Search
In this chapter we want to see the revelations concerning Christ’s heavenly ministry. The New Testament as the biography of Christ is composed of His three ministries: His ministry on the earth, His ministry in the heavens, and His ministry in the kingdom. In the first ministry, the earthly ministry, He consummated one major thing, that is, He imparted the Triune God into His redeemed. Through incarnation He came to be a man, to bring God into man. Then on the earth He lived a life to express God in His divine attributes through Christ’s human virtues. He died an all-inclusive death to clear up all the negative things. Then He resurrected to be designated the Son of God with His humanity uplifted into the level of divine sonship (Rom. 1:4; Acts 13:33). Through that resurrection He was born to be the firstborn Son of God. Also, as the last Adam, He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), indicating that He was going to impart the consummated God as the life-giving Spirit into His redeemed. In resurrection He also regenerated all of God’s chosen people to be God’s sons (1 Pet. 1:3).
In this way He brought the consummated Triune God into man, making man one with the Triune God. Here is an organic union, an organic union in the divine nature and in the Spirit. God was consummated to be the life-giving Spirit, and also God regenerated His chosen people’s spirit. This life-giving Spirit indwells the human regenerated spirit of God’s chosen people. Thus, God was not only brought into man, but man was also brought into God, making man and God, God and man, one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). This was consummated in John 20, when Christ came back to His disciples in the night of His resurrection to breathe Himself as the Spirit into them (v. 22).
After His resurrection Christ ascended to the heavens. He became the Minister of the heavenly ministry. In His heavenly ministry He consummates a major thing, that is, He builds up the regenerated believers into His Body. First, God gains a people to be joined to Him and be one with Him. Second, He builds up the Body of Christ.
The ascension of the consummated Christ as the embodiment of the consummated Triune God brought Him from the earth into the heavenly sphere, where He was enthroned to be appointed as so many items of His status for His qualification to carry out, in His heavenly ministry, what He has consummated in His earthly ministry.
In His heavenly ministry He is the God-appointed Redeemer to apply His redemption to the repentant sinners (Rom. 3:24; Eph. 1:7). He is the God-ordained Ruler of the kings of the earth and the Savior to execute His full salvation in life to the believers for their regeneration (Rev. 1:5; Acts 5:31). He is the God-established Minister to minister all His unsearchable riches with heaven to His believers for their growth in life (Heb. 8:2). All the unsearchable riches of Christ bear the flavor and the nature of the heavens; they are dispensed into the believers for their growth in the divine life.
Christ is the God-ordained Mediator of the new covenant to execute what He has accomplished in the new covenant to the believers (v. 6; 9:15; 12:24). He made the new covenant through His death and resurrection, but He needs to be the Mediator of this new covenant to execute it in reality. Christ is also the God-ordained surety of the new covenant to guarantee the sure fulfillment of the new covenant to the believers (7:22). He is the God-ordained High Priest to take care of the believers as God’s people in His loving sympathy and intercession for them that they may be saved to the uttermost (4:14-15; 7:25). In His heavenly ministry Christ is also the God-established good Shepherd to shepherd God’s people as His flock throughout their Christian life on this earth (John 10:11, 14, 16; 1 Pet. 2:25; 5:4). Daily, hourly, and moment by moment we have a great Shepherd, the Chief of the shepherds, taking care of us like a shepherd taking care of his flock.
In His heavenly ministry the ascended Christ first poured out the Holy Spirit as a violent wind upon His believers as the Spirit of power for the producing and formation of the churches (Acts 2:1-2). This is different from His breathing Himself into the disciples as the life-giving Spirit. The Spirit as the gentle breath is the inward Spirit. On the day of Pentecost He poured out Himself, the consummated God, as a violent wind, upon His believers.
In His heavenly ministry the ascended Christ as the Head of His Body sent out the apostles and disciples to preach the gospel and establish the churches. When He poured out the Spirit upon His believers, that produced gifted persons. These ones are sent out to preach the gospel, to save sinners, and to raise up the churches.
In His heavenly ministry the ascended Christ as the Head of His Body builds up His Body by the transforming Spirit through the gifted ones among the believers. On the one hand, He is the Head of the Body in the heavens. On the other hand, at the same time, He is the transforming Spirit to transform all the believers into the new creation.
The consummation of the earthly ministry of Christ is to have the consummated Triune God wrought into the believers that they may become a people of God who have the organic union with the processed and consummated Triune God as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit in their regenerated spirit.
Christians today altogether mix up the earthly and heavenly ministries of Christ and the different works of these two ministries. Therefore, their teaching is not so clear. We have to learn to teach these two ministries clearly.
The consummation of the heavenly ministry of Christ is to build the believers, who have the organic union with the processed and consummated Triune God, into His organic Body through the churches, which are composed of the believers, who have the organic union with the Triune God. This building up of the Body of Christ produces the overcomers whom Christ will marry, and they as the bride of Christ will become the army of Christ for Christ to carry out His upcoming kingdom ministry. This building up of the Body of Christ also consummates the ultimate consummation of God’s eternal economy—the New Jerusalem as God’s expansion and expression in eternity.
The building up of the Body of Christ produces the overcomers. In the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, the Lord calls for the overcomers seven times. This indicates that His building up of the Body is to produce the overcomers. These overcomers will be awarded at Christ’s judgment seat with the kingdom, and they will be married to Christ as His bride to match Him and to fight with Him. We have to see that the building up of the Body of Christ accomplishes two things. First, it produces the overcomers to bring in the kingdom. Second, it consummates the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. So the upcoming kingdom and the upcoming New Jerusalem both depend upon the overcomers produced by the building up of the Body of Christ. This is why we pay so much attention to the building up of the Body of Christ.
In His kingdom ministry Christ will defeat all of God’s opposers and clear up the negative things on earth. The overcomers, after being married to Christ to be His bride, become His army to fight against all the opposers of God. The kingdom ministry depends upon the earthly ministry and the heavenly ministry. The earthly ministry is to produce a people joined to God organically. In the heavenly ministry Christ builds up the Body of Christ. Today we should not remain in the earthly ministry of Christ without going forward into His ministry in the heavens to have the Body of Christ built up with His heavenly unsearchable riches.
All the facts of the New Testament show us Christ’s three ministries: His earthly ministry, His heavenly ministry, and His kingdom ministry to clear up the whole earth and to make the earth the kingdom of God for one thousand years. Then the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem will come into being. This is the crystallization-study of the entire New Testament.
