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In this lesson we will continue to see the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the Son in the grace of the Triune God to be the portion of the believers.
In order that He may be our portion for our experience and enjoyment, Christ is also the life-giving Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45 says, "The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit." The last Adam was the Lord Jesus in the flesh. On the cross, as the Lamb of God, He took away our sin. This made it possible for us to receive His divine life. Then He was raised from the dead and became the life-giving Spirit to impart life into us. When we believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him as our Redeemer, He as the life-giving Spirit came into us as our life.
The life-giving Spirit is the reality and the life pulse of Christ's resurrection. If Christ had merely been resurrected with a body and had not become the life-giving Spirit, His resurrection would simply be a fact and could not impart life into us. However, Christ's resurrection is absolutely a matter related to the life-giving Spirit, for in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, who imparts life into the believers. Actually, the life-giving Spirit is the processed Triune God. The Triune God has passed through the process of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. Now in resurrection He is the life-giving Spirit with the life essence to enter into all those who believe and receive Him to make them the new creation. This life-giving Spirit is the totality of all that Christ is as the all-inclusive One. Christ as the all-inclusive One has now become the life-giving Spirit, the totality of all that He is for our experience and enjoyment.
As the life-giving Spirit, Christ is also the freeing and transforming Spirit. Second Corinthians 3:17 says, "The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." According to the context, the Lord here refers to Christ the Lord. This is a strong word in the Bible, telling us emphatically that Christ the Lord is the Spirit. Furthermore, the phrase the Spirit of the Lord indicates that the Spirit and the Lord are one. The Spirit of the Lord is actually the Lord Himself, with whom there is freedom. The freedom here mainly denotes the freedom from the letter of the law (Gal. 2:4; 5:1). When our heart turns to Christ, we are freed from the bondage of the letter of the law.
Second Corinthians 3:18 goes on to say, "We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit." As the Spirit, the Lord not only gives us freedom, freeing us from the bondage of the law, but He also transforms us that we may have His glorious image. When we with unveiled face are beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord, He infuses us with the elements of what He is and what He has done. Thus, we are being transformed metabolically to have His life shape by His life power with His life essence; that is, we are being transfigured, mainly by the renewing of our mind (Rom. 12:2), into His image. The image here is the image of the resurrected and glorified Christ. To be transformed into the same image is to be conformed to the resurrected and glorified Christ, to be made the same as He is (Rom. 8:29). Through the process of transformation we will go on in God's life from one degree of glory to another degree until we are altogether the same as He is.
The Lord Spirit transforms us that we may have the image of Christ. This implies that the Spirit supplies us with the riches of Christ. When we receive this supply and enjoy the Lord, who is the Spirit, the Spirit infuses us with the elements of Christ's person and work to eliminate and replace our old elements and produce something new. This is similar to the way new cells and tissues are produced in our body through the process of metabolism. This is the transformation spoken of in the Bible. When we experience and enjoy Christ the Son as the all-inclusive, life-giving, freeing, and transforming Spirit, we receive continually His rich supply and are being transformed into the image that is the same as Christ's.
To the believers, Christ is also the door through which God's people leave the sheepfold and come into the pasture (John 10:9). The sheepfold signifies the law; it also signifies Judaism, the religion of the law. The pasture signifies Christ as the feeding place of the believers. In the Old Testament time, God put His elect under the custody of the law, so the law became the sheepfold in which God's people were temporarily kept and protected. When the fullness of the time came, God did not want His people to be kept in the sheepfold of the law any longer; He desired that they come out of the sheepfold and enter into Christ. Thereafter, through Christ God's people can leave the sheepfold and enter into the pasture. Those who came out of the fold of the law after Christ came were people like Peter, John, James, and Paul. Now, since we, the New Testament believers as God's chosen people, have Christ as the door for the sheep to leave the fold, we are not under the custody of the law; we are under the supply of grace.
In John 10:9 the Lord revealed that He is not only the door but also the pasture, the feeding place for the sheep. When the pasture is not available in the winter time or in the night, the sheep must be kept in the fold. When the pasture is ready, there is no further need for the sheep to remain in the fold. To be kept in the fold is transitional and temporary. To be in the pasture enjoying its riches is final and permanent. Before Christ came, the law was a ward, and to be under the law was transitional. Now, since Christ has come, all God's people must come out of the law and come into Him to enjoy Him as their pasture. This should be final and permanent.
Furthermore, in verse 10 the Lord said, "I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly." This shows us that the Lord is the rich life supply for the sheep. If we as the sheep of the Lord desire to receive Him as the supply, we must remain in Him as the pasture. Today this pasture is the resurrected Christ, the life-giving Spirit, as our abundant life and life supply. In our daily Christian life we should have a definite realization that it is in Christ as the pasture that we enjoy His rich life supply.
In addition to being the door and the pasture, Christ is our Shepherd. He calls His sheep by name and leads them out of the fold. Then He goes before the sheep, and they follow Him (John 10:2-3). As the Shepherd, Christ leads His sheep out of the fold through Himself as the door and into Himself as the pasture.
In John 10:11 the Lord said, "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." As the good Shepherd, Christ laid down His soul-life, His human life, to accomplish redemption for His sheep that they may share His divine life, the eternal life. Now He shepherds us inwardly in the way of life as our Shepherd of life. The more we live by Him as our life, the more we enjoy His shepherding. As we are under His shepherding, there will be a life consciousness within us and also an instruction, a guidance, in life. This life consciousness with its instruction and guidance in life is an indication that we are under the Lord's shepherding.
Furthermore, in 10:16 the Lord said He will bring His other sheep, the Gentiles believers, to form them into one flock under one Shepherd. The one flock signifies the one church, the one Body of Christ (Eph. 2:14-16; 3:6), brought forth by life, which the Lord imparted into His members through His death. In nature, the flock is altogether different from the fold. The fold is Judaism, which is of letters and ordinances, whereas the flock is the church, which is of life and Spirit. Christ, our good Shepherd, has brought us out of the fold into the flock in Himself as the pasture that we may enjoy Him as our life and life supply.
To the believers Christ is also the vine in the divine dispensing of the Triune God. In John 15:1 the Lord said, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman." This true vine (the Son) with its branches (the believers in the Son) is the organism of the Triune God in God's economy. This organism grows with His riches and expresses His divine life.
The Father as the husbandman is the source, the author, the planner, the planter, the life, the substance, the soil, the water, the air, the sunshine, and everything to the vine. The Son as the vine is the center of God's economy and the embodiment of all the riches of the Father. The Father, by cultivating the Son, works Himself with all His riches into this vine, and eventually the vine expresses the Father through its branches in a corporate way. This is the Father's economy in the universe.
The vine and the branches illustrate adequately the living relationship between the believers and the Lord. Once we believe into the Lord, we become the branches of Christ as the vine and we have Christ as our life and everything. Whatever is in the vine is also in the branches. From the vine and through the vine we receive the supply that we need as our enjoyment. For this reason, we need to abide in the vine. Only when we abide in the vine can the vine be everything to us. Therefore, in 15:4-5 the Lord said, "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine....He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing." This shows us that our destiny as branches is to abide in the Lord as the vine. We cannot live by ourselves alone; without the Lord's supply we will wither and die. Apart from the Lord we are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing. All that we are, all that we have, and all that we do must be in and by the Lord, who dwells in us. When we thus abide in the Lord and the Lord abides in us so that we enjoy all the supply of His abundant life, we bear much fruit by the overflow of the abundance of the inner life for the expression of the Father's divine life (v. 8).
To the believers Christ is also their abiding place. In John 15:4 the Lord said, "Abide in Me." The Greek word for abide means not only to remain in a certain place but to dwell there, even to make our home there. Christ is our abiding place, our home, and we can abide in Him to have fellowship with Him and enjoy all His riches. For this reason, we need to continually abide in Him, settle down in Him, and take Him as our abiding place.
Ephesians 1:23 says that Christ is the One who fills all in all. Christ, as the infinite God, is without any limitation and is so great that He fills all things in all things. Such an all-extensive and all-filling Christ has the unsearchable riches (3:8). These riches are what Christ is to us, what He has for us, and what He has accomplished, attained, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable and untraceable. As God, He is the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the Lord, and the Christ. As man, He is the Apostle, the Shepherd, the Forerunner, and the Captain of our salvation. There are countless aspects of the riches of what Christ is, for He is the reality of all positive things in the universe, and all positive things signify Christ. Therefore, when He was on earth, He could use so many things as illustrations of Himself. He could say, "I am the door" (John 10:9) and "I am the way" (14:6). To us He is also the real light, life, breath, water, food, clothing, and dwelling place.
The unsearchable riches of Christ are all the fullness of the Godhead, spoken of in Colossians 2:9, which fullness now dwells bodily in Christ. What dwells in Christ is not only the riches of the Godhead, but the expression of the riches of what God is. When Christ became incarnate, clothed with a human body, all the fullness of the Godhead began to dwell in Him as One who has a human body. Therefore, the divine attributes and human virtues are included in the unsearchable riches of Christ. Christ is love, light, holiness, righteousness, wisdom, and power; He is also humility, patience, sincerity, and goodness.
In the Old Testament, the good land of Canaan, which God gave to the children of Israel, is a complete type of Christ as the all-inclusive One (Deut. 8:7-10; 11:11-12). The produce of the good land portrays the unsearchable riches of Christ. Christ as the all-inclusive One is the genuine good land to the believers. All His unsearchable riches have been given to us to be our portion, a portion which we can never exhaust. We should do our best to experience, enjoy, and apply such an all-inclusive One that we may obtain all His unsearchable riches.
As our portion for our experience and enjoyment Christ is also the life-giving Spirit. In resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit who, with His life essence and all that He is, is in us for our experience and enjoyment, and as such, He is the freeing and transforming Spirit. As the Spirit, the Lord not only gives us freedom, freeing us from the bondage of the law, but also transforms us that we may have His glorious image. He is also the door through which God's people leave the sheepfold and come into the pasture. Since we have such a Christ, we are no longer under the custody of the law; rather, we are under the supply of grace. Christ is also the pasture, the feeding place for the sheep, in which we can enjoy His abundant life supply. He is also the Shepherd, who laid down His soul-life to accomplish redemption for us that we may share His divine life and live under His shepherding to become one flock. He is also the vine, and as such, He is life and everything to us, His branches. When we abide in the Lord as the vine and enjoy all the supply of His abundant life, we bear much fruit by the overflow of the abundance of the inner life. He is also the abiding place, in which we abide to have fellowship with Him and enjoy all His riches. He is also the all-inclusive One with the unsearchable riches, including the divine attributes and human virtues. As the reality of all positive things in the universe, the genuine good land to the believers, He has given to us all His unsearchable riches to be our portion for us to apply, experience, and enjoy.
