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Scripture Reading: Phil. 1:19b-21a
Prayer: Lord, we thank You that You are both the Word and the Spirit. The Word, which is so solid and which is in our hand, is touchable, understandable. But we need Your Spirit to give us the wisdom and revelation that we may see the intrinsic contents of Your Word and that we may understand to interpret the divine revelation according to Your desire in Your economy. Lord, this is what we need, not only now but also for our whole life in dealing with You as the Word and the Spirit. Lord, meet our need again and again from now until we see You.
In my heart I have a burden to tell you the intrinsic contents of the New Testament. In order to see these intrinsic contents, we need to be unveiled again and again. Layers and layers of veils need to be taken away from us. The New Testament presents to us four acts of God and three products of these four acts. These three products issue in one ultimate goal and consummation. The four acts of God are His incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. The three products are the firstborn Son of God, the many sons of God, and the life-giving Spirit. The unique, ultimate consummation is the New Jerusalem. We need to see these four acts, three products, and one goal.
The outline of chapter 1 shows the intrinsic contents of the four acts of God—the incarnation, death, human living, and resurrection of Christ. The act of God in resurrection produced three great items. Before the resurrection there was no firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33). He was produced in God’s action in resurrection. Also, before the resurrection there were no men becoming sons of God in this universe. But we were all produced as the sons of God in His act in resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3). John 7:39 says that “the Spirit was not yet” before Jesus was glorified in His resurrection. First Corinthians 15:45b reveals that in resurrection the last Adam, Christ, became a life-giving Spirit.
This life-giving Spirit is “the Spirit” in John 7:39. The life-giving Spirit, even at the Lord Jesus’ time on earth, was still “not yet.” Then Christ became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, and this life-giving Spirit is the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God. Before the resurrection there was not such a God; in other words, before the resurrection the Triune God had not yet been processed and consummated. Before the resurrection of Christ God was eternal, triune, self-existing, ever-existing, and divine, but He had only one element, the element of divinity. He did not have the elements of humanity, incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. Christ was the last Adam, the last man. The last Adam became the life-giving Spirit, and this last Adam was the embodiment of the Triune God. So the embodiment of the Triune God became the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, the life-giving Spirit is the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God.
Before the resurrection of Christ there was not the firstborn Son of God. Before the resurrection of Christ there were not the many sons of God who were men regenerated to be God’s sons. Before the resurrection of Christ there was not the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God. All these items of the high peak of the divine revelation are in the Holy Scriptures. I am not speaking of something in the ethical or philosophical realm. I am teaching something from the intrinsic contents of the holy Word, the Word of God, which we all love.
The firstborn Son, the many sons of God, and the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God issue in one thing. That is the unique closing of the entire Bible, the New Jerusalem. It is superstitious to say that the New Jerusalem is a heavenly mansion. It is not even logical to say that the Bible tells us that our God in His economy, His oikonomia, produced a heavenly mansion as the goal of His purpose. If we could enter such a heavenly mansion, what would we do there? This is a nonsensical teaching. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate consummation of the processed and consummated God with Himself as the firstborn Son and with the many chosen ones as His many sons. These are the intrinsic contents of the New Testament.
We need to live Christ for His magnification by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19b-21a). The Spirit of Jesus Christ was not in the Old Testament, nor was He there before the resurrection of Christ. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is “the Spirit” spoken of in John 7:39. This is the Spirit after the Lord’s resurrection, compounded with the Lord’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Spirit of God has been consummated to be the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Greek word for bountiful supply is a rich word implying provision in full. The Spirit has a rich provision to supply us in full to live Christ for His magnification.
Paul says in Philippians 1:21a, “To me, to live is Christ.” Paul said this when he was in prison at Rome. In that prison he was living Christ. If someone had asked Paul what he was doing, he could have said, “I am living Christ.”
Christ is our life. We, the God-men, live a human life to express God, not by our own life, our natural life, but by the divine life of Christ in resurrection (Col. 3:4). This living of Christ includes pursuing and gaining Christ (Phil. 3:8, 12-14). If we have not gained Christ, how can we live Him? If I am wearing a jacket, that means I have gained it. Without gaining it I could not wear it. In like manner, if we have not gained Christ, we cannot live Christ.
Living Christ also includes tasting Christ for growing in Him (1 Pet. 2:2-3) and enjoying Christ as the God-allotted portion and participating in His riches in the fellowship of God (Col. 1:12; 1 Cor. 1:9). If we do not gain Him or taste Him, we cannot enjoy Him. First Corinthians 1:9 says that God has called us into the fellowship of Christ, the enjoyment of Christ.
Abiding in Christ and having Him abide in us for the growth with His life in fruit-bearing is also a part of living Christ (John 15:4-5). To live Christ by the divine life of Christ in resurrection is to have Christ grow in us that we may be formed inwardly and even conformed to the image of Christ as the Firstborn of God among many brothers (Gal. 4:19; Rom. 8:29b). Also, to live Christ includes growing into Christ in everything that we may mature in the measure of the stature of Christ (Col. 1:28b; 13, Eph. 4:15b).
We live Christ for His magnification (Phil. 1:20). If a Roman soldier had asked Paul what he was doing, Paul would have been able to say, “I am living Christ for His magnification. I am not really a prisoner. I am Christ here. I am here to show you Christ and to minister Christ to you.” Christ’s being magnified is so that He may be seen by others in the reality of His resurrection. In prison the apostle Paul, a human being, was Christ. He was living in the resurrection of Christ.
Christ’s being magnified is also for Christ to be ministered to others in the reality of His Spirit. This happened when Paul was in prison. At the end of the book of Philippians he says, “All the saints greet you, and especially those of Caesar’s household” (4:22). It should be that some of Caesar’s household became believers in Christ through Paul. Through their contact with Paul they saw Christ, so they believed and received Christ. This means that Paul ministered Christ to them.
If Paul had wept in prison about his pitiful situation, that would have been a shame to him. No doubt, he was saved from eternal perdition by Christ, but he still needed to be saved from the shame of not living Christ. Paul’s earnest expectation and hope were that he would live Christ for His magnification to participate in Christ’s salvation in life (Rom. 5:10). This is to be saved from the failure of not living Christ and to be saved from the defeat of not magnifying Christ.
If others had seen Paul overwhelmed with sorrow, with anxiety, with sadness, and with despair, that would have been a shame and a defeat to him. But instead of this, the Romans saw a person in prison singing, praising, and rejoicing. This is God’s dynamic salvation. This is God’s victory. If others see you at your office singing and rejoicing happily day by day, they will be surprised. They will ask you why you are so happy all the time. You may tell them, “This is because I am living and magnifying Christ.”
The Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19b) is not merely the Spirit of God as He was before the resurrection of Christ but the Spirit of God, after passing, along with Christ, through His incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, becoming the processed and consummated Spirit. This Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus in His incarnation, human living, and death (Acts 16:7b) and the Spirit of Christ in His resurrection (Rom. 8:9). He is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) and the Spirit, who is particularly unveiled in John 7:38-39 and who becomes the ultimate consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God to be the aggregate of the consummated Triune God and marry the church, the organic Body of Christ, as the bride. So at the end, the closing, of the Bible, Revelation 22:17 says, “The Spirit and the bride...” The Spirit is the consummated Triune God, and the bride is the transformed tripartite man. They form a couple in eternity.
The Spirit is also the all-inclusive compound Spirit compounded with Christ’s divinity, His humanity, His death, the effectiveness of His death, His resurrection, and the power of His resurrection, as typified by the anointing ointment in Exodus 30:23-28. Such a Spirit is eventually the sevenfold intensified Spirit for God’s move in the degradation of the church (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6).
The all-inclusive supply, provided with whatever the processed and consummated Triune God, embodied in the all-inclusive Christ and realized in the all-inclusive Spirit, is, has, has accomplished, obtained, attained, and will do, is considered as the unsearchable riches of Christ to meet, in time, the need of the Christ-seekers. When we mean business to seek after Christ, we will receive this bountiful supply. It is by such a bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ that the seekers of Christ, as His overcomers in the consummation of this age, live Him for His magnification in the New Testament economy of God for the producing and building up of the organic Body of Christ as the counterpart of the consummated Triune God, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem as His eternal enlargement and expression for eternity.
