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Scripture Reading: John 1:1, 14, 29, 31-33; 3:5-6, 34; 4:14, 23-24; 6:63; 7:37-39; 14:16-20; 15:26; 16:13-15; 20:19-22
Some aspects of the truth concerning the matter of the meeting of God’s people have been somewhat hidden and missed by Christians for centuries. Most Christian meetings today are mainly either traditional, natural, religious, or just according to people’s taste. If I am a person who likes to be quiet, I would attend a quiet meeting. If I am a person who likes to be excited, I would attend some exciting meetings.
In the previous thirteen chapters we have covered three crucial and main points. First of all, those chapters have opened the veil to show us that in God’s redemption His intention is to have a people on the earth who are meeting as a feast to Him. According to Exodus 12:14, God ordained His redeemed people to meet together for a feast to Him. This means not only before Him but also with Him.
Feasting, of course, mainly implies two things: meeting and eating. First. you need people coming together. You cannot have a feast by yourself or even with your wife. To have a feast you need to have a meeting, and the more people, the better. Also feasting implies eating. If you come together, but with nothing to eat, that is not a feast. That may be a kind of emptiness or vanity. When God’s people came out of Egypt in the ancient time, there were probably two million. When they came together to feast, what a feast that was!
Such a feast was to the Lord. This means that they feasted before God and with God. Today in the church meetings we are feasting before God and also with God. When we are feasting before the Lord, God is happy, and we also are happy.
Second, for such a feasting — meeting before God and with God — there is the need of two things: a dwelling place and the offerings. In the record of Exodus they were feasting first in the wilderness. There were no houses or lodgings — just wilderness. So there was the need of a dwelling place, the tabernacle. The tabernacle was the dwelling place of God. God dwelt there, and His people also dwelt there.
According to the picture presented in Exodus, while they were in the wilderness, the children of Israel were either traveling or camping. When they camped, it was around God’s tabernacle, which was called the Tent of Meeting. There was the Tent of Meeting with all the camps. Their camping was also a meeting. While they were camping, God was camping among them.
As they were camping in the wilderness, they spent much time to build a wonderful tabernacle with all its furniture and utensils. That tabernacle signified not only Christ but also God’s people in a collective sense to be a dwelling place for God and for all those who loved Him and served Him.
To enter into that dwelling place, there was the need of the offerings. The offerings were needed because God is God, and man is man. Because of the fall there is a gap between God and man. We need some offerings to bridge the gap, to bring us from the altar into the tabernacle. The main offerings, of course, were the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering. The subordinate offerings were the wave offering, the heave offering, the drink offering, the vows, and the freewill offerings. All these offerings are bridges to bring us to the other side, that is, into the tabernacle.
The third crucial point we have covered is that Christ, the incarnated God, is both the tabernacle and the offerings. One book in the New Testament, the Gospel of John, points out that the incarnated God, Christ, is the tabernacle. John 1:14 reads, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.” In writing his Gospel John used the word tabernacled for dwelling. He used the word tabernacle in the verbal form to denote what the incarnated God intended to do. God incarnated intended to be the tabernacle.
Before the incarnation, God was invisible and mysterious, but after the incarnation, there was something solid, visible, and touchable — the tabernacle. As the tabernacle, Christ is enterable. He is not only visible, solid, and touchable but also enterable. We can walk into God as our tabernacle. I can testify that for so many years I have entered into God and even traveled in God. This is a wonderful fact. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” (vv. 1, 14). How marvelous! The mysterious, invisible God became solid, visible, touchable, and enterable. You can dwell in Him as the tabernacle and travel through Him day and night.
In John 14:2 the Lord Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many abodes.” What or who is the Father’s house? The Father’s house is first the incarnated Christ. The incarnated Christ is the embodiment of God. He is the house of God. God housed Himself in Christ. The incarnation was God’s housing. When Christ was on the earth, God housed Himself in Him. That was the Father’s house.
Furthermore, in John 2:19 the Lord Jesus told the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” This meant that His physical body would be raised in resurrection. In resurrection Christ raised His own body, the destroyed house of God, with the church, His mystical Body.
The New Testament goes on to tell us in 1 Timothy 3:15 that the church is the house of God. We must connect this verse with John 14:2, which says, “In My Father’s house are many abodes.” The many abodes in John 14 are “the house of God, which is the church of the living God” in 1 Timothy 3.
According to these verses, God is so solid for us to enter into, but there is the need of some bridging instruments, the offerings. So John 1, which speaks of the tabernacling God, also speaks of the Lamb of God (v. 29). On the one hand, there is the tabernacle which is Christ, and on the other hand, there is the Lamb of God, indicating Christ as the offerings.
Now we have to consider the reality of the fulfillment of the tabernacle and the offerings. Yes, Christ is the tabernacle, and Christ is all the offerings. But we have to ask, Where is the tabernacle today? And where are all the offerings today? Without the reality these are empty doctrines and vain talk. There is the need of reality. This word, reality, is used very particularly and very specifically in the Gospel of John. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.” The tabernacle in the Old Testament was full of glory. The glory of God was upon the tabernacle. Then in the New Testament, Christ, the incarnated God, became the tabernacle, and the glory of God was upon Him. Christ was full of grace and reality, so the word reality is used in chapter 1.
Then in chapter 4 the Samaritan woman talked to the Lord Jesus about worshipping God. The Lord Jesus told her that “an hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness” (vv. 23-24). The Father is seeking a certain kind of worship — a worship in spirit and truthfulness, or reality.
In chapter 8 the Lord Jesus spoke of reality again: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (v. 32). Truth, that is, reality, frees people.
The Lord Jesus continued to speak of reality in chapter 14: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you” (vv. 16-17). This Comforter whom the Lord would send is the Spirit of reality. What is reality? Reality is just the Spirit.
Let me illustrate: Suppose I have a book about electricity. From the first page to the last, it is concerning electricity, and I am teaching this book. I teach you many things about electricity. Eventually, if we do not have electricity, we do not have the reality. Only electricity itself is the reality of the book and of its teachings. If we have only the book about electricity but no electricity, it is vanity. There is no reality until electricity is installed in a building. Once the electricity is actually installed, you have the reality of the book and the teaching.
In the same way, the Bible teaches us many wonderful things. It teaches us that Christ is the tabernacle and the offerings. But what or who is the reality? It is the Spirit. If you do not have the Spirit, these are just terms. The tabernacle is just a term; the offerings are just terms. Without the Spirit as the reality, these are vain terms. Once electricity is installed into a building, you simply need to be taught where the switches are and what they operate. That is not a teaching of vanity; that is a teaching of reality. Christ is the fulfillment of the tabernacle and the offerings, but without Christ becoming the Spirit, these are vain teachings.
In John 14 the Lord Jesus suddenly told His disciples that He was going away from them (vv. 2-3). This bothered the disciples very much. The Lord Jesus had been with His disciples for over three years, and they had had a wonderful time with Him. Now He told them that he was leaving them: “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” If the Lord Jesus would not go away, the disciples would have no way to enter into God. His going was to prepare the way for them to be where He was, that is, in the Father. He was in the Father, but they were not.
Furthermore, the Lord Jesus was among them but not in them. He was not satisfied just to be among them. He wanted to be in them. They needed to be in God, and the Lord needed to be in them. How could these two steps be accomplished? It was only by the Lord’s going away by His death on the cross and by His coming back in resurrection. It was expedient and profitable to the disciples for the Lord to go away (16:7). He was going away by dying on the cross as all the offerings. This would solve the problems and bridge the gap between them and God. This would cut the way and open the door, taking away all the obstacles so that they might enter into God.
Also, after three days the Lord would be resurrected to release all the divine riches within Himself into them. On that day, the day of resurrection, they would know that He was in the Father, and they were in the Lord, and the Lord was in them (14:20). How marvelous! Christ the Son is in the Father; you are in Christ the Son, so you are surely in the Father, too. Not only so, but the Son who is in the Father is in you. This is too wonderful!
The Lord Jesus told His disciples that He was going to take the way of death and resurrection. By this He would become another form, the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” When He became such a Spirit, this Spirit was the reality of the fulfillment of the tabernacle and all the offerings. Christ, the very fulfillment of the tabernacle and the offerings, became the life-giving Spirit. The Word which was God, first became flesh, and this One, through death and resurrection, then became the life-giving Spirit.
What qualifications does the life-giving Spirit have? He has the qualifications of being the tabernacle and of being all the offerings. For instance, a professor needs the qualification of a Ph.D. in mathematics in order to teach mathematics. The life-giving Spirit is the qualified Christ. Christ was qualified because He was the tabernacle and all the offerings. As such a qualified One, He became the life-giving Spirit. Today the life-giving Spirit is the reality of all that Christ is. This is very logical.
The Greek word used for Spirit is pneuma. It also can be translated into “air,” “breath,” or “wind,” depending upon the context. In the evening on the day of His resurrection He came to them, where they were staying for fear of the Jews. Although the door was shut, He came and stood in their midst. He showed them His hands and His side so that they might realize that He was the crucified One, and then “He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit” or Holy Pneuma (John 20:22). What is the Holy Pneuma? It is just Christ Himself as the life-giving Spirit.
At that time Christ entered into His disciples as the life-giving Spirit. From that hour He never left the disciples. Rather, He remained in them and even lived in them.
I have been in the United States for the past twenty years, and during this time I have given perhaps three thousand messages, most of which have touched this one thing — Christ is the life-giving Spirit. It seems that I cannot finish this burden. Who is Christ? What is Christ? He is just this air, this breath, this Spirit, this Pneuma! And where is He today? He is not only in the heavens; He is also in you and me. “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (14:20). This “I” who is in you is the Spirit of reality. This is too wonderful!
The Gospel of John, in chapter 1, has the Word, and it has God. From chapter 1 to chapter 20 there are many other things. There is the Word becoming flesh as the tabernacle of God (1:14), there is the Lamb of God (v. 29), there is the bronze serpent (3:14), there is the living water (4:14), there is the bread of life (6:35, 51), there is the door (10:9), and there is the pasture (v. 9). There are so many items. But the last item in this book is in chapter 20 — the pneuma, the breath. This Holy Spirit, this Holy Breath, includes all the other items. The other items are all concentrated in the Holy Pneuma, the Holy Spirit.
This Spirit today is in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17). How good it is that we have a spirit! As the Spirit, He is so available, like the air, and He is in our spirit. The tabernacle and all the offerings are in the Spirit. But how can you use Him? How can you apply Him? You have to exercise your spirit. You may know this, but to know it is one thing, and to live it and practice it is another thing.
Let me illustrate once more. I have a lot of experiences of being defeated. I have known for years that such a wonderful Spirit is in my spirit, but even yesterday I had a lot of failure in this matter. Why? We have a spirit, and this wonderful life-giving Spirit is living in our spirit. This is a wonderful fact. With the fact there is no problem. Yet in nearly everything of our daily life we do not care for this fact. We do things, we say things, we act, we move, we walk, and we do everything mainly in ourselves, by ourselves, and with ourselves.
For instance, my wife asked me, “Will you speak forty minutes or an hour this morning? Do not speak over forty minutes.” Right away I was unhappy. I did not say anything aloud, but within I said, “You are too much!” She did not hear, because I did not utter it, but surely the life-giving Spirit in my spirit heard. Then I did say something: “Maybe an hour.” After I said this to her, I said, “Lord, forgive me. I need You as my trespass offering.” Why should I confess? I should confess because, first of all, when my wife said something to me, I should not initiate the feeling. I should right away turn to the spirit, saying, “Lord, You answer. Lord, You face the situation. This is Your problem. This is Your business. It is not mine. Lord Jesus, You take care of this.” This is the right way. But this is not easy.
When you hear a knock at the door, you need to say, “Lord Jesus, You go to open the door. Spirit, You open the door.” Most of the time we do not do this. When the knock comes, we go to the door by ourselves. Whatever comes to us, we go ahead right away, like Peter did many times. In the four Gospels Peter was such a person, going ahead and leaving Christ behind (Matt. 17:24-27). We are the same. In our daily life we are nearly always ahead of the Lord Jesus. We do not use our spirit.
This is the secret: Whenever anything comes to you, do not go ahead. Say, “Lord Jesus, You go, and I will follow. Lord, You take the lead, and I will follow.” This is not so easy, but if you would practice this, you will touch the reality of the fulfillment of the tabernacle and the offerings. I can testify that if you would practice this, you are right away in the tabernacle, because you are in the Spirit. Not only so, if you are in the Spirit, Christ is all the offerings to you. He is your trespass offering, your sin offering, your peace offering, your meal offering, and your burnt offering. If you have the Spirit, you have the reality of all these things. We must see the matter of the Spirit. This is the ultimate point that we should reach — the Spirit in our spirit.
This is very practical. For example, I have to be careful about my eating. I like to eat more, but my wife knows how to restrict me. Sometimes when she asked me how much I would eat, I did not feel happy. When she told me that I should eat only so much, I talked to her, making a bargain. Every time I bargained with her, I regretted it. Why? It is because I went ahead of the Lord Jesus. I went ahead of the Spirit. For many years I have been learning this one lesson. Now at least a number of times when my wife asks me how much I am going to eat, I do not have any feeling. I do not like to say anything. Rather, I say, “Spirit, this is Your job. You tell her. This is Your business.” I am not joking. This shows you the secret of how to live Christ. This is how to be one spirit with the Lord.
If you would practice this daily, you would experience the reality of the fulfillment of the tabernacle and all the offerings. I do hope that the Lord would grace you to put all that you have heard concerning the matter of the meetings into daily practice, that you would take the Lord as all the offerings — the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, the meal offering, and eventually the peace offering. Through all the offerings you may enter into the Triune God as the tabernacle and dwell in Him to enjoy the life supply from the table of the bread of the Presence and the enlightenment from the lampstand and to have a strong testimony by the Ark. Eventually, you will be one with Christ at the incense altar to pray the prayer that He offered to the Father in John 17.
We all have to realize that the divine goal of the Triune God in the Gospel of John is to bring us all into Himself so that we may dwell in Him to enjoy all the riches in Christ and so that we may take Him as our dwelling place and let Him take us as His dwelling place. By doing so, we can be one with Him to realize the eternal life with the holy name of the Father and experience the sanctification of the Word of God. We can also participate in the Father’s glory so that we will express only Him and nothing else. In this way we all could be perfectly one in the Triune God, that the Son may be glorified in the church and that the Father may be glorified in the Son. This is the eternal goal of the Triune God.
Then we have the surplus of the experiences of Christ for us to come together to exhibit Christ, to offer Christ to God, and to enjoy Him with God and with one another. In this way Christ may be fully expressed even in this age as a testimony, not only among the human beings but also to the principalities, the powers, the authorities in the air, and all the angels. This will fulfill God’s eternal purpose and satisfy Him and us for eternity.
