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In the previous chapters we have seen how Christ cherishes us in His humanity and nourishes us in His divinity. Surely these are new terms in a new language. My burden is to minister something new yet still ancient. The New Testament was written in a particular way. Each of the four Gospels has a particular way to minister Christ to us. The most particular and mysterious one is the Gospel of John.
We should not present Christ to others in an old or traditional way but in a new way according to the revelation of the rich Christ revealed in the New Testament. We may say to someone, “Christ is the very God who created the universe. One day He was born of a human virgin to be a man by the name of Jesus.” This way of speaking is right and good. Although I appreciate it, I would still say that it is old. Because the United States is an old Christian nation, many people have already heard this kind of presentation of Christ. We have to learn to present Christ in a new way. We want to nourish people with the unsearchable riches of Christ in His full ministry in three stages.
When we go to visit people, we do not want to merely tell them something but to nourish them with Christ as their food. The first time I saw that the believers of Christ should learn how to eat Him was in 1958 in Taiwan. John 6:57 reveals that Jesus is edible: “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” Of course, we live by what we eat. Actually, the Bible begins with the thought of God’s desire for man to eat the tree of life. God created a perfect man, Adam, but God put this man in front of the tree of life. He did not put man in front of a book teaching him many things, including how to live a marriage life. God, after creating a perfect man, brought that man into a garden, which included the tree of life. God warned this man not to eat the other tree, the tree of knowledge (Gen. 2:9, 16-17). Man must eat the right tree, or he will be poisoned.
Man needs to eat only one thing—the tree of life. This tree signifies Christ. When Christ was incarnated, He said, “I am...the life” (John 14:6); He also said, “I am the vine” (15:5a). He is the life and He is the vine tree, so He is the tree of life. Christ is not only our Savior and Redeemer but also our life tree. He is our food so that we can be nourished with Him. When we contact people, we should always endeavor to present some spiritual food to them, not to teach them with mere knowledge. Then they will be nourished. Ephesians 3:8 says that Christ’s riches are unsearchable, or untraceable. The New Testament age reveals an unsearchably rich Christ in His full ministry in three stages.
First, Christ was incarnated to be a man. Then He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. He died on the cross, and His crucifixion ended His stage of incarnation.
His crucifixion ushered Him into another stage. After His death He resurrected and entered into the stage of inclusion. In this stage Christ is the all-inclusive Spirit. He is now God, man, and also the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17).
According to the flesh, Christ was the last Adam. Then as the last Adam, He became the life-giving Spirit. The book of Revelation shows that as the life-giving Spirit, He became the sevenfold intensified Spirit (1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6). We call the above three stages of Christ the three is: incarnation, inclusion, and intensification.
The full ministry of Christ includes all the works of Christ’s accomplishments. Christ accomplishes so much by His ministry, His service, from His incarnation to the consummation of the New Jerusalem. The New Testament begins with Christ’s incarnation and ends with the New Jerusalem. Matthew presents the birth of Christ, His incarnation, and Revelation presents the New Jerusalem, the holy city.
The stage of Christ’s incarnation was in the flesh, in His humanity, from His birth to His death.
The first thing Christ accomplished in His incarnation was to bring the infinite God into the finite man. When we contact an unbeliever, we can say, “I want to tell you that Christ has brought the infinite God into the finite man.” This will stir up his interest, and he will want to hear more. By ministering Christ with these attractive, new terms, we can gain people.
God is triune, and man is tripartite. Christ in His incarnation united and mingled these two parties—the wonderful God, who is triune, and the excellent man, who is tripartite. Some people may have heard that God is triune, but not many know that man is of three parts. If we share Christ with them in this new terminology, they will be attracted and will want to hear more.
The utterance for this point is entirely new. Christ in His incarnation came to earth not only to bring the infinite God into the finite man and to unite and mingle the Triune God with the tripartite man but also to express the bountiful God in His humanity, His human living. God is bountiful in His rich and many attributes. The attributes of God are what God is. He is love, light, holiness, and righteousness. We all admire humility. The real humble One is God. He was the infinite God, but He humbled Himself to become a finite man. Philippians 2:6-7 says that He existed in the form of God, but He took the form of a slave, becoming in the likeness of men. Verse 8 says, “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of a cross.” He was in the form of God, but He humbled Himself to put on the form of man, becoming obedient to God, even unto the death of the cross. He became a servant, washing the feet of His disciples (John 13:1-11). God is the real One who is humble. Humility is one of the many attributes of God. God’s attributes were expressed in Christ as a man to be Christ’s virtues. Christ expressed the bountiful God in His human living, mainly expressing God in His rich attributes, that is, in the unsearchable riches of what God is. We have to study these things so that we can acquire these new points with these new terms.
When the attributes of God became the virtues of Christ in His humanity, these virtues were very aromatic and sweet. This is why so many people throughout the centuries have been captivated by Jesus and love Jesus. In my youth I was occupied with the world, but then I was captivated by the aromatic Christ. He is so sweet and good. Christ attracted and captivated people not by living His human life in the flesh but by living His divine life in resurrection. The incarnated Christ had two statuses. He was the Son of Man and the Son of God, having the human life and the divine life. Although He lived in the human life, He did not live by the human life. He lived His divine life in resurrection. His human life was always put aside. He said that He did not do anything out of Himself but that the Father was the source of all that He did (5:19, 30). He did not do anything in His natural life, but He did everything in His divine life in resurrection. He always put His natural life on the cross, and through the cross He entered into resurrection. It should be the same with us today. A brother can talk to his wife in two ways. He can talk to her in his natural life, but this is wrong. He should talk to her in his natural, human life by another life, that is, the life of Christ, the divine life, the eternal life. We have to experience this. Then we can use this truth to nourish all those whom we contact.
In the stage of His incarnation, Christ brought the infinite God into the finite man, He united and mingled the Triune God with the tripartite man, and He expressed in His humanity the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues. Finally, He went to the cross to finish His all-inclusive judicial redemption. Most Christians say merely that Christ died on the cross for our sins so that we can be forgiven by God. This is true, but we need to go on to see Christ’s death for our redemption in its deeper significance.
Christ died on the cross to terminate all things of the old creation. He also redeemed all the things created by God and fallen in sin (Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20). On the cross He created (conceived) the new man with His divine element. Ephesians 2:15 says that Christ created in Himself both the Jews and Gentiles into one new man. Every conception requires a certain element. In Himself means in Himself as the divine element for this conceiving. In His redeeming death He also released His divine life from the shell of His humanity (John 12:24).
All of this laid a foundation for His organic salvation. His judicial, foundational redemption was accomplished through His death. Then His death ushered Him into resurrection for Him to exercise His organic salvation. Thus, His judicial redemption is a foundation of His organic salvation. Furthermore, His judicial redemption is not only a foundation but also a procedure to attain His ministry in the stage of His inclusion. We should endeavor to learn all the things presented in this chapter and in the following two chapters concerning the unsearchably rich Christ in His full ministry in three stages.
