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In this lesson we will continue to see Jesus Christ as the center of the New Testament, from His resurrection to His eternity future.
The Lord Jesus died and was buried for three days. Then very early on the first day of the week, the day after the Sabbath, He resurrected. At that time there was a great earthquake, and an angel of the Lord descended out of heaven and came and rolled away the stone which was against the entrance to the tomb (Matt. 28:1-2). Christ’s resurrection is crucial to the accomplishment of God’s divine economy. Its significance is profound and its contents extensive. In this lesson we can give only a brief account as follows:
First Peter 3:18 unveils what happened when the Lord Jesus died on the cross. The second half of the verse says that He was “put to death in flesh, but made alive in spirit.” The crucifixion put Christ to death only in His flesh, not in His spirit. His spirit did not die at the cross when His flesh did; His spirit rather became more active with the power of God’s life, so that in this empowered spirit He went to Tartarus, the deep pit, to the fallen and imprisoned angels to proclaim God’s victory through His incarnation in Christ and Christ’s death in the flesh over Satan’s scheme to derange the divine plan (1 Pet. 3:19 and notes). While the Lord Jesus was being put to death in the flesh, because His spirit became active by the empowering of God’s life, He was resurrecting at the same time. When the Roman soldiers outwardly were executing the death penalty on Jesus, the Triune God—the Father, Son, and Spirit—was also doing the work of resurrection in Him. This is the beginning of the resurrection of Christ. Then, His divine power of resurrection set His soul free from Hades and enabled His body to leave the tomb; hence, His whole being— spirit, soul, and body—was resurrected (Acts 2:31-32). His resurrection began with His spirit, passed through His soul, and consummated in His body.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus was an exceedingly great accomplishment of His eternal redemption. The main achievements may be divided into seven items:
First, Christ’s resurrection was God’s vindication and approval of Him and His work. The Jews who persecuted Him said that the words He spoke and the things He did were a blasphemy to God and that He was liable to death (John 5:16-18; Matt. 26:64-66). They therefore killed Him on the cross. God, however, raised Him from the dead (Acts 3:15). This was God’s vindication and approval, not only before the Jews but also before the whole universe, of Him and His work. Hence, He was also “raised because of our justification” (Rom. 4:25). This was a great accomplishment of His resurrection.
Second, Christ’s resurrection was a sign of His universal success. Without resurrection, all that He had achieved before His resurrection would be nullified with His death. However, He had authority to lay down His life, and He had authority to take it again (John 10:18). Thus, His rising up from among the dead is a sign indicating that what He had done prior to His death was successful and that it has an eternal efficacy in His resurrection.
Third, Christ’s resurrection was also His victory over death, including Satan, Hades, and the grave (Acts 2:24, 31; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 1:18). On the cross He tasted death on behalf of everything (Heb. 2:9), nullified death (2 Tim. 1:10), and destroyed and cast out Satan (John 12:31). Without resurrection, however, He could not show His victory over death (including Hades and the grave) and Satan.
Fourth, Christ’s resurrection was His glorification. Through His resurrection, His divinity was released from the shell of His humanity which concealed His glory, enabling Him with His humanity to enter into the divine glory (Luke 24:26; 1 Cor. 15:43); hence, God glorified Him in resurrection (Acts 3:13, 15a).
Fifth, in His resurrection Christ was made the life-giving Spirit. He was God who is the Spirit (John 1:1; 4:24), incarnated (John 1:14), taking the form of human flesh (Phil. 2:6-7; Rom. 8:3). Through His death and resurrection He was transfigured to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b), that He might impart God’s life to His believers (John 3:15).
Sixth, in His resurrection Christ was born as the firstborn Son of God. He was the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18); then He was incarnated and was born to be the Son of Man (John 1:14), bringing God into man that divinity might be mingled with humanity. In resurrection He was begotten in His humanity to be the Son of God, that is, the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29), bringing man into God that humanity might be mingled with divinity. In His flesh He was altogether a man; He was the Son of Man. His humanity needed to be begotten as the Son of God through death and resurrection that He might be the firstborn Son of God among many brothers. In His divinity He became flesh to be born as the Son of Man; in His humanity He entered into resurrection to be begotten as the firstborn Son of God. This is the twofold result of His two births in time.
Seventh, in His resurrection Christ caused His believers to be regenerated. Christ’s resurrection was the germination of the new creation, and in this new creation God regenerated us (1 Pet. 1:3) that we might become the many sons of God (Heb. 2:10) to be God’s new creation in resurrection, which is also the newborn child mentioned by the Lord in John 16:21. The many sons of God regenerated through Christ’s resurrection are the many grains as His propagation, produced by Him as the grain of wheat that fell into the earth and died (John 12:24), and made into one bread to be His Body (1 Cor. 10:17), His church (Eph. 1:22-23). He, the Firstborn from among the dead and the Firstborn of God among many brothers, became in resurrection the Head of the Body, the church (Col. 1:18).
On the night of His resurrection the Lord Jesus came to the disciples and breathed Himself, the resurrected Christ, the pneumatic Christ, as breath into them (John 20:22). This breath was the holy breath, the Holy Spirit. He, as the Christ in resurrection, is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), so He could breathe Himself as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) into the disciples as their divine life and essence. Such a Christ who passed through death, entered into resurrection, and became the Spirit as the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, breathed Himself into the disciples to be with them forever.
After the Lord Jesus breathed Himself as the Spirit into the believers in resurrection, He was in them to be with them. This was His invisible presence with them, unlike His visible presence when He was in the flesh. After His resurrection, He appeared again and again to the disciples (Acts 1:3). His appearings and disappearings were to train them to know and experience His invisible presence. As the pneumatic Christ in them, His invisible presence was eternal (John 14:16).
After His resurrection the Lord Jesus appeared to the disciples for forty days. Then, on Mount Olivet outside the city of Jerusalem, He was taken up in a cloud before the eyes of the disciples (Acts 1:9-11).
In His ascension Christ ascended above all the heavens (Eph. 4:10) to the height of the universe (Eph. 4:8), far above all in the universe (Eph. 1:21) through the surpassingly great power of God (Eph. 1:19).
Christ was God in heaven (John 3:13); then, He came to the earth as a God-man (1 Tim. 1:15; John 1:14), died in humanity with divinity, went down into Hades (Acts 2:31b), the depths of the earth (Eph. 4:9), was resurrected and came out of Hades with divinity and humanity, came back to the earth, and ascended above all the heavens that He might fill all things (Eph. 4:10) and be the One who fills all in all (Eph. 1:23). This shows that His breadth and length and height and depth are immeasurable (Eph. 3:18).
After Christ ascended to the heavens, He was seated on the right hand of God, the Majesty on high (Psa. 110:1a; Heb. 1:3b). This indicates that He has finished His redemptive work on the earth and can thus sit down (Heb. 10:11-12), and also that He has overcome His enemies and is now sitting, waiting for God to make His enemies the footstool for His feet (Psa. 110:1b; Heb. 10:13; 1 Cor. 15:24-25).
When Christ ascended above all the heavens and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, He was given to sit on the throne of God’s dominion (Rev. 3:21) to rule over and administrate the universe for God. Moreover, He was crowned with glory and honor (Heb. 2:9). Glory refers to the splendor related to Christ’s person; honor refers to the preciousness of His worth and the dignity of His position.
When Christ ascended to heaven and sat on the throne of God, He was put into a number of important offices. Based upon these offices, He is carrying out His heavenly ministry unto eternity.
When Christ ascended, He was made both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:33-36). As God, the Lord was the Lord all the time (Luke 1:43; John 11:21; 20:28). But as man, He was made the Lord in His ascension after He brought His humanity into God in His resurrection. And as God’s sent and anointed One, He was Christ since He was born (Luke 2:11; Matt. 1:16; John 1:41; Matt. 16:16). But as such a One, He was also officially made the very Christ of God in His ascension. He was made Lord, as the Lord of all, to possess all; He was also made Christ, as God’s Anointed, to carry out God’s commission and accomplish God’s plan.
It was in His humanity with His divinity that Christ was raised from the dead, was exalted to the heavenlies, was seated on the right hand of God, the Majesty, had all things subjected to Him, and was given to be Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:20-22). It was through God’s surpassingly great power that Christ received the headship in the whole universe. Thus, God has made Christ the Head over all things. Through all the dispensations of God in all the ages, all things will be headed up in Christ (Eph. 1:10) in the new heaven and new earth. This is God’s eternal economy.
“To the church” implies a kind of transmission. Whatever Christ, the Head over all things and the Head of the church (Col. 1:18), has attained and obtained is transmitted to His Body, the church. In this transmission, the church shares with Christ all His attainments and obtainments. Only as the Head over all things can He transmit all that He has attained and obtained through His death, resurrection, and ascension, into us to be our portion for us to enjoy and experience. He exercises His authority and life as the Head to infuse all the riches of the Head into His believers, His members, that they may grow and function in the divine life and build up His Body (Eph. 4:13, 16).
Acts 2:33 says, “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He poured out this which you both see and hear.” This tells how Christ became the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. For this He was exalted by God and received the promise of the Holy Spirit. In His incarnation Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit, having the Holy Spirit as His essence inwardly; in His baptism Christ was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry on earth (Matt. 3:16; Luke 4:18). After His resurrection and ascension, He still needed to receive the Spirit economically again that He might be the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11b) to pour Himself out upon all His believers, baptizing them into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13), to carry out His heavenly ministry on earth for the accomplishment of God’s economy. As the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, He has also become the Giver of the Holy Spirit who gives, not by measure, the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, the ultimate consummation of the Triune God, to those who believe in Him and are saved (John 3:34) to be their bountiful and immeasurable supply (Phil. 1:19).
Through His death and resurrection, Christ rescued the captives out of Satan’s captivity; then when Christ ascended to the height, He led them captive and presented them to God. In His ascension Christ received these saints, whom He had rescued through His death and resurrection, from God as gifts. Then He gave them as gifts—as apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherd-teachers—to the church for the perfecting of the saints unto the building up of His Body (Eph. 4:8-12). Thus, He becomes the Giver of spiritual gifts.
In His ascension Christ was exalted by God to His right hand to be a Leader and Savior (Acts 5:31). Leader may also be rendered prince; in Greek it also means author (Acts 3:15; Heb. 12:2) or captain (Heb. 2:10). This indicates that Christ is the Author, the Captain, hence, the Leader, the Ruler. God exalted the Man Jesus, who was rejected and killed by the Jews, as the highest Leader and as the Ruler of the kings to rule over the world. At the same time, God also made Him the Savior. In His birth the angel announced Him as the Savior (Luke 2:11). In His ministry on earth He also took the status of the Savior (John 4:42). However, it was after His resurrection and in His ascension that God made Him officially the Savior, to save those who would repent and turn to God and who would believe in Him, according to the eternal redemption which He had accomplished. Leader is related to authority, and Savior, to salvation. As the Leader, Christ rules sovereignly over the earth with His authority that the environment might be fit for God’s chosen people to receive Him as their Savior and enjoy His salvation.
In His ascension Christ was made the Mediator and Surety of the new covenant. This better covenant, which is the new covenant Christ enacted for us (Matt. 26:28), was not only enacted upon better promises of a better law, the inner law of life (Heb. 8:6b, 10-12), but also consummated with Christ’s better sacrifices (Heb. 9:23) and His better blood (Heb. 12:24). Thus, Christ became the Mediator and Surety of the better covenant between God and man, not only guaranteeing the eternal efficacy of this covenant but also executing all the rich bequests of this covenant into His believers.
Hebrews 8:2 reveals that the ascended Christ is also a Minister of the holy places, even of the true tabernacle, in the heavens. Christ, as a Minister in the heavens, ministers 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 while He was here.
When Christ ascended above all the heavens, He was also made the High Priest of the new covenant according to the order of Melchisedec (Heb. 5:9-10; 4:14; 7:28). Christ, as the High Priest, appears before God on our behalf, interceding for the believers and supplying them with the heavenly life, that they may enjoy His daily salvation to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25) and enter fully into God’s eternal purpose.
First John 2:1 tells us that the heavenly Christ is also our Advocate before God; He is the righteous One, the only righteous Man among all men. His righteous act (Rom. 5:18) on the cross, that is, the act of dying to accomplish redemption according to the will of God, fulfilled the righteous requirement of the righteous God for us and all sinners. Only He is qualified to be our Advocate in heaven before God to care for us in our sinning condition and restore us to a righteous condition that our Father who is righteous might be appeased and that we may continue to live in the fellowship of God.
Revelation 1:5 refers to the Christ who has ascended above the heavens as the Ruler of the kings of the earth. This title indicates that He is far above all rule and authority of the earth. Hence, He is called King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16), and He rules and reigns over all mankind on the earth to execute God’s eternal kingdom to them.
Revelation 5:5 also reveals that the Christ who has ascended to the heavenlies is the Opener of the mystery of the new covenant, the One who opens the seven seals prophesied in Revelation (Rev. 6:1; 8:1). He is the Lamb who has accomplished redemption for us and the Lion of Judah who has defeated God’s enemy. Such a One alone is worthy to open the new covenant enacted by His blood (Rev. 5:5-6) to show us that the church redeemed by His shed blood will become His bride, His counterpart, to enjoy the marriage feast with Him (Rev. 19:7-9), and will become His holy army to fight Antichrist and his armies (Rev. 19:11-21) and then reign with Him in the millennial kingdom (Rev. 20:4-6), thus ushering in the new heaven and new earth and participating in the New Jerusalem as the ultimate expression of God (Rev. 21:1-3, 9-26; 22:1-5).
The above eleven items tell us of the different aspects of Christ’s heavenly ministry according to the offices He received of God in His ascension.
Acts 3:21 says, “Whom heaven must indeed receive until the times of restoration of all things,” that is, the coming age of the kingdom, the time of the millennial kingdom. This indicates that Christ will remain in the height of heaven to where He has ascended until the end of this age.
At the end of the church age, before the times of restoration of all things, Christ, who is carrying out His ministry according to His heavenly offices above all the heavens, will come back from heaven according to His promise (Matt. 24:33-44).
At the end of the church age, before Christ will leave the height of heaven to where He has ascended, the overcoming saints will be raptured, before the great tribulation, to His throne in the heavens (Rev. 12:5-6; 14:1-4; Luke 21:36). Afterwards, Christ will descend from His heavenly throne to the air with the overcomers. This is the secret aspect of His parousia which will occur before the coming great tribulation. He will remain in the air for a period of time to accomplish three important things.
First, when Christ descends from heaven and remains in the air, He will receive up the majority of the believers who remain on earth during the great tribulation (1 Thes. 4:15-17).
Second, after He receives up the believers, Christ will judge all the believers in the air before His judgment seat to reward the faithful and overcoming ones and to punish the unfaithful and defeated ones (1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10).
Third, He will marry the faithful and overcoming saints as His bride in the millennial kingdom to enjoy His marriage feast (Rev. 19:7-9).
After He accomplishes the above three things, Christ will descend from the air to the earth (Matt. 24:30) with the saints as His bride. This is the open aspect of His parousia, which will occur after the great tribulation.
First, Christ will receive up the believers. As those betrothed to Christ, the believers take Him as their Husband (2 Cor. 11:2). In His second coming, as mentioned earlier, Christ will receive them up to the air to judge them, rewarding the overcomers and punishing the defeated ones. He will marry the overcoming believers who match Him, that is, the overcoming church as His bride.
Second, He will destroy the religious system of Roman Catholicism and Christianity; He will also destroy the false believers. In His second coming, Christ will first use Antichrist, who will persecute religion, to burn and destroy (Rev. 17:16) the religious system of Roman Catholicism and Christianity, which is the system of Christendom and the mysterious, great religious Babylon mentioned in Revelation 17:5. Then He will send the angels to bind all the false believers, the tares spoken of in Matthew 13:25-26, into bundles and cast them into the furnace of the lake of fire (Matt. 13:30, 39-42). Thus He will become the Destroyer of the wicked and adulterous religion and of the false believers.
Third, Christ will save the people of Israel, the Jews. In Christ’s second coming, Antichrist will lead the great armies of the nations to surround the people of Israel and Jerusalem to destroy them. At the very moment of peril, Christ will descend to defeat and slay Antichrist and his armies (Zech. 14:1-5, 12-14). Then the people of Israel will look to Him (Zech. 12:10), and He will be their Deliverer so that all Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:25-26).
Fourth, He will judge the Gentiles. In Christ’s second coming, after He destroys Antichrist, who opposes God and persecutes God’s people, and the armies of the nations who join him in doing evil, as mentioned in the preceding point, He will sit on His throne of glory to judge all the remaining Gentiles of the nations. Based upon their well-treatment or ill-treatment of God’s people—the children of Israel and the believers who remain during the great tribulation—He will separate them into two groups, the “sheep” and the “goats.” The sheep will be justified and blessed and will enter into the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world, that is, the earthly part of the millennium, to be the people enjoying its blessings. The goats will be condemned and cursed and will go to the lake of fire to suffer eternal punishment (Matt. 25:31-46). Thus Christ will judge the inhabited earth in righteousness (Acts 17:31) before the millennial kingdom as the Judge of the living and the dead (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5).
After Christ in His second coming deals with the four groups of people on the earth, He will send an angel to bind Satan, cast him into the abyss, and shut him up for one thousand years (Rev. 20:1-3). Immediately after Satan’s rebellion, God declared His judgment on him (Isa. 14:12-15). Since then God has been continuously executing His judgment (Luke 10:17-19; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 12:9, 12). Then in His second coming, Christ will further execute God’s judgment pronounced on the rebellious Satan by binding and imprisoning him. After Christ removes God’s rebel from the earth, He will clear up the rebellious earth that His kingdom, the kingdom of God, may come to the earth.
After Christ clears up the rebellious ones on the earth, He will set up the millennial kingdom, the kingdom of God and of Him, on the cleansed earth (Rev. 20:4-6; 11:15). The “sheep” who are justified and blessed will be the people in the earthly part of the millennium, that is, the kingdom of the Son of Man (Matt. 13:41). The saved Israelites will serve as priests in the earthly part to teach the people, “the sheep,” how to serve God (Zech. 8:20-23). The overcoming saints as Christ’s bride will be in the heavenly part of the millennium, that is, the kingdom of the Father (Matt. 13:43), to reign with Christ and rule over the nations as the people for one thousand years (Rev. 2:26-27).
At the end of the millennium, Satan will be loosed out of his prison, the abyss. He will go out to deceive the nations, the people on the earth during the millennium, to follow him and to surround the camp pitched by the saints on earth and the city inhabited by the people of Israel, in his last struggle to rebel against God. Then fire will come down from heaven to devour them. The Devil who deceived the people will be cast into the lake of fire, where Antichrist and his false prophet also will be (Rev. 20:7-10). This is the last stage of Christ’s execution of God’s judgment on Satan; it is also the final clearing up of the rebellious poison which was injected into man by Satan. Thus, the purged nations may enter into the new heaven and new earth to be the blessed people of God forever.
In Christ’s second coming, the last thing He will do is to judge all the dead, including all the dead human beings imprisoned in Hades and all the dead demons confined in the sea (Rev. 20:11-15). Thus, Christ will sit on the great white throne to be the Judge of the dead human beings (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1; 1 Pet. 4:5). At the same time, He will also judge the dead demons. After He has cast both the dead human beings and the dead demons into the lake of fire, the whole universe will be completely cleared up and the new heaven and new earth may be brought in.
In His second coming Christ will use nearly one thousand years to thoroughly clean up the whole universe and put it in order. Then the new heaven and new earth will be brought in, and its center will be the New Jerusalem composed of all the people redeemed by God throughout all generations. Everything of Christ’s eternal future is in the New Jerusalem.
The coming New Jerusalem is the ultimate crystallization of the mingling of the processed Triune God with men who have been redeemed and transformed by God with the divine elements of His divine Trinity in the different dispensations of the old creation, to be an organism to express Him in eternity future. The essence of the divine nature of God the Father, who is the origin and source of everything, like the precious and pure gold, is the very substance of the divine organism. The all-inclusive, glorious Christ as the embodiment of the divine Trinity, who has passed through an all-inclusive death and has entered into a resurrection which is rich in the divine life and the life-generating power to produce a result like pearls with glory and beauty, is the entrance into the divine organism. The saints, who are regenerated and transformed with all the divine elements by the Spirit, as the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God, like the valuable and splendid precious stones, constitute the wall and the wall’s foundation. Christ as the entrance into this divine organism is the key uniting factor of this divine organism. Christ as such an entrance will be completely and fully expressed in His eternity.
Revelation 21:9 refers to the New Jerusalem as the wife of the Lamb, indicating that Christ is the Husband of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). The New Jerusalem comes out of the Lamb, who has accomplished an eternal redemption, and returns to Him to be one with Him, as Eve came out of Adam and returned to Adam to be one with him.
Revelation 21:22 says, “And I saw no temple in it, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” There is no temple in the New Jerusalem; the Lord God the Almighty and Christ the Lamb are its temple. This temple, according to the original text, does not refer to the entire temple including the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies; rather, it refers to the inner temple, the Holy of Holies. This inner temple is the almighty God and Christ as the Lamb, signifying that God and Christ Themselves will be the place in which we serve God in the new heaven and new earth. The holy city as the tabernacle of God (Rev. 21:3) is for God to dwell in, and God and the Lamb as the temple are for us to dwell in (cf. Psa. 27:4; 92:13). In the new heaven and new earth, the holy city New Jerusalem will be a mutual dwelling place for both God and man for eternity.
Revelation 21:23 says, “And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon that they should shine in it, for the glory of God illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” The glory of God illuminating the city indicates that God is the light shining in the holy city. The Lamb as the lamp shines with God as the light to illumine the city with the glory of God, and through the city He shines over the nations around it (Rev. 21:24). In the millennium the light of the sun and the moon will be intensified (Isa. 30:26). The sun and the moon will be in the new heaven and new earth, but they will not be needed in the New Jerusalem, for God, the divine light, will shine much more brightly, far above the natural light of the sun and moon. In eternity future, God as the transcendent light will shine over the entire city through the Lamb-Christ, and He will also shine out of the holy city over the nations, the citizens on the new earth. Thus, the nations will walk in the shining of the holy city.
Revelation 22:1 says, “...a river of water of life...proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” God and the Lamb are one, because God is the light and the Lamb is the lamp; the light is in the lamp, and the two are one. God and the Lamb are just one—the redeeming God. The throne of God and the Lamb is the throne of the redeeming God, the throne of the Lamb-Christ. The river of water of life in the holy city flows as a spiral through the entire city. This indicates that the throne, out from which flows the river of water of life, is the center of the holy city; the redeeming God who sits on the throne is the Lamb-Christ, who of course will be the center of the holy city. The temple is for God’s expression; the throne is for God’s administration. God’s throne of administration is in the temple of His expression. This indicates that in the coming eternity the Lamb-Christ will be God’s Administrator in the center of the New Jerusalem, that God’s expression may extend to the circumference of the holy city.
In the preceding text we have seen that there is a river of water of life flowing as a spiral through the entire city. On this side and on that side of the river is the tree of life, signifying Christ as life, producing twelve fruits for the supply and satisfaction of the entire city (Rev. 22:2)—all the redeemed ones throughout all generations. This portrays how the processed Triune God—God, the Lamb, and the Spirit, symbolized by the water of life—dispenses Himself as the immeasurable One, embodied in the all-inclusive Christ, to His redeemed under His headship to be their supply and satisfaction unto eternity. Furthermore, the leaves of the tree of life, which tree signifies Christ, will be for the healing of the restored nations, who will be God’s people forever on the new earth (Rev. 22:2), to enable them to live forever.
The items discussed briefly above present a general sketch to show us that in eternity future the all-inclusive, glorious Christ as the embodiment of the divine Trinity is incomparably glorious and full of the abundant life to the uttermost in the various aspects of His manifestation as our eternal, immeasurable supply and enjoyment. He is worthy to receive our eternal appreciation and worship!
Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament is the God-man, the union and mingling of the entire Triune God and the complete tripartite man, mysterious, wonderful, rich, bountiful, all-inclusive, and immeasurable. He is the center of the entire New Testament economy of God and the contents of the whole New Testament. We can never exhaust Him in words. He needs the church which is rich in His life to testify Him in this age, the kingdom which is full of His authority and power to exalt Him in the next age, and the New Jerusalem which will be overflowing with His fullness to express Him in eternity fully, completely, multifariously, and eternally! He is truly worthy to receive our worship, exaltation, praise, and love without limit and without end unto the age of the ages!
Christ’s resurrection began with His spirit, passed through His soul, and consummated in His body. Its achievements consist of seven items: God’s vindication and approval of Him and His work; the sign of His universal success; His victory over death, including Satan, Hades, and the grave; the release of the glory of His divinity, which was concealed in the shell of His human body, enabling Him to enter into the divine glory with humanity; His becoming the life-giving Spirit; His being born as God’s Firstborn with humanity; and the regeneration of His believers that they may become God’s many sons to be His Body, the church. On the night of resurrection after He came to the disciples and breathed Himself as breath into them to be their divine life and essence, He stayed with them for forty days, appearing and disappearing, to train them to experience His invisible presence. Afterwards, He ascended to the height of the heavens that He might fill all things, and was seated at the right hand of God, enthroned and crowned, and received many important offices. According to these offices He is carrying out His heavenly ministry as Lord and Christ, Head over all things, the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, the Giver of spiritual gifts, a Leader and Savior, the Mediator and Surety of the new covenant, a Minister of the true tabernacle in the heavens, the High Priest, an Advocate, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, and the Opener of the mystery of the new covenant, until the time of the restoration of all things.
His second coming has two aspects: from the heavenly throne to the air secretly and from the air to the earth openly. Before the secret aspect begins, the overcoming and early-matured believers will be raptured to His throne in heaven. Then Christ will bring them with Him to descend secretly from heaven to the air, where they will stay for a period of time, and where also the majority of the saints will be raptured and judged. The overcoming believers will be married to Christ to be His bride in the millennium and to enjoy His marriage feast. Following the secret aspect, the open aspect of His second coming will begin. He will bring the overcoming believers from the air to the earth. First, He will smite Antichrist and his armies and then save the people of Israel, judge the Gentiles of the nations living on earth, bind and imprison Satan in the abyss for one thousand years, and establish the millennial kingdom. At the end of the millennium, He will destroy the group of people involved in mankind’s last rebellion against God, and He will cast the Devil, who had been loosed from the abyss to deceive the people, into the lake of fire, thus completing God’s declared judgment on Satan. Following this, Christ will sit on the great white throne to judge all the dead in the universe, including the dead human beings on earth and the dead demons in the sea, and will make the entire universe orderly and clean. Thus, the new heaven and new earth will be brought in and eternity future will also begin. Christ will be the Husband of the New Jerusalem, the composition and mingling of all those redeemed in the different dispensations of the old creation with the processed Triune God. Thus, Christ will be one with all the redeemed and will be the entrance for them to enter into the divine organism. He will also be the temple, the lamp, the center, and the supply for their enjoyment and experience eternally. This is Christ’s eternity future, divine, glorious, transcendent, and boundless!
This Christ is the God-man, the mingling and union of the Triune God and the tripartite man. He is so rich, bountiful, and all-inclusive. He needs the church which is rich in His life to testify Him in this age, the kingdom that is full of His authority and power to exalt Him in the coming age, and the New Jerusalem which is filled with His glory to express Him completely and eternally in eternity! He is worthy of our worship, exaltation, praise, and love forever!
(This lesson may be divided into two sections and taught in two sessions on the same day.)
