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Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:4; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 Cor. 15:44a; John 10:17-18; 1 Thes. 4:14; Rom. 10:9; 8:11; Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29; 1 Pet. 1:3; Heb. 2:11-12; John 12:24; 1 Cor. 15:45b
In the last chapter we saw something concerning the Son’s resurrection in His divinity (Rom. 1:4; 1 Pet. 3:18) with His humanity (1 Cor. 15:44a). In this chapter we will see four major items concerning His resurrection: the Son laying down His life that He might take it again in resurrection, God raising Him from the dead, the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead, and the marvelous issue of the Son’s resurrection.
The Son laid down His life that He might take it again in resurrection (John 10:17-18). He died and rose (1 Thes. 4:14). To Christ, resurrection was something subjective. Christ Himself initiated the resurrection. In John 11:25 He said that He was not only the life but also the resurrection. Resurrection is something living and rising up. If resurrection is put down, it rises up. Christ is not only life but also resurrection. He is living all the time; He is rising up all the time. The New Testament tells us that the Roman soldiers killed Him, but it also tells us that He Himself laid down His life. When the soldiers came to arrest Him, He asked them whom they were seeking. When they said that they were seeking Jesus the Nazarene, He answered, “I am,” indicating that He was Jehovah (18:3-6; cf. Exo. 3:13-15). He was Jehovah, and if He had not been willing to give Himself to them, who could have arrested Him? If He had not been willing to lay down His life, who could have killed Him? Even the entire Roman army could not have killed Him (cf. Matt. 26:53). Apparently, the Roman soldiers killed Him. Actually, He laid down His life, which means that He died.
In the three days after His death He took His life back again. He had the ability to lay down His life, and He also had the ability to take His life back again because He was the resurrection, and resurrection always rises up. When the soldiers were killing Him, the life within Him, the resurrection within Him, was rising up. This rising up of the resurrection made His Spirit powerful with His divinity. It empowered His Spirit and strengthened His Spirit. After His body was buried, His Spirit with His divinity went to the abyss to proclaim God’s victory over Satan to the disobedient spirits. After that proclamation He came to His killed and buried body, and His resurrection invaded and raised up His body. This was the process of His resurrection.
God has raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 10:9). The New Testament tells us that Jesus Himself rose from the dead, and it also says that God raised Him up. Jesus and God are one. When Jesus rose up, that was God within Him rising up. The Triune God was fully involved in the resurrection of Jesus. While Jesus was rising up, God was within Him. Because Jesus was born of the divine essence intrinsically, God was in His nature. In the conception of Jesus, God became His very essence. Therefore, when Jesus was a babe in the manger, He was the mighty God (Isa. 9:6). The mighty God was His intrinsic essence. When He was twelve years old, He was the mighty God; God was His essence. When He was standing in the water after baptism, He was the mighty God; the mighty God was the essence of His being. When He was nailed to the cross, that was the mighty God being put to death, since God was His intrinsic essence. When He was being raised from the dead, He was God rising up; the very God Himself was the intrinsic essence of this rising-up One. Therefore, His rising up was God’s rising up.
Jesus could never be separated from God, since God was His intrinsic essence. Death could not hold Him, because He was the resurrection. This resurrection is the Triune God Himself — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Life is the Triune God, and resurrection is the Triune God. Since the Triune God was the intrinsic essence of Jesus, the intrinsic essence of Jesus was also resurrection itself. Death cannot overcome resurrection, but it is so easy for resurrection to overcome death. Hallelujah, He arose! He arose because He was God intrinsically, essentially, and He was resurrection itself.
Romans 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” The One in the phrase the Spirit of the One refers to the Triune God who raised up Jesus. This resurrection is ours through the Spirit of the One who raised up Jesus. In the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit there is the element of resurrection. Through this all-inclusive Spirit the resurrection of Christ, which is an accomplished fact, is applied to us subjectively and becomes our experience.
From the conception of Jesus through His resurrection the Triune God was fully involved. Essentially, God was involved in the conception of Jesus; essentially, God was involved in Jesus’ living on this earth; essentially, God was involved in Jesus’ death on the cross; and essentially, God was involved in His resurrection. His conception, His living, His death, and His resurrection were all by, with, and of the Triune God. His conception, His living, His death, and His resurrection were not merely of a man but of God also. The Triune God was there in His conception, His living, His death, and His resurrection, and these elements have all been compounded into the life-giving Spirit for us to experience.
Now we want to see the wonderful result of the resurrection of the Son of God. Through His resurrection Jesus was born as the Firstborn of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29), through His resurrection He brought forth many brothers (John 12:24; 1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11-12), through His resurrection a new child was born (John 16:20-22), and through His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). These were four new items in the history of the entire universe as the issue of the Son’s resurrection.
God’s only begotten Son is eternal (Heb. 1:8, 10-12; 7:3). From eternity He was the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18; 3:16). God never had more than one son. His only begotten Son is unique. In resurrection, however, the only begotten Son of God became the Firstborn. Romans 8:29 tells us that He is the Firstborn among many brothers. We as the many sons of God are the Firstborn’s brothers. How wonderful it is that the Son of God has many brothers! Today He is not merely the only begotten Son of God, but He is also the Firstborn of God, and we are His many brothers.
From eternity Christ was the only begotten Son of God. In incarnation He was born of a human virgin to be the Son of Man (Gal. 4:4). Then in His resurrection, as the Son of Man, He was born of God, that is, divinely sonized to be the firstborn Son of God among many brothers. Christ was born twice. The first time, He was born to be the Son of Man as the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15). The second time, He was born to be the Son of God as the Firstborn from the dead (v. 18).
Since Jesus was already the Son of God, why did He need to be born as the Son of God? To answer this question we must first see the verse that tells us that Jesus Christ was born to be the Son of God. Acts 13:33 says, “God has fully fulfilled this promise to us their children in raising up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, ‘You are My Son; this day have I begotten You.’” This day refers to the day of resurrection. On the day of resurrection God said to Jesus, “You are My Son; this day have I begotten You.” On the day of resurrection God begot Jesus to be His Son. Before this day Jesus was the Son of God already. However, He still needed to be born in resurrection to be the Son of God.
Jesus was the Son of God in His Spirit. According to His divinity, He was the Son of God, but according to His humanity, He was the Son of Man. A part of Jesus Christ, His flesh, was altogether human. It was not divine, not the Son of God. To make Him the firstborn Son, Jesus’ humanity had to be divinely sonized by God. His humanity was not a part of the Son of God but a part of the Son of Man. This part had to be made divine, to be made the Son of God, by God bringing this part into death and resurrecting it. By such a process He was divinely sonized by God in His humanity. His human part was divinely sonized by God in His resurrection.
In Acts 13:33 we saw that on the day of resurrection God said that He had begotten Jesus as His Son. To beget means to impart life. To say that I have begotten you means that I have imparted my life into you. In the human part of Jesus there was no divine life. However, through His death and resurrection the Triune God imparted His divine life into the human part of Jesus. While the resurrection was taking place, the Triune God was making Jesus alive in His Spirit (1 Pet. 3:18). The Triune God was energizing Him from within to stir up His life to invade the humanity of Jesus. To invade the humanity of Jesus with life meant to impart the divine life into His human part. This was to sonize the humanity of Jesus, and this sonizing was the begetting. Through His death and resurrection Jesus, in His human part, was sonized to be the Son of God. Through such a process He became the firstborn Son of God. As the only begotten Son of God, He had merely the divine element, but now as the firstborn Son of God, He has both the divine and the human elements.
This One who has both the divine and human elements as the firstborn Son of God brought forth many brothers. Today we are the sons of God who also have both the human and the divine elements. We are human beings, yet we are divine sons of God. This is wonderful! Human beings can be divine sons, and as the sons of God, we possess the divine element and the human element. Jesus Christ is the firstborn Son of God possessing the divine and human elements, and His human element has been divinely sonized. He is not merely the only begotten Son of God but also the firstborn Son of God. According to His deity, He is still the only begotten Son of God. Deity refers to His Godhead, but divinity refers to His divine being. We can participate in His divinity, but we can never participate in His deity. If we say that we partake of His deity, this is heresy. But the Bible tells us that we are partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). To partake of His divine nature means to partake of His divinity. As the sons of God, we can say that we are both human and divine. Praise the Lord! Today He is the firstborn Son of God, and we are the many sons of God. We are His many brothers produced through His resurrection.
First Peter 1:3 tells us that God has regenerated us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We must realize that when Christ was resurrected, we were regenerated. When He was resurrected, we also were resurrected in Him (Eph. 2:5-6). We, as human beings, were all divinely sonized through His resurrection to be many sons of God to participate in His divine sonship. We were regenerated before we were born, since His resurrection was our regeneration. Before we came into existence, God the Father had regenerated us already. From God’s point of view we were regenerated about two thousand years ago. According to our physical life, we do not have that many years, but according to our spiritual life, we were regenerated that many years ago. Every child of God was begotten of God nearly two thousand years ago through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before we became part of the old creation, we were already a part of the new creation through Christ’s resurrection, so we are the many brothers of the firstborn Son of God in His resurrection (Rom. 8:29). God is our Father, and the Firstborn of God is our Brother. This is marvelous! Christ, the only begotten Son of God, as the unique grain of wheat, fell into the earth to die. Through His life-releasing death, His divine life within Him grew and rose up to produce many grains to be God’s many sons and Christ’s many brothers.
In John 16:20-22 the Lord told the disciples that they would be sorrowful but that their sorrow would be turned into joy because He as “the little child” (v. 21) would be brought forth in His resurrection (Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; Rom. 1:4). The Lord’s death and resurrection were the process of delivery. A new child was delivered through His death and resurrection. This was a universal delivery, not of a single child but of a corporate child, which included the Son of God as the Head and His many brothers as the Body. This was the birth of a new corporate child comprising Christ and us, the believers. Actually, this was the birth of the new man (Eph. 2:15). The old man was created by God in Genesis 1 and 2, but the new man was born through the death and resurrection of Christ referred to in John 16. We were born into the old man, but we were regenerated into the new man.
Remember that before we were born into the old man, we were already regenerated into the new man, since we were regenerated before we were born according to 1 Peter 1:3. This is a divine mystery that our human mentality cannot solve, but the fact is that we were regenerated as the new man before we were born as the old man. We do not need to try, struggle, or endeavor to be a new man. We are already a new man. We were a new man two thousand years ago. All of us should declare, “Hallelujah! I am a part of the new man!” Do not look at yourself. When you look at yourself, you will be disappointed. When you look at yourself, you will see the old man. We do not need to look at ourselves, but we need to say Amen to God’s Word. All of us should declare, “I am a part of the new man through the wonderful death and resurrection of the Son of God!” Through His resurrection He as the only begotten Son of God became God’s Firstborn, and through His resurrection His many brothers were brought forth. Also, through His resurrection a new child was born, and this new child comprises all of us.
After accomplishing incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) to apply whatever He had accomplished to us. He accomplished incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. He became the firstborn Son of God, He brought forth His many brothers, and a new child was born through His resurrection. Now He wants to apply all this to us, His many brothers. He can apply all this to us since He has become a life-giving Spirit. As the life-giving Spirit, He has come into us to apply to us all that He has achieved, accomplished, attained, and obtained. All His accomplishments now become ours. His incarnation becomes ours, His human living becomes ours, His crucifixion becomes ours, and His resurrection becomes ours. His being the firstborn Son of God becomes ours, His producing many brothers becomes ours, and even the birth of the new child becomes ours. Whatever He has achieved, accomplished, attained, and obtained have become ours because this life-giving Spirit is the totality of His wonderful person, including all His wonderful accomplishments.
This all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. All that the Triune God is and all that the Triune God has achieved, accomplished, attained, and obtained are compounded together into the life-giving Spirit. After His resurrection the Lord Jesus became such a Spirit and breathed this Spirit into His disciples (John 20:22). Then after His ascension He poured out this Spirit upon His disciples (Acts 2:1-4, 16-17). On the day of resurrection He breathed this all-inclusive Spirit into His disciples essentially. Then after fifty days, on the day of Pentecost, He poured out this Spirit upon His disciples economically. Essentially, the Spirit was breathed into His disciples, and economically, such a Spirit was poured out upon His disciples. Now within His disciples is the Spirit of life essentially, and upon His disciples is the Spirit of power economically.
We are now persons with the Spirit within us essentially and with the Spirit upon us economically. Therefore, we are persons of the Spirit. You may not feel that you are a person of the Spirit, but your feeling means nothing. The Word of God means everything. We should not forget that the Word of God is a testament, a will. We must learn to say Amen to the bequests of this will. We should say Amen to every item. Amen to the Spirit of life bequeathed to me! Amen to the Spirit of power bequeathed to me! Amen to the Spirit in me, and Amen to the Spirit upon me! Amen that I have the Spirit essentially, and Amen that I have the Spirit economically! Amen! I am a man of Spirit! If we Amen the Word of God, we will be filled with the Spirit. As believers in Christ, we should follow the New Testament. Hallelujah for the testament, and Hallelujah for all the bequests in this testament! Amen to every item of the New Testament!
