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Christ is the life and reality of the church. Now we need to know the right way, even the best way, for us to apply and experience Christ as life to us. However, before we get into this matter, we need to find out what Christ is. If we want to apply Christ as life to our experience in our daily life, we need to know what kind of Christ He is. Of course, it is impossible to know Christ in a thorough way. We can never exhaust the knowledge of Christ because He is all-inclusive and His riches are unsearchable (Eph. 3:8). Nevertheless, we have to try our best to know what He is.
At the end of the first chapter, we pointed out that in Ezekiel 1 there is a big wheel moving all the time on the earth (vv. 15-21). If you consider this matter in the light of the whole Scripture, you will realize that this wheel is the move of God in the universe. This wheel as the means by which God acts and moves in this universe must be Christ with the church. Christ is the center, the hub, and the church is the circumference, the rim. If we want to practice the church life, the Body life, we need to know the church and where the church is in God’s economy. Even more, we need to know what Christ is. Christ and the church are the great mystery in the universe (Eph. 5:32). Where the church is, there is Christ, and where Christ is, there is the church. You can never separate Christ from the church. Whenever we speak about the church, we must know what Christ is and how He is related to the church.
We all know that Christ has many names, and I believe that among these many names the first must be the Son of God. Then we have to ask, “Who is the Son?” Let us read Isaiah 9:6: “A child is born to us, / A Son is given to us; / And the government / Is upon His shoulder; / And His name will be called / Wonderful Counselor, / Mighty God, / Eternal Father, / Prince of Peace.” The little child is the Mighty God. This is the difference between the very God in whom we believe and the God in whom the Jewish people believe. The Jewish people believe the only God, who is the Mighty God, but they do not believe that this Mighty God became a child.
Then there is another name — the Eternal Father. He is the Son, yet He is called the Eternal Father. Some people try to argue by saying that the Son is called the Father, but the Son is not the Father. I cannot understand how the Son can be called the Father yet not be the Father. It is foolish to say that a person is called John Clark, yet he is not John Clark. If the Son is called the Father, He must be the Father. If He is not the Father, how can He be called the Father? The clear and definite prophecy in Isaiah 9:6 tells us that the very child born in the manger in Bethlehem is the Mighty God and that the Son given to us is the Eternal Father. A Son is given, yet His name is called the Eternal Father. The very Son who has been given to us is the very Father.
This is confirmed by John 14:8-11. Now let us read this portion carefully: “Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how is it that you say, Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; but if not, believe because of the works themselves.” Here again we see that the Son and the Father are one. Some would say, “How could the Son pray to the Father if the Son is the Father?” This is not a problem. Andrew Murray once said that the best prayer is the Christ who dwells in us praying to the Christ who is in heaven.
Now let us turn to the third chapter of 2 Corinthians. In this chapter the apostle Paul revealed that everything today in the New Testament is a matter of the Spirit. Then in verse 17 he said, “The Lord is the Spirit.” This means that the Spirit mentioned in the preceding verses is the Lord Himself. The Lord here refers to Christ the Son (2 Cor. 4:5). The Lord as the Son is called the Father, and He is also the Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b says, “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.” The last Adam, no doubt, refers to Christ in the flesh. Can you say that this Spirit is different from the Holy Spirit? It is not logical to say this. We have to admit that this Spirit whom Christ is, is the very Holy Spirit. Thus, it is clear that the Lord, who is Christ the Son, is the Spirit also.
In John 14:8-11 the Lord told us clearly that He and the Father are one and that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Now in verses 16 through 19 He told us that He and the Spirit are one. In verses 16 through 17 He said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever, even the Spirit of reality, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you.” In these two verses, referring to the Spirit, the Lord used the pronoun He. But in verse 18 He changed the pronoun to I, saying, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you.” By this we realize that the very “He” who is the Spirit of reality in verse 17 is the very “I” who is the Lord Himself in verse 18. “He” is “I” and “I” is “He.” Then verse 19 says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” This refers to the time of resurrection. After His resurrection, the Lord came back to the disciples. He left them for no more than seventy-two hours, or three days. Hence, it was only “a little while.” Then the Lord came back, and the world could no longer see Him, because He became the Spirit. Yet we believers can see Him because He is within us as the Spirit. In John 14 we see that the Son and the Father are one and that the Son and the Spirit are also one. The Son is the Father, and the Son is also the Spirit. Thus, there are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but They are one God.
Some may ask, “What is the meaning of having three persons since They are one God?” Let us read 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” In this verse we have three things: love, grace, and fellowship; we also have three persons: God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We have to realize that these three are one. Love, which is in the heart, is the source; grace is the expression of love; and fellowship is the transmission of grace. By grace, love is expressed, and by fellowship, grace is transmitted. These are not three different matters but three forms of one thing. In the Father it is love, with the Son it is grace, and by the Holy Spirit it is fellowship. What is imparted to us through the fellowship of the Spirit is the grace of Christ, and what is expressed through the grace of Christ is the love of God.
Ice, water, and vapor are not three different kinds of substances, but one substance in three forms. In our hymnal we have this line: “What mystery, the Father, Son, and Spirit, / In person three, in substance all are one” (Hymns, #608, stanza 1). There is one God in three persons, yet His substance is one. We must never have the thought that the Son is separate from the Father and that the Son is separate from the Spirit. The Son is the embodiment of the Father, and the Son is the Spirit.
Some teach that the Holy Spirit is separate from Christ or that the Holy Spirit is a kind of power given to us by Christ. This is wrong. The Holy Spirit is Christ Himself. In eternity past, in the heavens, unapproachable to men, God was the Father. When He came to the earth to manifest Himself to mankind, He was the Son. And today, when He comes into us to dwell in us and mingle Himself with us, He is the Spirit. He is the Father as the source, the Son as the expression, and the Spirit as the transmission, the fellowship. The Father, Son, and Spirit are not three separate Gods. The Son is the Father, and the Son is the Spirit. This is the Triune God.
Let us read Romans 8:9-11. Verse 9 says, “You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him.” In this verse Paul first speaks of the Spirit of God, and then he changes and refers to the Spirit of Christ. This shows that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. They are not two Spirits; They are one Spirit. Then in verse 10 Paul changes again and uses the title Christ, saying, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.” Then in verse 11 he changes again from Christ to the Spirit, saying, “And 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.” Hence, in these three verses we have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, God Himself, and Christ Himself. They are not four separate persons; these are four titles of the one Lord, the one God. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Christ is Christ, and Christ is God.
I am stressing this because we have to know what kind of Christ we have. The Christ we have and in whom we believe is the Triune God. Also, Christ is the center of the Triune God. He is the Son with the Father as the Spirit. Within Him is the Father, and He is the Spirit. If you have Him, you have the Father, and if you have Him, you have the Spirit. Therefore, if you want to know Him, you have to know the Spirit, because the Father is in the Son, and the Son is the Spirit. Also, if you want to know the Son with the Father, you have to know the Spirit.
It is the greatest mystery in the whole universe that God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are one, and no human mind can fathom it. However, we have to accept this great mystery according to what the Scriptures speak about it. We should not exercise our limited mind to understand it merely as a doctrine of theology. We have to exercise our inspired spirit to realize it as the divine fact and experience the three persons of the Divine Trinity for our enjoyment. The Divine Trinity is not mentioned in the Scriptures as a point of theology for us to study; it is unveiled to us in the Scriptures as a divine reality for us to partake of, experience, and enjoy.
The Son is the center with the Father in Him, and He is the Spirit. But there is something more. He is the Son of Man. One day He became a man. In His incarnation the Triune God, the Father in the Son as the Spirit, mingled Himself with man (John 1:14). Jesus the Nazarene, the man, is the very God. Do you believe this? If you do not believe this, you are not a Christian; you are like a Jew or a Muslim. The Jews and the Muslims believe God as the Creator, but they do not believe that God has ever been incarnated as a man. But we believe. If anyone does not believe this but claims that he is a Christian, he is an anti-Christ Christian. All sound, proper, and genuine Christians believe that this Triune God is a man, a God-man, a Triune God-man, the Triune God mingled with man.
When I was young, I had a wrong concept about the Lord. I thought that in His incarnation He put on man as a piece of clothing for thirty-three and a half years and that after His death and resurrection He put off the clothing which He had put on. Later, I realized that this is wrong. Christ is still a man today. After His resurrection He came to His disciples with His physical body. Of course, that body was something wonderful that we cannot understand in a full way. It was a resurrected body, a spiritual body, yet it was physical. He showed the disciples His hands and His feet and asked them to touch Him because He had flesh and bones (Luke 24:39-40). Hence, after His resurrection He is still a man.
Now let us read Matthew 26:63-64: “But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to Him, I charge You to swear by the living God to tell us if You are the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, You have said rightly. Nevertheless I say to you, From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” The high priest asked the Lord if He was the Son of God, but He answered with “the Son of Man.” After His ascension to the heavens, the Lord is still the Son of Man, and even when He comes back on the clouds of heaven, He will still be the Son of Man. He is not only the Triune God but also a man.
Now let us read Acts 7:55-56: “Being full of the Holy Spirit, he [Stephen] looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” This shows clearly that even after His ascension, the Lord Jesus today is in the heavens as a man. Furthermore, 1 Timothy 2:5 says, “There is one God and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The Lord Jesus is and will be forever a man. He is the Triune God mingled with man, so He is the God-man, the Triune God-man. He is the complete God and the perfect man with His divinity and His humanity. He was incarnated with a specific purpose — to enter into humanity and put humanity on Himself as one of the main parts of His person today, and He will keep humanity for eternity. He will be man as well as God forever and ever.
Therefore, what is Christ? Christ is the Son with the Father as the Spirit mingled together with man. In Christ are the Son, the Father, the Spirit, and the man. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him (Col. 2:9). All the fullness of the Father is in the Son, all that the Son has is in the Spirit, and all that the Spirit has is in the man. This is the very Christ in whom we believe, and this is the very Christ who dwells in us. This is the Savior in whom we believe, the Lord whom we serve, and the very God whom we worship. This is the Christ who is life to us. In this life we have the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the man.
Here is a cup of plain water. Later, you add in some lemon juice. Then it is no longer just water, but water mingled with lemon juice. Before His incarnation, God was merely God. But after His incarnation, He is God mingled with man. Within Him is the human nature, the human essence, the human element in addition to His divinity. With our Christ there are both divinity and humanity, both the divine element and the human element. He is not only the Triune God but also the man. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — the Triune God — and the man. He is everything. As God, He is the Creator, and as a man, He is a creature (1:15). So in Him we have the Creator and the creature.
But this is not all. It is wonderful that we can never exhaust telling what He is. Besides being the Creator and a creature, He passed through human living on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He suffered death and conquered death. He passed through death, and He came out of death. Thus, in Him there is the element of the effectiveness of His all-inclusive death. Although death is an awful thing, the death of Christ is a great blessing, a great deliverance, and a great release to us. The death brought in by Adam sent us into hell, but the death of Christ brings us out of hell. The death brought in by Adam was a real trouble to us, but the death accomplished and passed through by Christ is a real deliverance to us. We have to sing much about the death of Christ. We have to shout, even proclaim, that we have the death of Christ.
Moreover, the death of Christ is the killing power, the killing element. In some doses of medicine there is an element that kills the germs in your body and an element that nourishes your body. In Christ we have the killing power and the nourishing supply. The killing power is the element of the effectiveness of His death, and the supply is the resurrection life. Death kills, but resurrection supplies. Death solves the problems, but resurrection supplies us with the rich provision of life.
After resurrection, there is the ascension of Christ. Now He is in the heavens and He is transcendent. In this transcendency He is enthroned with authority and glorified. With Christ there is also the kingdom. We simply cannot exhaust all the items of Christ. In this one great “dose” we have the Creator, the creature, the human nature, the human living, the effective death, the resurrection, the ascension, the enthronement, the glorification, and the kingdom. This great dose is Christ Himself. The Christ who is life to us is such an all-inclusive Christ, and He is so much. He is the Son of God, the Father, the Spirit, and the man. Everything is with Him and in Him. We have to know Christ in such a full way. When we take Christ as our life day by day, we will experience Him in all of these aspects.
I hope that we would bring all these things to the Lord and pray much that the Lord, the Spirit, may reveal them to us, not just in the way of knowledge but in the way of revelation and vision, so that we may see the rich reality of Christ in whom we believe and whom we serve. We have to know what kind of Christ we are experiencing as life day by day and how we can contact, experience, partake of, and enjoy such a Christ.
