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Scripture Reading: Matt. 1:23; 28:19-20; John 1:1, 14; 14:16-20; 15:4a, 5a; Rom. 8:9-10a; 2 Cor. 13:5
I have a deep sense that many of us need to see something deeper in our spirit. We need to see something inward, not outward, something deep, and not so shallow and superficial.
The greatest revelation that the Bible conveys to us is the relation of God and man. The Scriptures not only tell us who God is and what kind of God He is but also who man is and from what source he came. Moreover, the Scriptures even depict in detail a full record of God’s relation with man. This is the central revelation of the whole Bible.
When I mention this, I know that many Christians will think that the main relation between God and man is that of the Creator with His creatures. Others would say that God is our Father, and we are His children. Still others would mention that God is our Lord and Master, and we are His servants. Of course, we do have all these relationships revealed in the Bible, but we must realize that these aspects are not the deepest revelation of God’s relation with man.
What then is the deepest relation of God with man? In the Bible the first time man is mentioned, it is said that God created man in His own image. In other words, man was created according to God. We all must be deeply impressed with this one aspect: mankind was created according to God. The New Testament tells us that eventually we will all be made the same as God. First, we were created in the image of God, and eventually, we will be made the same as God. An image is the expression of a person. By this we can realize that God’s intention is to have man to express Him. Man was made to express God. God created man in His own image because God’s intention was to have man as His expression.
We all know that to express God is not a shallow or superficial matter. In order to express God, there is the need for God to get into us. God must come into us to be our very life and content; then we will be His outward expression. By this we see that if God would express Himself through man, He must be one with man. And to be one with man, God must be wrought into man. The only way for God to express Himself through us is for Him to work Himself into us.
This is why the first chapter in the Bible tells us that God created man in His own image. Then the second chapter of the Bible tells us that God put man in front of the tree of life. In the first chapter man had the image of God outwardly, but he did not have the life of God within him. Man was made outwardly in God’s image, but inwardly he did not have God’s life. Hence, in the second chapter God put man in front of the tree of life. It was God’s intention that man would take this life into him. Then God would get into man and be one with man. God would become man’s content, and man would become God’s expression.
For example, I am wearing a jacket that was made according to the form of my body. It was not made with only one sleeve; otherwise, it would not fit my body. It was made with two sleeves, in just the right way, so that it would perfectly fit. When I put the jacket on, it becomes my expression, and I become the content of the jacket. If I never put the jacket on, although it may be an excellent piece of material, it is meaningless. In other words, if I do not become the content of this jacket, it is useless. It is only when I put on the jacket that it fulfills its meaning. We were made to be the expression of God. One day God in Christ came into us to be our life and content, making us meaningful. This means that Christ has come into us to become our inward being. Now we all have Christ in us as our inward being.
Before I was saved, I was a certain kind of being, but now I have the full assurance to say that I have another wonderful being in me! I also believe that while I am speaking, this wonderful being is speaking in my speaking. When I speak, He speaks. This wonderful being is Jesus Christ.
Very few Christians realize that the deepest relation that God has with us is that He enters into us and even becomes us so that we may have Him as our very being. Then we become His expression. He is our being and our content, and we are His expression. This is wonderful.
One thing we must realize is that when God gets into us, we eventually become no more individualistic. It is just like the electric light fixtures. Before the electricity flows into them, they are all individualistic. But once the electricity comes, all the light fixtures become one with the electricity, and the electricity becomes their oneness. All the fixtures are brought into a kind of oneness.
In the same way, Christians should not be individual units. We should have something of oneness. Our oneness is the very God who is our content within. When God is our content, we are not just so many different individuals. Outwardly speaking, we are, but inwardly speaking, we are one. Suppose there are thirty light fixtures on the ceiling with the electric current flowing through them. Outwardly, they are many individual lights, but inwardly, there is only one electricity, through which they become one. They all have one content, and that content is their oneness. Hallelujah! We are many Christians, but we all have one content; so we all have the same oneness. God Himself within us is our content. This is the deepest relation that God has with man.
The outcome of this is that God has a corporate expression, for He has become one with many people. This is the relation the Bible reveals between God and man. There are many other items in the Bible, but they are not so deep. God is not only our Creator, our Father, our Lord, and so many other things. The deepest aspect of God’s relation with us is that He comes into us to be our content in order that we might become His expression. In other words, He becomes our content so that He may become us, and we may become one with Him. This is a great, universal undertaking. It is a heavenly, divine, eternal, and holy project. God is working Himself into us to be one with us so that He might be our content, and we might be His expression.
To accomplish this universal, divine project, God has to take seven steps. We are only going to cover one of these during these messages, but we need to look at all seven. The first step is incarnation. I do not mention the matter of creation, because that is too objective. The first main step that God took to accomplish His divine project is incarnation. Incarnation far transcends creation. In creation God merely made so many things — the heavens, the earth, and man. That was indeed marvelous, but that was not so wonderful as the incarnation. In creation God never came into the creature. The incarnation, however, is the mingling of God with man. God took the first step to become incarnated by coming into man and being one with man. Incarnation means that God becomes one with man. We all know from the Gospels that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in a manger. He was just a little child born of a virgin, called Jesus. But this little child is also called Emmanuel, God with us. He who was named Jesus was God, God with man. Do you believe this? Many Jewish people today do not believe it. They even have the Old Testament, which says in Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, the virgin will conceive and will bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel,” yet they do not believe that the child born in a manger at Bethlehem was Emmanuel, God with us. Matthew 1:23 says the same thing: “‘Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel’ (which is translated, God with us).” In that manger was a little child who was the mingling of God with man. God and man were made one. Though He was a child, yet His name was called Emmanuel, God with us. This corresponds with Isaiah 9:6, which says, “A child is born to us, / ...His name will be called / ...Mighty God.” He was God, but He was not merely God; He was God with us.
Before incarnation God was so great. He was in the heavens, and He was so free. But by incarnation He became very limited. He was limited in a manger. He had to escape from the land of Canaan to Egypt and come back from Egypt to the Holy Land. Then He went to the north, to a little city called Nazareth. Eventually, He became a Nazarene, a little man in the city of Nazareth. But we must realize that this was God with man. The incarnation was the mingling of God with man. He was the Word become flesh. “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” (John 1:1, 14a). This was the first step.
The second step in God’s project was the crucifixion. After He lived as Emmanuel on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, He was crucified on the cross. What is the meaning of crucifixion? Most people would say that He was crucified on the cross for our sins. This is true, but we must realize that crucifixion not only means the taking away of sins but also the termination of everything! Incarnation means mingling, and crucifixion means termination. When He was crucified on the cross, all the negative things were terminated. Even we were terminated there! Do you know when and where you were terminated? Praise the Lord! We were all terminated on the cross with Christ. When He was crucified, we were terminated. All the negative things were terminated on the cross. If you have a bad temper, do not be bothered by that. Tell all the demons that your temper was terminated on the cross. The world was terminated there. Sin was terminated there. The devil with all his fallen angels and demons were terminated there. Our flesh, our self, our fallen nature, our soul, our old man, our everything, was terminated there. Our husband, our wife, our children, our brother, and our sister were all terminated. Everything of the old creation was terminated on the cross! Crucifixion means termination, and termination means the end. This is the second step.
But praise the Lord! He has taken a third step. Following crucifixion, there is resurrection. Hallelujah! Christ was crucified and buried, but He rose from the dead. Around Him there was nothing but death, yet death could not hold Him. He was not captured by death. He took a tour to see death, to visit it for a while, but He walked out of death! He walked in, and He walked out. That was resurrection, and resurrection means germination. First we were terminated; then we were germinated. Termination ends the old creation, and germination starts the new creation. Many of us love our wife; but if we would let our wife be terminated on the cross, she would be germinated. Then we would have a new wife in the new creation. The same is true regarding the sisters. I am sure that all the sisters would rather have their husband in the new creation than in the old creation. They are terminated, and then they are germinated with a new life. Crucifixion means termination, and resurrection means germination.
The fourth step is ascension. Ascension means inauguration. Whenever a new president of this country is elected, there is the need of an inauguration. Before the inauguration he is the president-elect, but by his inauguration he becomes the official president. The same is true of the ascension of Jesus. By ascending to the heavens, He was inaugurated into His post as Lord of all (Acts 2:36). God Himself has always been Lord of all, but by the ascension of Jesus, a man became the Lord of all! Do you realize that the little Nazarene, Jesus, is now Lord of all? He was not simply put into the lead, but He was inaugurated into the lead. At the time of His ascension, God prepared the whole universe for Jesus of Nazareth to become Lord of all. He is also the Christ as well as the King of kings. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16). He is the Head of all things (Eph. 1:22). Hallelujah! What an inauguration He had! When the president of this country is inaugurated, thousands of people parade through Washington, D.C. I do not know how many angels were parading when Jesus of Nazareth was inaugurated in the presence of God to be the Lord of all. He was made the Lord of lords and the Head of all things. This is the meaning of the fourth step, the ascension.
Then, after His inauguration He descended to baptize His Body. This is the fifth step. On the day of Pentecost He gathered together all the Jewish members of His Body and put them into Himself who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). Later, in the house of Cornelius, He collected all the Gentile members of His Body and put them into Himself. By this step of baptism, He baptized both Jews and Gentiles into one Body.
When were you baptized by the Spirit into the Body? If you are a Jew, you were baptized at Pentecost. If you are a Gentile, you were baptized at the house of Cornelius. Even before we were born, we were all baptized into one Body. We were all terminated on the cross before we were born, and we were all baptized into one Body before we were born. The Lord Jesus Christ accomplished one crucifixion, one resurrection, and one baptism. This is why 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” Whether we are Jews or Gentiles, we have all been baptized already.
We were chosen before the foundation of the world, and at Christ’s ascension God gave all of us to Christ. In fact, at the ascension God gave Christ four main things: His people, His life, His Spirit, and all the functions of the Spirit. Then on the day of Pentecost and at the house of Cornelius, Christ put all God’s chosen people into Himself to make them His members. This was all accomplished once and for all.
After this, we have the indwelling, which is the sixth step. After He put us all into Himself, He came into us to indwell us. All the other steps that we have mentioned — incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and baptism — were accomplished once and for all. But the indwelling is not like that. It is not once and for all. From the day that Christ came into us and began to indwell us, there are many things that must be done. This is why we need at least sixteen chapters to cover this matter of the indwelling of Christ.
After the indwelling, there will be the second coming of Christ. This is the advent, which is also once and for all. So altogether we can see seven steps: incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, baptism, indwelling, and the advent. Incarnation means mingling, crucifixion means termination, resurrection means germination, ascension means inauguration, baptism means being put into the Triune God (Matt. 28:19), indwelling means transformation, and advent means transfiguration. When the Lord comes back, He will transfigure our outward body to be conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. 3:21). At this time, from within and without, we will all be absolutely the same as He is (1 John 3:2); we will be fully one with Him. Hallelujah! These are the seven steps that God has taken to accomplish His purpose.
