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The first important person in the New Testament is John the Baptist. In the foregoing lesson we saw that he was the inaugurator of the New Testament age, who brought in the central figure of the New Testament—Jesus Christ. In this lesson we will see the Lord Jesus, who is the central figure of the New Testament and even of the whole Bible, from His eternity past to His death and burial. In the next lesson we will see the remaining points concerning Him.
John 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The Word is Christ (John 1:14). From the beginning Christ was the Word that was with God. He is without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life (Heb. 7:3). His deity is eternal. He was with God from the beginning. He is the Word that was in the beginning with God.
Romans 9:5 says, “Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever.” This proves that Christ is the complete God. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 2:9); He is the effulgence of God’s glory and the express image of God’s substance (Heb. 1:3). He subsists in the form of God and is equal with God (Phil. 2:6), and He is the mystery of God (Col. 2:2b).
From eternity past Christ was the only begotten Son of God. He was in the bosom of the Father from eternity past; after incarnation He is still in the bosom of the Father. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” “Is” in the original text is in the present tense, proving that while He was speaking this word on the earth, He was still in the bosom of the Father. He as the only begotten Son was with the Father, and He was, is, and always will be in the bosom of the Father.
Christ, the only begotten Son of God, expressed God by the Word, life, light, grace, and reality, as revealed in John 1:1, 4, 5, and 14. The Word is God revealed, life is God imparted, light is God shining, grace is God enjoyed, and reality is God realized, apprehended. The essence of them all is God Himself. It is by these things that God is fully declared in the Son. Although no one has ever seen God, the Son of God has declared, expressed, Him in the way of being the Word, life, light, grace, and reality.
The eternal Christ is the origin and originator of life; hence, He is the Author of life (Acts 3:15). In Him is the eternal life, the life of God (John 1:4).
This Christ, who was the complete God, the eternal Word who was with God, the only begotten Son who expressed God, and the Author of life, came into man through incarnation and was born as a perfect man in time, about four thousand years after the creation of man. Among the four Gospels in the beginning of the New Testament, Matthew and Luke have a record of His genealogy that explains His status. Matthew testifies that He is the King, the Christ prophesied in the Old Testament. The genealogy given in Matthew shows us the antecedents and the royal status of this King, proving that He is the proper successor to the throne of David. Luke testifies that He is a proper and normal man. The genealogy recorded in Luke traces back to Adam, the first ancestor of mankind, proving that He is a genuine man who is qualified to be the Savior of mankind.
This wonderful person, Jesus Christ, was conceived of the Holy Spirit of God in the womb of a chaste virgin. His source was on the one hand God and on the other hand man. According to the biblical sense, the Holy Spirit of God is simply God Himself. Therefore, His being conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of a chaste virgin was the coming of God Himself into this chaste virgin to be conceived. Surely this conception had the two elements of God and man; with the Holy Spirit there was the element of God, and with the virgin there was the element of man. Hence, the result of this conception was that a God-man was produced.
The Lord Jesus Christ was born with two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. He has not only the divine nature but also the human nature; He has both natures, divinity and humanity, at the same time. This word “nature” not only indicates His nature, but even more it denotes His essence. The essences of Jesus Christ are His two natures: the divine and the human. He is a God-man, One who is constituted with the divine nature and the human nature, that is, the divine essence plus the human essence. Therefore, He is both the complete God and the perfect Man. As God, He is completely God; as man, He is really a man. He is a God-man, a mingling of God and man. Any conception is a mingling. In the conception of Jesus Christ there were two essences, the divine essence and the human essence. The two essences were not only added together; they were mingled together. Therefore, what was produced was a God-man.
Luke 2:1-3 says, “Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus for all the inhabited earth to be enrolled. This first enrollment took place when Quirinius governed Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city.” It was sovereign of God that such a decree was issued during the reign of Caesar Augustus. By this enrollment Mary and Joseph were brought from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that Christ might be born there for the fulfillment of the prophecy in the Old Testament (Micah 5:2). Luke 2:4-5 says, “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to David’s city, which is called Bethlehem, because he was out of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, who was espoused to him and was pregnant.” Apart from the decree of Caesar Augustus, it might not have been possible for Mary and Joseph to go from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Such a move was necessary for the fulfillment of the prophecy that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem.
Micah 5:2 prophesied clearly that Christ was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea; then, in due time, under God’s sovereign arrangement and leading, Christ was born there. Matthew recorded this particular prophecy (which was omitted in the other three Gospels), especially to prove that the child Jesus was born a descendant of David to be the legal heir to his throne.
Luke 2:7 says, “And she gave birth to her son, the firstborn; and she wrapped Him in cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” The life of the Lord Jesus began with a manger, in the lowliest estate. Due to the occupancy of the busy activities of fallen mankind, there was no room for Him in the inn, so that He had to be laid in a manger. We may say that the manger is a symbol of His human living.
There were shepherds in Bethlehem, living in the fields and keeping the nightwatches over their flock. And an angel of the Lord stood by them and said to them, “I bring you good news of great joy, which will be to all the people, because a Savior was born to you today in David’s city, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:8-11). This good news of great joy was announced to all people, not only to the Jewish people but to all of mankind.
The angel went on to say, “And this is the sign to you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger” (Luke 2:12). A baby in a manger, signifying smallness in lowliness, was a sign of the Lord’s life. Nevertheless, this little baby was the mighty God (Isa. 9:6).
Luke 2:13-14 says, “And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God and saying, Glory in the highest places to God, and on earth peace among men of His good pleasure.” The praise of the heavenly army has two aspects: glory in the highest places to God and peace on earth among men of His good pleasure. The Lord’s salvation has accomplished these two aspects: bringing glory to God in heaven and peace to men on earth. Christ is for God’s glory and man’s peace.
In Luke 2:15-20 we are told that the shepherds went to Bethlehem and “found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. And when they saw this, they made known concerning the word which was spoken to them about this little child.” The good news concerning the Lord’s birth was first announced by an angel to the shepherds. Then the shepherds, after hearing the announcement of the angel and after coming to see the little child, began to speak to others. All those who heard marveled concerning the things spoken to them by the shepherds.
On the eighth day after His birth, the Lord Jesus was circumcised and named; and after another twenty-five days, as it was written in the law, He was presented to God as the male who opened the womb (Luke 2:21-24).
Shortly after He was born, the Lord Jesus fled to Egypt because of the persecution of King Herod. This was a fulfillment of the prophecy concerning Him in Hosea 11:1, which says that He must be called out of Egypt (Matt. 2:13-15). The prophecy of Hosea joins Him to Israel, making them one. After Herod died, He returned to the land of Israel. Because of the fear that the son of King Herod might continue the persecution, He went to live in Nazareth, a small city in the despised region of Galilee (John 7:52), and grew up to be a despised Nazarene (Matt. 2:19-23; John 1:45-46). In Nazareth, He was apparently the son of the carpenter Joseph and grew up in that carpenter’s home (Matt. 13:55), and even became a carpenter despised by men (Mark 6:3). However, He was filled with wisdom from His youth, and the grace of God was upon Him. When He was twelve years old, He went up with His parents to Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover, and He manifested His wisdom in the temple and His concern for the things of God. And He kept advancing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men (Luke 2:40-52). When He was thirty years of age, He came out to fulfill His ministry, preaching and working for God (Luke 3:23).
The human living of the Lord Jesus Christ was a living of God mingled with man. While He was living on the earth, the complete Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit— was in Him, living a mingled life with Him as a perfect man. This kind of living, which was lived out through the mingling of God and man, was the transcendent living of the God-man. It was a man who lived, yet He lived out God; it was the Triune God with all His virtues lived out from humanity and manifested in human form.
The earthly living of this God-man as recorded in the four Gospels may be summarized in the following thirteen items:
Christ as the center of the entire Bible is all-inclusive, having many aspects. The New Testament at its beginning presents four biographies to portray the four main aspects of this all-inclusive Christ. Matthew testifies that He is the King, the Christ of God according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, who brings the kingdom of the heavens to the earth. Mark tells us that He is the Servant of God, laboring for God faithfully. His account is most simple, for a servant does not need any detailed record. Luke portrays Him as the only proper and normal man, qualified to be the Savior of mankind. John unveils Him as the Son of God, the very God Himself, to be life to God’s people.
When the Lord Jesus was about thirty years old (Luke 3:23), the legal age to be a priest (Num. 4:3), He came out to minister and work for God. Before He began His ministry, He was baptized by John and anointed by God with the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:13-17; Luke 4:18). Then He was tempted by the Devil, and He overcame (Luke 4:1-13). Therefore, He was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to come out to minister and work (Luke 4:14).
The first thing the Lord Jesus did in His ministry was to preach the gospel, to announce God’s glad tidings to the miserable people in bondage (Luke 4:18-19), that they may repent, believe in the gospel, have their sins forgiven, and be regenerated by God to have the divine life and enter into God’s kingdom (Mark 1:14-15; John 3:3-7).
The second thing the Lord Jesus did in His ministry was to teach people (Mark 1:21-22; 2:13), releasing words full of light to enlighten those sitting in the shadow of death (Matt. 4:12-16), that they might receive the light of life and thus be brought out of the satanic darkness into the divine light (Acts 26:18).
The first miracle that the Lord did in His ministry was to change water into wine, manifesting His divine glory (John 2:1-11). He also used a small portion of food to feed five thousand people at one time and four thousand people at another time. In both cases there were broken pieces left (Matt. 14:15-21; 15:32-38). These cases prove that He is the Creator who calls things not being as being. Furthermore, He also walked steadily on the waves (Matt. 14:24-27) and calmed the winds and the sea (Matt. 8:23-27). These cases indicate that He is the sovereign One who rules the universe.
The Lord Jesus came that He might destroy the works of Satan (1 John 3:8). Therefore in His ministry, as a part of the miracles and wonders, He also cast out demons, who were under the hand of Satan, from the possessed people (Mark 1:34, 39; 3:15; 6:7, 13; 16:17) that they might be delivered from Satan’s bondage (Luke 13:16) and transferred out of Satan’s authority of darkness (Acts 26:18; Col. 1:13) into God’s kingdom.
Sickness is an issue of sin, and it is also a sign of man’s abnormal condition before God because of sin. The Lord Jesus healed the sinners’ sick condition both physically and spiritually and restored them to a normal condition that they might serve Him (Mark 1:34; 3:10; 6:5, 13, 56). This is another part of His ministry in doing miracles.
Leprosy is the most contaminating and damaging disease, much more serious than fever (Mark 1:30, 40) and isolating its victim both from God and from men (see notes 21 and 31 in Matt. 8). A leper portrays a typical sinner. The Lord Jesus’ cleansing of a leper signifies His recovering of the sinner to the fellowship with God and with men.
Death is the fruit of sin (James 1:15; Rom. 6:23). The Lord Jesus came to be the Savior of mankind not only to save people from sins (Matt. 1:21) but also to save them from death (John 6:50). While He was ministering on the earth, the highest of His miracles was His raising the dead (Matt. 11:5; Luke 7:12-15; John 11:39-44), proving that He is the Lord of life who is able to bring those who believe in Him out of death into life (John 5:24).
While the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He lived because of the Father, He worked with the Father, He did things in the Father’s name according to the Father’s will, He spoke the Father’s words, and He sought the Father’s glory, not His own glory. Therefore, He could testify that “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). He did not seek His own will, nor did He express Himself, but He expressed God. In His transfiguration on the mountain, He manifested the glory of His divinity, thus enabling God to be fully expressed before His three disciples (Matt. 17:1-2). At the end of His ministry and work for God, God declared from heaven that He had already glorified His name in Him, that is, that God Himself had already been expressed (John 12:28).
From the Lord Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of His ministry to the Passover recorded in John 2:13 was about half a year. From that Passover to the feast of the Jews recorded in John 5:1 was one year. From that feast to the Passover recorded in John 6:4 was another year. From this Passover to the Passover mentioned in John 12:1 and 19:14 was again another year, which was the year of His death. Hence, the Lord Jesus ministered and worked for about three and a half years. From this last Passover, counting back to the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes when the decree went out for the rebuilding of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:1-8), there are 483 years. Thus, this was the year of the completion of the sixty-ninth week mentioned in Daniel 9:24-26. It was on the day of the Passover in this year (Matt. 26:2) that the anointed One, Christ, was cut off, that is, nailed on the cross, and died at Golgotha (meaning the Place of a Skull—John 19:17-18) outside Jerusalem, as our Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7).
After the Lord Jesus ate His last Passover and instituted His supper (Matt. 26:20-30) on the night of His crucifixion, He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, one of His twelve disciples, and was arrested by the Roman soldiers and Jewish deputies outside Jerusalem in the Garden of Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives (Matt. 26:36; John 18:1-2). Then He was judged on three occasions by the high priest of the Jews and their Sanhedrin (John 18:13-14, 19-24; Matt. 26:57-66; 27:1; Luke 22:66-71), and then judged on another three occasions, twice by Pilate, who was the Roman governor, and by Herod, according to the Roman law (Matt. 27:2, 11-14; Luke 23:1-5; John 18:28-38; Luke 23:6-11, 13-25). Although they could not find any fault in Him, in order to satisfy the crying and the demand of the Jews, they sentenced Him to the death of the cross and crucified Him with two robbers (Matt. 27:38). The Lord Jesus was on the cross from nine o’clock in the morning (Mark 15:25) to three o’clock in the afternoon (Matt. 27:46) for a total of six hours. During the first three hours, from nine o’clock until noon, men did the killing work on Him, making Him a martyr; during the last three hours, from noon until three o’clock, God, counting Him as the Substitute for sinners, smote Him and bruised Him, judging the sinners and their sins in Him (Isa. 53:5-6, 10a; 2 Cor. 5:21).
The death of the Lord Jesus was not the death of an ordinary man. He died on the cross with a sevenfold status to accomplish an all-inclusive death for us and for everything that He redeemed.
First, He died as the Lamb of God to deal with the totality of sin, including our sinful nature and sinful deeds (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:26, 28; 1 Cor. 15:3).
Second, He died as a man in the flesh (John 1:14), in the likeness of the flesh of sin, in the form of fallen man, to condemn sin and to deal with the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3).
Third, He died as the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45b), as a man in the old creation, for us who are in the old creation, crucifying our old man on the cross (Rom. 6:6).
Fourth, He died as the brass serpent, having the serpent’s form but not the serpent’s poison. He was lifted up on the cross, and through His death He bruised the head of the ancient serpent (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 12:9), destroying Satan (Heb. 2:14) and his world (John 12:31), thus causing all those who believe in Him to have eternal life (John 3:15-16).
Fifth, He died as the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15), as the first item of the old creation, to terminate the entire old creation, thus reconciling all created things to God (Col. 1:20).
Sixth, He also died as the Peacemaker, as the One who makes peace. Through the cross He abolished all the regulating and separating ordinances of the law—such as those concerning circumcision, keeping the Sabbath, and eating certain foods, and including the different ways of living, the different customs and habits that cause separations in human society. Thus He created all His believers, both Jews and Gentiles, in Himself into one new man (Eph. 2:14-16).
The six items above are on the negative side, solving all problems for us, the sinners.
Seventh, on the positive side, He died as a grain of wheat, falling into the ground to release the divine life (John 12:24) to us that, like Him, we may become many grains of wheat to be formed into one loaf as His Body (1 Cor. 10:17a).
Thus He accomplished an all-inclusive death with a sevenfold status.
In the death of the Lord Jesus, the Triune God—the Son with the Father through the Spirit—died and shed His blood for sinners in the human flesh of Jesus, accomplishing an eternal redemption. This is not only the Lord Jesus dying for us; it is the entire Triune God in the flesh of Jesus dying for us. (See chapter one of Christ as Revealed in the New Testament, published by Taiwan Gospel Book Room, 1984.)
Hebrews 9:14 says, “Christ...through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God.” On the cross, Christ offered Himself in the body to God (Heb. 10:5, 10), yet He did it through the eternal Spirit. Hence His offering is eternal, without any limit of time. Therefore, in the eyes of God, Christ, the Lamb of God, was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). His offering of Himself was once for all (Heb. 7:27), and the redemption accomplished through His death is eternal (Heb. 9:12), having an eternal efficacy.
The blood shed on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the blood of Jesus the Son of God. First John 1:7 says that “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” When man sins, only human blood can wash away the human sin. Jesus is a man, and the blood He shed is the genuine human blood, qualified to redeem man. Furthermore, John did not say “the blood of Jesus the Son of Man,” but “the blood of Jesus His [God’s] Son.” This indicates that the blood shed by Jesus on the cross is not only the human blood, but also God’s blood (as mentioned in Acts 20:28), which has the surety of the unlimited power of God’s divinity. His unlimited divinity makes the redeeming efficacy of His blood eternal and unlimited. Therefore, the redemption accomplished by Christ is an eternal redemption. By shedding His blood and dying once, He is able to redeem all those who believe in Him, in all times and in all places. The efficacy of the blood of Jesus the Son of God is universal and eternal, not bound by time and space. Therefore, by the blood of Jesus the Son of God and through the eternal Spirit of God, Christ accomplished an eternal, unlimited redemption.
The Lord Jesus died, and in the evening of that day He was buried by two of His disciples, Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, and Nicodemus. He was laid in the new tomb which Joseph had hewed in the rock for himself (Matt. 27:57-60; John 19:38-42), thus fulfilling the prophecy in Isaiah 53:9 concerning His being buried with the rich. Therefore He rested in the new tomb. On the next day, fearing that the Lord’s disciples might come and steal Him away and say to people that He had risen from the dead, the Jewish chief priests and the Pharisees obtained permission from the Roman governor Pilate to seal the stone that blocked the grave and secured the grave with the guard (Matt. 27:62-66).
From eternity Jesus Christ was the complete God. He was the Word that was with God as God’s explanation; He was also the only begotten Son as God’s expression. Moreover, He was the Author of life, and in Him was the eternal life of God. In time, about four thousand years after the creation of man, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit of God with the divine element (essence) in the womb of a chaste virgin with the human element (essence), and born as a God-man of two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. He is the genuine God and a real man; He is a God-man. He was born in the reign of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus in the city of Bethlehem in Judea, and was laid in a manger. On the eighth day He was circumcised and named, and after twenty-five days He was presented to God. Shortly afterwards He fled to Egypt and again returned to the land of Israel. He then lived in the small city of Nazareth in the despised province of Galilee and grew up to be a despised Nazarene. When He was baptized at about thirty years of age, He was anointed with the Holy Spirit by God. Following this, He was tempted by the Devil and He overcame. His human living was the living of the mingling of God and man, a living in which the Triune God with all His virtues was lived out from within humanity and was manifested in human form. He was the all-inclusive One with four aspects: God, Man, King, and Servant. His ministry comprised: (1) preaching the gospel to save sinners; (2) teaching people, enlightening those who are in darkness that they may have the light of life; (3) performing miracles and wonders by calling things not being as being, ruling over the winds and the sea, casting out demons, healing the sick, cleansing the leper, and raising the dead, proving that He is the Lord of life who is able to bring people out of death into life; and (4) expressing God that God may be expressed in Him among men. After He ministered and worked for three and a half years, He was crucified according to the year and date prophesied in the Scriptures, accomplishing an all-inclusive death with a sevenfold status: (1) as the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of men; (2) as a man in the flesh, condemning sin and dealing with the flesh of sin; (3) as the last Adam, a man in the old creation, crucifying our old man on the cross; (4) as a brass serpent, destroying the ancient serpent, Satan, with his world; (5) as the Firstborn of all creation, terminating the entire old creation and reconciling all things to God; (6) as the Peacemaker, abolishing all the separating ordinances of the law; and (7) as a grain of wheat, falling into the ground and dying, thus releasing the divine life that those who believe in Him may become the many grains for the constitution of His Body. Thus He accomplished an eternal redemption. After His death, He was buried by a disciple, a rich man, in his new tomb, and thus He rested.
(This lesson is relatively long and may be divided into two sections and taught in two sessions on the same day.)
