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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:22-23; 4:4-16
Prayer: Lord, we worship You for this gathering. How good it is that You have gathered us together to meet You not only with the Word but as the Word, to meet You as the Spirit, to meet You as all the saints, and to meet You as the church, the Body of Christ. Lord, we believe that You have something on Your heart. We look unto You, Lord. Open up Yourself to us. You are ready. By Your mercy we are also ready. We come here to meet You, to touch Your heart, and to see what is on Your heart. Lord, we look unto You for You to visit us. We are open to You, Lord. We open up our heart. We open up our spirit. We open up our entire being to You. We want to gain You. Lord, do grant us Yourself. Cleanse us with Your precious blood and defeat Your enemy. Lord, chase him away from here. Bind him and destroy him. Strengthen us. We need You. Amen.
Since we have released the high peak of God’s divine revelation, my burden is that we need to see the practicality and the reality of living a life according to this high peak. We do not just want to have a so-called seeing of the high peak, without taking care of touching it and entering into it. This is my burden today.
The burden of these messages can be expressed in the following four statements:
(1) To be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection—Phil. 3:10.
(2) To live Christ for His magnification by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ—1:19b-21a.
(3) To be conformed to the image of God’s Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers—Rom. 8:29.
(4) To build up the Body of Christ by growing into Him, the Head, in all things—Eph. 4:15-16.
The general subject is, “The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures.” This general subject contains a number of crucial points, and we need to get into them. The title of this first chapter is, “To Have a Clear View concerning the Accomplishments of the Processed and Consummated Triune God (a Crystallization-study of the Holy Scriptures).” Over the past twenty-one years we have had the life-study of the Scriptures. But since the beginning of this year, I have had the burden to go on to have another category of the study of the Holy Scriptures. This category is the crystallization-study of the Scriptures.
In the outline of this message, there are altogether forty points: nine main points and thirty-one subpoints. I am presenting all these points to give us a clear view of what our God, the processed and consummated Triune God, has done and is still doing in the universe. I am presenting these points with all the Scripture references in a crystallization way for you to get into them.
The accomplishments of the processed and consummated Triune God, everything He has done and is doing for us, are heavenly, spiritual, mysterious, marvelous, excellent, divine and human as well.
Whatever God has done and is doing is all for the organic Body of Christ in God’s new creation.
All the accomplishments of the processed and consummated Triune God are for the carrying out of His New Testament economy. The first major thing God accomplished for the carrying out of His economy was incarnation. Then He passed through human living, He accomplished an all-inclusive death, He carried out an all-conquering resurrection, and He entered into an all-transcending ascension. These are the five categories, or five steps, of God’s move: incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension.
God’s incarnation (John 1:14) was clearly promised and prophesied in the Old Testament, but regretfully, most of the Jews never saw it. In Genesis 3:15 God promised the fallen Adam that a seed of the woman would come to bruise the head of the evil serpent, who seduced Adam to fall. No doubt, Adam by that time hated that serpent. So God told him that one day a seed of the woman would come to bruise that serpent’s head. We know that this seed of the woman is Christ. One day He was born of a virgin. He destroyed Satan. He bruised the head of Satan.
In Genesis 22:18 God promised Abraham that his seed would be the blessing to all the nations on earth. Abraham’s seed is Christ (Gal. 3:16). In 2 Samuel 7:12-14 God promised David that his seed, a human being, would be the Son of God to build God’s temple and to sit on the throne in God’s kingdom. This seed is also Christ.
Thus, we see three seeds—the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, and the seed of David. The seed of the woman would bruise the head of Satan, the seed of Abraham would become a blessing to all the nations on the earth, and the seed of David would be the Son of God to build up the temple and to rule in God’s kingdom.
Isaiah prophesies that a virgin would conceive and bear a son. Isaiah 7:14 says that this virgin’s child would be called Emmanuel, God with us. Isaiah 9:6 says that a child is born to us and a Son is given to us, yet His name will be called Mighty God, Eternal Father. Micah 5:2 prophesies that a Ruler would come forth from Bethlehem whose goings forth are from ancient times, from the days of eternity.
These are the prophecies concerning Christ. In total, all these promises and prophecies indicated that one day God would come to be a man, to bring Himself into man.
God’s becoming a man means that God mingles divinity with humanity, making God and man, divinity and humanity, one entity.
Christ was conceived of the divine Spirit and was born of a human virgin (Matt. 1:20).
The birth of Christ produced a God-man—Emmanuel (v. 23)—as the prototype for the mass reproduction of many God-men. God became Jesus. This means that God became a God-man. This God-man is a prototype to reproduce millions of God-men. If you realize that you are a God-man, you will conduct yourself in your daily life in a way of dignity. When you go shopping to buy food or in anything you do in your practical affairs, you should consider yourself a God-man. Then your attitude and the way that you talk will be full of dignity. Even a mayor of a small city does things with his dignity. Today you are a God-man, who should live a life fully dignified, with the highest standard of human virtues expressing the most excellent divine attributes.
The second great accomplishment of the processed and consummated Triune God was His passing through human living for thirty-three and a half years.
One day God became a man on this earth. Then this God-man lived a human life on earth to express not anything human but the divine attributes as human virtues, thus expressing God in humanity.
Christ passed through human living by living a crucified human life to express the divine life. Today we are the reproduction of this prototype. We are the God-men. We need to realize that our living must be a crucified living. We should always put our human life to death. This is to crucify our human life. This is for the purpose of expressing the divine life. Our human life has to be crucified so that the divine life, which is ours also, can be expressed. In this way we are dying to live; that is, we are dying to ourselves to live to God.
The processed and consummated Triune God passed through human living to set up a model for the many upcoming God-men—being crucified to live that God might be expressed through humanity. This is clearly unveiled in 1 Peter 2:21, which tells us that Christ in His human living left us a model, an example, for us to copy. Christ Jesus, while He was on this earth, set up a copy for spiritual xeroxing. He was the model, the copy, for xeroxing, to produce millions of copies.
On the cross Christ died an all-inclusive death. The first thing He dealt with in His death was our flesh. He crucified the flesh of sin (Gal. 5:24; Rom. 8:3b).
Christ condemned sin (sin is in the flesh [7:18], and Christ was made sin by becoming the flesh of sin in its likeness [2 Cor. 5:21a]) and took away sin (including sins) by shedding His blood (Rom. 8:3b; John 1:29; Heb. 9:26b, 28a; John 19:34b). God as righteousness is embodied in Christ; Satan as sin is embodied in the flesh. God is in Christ, and Satan is in the flesh. On the cross Christ dealt with both the flesh and sin.
In His all-inclusive death Christ destroyed the devil, who has the might of death and who is related to the flesh of man, the flesh of sin (Heb. 2:14; John 12:31b; Rom. 8:3).
Four things are related to one another: the flesh, sin, Satan, and the world. Christ in His death judged the world and cast out its ruler, the devil (John 12:31; Gal. 6:14b).
Christ also crucified the old man (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20a; 6:14b).
Christ terminated the old creation by the crucifixion of the old man (Rom. 6:6).
On the cross Christ abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances (Eph. 2:15a). The ordinances are the human forms or ways of living and worship. These ordinances divide people, so Christ abolished them in His death.
In Christ’s death He dealt with seven negative points: the flesh, sin, Satan, the world, the old man, the old creation, and the ordinances in the law. There is a positive point to His death. In His death He also released the divine life from the one grain into many grains, signified by the flowing of water at the death of Christ (John 12:24; 19:34b). When He was crucified, His side was pierced and out flowed blood and water. Blood is for redemption to deal with sins for the purchasing of the church (Acts 20:28). Water is for imparting life to deal with death for the producing of the church (Eph. 5:29-30).
In the all-conquering resurrection the firstborn Son of God was produced. God had only one Son, the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18; 3:16). But in resurrection another kind of Son of God was produced, the firstborn Son of God. This took place in resurrection by uplifting the humanity of Christ into His divinity and by having Christ born of God (Acts 13:33; Psa. 2:7), that is, by designating the seed of David by the divinity (the Spirit of holiness) of Christ in the power of resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 1:4; 8:29; Heb. 1:3-6).
In Christ’s all-conquering resurrection all of God’s chosen people were regenerated to be the many sons of God and the many brothers of the firstborn Son of God—the resurrected God-man, Christ (1 Pet. 1:3; Heb. 2:10; Rom. 8:29).
Christ first became a man, and that man was born to be God’s firstborn Son. Also, millions of God’s chosen people were born with Him to be God’s many sons. In the same resurrection this wonderful Christ also became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). The life-giving Spirit is the Spirit of Christ—the pneumatic Christ, the pneumatized Christ (Rom. 8:9). The life-giving Spirit is also the ultimate consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God, who is embodied in the pneumatized Christ realized as the life-giving Spirit. The life-giving Spirit is the reality of resurrection, which is Christ Himself and the processed and consummated Triune God (John 11:25; 1 John 5:6). The resurrection is Christ and the consummated Triune God, and this resurrection is the Spirit.
We need to see that in the all-conquering resurrection of Christ, three major things transpired. First, the man Jesus was born to be the firstborn Son of God. Second, all His believers were born in that birth with Him to be the many sons of God. One delivery produced the firstborn Son and millions of “twins.” We are the “twins” of Christ. We are His “twin” brothers, born by one delivery. Of course, He took the lead to come out, and we followed Him. First Peter 1:3 says that all the believers in Christ were regenerated through the resurrection of Christ. Third, at the time when Christ in His humanity was born to be the firstborn Son of God, He became the life-giving Spirit.
Christ in His ascension transcended Hades (where the dead people are being held), the earth (where the fallen men are moving against God), the air (where Satan and his power of darkness are acting against God), and all the heavens (where Satan can go). Christ transcended these four layers (Eph. 1:20-21; 4:8-10; Heb. 4:14; 7:26). Hades is the first layer, below the earth where the dead people are held. The earth is where the fallen men are moving against God. The air is where Satan and his power of darkness are struggling against God. The third heaven is a good place, but Satan even has a way to go to that good place (Job 1:6-12a; 2:1-6). In Christ’s ascension He transcended these four layers. Today He is not only above Hades, the earth, and the air but also above the third heaven. He is higher than all the heavens.
Such a transcending Christ is to be transmitted into the church, which is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (Eph. 1:22-23).
In His ascension He is the Head of the Body, the church, having the first place in all things (Col. 1:18).
In His ascension this One was made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36) and the Leader (of all the kings) and Savior (5:31). If He were not the Ruler, the Leader, of all the kings, He could not be the Savior. He is the Ruler of all the kings, so He can manage the environment for all of God’s chosen people to be saved. I was saved in China. If in history God had not managed the world affairs to have some saints from the West go to the Far East to preach the gospel, I could never have been saved. For the British and Americans to go to my country to preach the gospel needed much work by God. That was a great management. Sometimes the management is small, but only God can carry this out to create the proper environment for people to be saved. Thus, He is the Ruler of all the kings so that He can be the Savior to save God’s chosen people.
Christ is our High Priest in God’s New Testament economy to bear us in the presence of God and to care for all our needs (Heb. 4:14; 7:26; 9:11).
In His ascension Christ has become the Mediator, the Executor, of the new covenant, the new testament, which He bequeathed to us by His death (8:6; 9:15).
Christ is also the surety, the pledge, that everything in the new covenant will be fulfilled (7:22).
Christ is the Minister in the heavenly Holy of Holies to minister heaven (which is not only a place but also a condition of life) into us that we may have the heavenly life and power to live a heavenly life on earth, as He did when He was here (8:2).
In His ascension Christ is the Paraclete (Advocate) of the New Testament believers (1 John 2:1; John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7).
Christ is the New Testament believers’ Intercessor at the right hand of God and within them as well (26, Rom. 8:34).
All these excellent, divine, and human accomplishments are for the producing and building up of the organic Body of Christ as the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as the expansion and expression of the processed and consummated Triune God in humanity (Eph. 1:23; 4:12, 16; Rev. 21:1—22:5).
The outline and the fellowship in this chapter are worthy of our study. We need to get into the accomplishments of the Triune God from His incarnation through His human living, His death, and His resurrection to His ascension. The accomplishments of the processed and consummated Triune God are the real content of the Bible. They are for the purpose of making God man so that the many men chosen by God can be made God in His life and in His nature but not in His Godhead, so that God and man can be constituted together as one entity. This one entity is the organic Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.
