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God’s intention is to give Himself to us for our enjoyment. Hence, He must be in the Word; otherwise, we would have no way to contact Him. The center and the content of the Word of God are Jesus Christ His Son. All the words that God has spoken have Christ as their center and the content.
The Bible is the Word of God, and it is the explanation of Christ. The Lord Jesus said in John 5:39, “You search the Scriptures,...and it is these that testify concerning Me.” The function of the Bible is to testify concerning Christ. The Bible testifies concerning who Christ is, what is in Him, His being and His power, what He has done, what He will do, and what He wants us to receive.
Luke 24:27 says, “Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He explained to them clearly in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” Verse 44 says, “He said to them, These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and Psalms concerning Me must be fulfilled.” The Lord spoke these words when He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection. The Law of Moses, the Prophets, and Psalms are the three sections of the Old Testament, that is, “all the Scriptures” in verse 27. This is the way that Jewish rabbis classify the sections of the Old Testament. The Lord said that the three major sections of the Old Testament speak concerning Him and must be fulfilled.
Verse 45 says that the Lord opened the minds of His disciples to understand the Scriptures. This shows that the Lord must open our mind in order for us to understand the Scriptures. Without Christ, we cannot understand the Scriptures. He is the key to the Scriptures. In other words, Christ is the only key that can open the Scriptures, because He is the center and the content of the Scriptures.
On the one hand, the Christ who is the center and the content of the Scriptures is God. On the other hand, He is not only God, but He is God becoming everything to man. There is a difference between cooked rice and raw rice. Cooked rice is raw rice that has been boiled and is ready to be eaten. Before rice is cooked, it is still rice, but after it is boiled, it becomes cooked rice. This is the distinction between God and Christ. God can be likened to raw rice, and Christ can be likened to cooked rice. If God did not want us to eat Him, there would not be the need for Him to be embodied in Christ, just as raw rice would not need to be boiled if it were not for us to eat. After rice has been boiled and cooked, the raw rice cannot be found apart from the cooked rice. Thus, John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” This means that we cannot find God apart from Christ, just as when raw rice is boiled, we cannot find raw rice apart from cooked rice. Christ is God becoming our food, our “cooked rice.” If raw rice were not for us to eat, it would not need to be cooked. Likewise, if God were not for our enjoyment, He would not need to become the man Jesus Christ.
Jews and Christians worship the same God, but there is a difference: Jews worship God apart from Christ, and Christians worship God in Christ. If we use our illustration, Jews eat raw rice, but Christians eat cooked rice. Although Jews worship the true, unique God who created the universe, they worship Him apart from Christ. Jews do not worship idols; they worship Jehovah, the Lord God who created heaven and earth and who is also the God of Abraham. Jews worship God apart from Christ. Christians also worship the unique, sovereign God of the universe, who is the God of Abraham, but they worship Him in Christ. We need to be clear concerning this difference.
We cannot deny that there is a God in the universe. Every human being must admit that there is a sovereign God in the universe. However, it is not easy for human beings to admit that the sovereign God is Jesus Christ. This is the difficulty we often encounter when we preach the gospel. The Jews, the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees all believed in God when they crucified the Lord Jesus. The only charge they had against the Lord Jesus was that He called Himself God (Matt. 26:63-65; Mark 14:61-63; Luke 22:66-71). Even now, the Jews believe in God, but the God whom they believe in is not Christ. As a result, even though they believe in God, they cannot experience Him. God is objective to them, not subjective. In order for the objective God to become subjective to us, we must see that He is Christ. God is in Christ so that He can be our enjoyment. God must be in Christ in order for us to experience Him subjectively. Christ is God becoming everything to man.
John 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Verse 14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” According to these verses, Christ is the Word of God. The Word that was in the beginning is Christ. If God did not have anything to do with man, He would not need to be the Word. If I go to a meeting but do not want to have anything to do with the saints, I do not need to say anything. However, if I intend to give a message, I will need to speak in order to express my inner feelings and intentions. Similarly, if God had nothing to do with man, He would not need to be the Word. God is the Word so that He can have a relationship with us, reveal Himself to us, appear to us, and declare and explain Himself to us so that we may know Him and have a relationship with Him. He must be the Word, and the Word is Christ. Christ is the Word of God. Christ is God coming to have a relationship with man.
Every thoughtful person can deduce that there is a God in the universe. However, neither Socrates in the West nor Confucius in the East knew God. These great philosophers could not know God, because they had neither seen nor heard the Word of God, Christ. Only those who have seen and heard Christ can know God Himself, for Christ is the Word of God. Socrates and Confucius were knowledgeable philosophers, but in matters concerning God, they knew less than any of our high-school brothers or sisters. Socrates did not know Christ, and Confucius did not know Christ; hence, they did not know God. But we know Christ; hence, we know God.
We must see that Christ as the Word of God explains and expresses God. A person who wants to know God should read the four Gospels. Then he will know the Lord Jesus who is God. The Christ who walked on the earth declared God. His declaration was a declaration of the likeness of God. God is so great, yet He is so lowly that He could wash men’s feet (John 13:14). God is awesome, yet even little children could come to Him (Matt. 19:13; Mark 10:14). This is what Christ revealed. He is the Word of God, the manifestation of God.
According to John 1:1 and 2 and verse 14, Christ is also God. He is not only the Word of God, but He is also God Himself. When we touch the Word, we touch God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. Christ is the Word; hence, Christ is God.
Christ is not only the Word of God and God; He is also the embodiment of God and the manifestation of God. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh.” This means that the Word became a man, Jesus the Nazarene. Some students may be afraid of their principal. If the principal were dressed as a common worker, the students would not be afraid of him and would speak with him, without realizing that he is the embodiment of the principal. This is an example of the Lord Jesus on earth. He did not care when He was reproved or humiliated by men. After His resurrection He approached two disciples who were on their way down to Emmaus. The disciples said with condescension to the Lord, “Do You alone dwell as a stranger in Jerusalem and not know the things which have taken place in it in these days?” (Luke 24:18). They then told the Lord that their Teacher, Jesus the Nazarene, was crucified on the cross and placed in a tomb and that some had gone to His tomb and found it empty. The Lord Jesus behaved as though He did not know what they were saying and walked with them, listening to them. When they reached Emmaus, they constrained the Lord to stay with them. As He reclined at table with them, He took the loaf, blessed it, and broke it, and handed it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized Him as the Lord Jesus, but He disappeared (vv. 19-31). While they were unclear, the Lord walked with them. When they became clear, He disappeared.
Throughout human history there has been only one person who was the embodiment of God. This person was extraordinary and yet ordinary. On the one hand, He was so ordinary that it was hard for people to believe that He was the extraordinary God. On the other hand, He was so different that people had to confess that He was the extraordinary God. Jesus the Nazarene was ordinary. He was a carpenter who ate when He was hungry, drank when He was thirsty, slept when He was sleepy, and wept when He was grieved. He was an ordinary man. Yet He was the embodiment of God. Heaven and earth and all things came into being through Him (John 1:3). One day, while He walked as a weary man on the earth that He had created, He sat by a well, waiting patiently for a woman to come and draw water from the well so that He could ask her for something to drink (4:6-7). He was indeed ordinary. He was so ordinary that He wept (11:35). God, who was in the beginning, became a man who wept. This is inconceivable! God was embodied in a man.
Verse 18 of chapter 1 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” First Timothy 3:16 says, “Great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh.” These verses indicate that as the embodiment of God, Jesus the Nazarene declared God and manifested God in the flesh. When we read the Gospels, we must not forget that the Lord Jesus is a man and that He is the embodiment of God and the manifestation of God. Then every chapter of every book will be meaningful. He is a man, yet He is the embodiment and manifestation of God.
When the Lord Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus and saw Mary and the Jews weeping, He also wept. The shortest verse in the whole Bible is “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). This shows that He is a man. But this man is the embodiment and manifestation of the great God. Therefore, the words Jesus wept are full of meaning. When we see a child weep, we do not take it to heart. If we were to see the president of our university weep, we would have some feeling. If we were to see the head of our nation weep, our feelings would certainly be touched. The person who stood in front of Lazarus’s tomb wept. If we knew who He was and saw Him weep, we would be full of feeling. Regrettably, few people knew who He was that day, because He was embodied in a Nazarene.
We must remember that the Lord Jesus is the embodiment and manifestation of God. He could manifest God because He embodied God. He wept as the embodiment of God, washed His disciples’ feet as the embodiment of God, and was crucified as the embodiment of God. He is the Christ of God.
God is an indescribable mystery, but this mystery is in Christ. Christ is the mystery of God; He is the center of God. If we know Christ, we know the mystery of God, and if we have Christ, we can touch the center of God. Colossians 2:2 says, “The mystery of God, Christ.”
Once raw rice is boiled and becomes cooked rice, the raw rice exists only in the form of cooked rice; that is, the rice is available only as cooked rice. In other words, the cooked rice is preeminent. God is pleased to let His Son Christ be preeminent in all things. Since Christ is preeminent in all things, God is not associated with anything apart from Christ. Everything of God is also in Christ (v. 9). This shows the importance of Christ in God’s intention and His plan. God has given everything to Christ so that we may enjoy Him. Colossians 1:18 says that Christ is the “Head of the Body, the church; He is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that He Himself might have the first place in all things.”
All that God has is in Christ. Concerning Christ, the Son of God’s love (v. 13), Colossians says, “Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation” (v. 15); “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (2:9); and “in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden” (v. 3). John 16:15 says, “All that the Father has is Mine.”
All that God is to man is in Christ. God becomes our life in Christ, God becomes our light in Christ, God becomes our riches in Christ, God becomes our supply in Christ, and God becomes our comfort in Christ. Everything that God is, is in Christ. John 1:14 and 16 say, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us...full of grace and reality...For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” First Corinthians 1:24 says, “To those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
John 3:16 says that God has given His Son Christ to man. First Corinthians 1:2 says that Christ is “theirs and ours.” Christ is ours; hence, we should rejoice and be merry. Verse 30 says, “Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God: both righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” Christ being our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption indicates that He is our all. God does not give us things; rather, God has given us Christ so that He may be our all. This Christ who is everything to us is the center and the content of the Word of God. The Word of God reveals this glorious and rich Christ.
