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Scripture Reading: Matt. 22:29, 31-32; Rev. 1:17-18; 3:1-2
Our God is the eternal living God; from eternity to eternity He is the living God. Although He became flesh, lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, and was crucified on the cross, He resurrected from death after three days. He entered into death as a man, but He lives forever and ever (Rev. 1:18). Hence, He is the God of resurrection.
Resurrection proves that God is a living God. There is no power that He cannot overcome. Death is an exceedingly great power in the universe. No one can withstand death. Apart from God, death is the greatest power in the universe. When death comes, no one can withstand it. Throughout history man has been searching for ways to overcome death, but no one has ever overcome it. Rather, all have been taken captive by death.
The Lord Jesus overcame death and broke through death; He resurrected from death. He was incarnated not only to work but also to fight. He had to prevail over every opposing power in order to accomplish redemption. The four Gospels do not only tell us where the Lord went on earth and how He conducted Himself in the flesh; the Gospels also tell us of the battles that He fought while He was on earth. After the Lord was manifested among men, He encountered all kinds of attacks — from sin, man, the world, and demons — some were hidden, and others were obvious. No matter whether Satan used man to attack the Lord or whether he used the environment, the Lord overcame every attack. Therefore, the Lord could say, “The ruler of the world is coming, and in Me he has nothing” (John 14:30). The Lord overcame every attack of Satan, whether from man, the world, or sin. Then the Lord went into death and was resurrected from death to overcome death. The last enemy that the Lord overcame was death.
Death is the last enemy that God will abolish in the universe (1 Cor. 15:26). The last thing that the devil, who has the might of death (Heb. 2:14), used to attack the Lord Jesus was death. The Lord came to meet His enemy, who has the might of death. The Lord did not avoid death. If He had avoided death, it would have meant that He feared death and that He was unable to overcome death. The Lord did not avoid death, because He did not fear it, and He could overcome it. The Lord could overcome death because He is living. Death could not overcome Him. The Lord did not fear death; rather, He accepted the challenge of death.
The Lord entered into death in order to give it an opportunity to fight with all its might. Death has been operating and fighting in Adam’s descendants for thousands of years. Except for the Lord, every person who has entered into death has been overcome by death. All who have entered into death have been swallowed up by death. As a result, everyone fears death. Our Lord, however, did not fear death; He overcame death. He entered into death and emerged from death.
The Lord’s entering into death and emerging from it testify to the fact that He is the living God and to the surpassing greatness of His resurrection power. The cross, the grave, and the power of Hades could not subdue the living Lord. He overcame death, the grave, and the power of Hades, and thus He resurrected. The Lord is the Lord of life. It was not possible for Him to be held by death (Acts 2:24). Satan utilized the world, the environment, the cross, the grave, and lastly, Hades in order to attack the Lord, but the Lord withstood every attack. The Lord willingly passed through the baptism of death and entered into Hades, letting them do whatever they wanted, because He is the living Lord, whom Satan cannot conquer. Death could not hold the Lord, the grave could not restrict Him, and Hades could not detain Him; He resurrected. Resurrection is deliverance from death. Resurrection is the overcoming of death.
Resurrection is different from being living. In order to be living, one does not need to pass through death, but in order to be in resurrection, one must pass through death and emerge from it. Resurrection stands the test of death, that is, passes through and emerges from death. Hence, the Lord Jesus said, “I am the First and the Last and the living One; and I became dead, and behold, I am living forever and ever; and I have the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev. 1:17-18).
Hence, God is not only the living God but also the God of resurrection. He died, but He overcame death. Death fought the Lord with all its might, but it could not conquer Him. The principle of resurrection is overcoming death and emerging from death. The God of resurrection has been tested and proven to possess an unshakable life.
There is a distinction between the living God and the God of resurrection. Before passing through death and resurrection, God was merely the living God; the human element was not in Him. At that time man was on the earth, and God was in the heavens. After God passed through death and resurrected from death, something mysterious happened: God and man were fully mingled as one. Incarnation was a mingling of God and man, but it was God entering into man. Through incarnation there was a man on earth in whom was God. Incarnation brought God into man.
Through His resurrection from death the Lord brought man into God. Since the time of the Lord’s death and resurrection, there has been a man in heaven, and this man is God. After His resurrection the Lord said to His disciples, “A spirit does not have flesh and bones as you behold Me having” (Luke 24:39). This proves that He is still a man in resurrection. By ascending to the heavens after His resurrection, the Lord brought man into God.
The living God does not possess human nature, but the God of resurrection possesses human nature. The living God possesses only the divine element, whereas the God of resurrection possesses both the divine element and the human element. God is the God of resurrection not only because He was tested and overcame death but also because the human element has been added to Him; hence, He now possesses both the element of God and the element of man. In the God of resurrection, God and man have been fully mingled. God is in man, and man is in God. The two have been fully mingled as one.
The living God lives in the heavens and in man’s environment. The God of resurrection took a further step in order to live in man. In ancient times God performed various signs and wonders for the Israelites, but they experienced Him only as the living God. Today Christians have the living God within them so that they can experience Him as the God of resurrection. Many Christians are content with God doing things for them in their environment and experiencing Him as the living God. They do not know that in His salvation God dwells in His people in order for them to experience Him as the God of resurrection. Not only does He do things in our environment to solve our problems; He also lives in us so that we may live one life with Him to overcome death and its factors.
God does not want to be the God of resurrection in Himself alone; He wants to live in man as resurrection. He wants to be mingled with man. Every genuine and living Christian must know God not only as the living God in the heavens and in his environment but also as the God of resurrection who lives in him. A Christian who does not know and experience the God of resurrection living in him is a dead Christian. Many people know that God is a living God, but they only know that He lives in the heavens and operates in their environment, not that He is in them as resurrection. A genuine Christian not only needs to know God as the living God but also needs to advance to experience God as resurrection. This is to be a Christian in the New Testament age. People in the Old Testament age merely knew that God lived outside of them in their environment and that He did things for them. In the New Testament age God is resurrection in us.
If God is resurrection in us, we will not fall asleep in the meetings. If God is resurrection in us, we will have the boldness to open our mouths to pray and the power to give testimonies in the meetings. Regrettably, until now many saints know God only as a person who is outside of them. They pray and ask God to keep them, but they do not know that God is resurrection in them. When we let God live in us as resurrection, we will be living within, both in our daily life and service. Our prayers and our testimonies will also be living. Not only so, even those who hear us and contact us will become living.
When the resurrected living God enters into man, He makes man a living person. Concerning God, the Bible says, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Mark 12:27; Luke 20:38). God is the God of resurrection. He hates not only unrighteousness and evil but also death. Many believers think that it is sufficient to be well behaved, law-abiding, faultless, and God-fearing. They do not know that it is not enough to be a faultless Christian; they do not know that God wants living Christians who experience Him as the God of resurrection and who live Him out. Although they might not commit any crimes or make mistakes, they are still dead. God hates every form of death; death is abominable to God. The Old Testament indicates that all dead things are unclean (Lev. 11:8, 11, 24, 27, 31-40). This shows how much God hates death and how abominable death is in His eyes.
God wants us not merely to be faultless Christians but to be living Christians. We may not express the flesh, but if we express death, God cannot accept us. Our God condemns not only unrighteousness and unholiness but also death, because He is not only the righteous God and the holy God but also the living God and the God of resurrection. Even though the church in Sardis had done no wrong, the Lord still condemned her. Revelation 3:1 says, “These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and yet you are dead.” In this verse the Lord seems to be saying, “You should know that I am living because I have the seven Spirits; I am the Lord who is full of life.” Being a Christian is not a matter of studying what is right or wrong but of being living. As long as we are living, everything is right.
God wants us to be living, which is different from what the world refers to as being lively. To be lively is an outward condition and can be compared to a performance on stage. To be living is to express the divine life by touching and experiencing the God of resurrection. God is not only the living God but also the God of resurrection. When we touch Him, we become living. Even if we are dead, as long as we are willing to touch the God of resurrection, we will immediately become living. The more we touch things that are related only to ourselves, the more death we have, but once we touch the living God, we will be living. If we contact the God of resurrection a few times during our day, we will be living.
When we pray, we need to first stop ourselves. A brother can come to God in prayer without stopping himself. As a result, he will not touch God; instead, he will stay in himself. The issue of such prayer is deadness. We do not pray in order to ask for things. We pray to touch the God of resurrection and to let Him touch us. We can pray to the God of resurrection when we stop ourselves in order for us to touch Him and let Him touch us.
The basic principle of prayer is to stop ourselves in order to touch God and to let God touch us. Then He can be resurrection in us, and we can live out His resurrection life. As a result, we will be living.
Being a faultless Christian is not enough. A person must be a living Christian because God is not the God of the dead but of the living. He will judge not only sin, the world, and Satan but also death. We must let the God of resurrection live in us daily so that we may be living because of Him. As Christians, our God is not only a living God but also the God of resurrection, who is in us to enable us to be living Christians.
