Search
I. To know the processed and consummated Triune God — Matt. 28:19:
А. Incarnated to be the flesh — the first God-man to express God in humanity — John 1:14.
B. Anointed to be the Christ, the anointed One of God, to accomplish God’s plan in His eternal economy — Luke 4:18.
C. Consummated to be the life-giving Spirit to apply what Christ has accomplished — 1 Cor. 15:45b.
II. To know the all-inclusive Christ:
А. As the mystery of God to be the reality of the Triune God — Col. 2:2.
B. As the Word of God to define God — John 1:1.
C. As the embodiment of God to express God — Col. 2:9.
D. As the centrality and universality of God’s eternal economy — 1:13-19.
E. As the God-allotted portion to be the enjoyment of His believers — v. 12.
F. As the life to His believers for them to live Him — 3:4.
G. As the Head of His Body for His expression — 1:18.
III. To know the consummated Spirit:
А. As the transfiguration of Christ in resurrection — 1 Cor. 15:45b.
B. As the compound Spirit, compounded with Christ’s divinity, humanity, death with its effectiveness, and resurrection with its power as the elements to be the holy anointing ointment — Exo. 30:23-25.
C. As the Spirit of life — Rom. 8:2.
D. As the Spirit of God — v. 9.
E. As the Spirit of Jesus — Acts 16:7.
F. As the Spirit of Christ — Rom. 8:9.
G. As the Spirit of Jesus Christ — Phil. 1:19.
H. As the indwelling Spirit — Rom. 8:11.
I. As the pneumatic Christ — v. 10.
IV. To know the church:
А. As the universal house of God to be God’s manifestation in humanity — 1 Tim. 3:15-16.
B. As the local churches to be the expression of the one church of God — Rev. 1:11; 1 Cor. 10:32.
C. As the universal Body of Christ to be His fullness — Eph. 1:22-23.
V. To know the Body of Christ:
А. The mystery of Christ — 3:4.
B. The fullness of Him who fills all in all — 1:23.
C. The organism of the Triune God, constituted with the Triune God and the believers — 4:4-6.
D. The contents of the new man — Col. 3:10-11.
E. To be built up by the perfected saints in all the local churches — Eph. 4:11-12.
F. Not divided and not divisible — 1 Cor. 1:10-13.
G. To consummate the New Jerusalem.
VI. To know the ultimate consummation — the New Jerusalem — Rev. 21:
А. A mystical constitution constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God with His chosen, redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified people.
B. As the bride — the wife — of the Lamb — vv. 2, 9.
C. As the tabernacle to be the eternal dwelling place of God — v. 3.
D. As the temple to be the eternal dwelling place of the glorified saints — v. 22.
E. As the eternal expansion and expression of the processed and consummated Triune God in the regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity.
VII. To know the self:
А. As the old man, the natural man:
1. Crucified with Christ on the cross — Gal. 2:20.
2. Buried with Christ in baptism — Rom. 6:4.
B. To be denied, condemned, and rejected all the time — Matt. 16:24.
In this message I would like to present an extract of the basic divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures. The seven points of this extract may be regarded as an extract of our theology. If you study all these points, you will see that the theology in the Lord’s recovery is much different from all the theologies in today’s Christianity.
First, we need to know the processed and consummated Triune God (Matt. 28:19).
The Triune God was incarnated to be the flesh (John 1:14). Through incarnation He became the first God-man, the Lord Jesus, and as such, He expressed God in His humanity.
God was incarnated to be a God-man, and this God-man was anointed to be the Christ, the anointed One of God, to accomplish God’s plan in His eternal economy (Luke 4:18). Actually, it was God Himself who came to accomplish what He had planned in eternity according to His eternal economy.
The Triune God has been consummated to be the life-giving Spirit to apply what Christ has accomplished (1 Cor. 15:45b). God the Father planned, God the Son accomplished what God the Father planned, and God the Spirit applies what God the Son has accomplished according to God the Father’s plan.
Next, we need to know the all-inclusive Christ in many different aspects.
We need to know the all-inclusive Christ as the mystery of God to be the reality of the Triune God (Col. 2:2). Christ is both the mystery of God and the reality of God. Embodied in Christ is all that God is and has. All that God intends to do is related to Christ. If we do not know this Christ, we do not know God. We may say that Christ is the key that opens up the way into God. When we have Christ, God is opened to us. Through Him we know God and even are brought into God.
In Colossians 2:2 Paul speaks of “the mystery of God, Christ.” The fact that Christ is the mystery of God indicates that He is not simple. On the contrary, He is immeasurable and mysterious. To be sure, God is not simple. He is unlimited, infinite, and eternal. How, then, could Christ, the mystery of God, be simple? As the mystery of God, Christ is the immeasurable, infinite, and eternal God.
God is mysterious, and He needs the Word to define Him. The all-inclusive Christ is the Word of God to define God (John 1:1). As the Word of God, He speaks God, and He is thereby the definition, explanation, and expression of God. As the Word, Christ is God defined, explained, and expressed. The Word, therefore, is actually God Himself, not God hidden, concealed, and mysterious but God defined, explained, and expressed.
The all-inclusive Christ is the embodiment of God to express God. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). Before Christ’s incarnation, the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him as the eternal Word, but it did not dwell in Him bodily. From the time that Christ became incarnate, clothed with a human body, the fullness of the Godhead began to dwell in Him in a bodily way, and in His glorified body now and forever it dwells (Phil. 3:21). The Christ who is the embodiment of God not only speaks God and defines God — He also expresses God. Because He is the solid embodiment of God, He presents God to us, expressing Him.
The Christ who is the mystery of God, the reality of God, the definition of God, and the expression of God is also the universality and centrality of God’s eternal economy (Col. 1:13-19). In God’s economy Christ is the center and the circumference.
God’s economy may be likened to a great wheel, having Christ as its every part. Christ is the hub, the center of this wheel. “All things cohere in Him” (v. 17). This means that just as the spokes of a wheel are held together by the hub at their center, so all things exist together by Christ as the hub, the holding center. In the wheel of God’s economy, Christ is also the spokes, the support, and the rim, the circumference.
We need to know the all-inclusive Christ as the God-allotted portion to be the enjoyment of His believers. Colossians 1:12 speaks of Christ as “the allotted portion of the saints.” This refers to the lot of the inheritance, as illustrated by the allotment of the good land of Canaan given to the children of Israel for their inheritance (Josh. 14:1). The New Testament believers’ inheritance, their God-allotted portion, is the all-inclusive Christ.
Christ is the life to His believers for them to live Him. Colossians 3:4 speaks of “Christ our life.” The life which is God, the life that God is, is in Christ (John 1:4). The Lord Jesus Himself said that He is life (11:25) and that He came that we may have life (10:10). Therefore, he who has Christ has life (1 John 5:12), and Christ now dwells in the believers as their life. Not only is the all-inclusive Christ our portion that we may enjoy Him; He is also life that we may live Him.
We need to know Christ as the Head of His Body to express Him. Colossians 1:18 says, “He is the Head of the Body, the church.” Christ needs an expression. On the one hand, He expresses God; on the other hand, He is expressed by the Body. The Head expresses God, and the Body expresses the Head. Because Christ is the Head of the Body, we need to hold the Head so that the Body may grow with the growth of God (2:19). For the Body to hold the Head means that the Body does not allow itself to be separated from the Head. If we truly hold Christ as the Head of the Body, we will not be separated from Him by anything.
Next, we need to know the consummated Spirit.
The consummated Spirit is the transfiguration of Christ in resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45b). Christ is the embodiment of God, and the Spirit is the transfiguration of Christ. In resurrection Christ, the last Adam in the flesh, became the life-giving Spirit. Christ’s resurrection was His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit. He was the Christ in the flesh, but through resurrection He was transfigured into the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit.
The compound Spirit is the Spirit compounded with Christ’s divinity, humanity, death with its effectiveness, and resurrection with its power, typified by the elements of the holy anointing ointment in Exodus 30:23-25. According to the type in Exodus 30, the anointing ointment was a compound of one main item — a hin of olive oil — compounded with four spices: myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. In typology, oil signifies the Spirit of God; flowing myrrh, Christ’s death; cinnamon, the sweetness and effectiveness of Christ’s death; calamus, Christ’s resurrection; and cassia, the power, especially the repelling power, of Christ’s resurrection. The type of the anointing ointment has been fulfilled completely in the life-giving Spirit, containing Christ’s divinity, humanity, the sweetness and effectiveness of His death, and the power and effectiveness of His resurrection. The life-giving Spirit, therefore, is the compound Spirit.
The Spirit is not only the life-giving Spirit but also the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). The Spirit of life is the reality of life, for this Spirit contains the element of the divine life. Actually, the Spirit Himself is life. Therefore, with the Spirit of life we have the riches of the divine life.
The way to have life is the Spirit. Life belongs to the Spirit, and the Spirit is of life. The two are actually one. We cannot separate life from the Spirit, nor the Spirit from life. If we have the Spirit, we have life. If we do not have the Spirit, we do not have life. The way to experience the divine, eternal, uncreated life is the Spirit of life.
In Romans 8:9 Paul speaks of the Spirit of God dwelling in us, and in verse 14, of the sons of God being led by the Spirit of God. We should not understand the title the Spirit of God to mean that the Spirit is something from God. In the New Testament phrases such as the love of God and the life of God mean that love and life are God Himself. In the same principle, the term the Spirit of God means that the Spirit is God. Hence, for us to be indwelt and led by the Spirit of God means that we are indwelt and led by God Himself.
The Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7) is a particular expression concerning the Spirit of God and refers to the Spirit of the incarnated Savior who, as Jesus in His humanity, passed through human living and death on the cross. This indicates that the Spirit of Jesus contains not only the divine element but also the human element and the elements of Jesus’ human living and His suffering of death.
In Romans 8:9 Paul speaks of the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ is related to the Lord’s death and resurrection. The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the One who passed through death and entered into resurrection. The Spirit of Christ is the totality, the aggregate, of the all-inclusive Christ with His all-inclusive death and resurrection.
The Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19) is “the Spirit” mentioned in John 7:39. This is not merely the Spirit of God before the Lord’s incarnation but the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit with divinity, after the Lord’s resurrection, compounded with the Lord’s humanity, human living under the cross, crucifixion, and resurrection.
Because the Spirit of Jesus has particular reference to the Lord’s suffering, and the Spirit of Christ to His resurrection, the Spirit of Jesus Christ is related to both His suffering and His resurrection. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of the Jesus who lived a life of suffering on earth and of the Christ who is now in resurrection. The reality of such a Jesus and such a Christ is the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
The consummated Spirit is also the indwelling Spirit. In Romans 8:9 and 11 Paul speaks of the Spirit indwelling the believers. Verse 9 speaks of the Spirit of God dwelling in us, and verse 11 goes on to say, “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.” As the Spirit indwells us, He is active to impart life to us. The indwelling Spirit imparts the divine life into our tripartite being (vv. 10, 6, 11). The purpose of the Spirit’s indwelling is to impart, to dispense, life, which is actually God Himself, into the three parts of our being.
Finally, we need to know the consummated Spirit as the pneumatic Christ (v. 10). The pneumatic Christ is the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit. The Christ who was in the flesh went through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. Not only has Christ become the Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, but when He comes to us, He comes as the pneumatic Christ. Thus, when we receive Christ today, we receive Him as the pneumatic Christ, as the life-giving Spirit.
The next matter that we need to know is the church.
The church is the universal house of God to be God’s manifestation in humanity (1 Tim. 3:15-16). In 1 Timothy 3:15 Paul speaks of “the house of God, which is the church of the living God.” As God’s dwelling place, the church is both God’s house and His household, His family. In the Old Testament the temple and God’s people were two separate things, but in the fulfillment in the New Testament the dwelling place of God and the family of God are one. Verses 15 and 16 indicate that the church as the house of God is also the manifestation of God in the flesh — the mystery of godliness. God is manifested in the church, the Body of Christ and the house of the living God, as the enlarged, corporate expression in the flesh, that is, in humanity.
It is important that we know the church as the local churches to be the expression of the one church of God (Rev. 1:11; 1 Cor. 10:32). The church has both a universal aspect and a local aspect. In the local aspect the church is expressed in many localities as many local churches. The one universal church expressed in many places on earth becomes the many local churches. The expression of the church in a locality is the local church in that particular locality.
The universal church as the Body of Christ is expressed through the local churches. The local churches, as the expressions of the one Body of Christ, are locally one. Without the local churches there would be no practicality and actuality of the universal church. The universal church is realized in the local churches.
In its universal aspect the church is the universal Body of Christ to be His fullness. In Ephesians 1:22-23 Paul speaks of “the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” This is the church in its universal aspect, for Christ has only one Body, which is unique in the universe. Christ’s universal Body is His fullness, His expression.
In addition to knowing the church, we need to know the Body of Christ.
The Body of Christ is the mystery of Christ (3:4). The mystery of God in Colossians 2:2 is Christ; the mystery of Christ in Ephesians 3:4 is the church. God is a mystery, and Christ, as the embodiment of God to express Him, is the mystery of God. Christ also is a mystery, and the church, as the Body of Christ, is the mystery of Christ. This mystery is God’s economy, which is to dispense Christ, as the embodiment of God, into God’s chosen people in order to produce a Body to be the increase of God’s embodiment in Christ so that God may have a corporate expression.
The Body of Christ is the fullness of Him who fills all in all (1:23). It is the universal expression of the all-inclusive and all-extensive Christ. The Body as Christ’s fullness is the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Christ, who is the infinite God without limitation, is so great that He fills all things in all things. Such a great Christ needs the Body to be His fullness for His complete expression.
The Body of Christ is the organism of the Triune God, constituted with the Triune God and the believers (4:4-6). The divine life is a substance, the Triune God, and the organism of the Triune God is the visible expression of this substance. Therefore, as the organism of the Triune God, the Body of Christ is altogether organic and is absolutely of life. An illustration of this organism is found in John 15 — the vine with its branches. The vine is developed and enlarged through its branches. This is a picture of the Body of Christ as the organism of the Triune God, an organism that grows with the riches of the Triune God and expresses the divine life.
The organism of the Triune God, the Body of Christ, is an issue of the Divine Trinity; it is an issue of the Father as the source, the Son as the course, and the Spirit as the flow. Furthermore, the Body is constituted with the Triune God and the believers. In this constitution the Father is the source, the Son is the element, the Spirit is the essence, and the believers, God’s redeemed and regenerated people, are the outward framework. The Father as the source, the Son as the element, and the Spirit as the essence are all in the outward framework.
The Body of Christ is the contents of the new man. Colossians 3:10 and 11 tell us that in the new man “Christ is all and in all.” In the new man there is room only for Christ. He is all the members of the new man and in all the members. He is everything in the new man. Actually, He is the new man, His Body (1 Cor. 12:12). In the new man He is the centrality and universality. He is the constituent of the new man, and He is all in all in the new man.
The Body of Christ needs to be built up by the perfected saints in all the local churches (Eph. 4:11-12). Ephesians 4:11 speaks of the gifted persons — apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers. These gifted persons have only one ministry, that is, to minister Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ, the church. Whatever the gifted persons do must be for the building up of the Body of Christ. However, this building up is not accomplished directly by the gifted ones but by the saints who have been perfected by them.
The Body of Christ is not divided and is not divisible. This is indicated clearly by Paul’s word in 1 Corinthians 1:10-13.
The building up of the Body of Christ consummates the New Jerusalem. Today we are building up the Body of Christ for the building up of the New Jerusalem. We are building up something in this age — the Body of Christ — that is for something in the next age — the New Jerusalem.
We need to advance from knowing the Body of Christ to knowing the ultimate consummation — the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21).
The New Jerusalem is a mystical constitution constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God with His chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, built-up, conformed, and glorified people.
As such a mystical and organic constitution, the New Jerusalem is the bride — the wife — of the Lamb (vv. 2, 9). This means that the New Jerusalem will be the counterpart of Christ, the embodiment of the processed and consummated Triune God. On the one-thousand-year wedding day (19:7-9) the New Jerusalem will be only the bride of the Lamb, but in eternity the New Jerusalem will be the Lamb’s wife.
The New Jerusalem is also the tabernacle to be the eternal dwelling place of God. Revelation 21:3 says clearly that the New Jerusalem, the holy city, is the tabernacle of God. This indicates that the New Jerusalem is God’s dwelling place. God’s dwelling place is for His rest in expression. In the New Jerusalem God will have the utmost rest in expression for eternity.
The tabernacle made by Moses was a type of the New Jerusalem as God’s eternal tabernacle (Exo. 25:8-9; Lev. 26:11). This type was first fulfilled in Christ as God’s tabernacle among men (John 1:14). He Himself was God’s tabernacle. Eventually, the type of the tabernacle will be fulfilled in the fullest way in the New Jerusalem, which will be the enlargement of Christ as God’s dwelling place.
The New Jerusalem is the temple to be the eternal dwelling place of the glorified saints. Revelation 21:22b says, “The Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” Since God and the Lamb are the temple, They cannot dwell in it, and it cannot be Their dwelling place. Rather, it is the dwelling place of the glorified saints, who serve the Triune God by dwelling in Him.
On the one hand, the New Jerusalem, which is composed of all the glorified saints, as the dwelling place of God, is the tabernacle. On the other hand, the New Jerusalem, which is constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God, as the dwelling place of the glorified saints, is the temple. Therefore, the New Jerusalem, being both the tabernacle and the temple, is the mutual dwelling place of the Triune God and the glorified saints.
The New Jerusalem is also the eternal expansion and expression of the processed and consummated Triune God in the regenerated, transformed, and glorified humanity. It is the spreading of the Triune God through His glorified saints as His increase for His eternal purpose. This spreading is illustrated by the vine with its branches in John 15. The branching out of the vine is the spreading of the vine. This is an illustration of the New Jerusalem as the expansion, the spreading, of the Triune God through His glorified saints.
In addition to knowing the six foregoing matters, we need to know the self.
In Romans 6:6 the old man refers to the natural life in our soul. The old man is our very being, which was created by God but became fallen through sin. It is the same as the “I” in Galatians 2:20. Our old man was crucified with Christ on the cross (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20) and buried with Christ in baptism (Rom. 6:4). It is not the soul itself but the life of the soul that has been counted by God as hopeless and has been put on the cross and crucified with Christ.
The self needs to be denied, condemned, and rejected all the time. In Matthew 16:24 the Lord Jesus said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” We, the believers in Christ, were crucified with Him, and now we need to bear the cross. For us to bear the cross means that we remain under the killing of the death of Christ for the terminating of our self, our natural life, and our old man. In so doing, we deny our self that we may follow the Lord.
In this message we have covered, as an extract of the basic revelation in the Holy Scriptures, seven main matters in our theology: the Triune God, the all-inclusive Christ, the consummated Spirit, the church, the Body, the ultimate consummation (the New Jerusalem), and the self. We need to spend much time to study all these matters.
