, working for God and preaching the gospel of God, expressing God before man. His words and deeds often surprised and shocked those who followed Him. Sometimes His words were great yet simple. He said, “I am the light of the world” (8:12), “I am the bread that came down out of heaven” (6:41), and “I am the way and the reality and the life” (14:6). In human history there have been many sages and saints. But no one, whether a religious leader or a philosopher, ever said the things that the Lord Jesus said. Moreover, there are many religions in the world. But no matter what religion it is, those in it are never called the believers in the Lord. Only those believing in Jesus are called the believers in the Lord. This is because only He is the Lord. After the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection He appeared to His disciple, Thomas. When Thomas recognized Him, he said, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). No disciple of any person ever calls his teacher this. There is only one Lord in the universe — the Lord Jesus. As the God who created the heavens, the earth, and all the things in it, He has become a man.
The Creator became a God-man with the purpose that man would experience Him as grace and reality (1:14). The grace that God gives to man is not something material. Rather, it is the Triune God Himself becoming a man called Jesus to be received by man as his enjoyment. Actually, all things are but dung; only Jesus is the top treasure. To have Jesus is to have the treasure and the grace. But this is not all. He is also the reality. Everything is vanity; all things are a chasing after wind (Eccl. 1:2-14). Only the Triune God is reality. With Him we have eternal life, which makes Him real and experiential to us.
The Lord Jesus is God becoming a man. He lived on earth for thirty-three and a half years, passing through the storms of human life and tasting all the bitterness of human living. When He was on earth, He did not have much enjoyment. On the contrary, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isa. 53:3). Everywhere there were difficulties and trials. No one understood Him. But in His human life He lived out God and expressed God (John 6:57a; Acts 10:38). Moreover, through experiencing everything of human life, He was qualified to be the Author of our salvation and our High Priest (Heb. 2:10, 17-18). He fully satisfied God and is qualified to be our Savior, saving us, solving all our problems, caring for us, ministering to us, and interceding for us.
After the Lord Jesus passed through the test of human living for thirty-three and a half years, He went to the cross according to the appointed time. There He was crucified. He hung on the cross for six hours — from nine o’clock in the morning to three o’clock in the afternoon. The first three hours were mainly persecution, ridicule, blasphemy, and reviling from man. The last three hours were mainly judgment from God. God put upon Him the sins of us all. This God-man accomplished an all-inclusive death on the cross in the human flesh. First, this death is a death that redeemed the sinners (Col. 1:20-22). The Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross to redeem us, the sinners, that we may be reconciled to God. Second, His death is a death that released the divine life (John 12:24). His death on the cross was like a grain of wheat that fell into the ground and died. Through the breaking of the shell, the divine life was released. Third, His death is a death that produced the Body of Christ (v. 24). He, as the unique divine grain that fell into the ground, brought forth many grains. These many grains are mingled together to form a loaf, which is the church, the Body of Christ. Hence, the church is produced out of the death of Christ in the same way that Eve was built out of the rib of Adam when he fell asleep (Gen. 2:21).
Fourth, His death is a death that created the new man (Eph. 2:15-16). Through His death on the cross Christ abolished the ordinances that caused disharmony between the Jews and the Gentiles and created the two in Himself into one new man. Fifth, His death is a death that terminated the old creation (Rom. 6:6). Our old man, who was created by God and became fallen through sin, is the center of the whole old creation. He is terminated through crucifixion together with Christ. Sixth, His death is a death that annulled Satan (Heb. 2:14). Christ has destroyed the devil who has the might of death and has made him of no effect. Seventh, His death is a death that judged the satanic world of darkness (John 12:31). When the Lord was lifted up on the cross, not only did He judge Satan; He also judged the world, which is hanging upon Satan, as well.
How all-inclusive is the death of Christ! This all-inclusive death, which He accomplished on the cross, has on the negative side solved all the problems of sin, the old creation, and the world, and on the positive side it released the divine life and produced the new man, the new creation, and the Body of Christ, which is the church.
Christ has died and has resurrected. In John 10:18 He said of His life, “No one takes it away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.” On the one hand, He suffered the pain of death. On the other hand, He entered into death to have a tour of Hades. Because death could not hold Him down, He came out of death and entered into resurrection. In resurrection He was begotten as the firstborn Son of God, with both the divine nature and the human nature (Acts 13:33). In eternity Christ was the only begotten Son of God, with divinity only, having no humanity with Him. After He became flesh, He put on humanity. But at that time His humanity only qualified Him to be the Son of Man, not the Son of God. After passing through death and resurrection, He was begotten as the firstborn Son of God, and His humanity was uplifted into His divinity. Now He is no longer just the only begotten Son of God; He is also the firstborn Son of God. As the only begotten Son of God, He has divinity only. As the firstborn Son of God, He has both divinity and humanity.
When we say that Christ is the firstborn Son of God, it means that He has many brothers. Through the resurrection of Christ, God has regenerated us, the believers, to become the sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3). From the view of God’s economy, when the Lord Jesus resurrected, we were resurrected together with Him (Eph. 2:5-6). He was begotten as the firstborn Son of God, and we were begotten as the many sons of God. In His resurrection, Christ was begotten, and we also were begotten. Paul was begotten then, Martin Luther was begotten then, and all of us were also begotten then.
Furthermore, in His resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Because of this, He can enter into His many brothers to be their life and life supply so that they may share with Him the same life and the same nature and may become one spirit with Him. This is God’s economy.
On the evening of the Lord’s resurrection, the disciples hid themselves behind closed doors for fear of the Jews. But Jesus came and stood in the midst of them, saying, “Peace be to you.” After this, He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:19-22). This Holy Spirit is the Lord Himself. When He breathed into His disciples, He was breathing Himself as the Holy Spirit into them. From that time on, the Lord as the Holy Spirit was in the disciples to be their life and content (Col. 3:4), being with them forever (John 14:20; Matt. 28:20) and living together with them (John 14:19; Gal. 2:20b).
After these things the disciples went down to the sea to fish, and the Lord appeared to them again. He trained them once more to become accustomed to His invisible presence. It was not His coming; rather, it was His appearing. Whether or not they felt His presence, the Lord was with them all the time. Because of their weakness, the Lord sometimes manifested His presence to them to strengthen their faith in Him. Today He is the same to us. Since He is the Spirit, there is an invisible presence within us. Whether or not we feel it, He is still with us. Sometimes He appears. Sometimes He disappears. Neither His appearing nor His disappearing is according to us. But whether He appears or disappears, He is with us all the time. Our Lord is such a wonderful One today. Hence, we who believe in Christ are a peculiar people. Sometimes without any reason we are overflowing with joy, praying and singing. At other times, we are despondent and downcast, sighing and sorrowing. When we feel the Lord’s presence, everything is good. When we do not feel the Lord’s presence, we lose our bearings, and discouragement, murmurings, and temper all appear. But once we touch the Lord Jesus, we feel once more that He is so faithful and lovable, and all the problems are blown away like clouds. All these are due to the fact that we have a wonderful Lord within us.
As the God-man who has died and resurrected, the Lord Jesus has not only become the life-giving Spirit to enter into the disciples, but He has also ascended to the heavens. Ephesians 4:8-12 tells us that in His resurrection and ascension the Lord Jesus led a train of conquered captives. These captives are we, the redeemed saints. Before we were saved, we were the captives of Satan, bound in sin and death. Through His death and resurrection Christ has destroyed Satan and has captured us out of the hands of Satan unto Himself. In His ascension He took these captives and presented them before God. God in turn gave these captives back as gifts to the ascended Head. In the position of His ascension He gave these gifts to the church. These gifts — among whom are some apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers — perfect all the saints in the church so that the saints would all function to participate in the work of the ministry, which is the building up of the Body of Christ. In the end God will have a church that satisfies His heart’s desire, and Christ will have a built-up Body. This is what God will accomplish in His economy in this age.
