Scripture Reading: Acts 26:18; Eph. 1:17-23; 3:16-19
In previous messages we considered, in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament, the divine revelation in the Scriptures concerning God's relationship with man. We saw that in the New Testament God's relationship with man covers fifteen items, beginning with the incarnation and consummating in the New Jerusalem. We need to study the details of all these items and to have them in our heart. Then we will be able to speak of these things to others, not only in personal fellowship but also in the church meetings. If we know these items, we will be able to give messages on them, prophesying for the building up of the Body of Christ.
In this message we will go on to cover another matter — the completed divine revelation in the entire Scriptures concerning man's need before God. God wants to have a relationship with man, and man has a need before God.
As the man created by God in His image (Gen. 1:26), man needed to take God (symbolized by the tree of life) as his life that he might live God, express God, and represent God (2:9); and as such a one, he needed to be transformed into precious materials (vv. 10-12) and to be built up as a counterpart to God (vv. 18-24).
As a fallen man, man needed to receive Christ for his redemption (typified by the sacrifice with its shed blood) that he might be justified by God in Christ (typified by the coats of the sacrifice's skins — 3:21). Fallen man also needed to receive Christ as the seed of the woman that he might be delivered from Satan the "serpent's" death-power (v. 15; Heb. 2:14).
All these matters — the sacrifice with its blood, the coats of skins, and the seed of the woman — are found in Genesis 3. I would encourage you all, even the young ones, to learn these things and then try to present them to others. For example, a young person may visit a younger relative and speak about the need of fallen man to be justified by God in Christ or about the need for Christ as the seed of woman. First, we should digest all these truths ourselves, and then we should learn how to present them to others.
As a redeemed person, man needed to offer Christ as the burnt offering that he might be regarded, respected, by God (Gen. 4:4). Man also needs to call on the name of Jehovah (v. 26), to walk with God (5:22), to work for God that he might be delivered from the corrupted and God-condemned world (6:11-18), and to live before God through Christ as the burnt offering that the earth could be kept in order (8:20-22).
As people chosen by God, we, the descendants of Abraham, the race chosen by God, need to receive and answer God's call (Gen. 12:1-4), to live before God through Christ as our burnt offering (v. 7; 13:18; 22:13), to be exposed by the law that we might know that we are sinful and do not have the capacity to keep the law (Exo. 19:8, 21—20:21), and to live with God by taking Christ as the tabernacle, the priest, and the offerings that we may enter into God and enjoy all that God is with Christ and in Christ (Exo. 25 — Lev. 27).
The tabernacle in the Old Testament is a type of Christ's incarnation (John 1:14). The real tabernacle is God Himself embodied in Christ. This tabernacle is a dwelling place not only for God but also for God's chosen people. This means that, after the incarnation, God is enterable. To be in Christ means to enter into God to enjoy God. Within the tabernacle there are the showbread table for our food, the lampstand for our light, and the incense altar that we may be accepted through Christ as the incense in our prayer. In the tabernacle there is also the ark for God's testimony. Now through the redeeming blood we can have fellowship with God.
Such a man who is in the incarnated God as his tabernacle did not need to build up himself in human virtues, such as perfection, uprightness, and integrity, as Job did, but he needed to seek after God as a panting hart and to enjoy God with God's people in God's feasts (Psa. 42:1-5; 43:3-5) so that God could be everything to him to replace all that he had attained and obtained. This should be the answer to Job's three friends and even to Elihu and Job. Once again we see that if we would understand the book of Job, we need the entire Bible.
The ones who have been chosen and called by God need to believe into Jesus Christ, who is the incarnated God, who died, resurrected, and ascended for us and with us, and who became the life-giving Spirit as the pneumatic Christ to us, that He may be our salvation, life, and everything. This is revealed in the New Testament, in the books from Matthew through Romans.
As believers in Christ, we need to grow in the divine life of Christ that we may be transformed into what Christ is through the life-dispensing Spirit, that we may be built up with the saints to be the Body of Christ, the organism of the Triune God in Christ, and to be the new man as God's new creation to carry out God's eternal economy in the consummation of the New Jerusalem as the mingling of the processed Triune God with the glorified tripartite man, to be the corporate God-man's manifestation in eternity. This is revealed in the New Testament, from 1 Corinthians through Revelation.
Such a regenerated, transformed, and glorified saint in Christ has nothing to do with the natural man and does not need to build up himself with the natural human virtues. If Job and his friends had lived at the time to know this, they would have been saved from their time-wasting, pain-increasing, and vain debates in thirty-five chapters as a record of a group of blind persons groping in darkness.
