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Scripture Reading: John 1:1, 14; Rev. 21:1-2
In this chapter we want to begin to see the Triune God’s revelation and His move in the New Testament. The Bible is the Word of God that conveys to us God’s revelation. Most Christians know this in a general way, but they do not know how to convert the Word of God into revelation. Even more, they do not know how these revelations can become visions to us for us to move with God. The Bible presents stories to us that are full of facts. We should not merely read the stories but should get the facts. Matthew 1 presents the genealogy of Christ, showing the coming of Christ to mankind. We must see this fact as a basis in order to see the revelation and the vision from Christ’s genealogy. I have done my best in this chapter to simplify the facts of the New Testament into fifteen categories. These fifteen main categories are the fifteen facts that are the real content of the New Testament.
The first category of the New Testament is that God was incarnated to be a man in the flesh (John 1:1, 14).
Second, the man Jesus experienced human living on earth for thirty-three and a half years. This man was a God-man. God as a man experienced the human life. He was God, yet He became a man to live as a man for thirty-three and a half years.
Jesus was crucified to accomplish God’s redemption for man (Matt. 27:33-50; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:12). After thirty-three and a half years of human living, Jesus died on the cross to do one marvelous thing, that is, to accomplish God’s redemption according to God’s economy for man.
Christ resurrected from among the dead on the third day after His crucifixion (Matt. 28:1-7; Acts 10:40; 1 Cor. 15:4b).
In the evening on the day of His resurrection the resurrected Christ came to breathe the Spirit, whom He had become, as breath into His believers (John 20:19-22). On the same day in which He resurrected, Christ came back to His disciples. He did not teach them, but He breathed Himself into them as the breath of life.
After Christ breathed Himself as the breath into His disciples, He ascended to the heavens, was enthroned, and received the crown of glory (Luke 24:51; Acts 1:9; 2:33; Heb. 2:9); He has been made Lord, Christ (Acts 2:36), the Ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev. 1:5), and the Savior (Acts 5:31), and also has been established by God to be the Minister of His new covenant (Heb. 8:2), the High Priest (2:17; 4:14; 7:26; 8:1), and the Mediator and guarantee of the new covenant (v. 6; 9:15; 7:22). The things that transpire with the ascended Christ in the heavens are much more than what transpired with Him on earth. He was qualified to be such a man because He was God becoming a man. That was the unique qualification of Jesus. Who was Jesus? He was God. In His ascension He was enthroned, crowned, appointed, and established to be many items with many statuses.
In His ascension the ascended Christ poured out the Holy Spirit as a violent wind upon His believers (Acts 2:1-2). After He was appointed, anointed, to be many items, the first thing He did was to pour out the Spirit upon His believers as the power from on high, as the violent wind. The Spirit as the gentle breath was given to the disciples in the night of His resurrection, but on the day of Pentecost He poured out the Spirit of power upon them. This Spirit is nothing less than the Triune God upon His believers to empower them to carry out what Christ wants them to do.
After He poured out the Spirit of power upon His apostles and disciples, Christ sent them out to different places to preach the gospel and establish churches.
The gifted ones among the believers build up the Body of Christ through the transforming Spirit. After the formation of the churches among the believers, there are some gifted persons. They perfect all the seeking saints to be qualified to build up the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12).
The first major item of Christ’s work was His coming to be a man to accomplish His earthly ministry. The second major item was His ascending to the heavens to be appointed, anointed, and established by God to work out God’s economy. This is His heavenly ministry. In His heavenly ministry Christ poured out the Spirit as the Spirit of power. Then He produces and builds up the church as His Body, His organism. After Christ’s heavenly ministry is His second coming. The coming back of Christ will end the church age and bring in His kingdom, the millennial kingdom (Rev. 11:15), in which He and His overcoming saints will be priests of God to serve God and kings to rule over the nations (20:4, 6). He comes back to bring His kingdom down to the earth and make it a kingdom of one thousand years. He and His overcomers will be priests serving God and kings to rule over all the earth with all the nations.
In His coming back Christ will judge the saints and give His kingdom as a reward to the saints justified by Him (2 Cor. 5:10); He will marry the justified, overcoming saints as His spouse, who will be led by Him as His overcoming army to defeat Antichrist with his partner, the false prophet, and the nations who follow them in rebelling against God (Rev. 19:7-9, 11-16); He will cast Antichrist and the false prophet into the lake of fire (vv. 19-21); in the meantime, Satan will be bound for a thousand years and cast into the abyss (20:1-3); and then the millennial kingdom of Christ will begin (vv. 4-6).
At the beginning of His kingdom, the first thing He will do will be to judge us, His believers, to discern the overcomers who can be justified by Him. Christ will give to those who are discerned as the overcomers the kingdom of a thousand years as a reward. This is the kingdom reward. At the same time, Christ will marry the overcomers, and they will be His bride to fight with Him against Antichrist, the false prophet, and all the rebellious nations. Christ and His overcomers, that is, the Husband and the bride, will defeat Satan’s crew—Antichrist, the false prophet, and their followers from the nations. Antichrist and the false prophet will then be cast into the lake of fire, leaving one enemy, one big rebel, Satan. Satan will be bound for a thousand years and put into the bottomless pit, which is called the abyss. At that time on this earth there will be no more Satan. Then this earth will become Christ’s kingdom.
At His coming back to the earth, Christ will be on the throne of His glory to judge the nations (the living—Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1) who remain at that time—some as goats will be condemned to perish eternally, and some as sheep will be justified to enter into eternal life (Matt. 25:31-46). The Bible in the New Testament tells us that Christ has been established by God to judge the living and the dead. At the beginning of the thousand-year kingdom, Christ will judge the living nations to discern who are the sheep, the good ones, and who are the goats, the bad ones. The goats will go to the lake of fire to be with Antichrist, and the sheep will be sent into the sphere of eternal life. They will become the nations living outside the New Jerusalem as the New Jerusalem’s subjects.
At the end of the thousand years God in His economy will allow Satan to be released to accomplish something for God. He will deceive some of the nations again to rebel against God; the nations will be devoured by fire from heaven, and Satan will be cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:7-10). That will close the millennial kingdom.
After the millennium Christ will be on His great white throne to judge all the dead throughout the generations and cast them into the lake of fire (vv. 11-12, 15). In this way Christ will clear up the entire universe. Christ will sweep everything negative and rebellious into the universal trash can, the lake of fire.
The new heaven and new earth will come, in which the holy city, New Jerusalem, is manifested (21:1-2). The New Jerusalem will be the center of the new heaven and new earth in eternity.
The fifteen categories listed above are the major facts of the New Testament. In conclusion, the New Testament with its facts is the biography of Christ. This wonderful person was God becoming a man. This man lived on earth and then died and resurrected. He breathed Himself as the gentle breath into His believers. Then He ascended to the heavens. There He was appointed, anointed, and established by God to be many items to carry out God’s economy to produce the church and build the church into the Body of Christ. After He finishes His heavenly ministry, He will come back to judge the believers, to determine who the overcomers are. If we are the overcomers, He will justify us to give us the reward of the kingdom, and He will marry us as His wife to form an army to fight with Him against all the negative persons on the earth—Antichrist, the false prophet, the fallen nations, and Satan. Eventually, Christ will judge the dead at the great white throne. In this way He will clear up the entire universe and make it a new heaven and new earth by what He has consummated through His two ministries, the earthly ministry and the heavenly ministry. The ultimate consummation of these two ministries will be the New Jerusalem.
The New Testament is the biography of a person whose story begins in eternity past and ends in eternity future. In eternity past He is by Himself as the Triune God, but in eternity future He will be with His companion, His wife. The Triune God in eternity future will have a wife, a counterpart, as the consummation of the Body of Christ to match Him.
