Search
Week 11 — Day 1
John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Rom. 8:17 And if children, heirs also; on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.
In this [portion] we shall...consider [six aspects of] the believers’ status after they have been saved.
[In John 1:12-13] we see that the children of God have been born of God, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. “Blood” here signifies the physical life; “will of the flesh” denotes the will of fallen man after man became flesh; and “will of man” refers to the will of man created by God. When we became children of God, we were not born of our physical life, our fallen life, or our created life—we were born of God, the uncreated life. For human beings to become children of God is for them to be born of God to have the divine life and nature.
The believers become children of God through their receiving of the Son of God by believing into His name.122 As God’s children, who have God’s life and nature, we can be like God, live God, and express God, thus fulfilling the purpose of God’s creation of man.123
First, the believers are children of God, and then they gradually grow up to become sons of God....[Romans 8:14] says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” This indicates that we may know that we are sons of God by the fact that we are led by the Spirit.... By the Spirit we have the divine birth and the divine life. Through the Spirit we grow unto maturity. Because of the Spirit we have the position, right, and privilege of sonship.124 [In Romans 8:16] children refers to the initial stage of sonship, the stage of regeneration in the human spirit. [Whereas, in Romans 8:14] sons are the children of God who are in the stage of the transformation of their souls. They not only have been regenerated in their spirit and are growing in the divine life, but they also are living and walking by being led by the Spirit.125
In [Romans 8:17] we see that we have progressed from children to heirs....Paul’s thought here is very strong. Please notice the semicolon in this verse. It indicates that there is a condition involved in being an heir. We should not say that simply because we are children we are heirs. This is too hasty....The condition for being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ is that “we suffer with Him that we may also be glorified with Him.” We may not like suffering, but we need it. Remember that suffering is the incarnation of grace. We should not be distressed by suffering. If we suffer with Him, we will be glorified with Him.126
Heirs are the sons of God who, through the transfiguration of their body in the stage of glorification, will be fully matured in every part of their being [spirit and soul and body]. Hence, they will be qualified as the legal heirs to claim the divine inheritance (vv. 17, 23).127
Our inheritance is not anything material....[Rather, our] divine inheritance is the Triune God with all He has, all He has done, and all He will do for His redeemed people. This Triune God is embodied in the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 2:9), who is the portion allotted to the saints as their inheritance (1:12). The Holy Spirit is the pledge, the guarantee, of this divine inheritance, which we are sharing and enjoying today as a foretaste and will share and enjoy in full in the coming age and for eternity (1 Pet. 1:4).128
Week 11 — Day 2
Rom. 8:29 Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.
Rev. 20:4-5 ...And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years....This is the first resurrection.
Christ was the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18). When He was sent by God into the world, He was still the only begotten Son of God (1 John 4:9; John 1:14; 3:16). By His passing through death and entering into resurrection, His humanity was uplifted into His divinity. Thus, in His divinity with His humanity that passed through death and resurrection, He was born in resurrection as God’s firstborn Son (Acts 13:33). At the same time, all His believers were raised together with Him in His resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3) and were begotten together with Him as the many sons of God. Thus, they became His many brothers to constitute His Body and be God’s corporate expression in Him.129 Today Christ is not merely the only begotten Son but also the firstborn Son, and we are His brothers. As the Firstborn, Christ has both humanity and divinity, and as His brothers we have both divinity and humanity....Therefore, both the Lord Jesus and we are the same in that both He and we have the human nature and the divine nature.... However, we are not, and we never shall be, the same as Christ with respect to His deity. Deity refers to His Godhead, whereas divinity refers to His divine being. According to His deity, Christ is still the only begotten Son of God. We, His brothers, participate in His divinity, but we can never partake of His deity. It would be heresy to say that we can partake of Christ’s deity. As His brothers, we partake of the divine nature [2 Pet. 1:4], and this is to partake of divinity.130
In 1 Corinthians 6:15 Paul asks, “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” Because we are organically united with Christ and because Christ dwells in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22) and makes His home in our heart (Eph. 3:17), our entire being, including our purified body, becomes a member of Him. To practice such membership we need to offer our body to Him (Rom. 12:1, 4-5).
Christ indwells our spirit, and from our spirit He spreads throughout our entire being, thereby making His home in our heart. Furthermore, according to Romans 8:11, from our inner being He seeks to impart Himself as life into our physical body. Therefore, Christ spreads from the spirit to the soul and from the soul to the body. In this way our bodies become His members.
According to our natural constitution, we cannot be members of Christ’s Body. Christ Himself is the element, the factor, that makes us parts of Him. Hence, in order to be parts of Christ as members of His Body, we must have Christ wrought into our being.131
It is in resurrection that the believers are co-kings of Christ. Speaking of the overcoming believers,...Revelation 20:6 says, “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection....”132 The first resurrection is the best one. It is not only the resurrection of life (John 5:29; 1 Cor. 15:23b; 1 Thes. 4:16) but also the resurrection of reward (Luke 14:14), the out-resurrection, i.e., the outstanding resurrection, which the apostle Paul sought (Phil. 3:11), the resurrection of kingship as a reward to the overcomers, which enables them to reign as co-kings with Christ in the millennial kingdom (Rev. 20:4, 6).133
Being co-kings of Christ is in the consummation of the believers’ maturity in the divine life....Before a prince can be a king, he needs to grow and mature in the kingly life....Likewise, we need to grow in the resurrection life. Eventually,...[when] we have reached this maturity we shall be qualified to be co-kings of Christ.134
Week 11 — Day 3
Matt. 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.
Acts 5:14 And believers were all the more being added to the Lord...
In this [portion] we shall begin to cover the four designations of the believers given in the New Testament: disciples, believers, saints, and Christians.
First, the believers are designated as disciples. The term “disciples” is often used in the Gospels and in Acts, but it is not used at all in the Epistles....All these verses [Matt. 5:1; 28:16; Acts 6:1; 21:16] indicate that one designation of the believers is that of disciples.
Disciples are those who follow Christ. In His ministry the Lord Jesus told people to repent, for the kingdom of God has drawn near (Mark 1:15; Matt. 4:17). When some repented, or had an inclination to go with Him, He said to them, “Follow Me” (Matt. 4:19; 9:9; 19:21; Luke 9:59).135 To follow the Lord is to love Him above all things (Matt. 10:37-38).136
Disciples are also those who learn of Christ. In Matthew 11:29 the Lord Jesus says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me.” Discipline is required for both following Christ and learning from Him....We especially need to be disciplined in order to learn from Christ.137
Many verses in the New Testament speak of the believers. Acts 5:14 says, “Believers were all the more being added to the Lord.”...In 1 Timothy 4:12 [Paul] charges Timothy to “be a pattern to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”
In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul exhorts the Corinthian believers not to “become dissimilarly yoked with unbelievers.”138 Dissimilarly means diversely, implying a difference in kind. This refers to Deuteronomy 22:10, which forbids the yoking together of two dissimilar animals. Believers and unbelievers are diverse peoples. Because of their divine nature and holy standing, the believers should not be yoked together with the unbelievers. This should be applied to all intimate relationships between believers and unbelievers, not only to marriage and business.
The apostle used five illustrations to depict the difference between believers and unbelievers [2 Cor. 6:14-16]: (1) no partnership, no sharing together, between righteousness and lawlessness; (2) no fellowship, no communion, between light and darkness; (3) no concord, no harmony, between Christ and Belial; (4) no part, no portion, held by a believer with an unbeliever; and (5) no agreement, no consent, between the temple of God and idols. These illustrations also unveil the fact that the believers are righteousness, light, Christ, and the temple of God, and the unbelievers are lawlessness, darkness, Belial (Satan, the devil), and idols.139
The designation “believers,”...of course, indicates the matter of believing. Anyone who does not have faith in Christ, who does not believe in Christ, is certainly not a believer.140 To believe, as taught in the Bible, first means to receive. John 1:12 says, “As many as received Him [the Lord Jesus],...those who believe into His name.”...With our heart we must receive Christ into us to be our Savior. This is the genuine believing.
To believe is not only to receive but also to “believe into” (John 1:12; 3:15-16, 36). To receive is to receive Christ into us and to allow Him to be mingled with us. On the other hand, to “believe into” is to enter into Christ and be joined to Him.141 By believing into Christ as the Son of God we have an organic union with Him. When we believe in Him, we believe into Him and thereby become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17).142
Week 11 — Day 4
1 Cor. 1:2 To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints...
1 Pet. 4:15-16 For...if [one suffers] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name.
Many verses in the New Testament speak of the believers as saints. Acts 9:13 and 32 refer respectively to the saints in Jerusalem and to “the saints dwelling at Lydda.” Romans 1:7 says, “To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, the called saints.” Romans 8:27 tells us that the Spirit “intercedes for the saints.”...The word “saints” denotes those who are holy, separated unto God. We are not only believers in Christ—we are saints of God. We are God’s holy people, a people separated unto God for His purpose.
[In] 1 Corinthians 1:2...the expression “called saints” indicates that the believers in Christ are the called saints; they are not called to be saints. This is a positional matter, a sanctification in position with a view to sanctification in disposition....If we turn away from ourselves and look at Christ, in whom we have been sanctified, we shall be able to declare that we are saints. We shall realize that a saint is simply a called one.
First Corinthians 1:2 tells us that we have been sanctified in Christ Jesus...[which] is to be sanctified in the element and sphere of Christ....Christ is a holy sphere, a sphere of holiness. Not only is Christ holy—Christ Himself is holiness. Because God has put us into this Christ (v. 30), we have been put into the sphere of holiness. Now that we are in Christ as the sphere of holiness, we are sanctified. To be sanctified in Christ is to be made holy in Him.
We should never despise our position in Christ. God has put us into Christ, and this makes it possible for us to experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.... God does not look at us as we are in ourselves; rather, He looks at us in Christ.143
In the New Testament the believers are also designated as Christians. Acts 11:26 says, “The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” In Acts 26:28 [King] Agrippa says to Paul, “By so little are you trying to persuade me to become a Christian?” In 11:26 “Christian” is a term of reproach. That the disciples in Antioch were given such a nickname as a term of reproach indicates that they must have borne a strong testimony for the Lord, a testimony that made them distinct and peculiar in the eyes of the unbelievers.
The Greek word for Christian is Christianos, a word of Latin formation.144 The ending ianos, denoting an adherent of someone, was applied to slaves belonging to the great families in the Roman Empire. One who worshipped the emperor, the Caesar, or Kaisar, was called Kaisarianos, which means an adherent of Kaisar, a person who belongs to Kaisar. When people believed in Christ and became His followers, some in the Empire came to consider Christ a rival of their Kaisar. Then, at Antioch (Acts 11:26) they began to call the followers of Christ Christianoi (Christians), adherents of Christ, as a nickname, a term of reproach. Hence, [1 Peter 4:16] says, “As a Christian, let him not be ashamed”; that is, if any believer suffers at the hands of the persecutors who contemptuously call him a Christian, he should not feel ashamed but should glorify God in this name.
Today the term Christian should bear a positive meaning, that is, a man of Christ, one who is one with Christ, not only belonging to Him but also having His life and nature in an organic union with Him, and who is living by Him, even living Him, in his daily life. If we suffer for being such a person, we should not feel ashamed but should be bold to magnify Christ in our confession by our holy and excellent manner of life to glorify (express) God in this name.145
Week 11 — Day 5
Matt. 13:38 ...And the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom...
1 Pet. 2:5 You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house...
In this [portion] we shall...consider [two of] the...symbols of the believers found in the New Testament.146
On the one hand, the Lord Jesus says that the believers are wheat [Matt. 3:12]; on the other hand, He tells us that the believers are the good seed. In Matthew 13:38 He says, “The good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom.” In Matthew 13:4 and 19 the seed sown by the Lord was the word of the kingdom. In verses 24 and 38 this seed has developed into the sons of the kingdom.147 Here three things are interrelated: the word of the kingdom, the sons of the kingdom, and Christ Himself as the life within the seed. These three cannot be separated. The word of the kingdom actually is Christ Himself as the word of life. This seed eventually produces the sons of the kingdom, who are the believers.148 Therefore, the good seed, as well as the wheat, is the sons of the kingdom, the real believers, those regenerated with the divine life.
The sowing of the good seed is a kind of martyrdom, for the seed experiences a real crucifixion and is put to death. Those who are willing to be sown, crucified, in this way will eventually grow, multiply, and be fruitful. But those who are not willing to be sown into the ground, who are not willing to be put to death, will be barren and unfruitful.149
In the New Testament the believers are also symbolized by stones and are called living stones (1 Pet. 2:5). These living stones are actually transformed sinners. Once we were sinners, but we are now in the process of being transformed into stones.150
Transformation is the inward, metabolic process in which God works to spread His divine life and nature throughout every part of our being, particularly our soul, bringing Christ and His riches into our being as our new element and causing our old, natural element to be gradually discharged.151 To be transformed is to be both charged and discharged. We all need to be charged with Christ, just as a transformer is charged with electricity. When Christ is charged into us, He will discharge many old things. In this way we will be renewed and transformed.152
First Peter 2:5 says, “You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house.” We, the believers in Christ, are living stones, like Christ (v. 4), through regeneration and transformation. We were created of clay (Rom. 9:21). But at regeneration we received the seed of the divine life, which by its growth in us transforms us into living stones. At Peter’s conversion the Lord gave him a new name, Peter—[meaning] a stone. When Peter received the revelation concerning Christ, the Lord revealed further that He also was the rock—a stone (Matt. 16:16-18). Peter was impressed by these two incidents that both Christ and His believers are stones for God’s building.153
[First Peter 2:4 speaks] of Christ as a living stone....A living stone is one that not only possesses life but also grows in life. This is Christ for God’s building. Here Peter changed his metaphor from a seed, which is of the vegetable life (1:23-24), to a stone, which is of the minerals. The seed is for life-planting; the stone is for building (2:5). Peter’s thought went on from life-planting to God’s building. As life to us, Christ is the seed; for God’s building, He is the stone. After receiving Him as the seed of life, we need to grow that we may experience Him as the stone living in us. Thus, He will make us also living stones, transformed with His stone nature, that we may be built together with others as a spiritual house upon Him as both the foundation and the cornerstone (Isa. 28:16).154
Week 11 — Day 6
2 Cor. 5:17 So then if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.
Now we come to the most crucial section of these messages on the believers — their present.155
The most crucial matter in God’s full, all-inclusive salvation is His making us a new creation.156 According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, in God’s eyes we are a new creation already. But in our experience we are not yet fully new. In our experience there is a process.157It takes a long time in our life and it requires us to contact God, to receive God, and to get God added into us all the day. It requires us to pray, confessing our sins and rejecting ourselves to take the cross of Christ. To take the cross of Christ is a killing, and this killing is death. This death brings in resurrection, and in this resurrection, the divine life in us will carry out its renewing capacity.158 [By this] our inner man [2 Cor. 4:16]...is being metabolically renewed day by day with the supply of the resurrection life.159 [Thus,] renewing is the divine element being dispensed into us.160
God has the best provisions to help us to receive the renewing. The first provision is the cross, the putting to death of Jesus [2 Cor. 4:7-12]....The second provision is the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:5 speaks of the “renewing of the Holy Spirit.”...We are receiving the new supply of the Spirit daily to renew us metabolically....The third provision God gave us is our mingled spirit, our human spirit mingled with the divine Spirit. In our human spirit, the Holy Spirit dwells, works, and renews us....[Last, the fourth provision is] the holy Word. The Head of the Body cleanses the church, His Body, by the washing of the water in the word (Eph. 5:26).161
Based upon the fact that the Spirit of God dwells within the lover of Christ (John 14:17), God the Father and the Son come to the lover of Christ and make a mutual abode with him (v. 23). John 14:23 says that if anyone loves the Son, the Father and He will come to make an abode with him. This means to make a mutual dwelling place for the Triune God and the believer. The indwelling Spirit is mentioned in verse 17. Based upon this fact, the Father and the Son come to make a mutual dwelling place with us. This is building. In John 14:2 the Lord said, “In My Father’s house are many abodes.” Verse 23 tells us how these many abodes are built up. It is by the Spirit living in us as a foundation; then the Father and the Son come to us to make a mutual abode with us.162
In our daily life the Father and the Son often come to visit us...to do a building work in us, making an abode which will be a mutual dwelling place for the Triune God and for us. This is the building up of the Father’s house through the constant visitation of the Triune God.163 In this building Christ is making His home in [our] hearts.164 This making home is the building. This takes place first by our being strengthened with power through the Spirit into our inner man, into our spirit. Then Christ has the chance to build His home in our heart so that we may be filled unto, resulting in, the fullness of the Triune God for the expression of the Triune God [Eph. 3:16-19].165
According to the divine revelation in the Bible, God is building by working Himself in Christ into our being. This involves the mingling of divinity with our redeemed, resurrected, and uplifted humanity....If we see this, we will realize that all our problems today are due to one thing — our shortage of having God in Christ built into our being.166
1. Freed from self and Adam’s nature,
Lord, I would be built by Thee
With the saints into Thy temple,
Where Thy glory we shall see.
From peculiar traits deliver,
From my independent ways,
That a dwelling place for Thee, Lord,
We will be thru all our days.
2. By Thy life and by its flowing
I can grow and be transformed,
With the saints coordinated,
Builded up, to Thee conformed;
Keep the order in the Body,
There to function in Thy will,
Ever serving, helping others,
All Thy purpose to fulfill.
3. In my knowledge and experience
I would not exalted be,
But submitting and accepting
Let the Body balance me;
Holding fast the Head, and growing
With His increase, in His way,
By the joints and bands supplying,
Knit together day by day.
4. By Thy Spirit daily strengthened
In the inner man with might,
I would know Thy love surpassing,
Know Thy breadth and length and height;
Ever of Thy riches taking,
Unto all Thy fulness filled,
Ever growing into manhood,
That Thy Body Thou may build.
5. In God’s house and in Thy Body
Builded up I long to be,
That within this corporate vessel
All shall then Thy glory see;
That Thy Bride, the glorious city,
May appear upon the earth,
As a lampstand brightly beaming
To express to all Thy worth.
