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Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 15:45b; John 14:16-20; 12:24b; 1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 1:20-23
This message is the continuation of the foregoing message in which we began to consider the subjective aspect of the Man-Savior’s resurrection. The first matter we saw relating to this subjective aspect is that the Man-Savior’s resurrection was His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit in order to enter into His believers (1 Cor. 15:45b; John 14:16-20).
The resurrection of the Man-Savior was a process. This process began immediately after the Lord’s birth. We should not think, therefore, that His resurrection began on the third day after His crucifixion.
If we consider the New Testament thoroughly, we shall realize that resurrection begins with death. For the thirty-three and a half years of the Lord’s human living on earth, He experienced death — death to Himself and to all things other than God. Hence, the life He lived was a life under death.
In Luke 12:50 the Man-Savior indicated that He was very constrained and desired to be released: “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it is accomplished!” The Greek word translated “pressed” may also be rendered “constrained.” The Man-Savior was constrained in His flesh, which He had put on through incarnation. Therefore, He needed to die, to be baptized in physical death, so that His unlimited and infinite divine being with His divine life might be released from within Him. The point here is that the Lord lived a life under death to Himself and that this kind of living is related to the process of resurrection.
As an illustration of the fact that resurrection begins with death, let us consider once again the Lord’s word concerning Himself as a grain of wheat: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). When a grain of wheat is sown into the earth, it dies there. But while it is dying, it is also growing. The strange thing is this: if the grain of wheat does not die, it will not grow. Suppose a grain of wheat is placed on a table and left there. That grain of wheat will not die, and also it will not grow. In order for a grain of wheat to grow, it must be put in the ground to die. It grows by the way of dying. Without dying, a grain of wheat will never grow.
Now we need to see that the resurrection of a grain of wheat does not begin when the wheat sprouts out from the soil. When a grain of wheat sprouts in this way, someone may say, “Look! We can see the resurrection of the grain of wheat.” It is not wrong to say that the sprouting of a wheat grain is a matter of resurrection. But the point we are making here is that the resurrection of a grain of wheat does not begin with the sprouting of the grain. Rather, its resurrection begins much earlier than this. The resurrection of a grain of wheat begins with the death of the grain.
From the illustration of the dying and growing of a grain of wheat we can see that while Christ was dying, He was resurrecting. When did Christ’s resurrection begin? We should not say that it began three days after His crucifixion. According to the picture of a grain of wheat dying and growing, Christ’s resurrection began while He was dying. He likened Himself to a grain of wheat falling into the ground to die so that many grains might be brought forth. The Lord Jesus, like the grain of wheat, was growing, sprouting, resurrecting, even while He was dying.
Now that we have the principle that the process of the Man-Savior’s resurrection began while He was dying, we need to ask when the Lord Jesus died. Did He die only on the day of the Passover? The New Testament indicates that He began to die immediately after He was born. Throughout His years on earth, He was dying to live. Every moment of every day, He was dying. This means that while He was living in the home of a poor carpenter, He was dying. The process of His resurrection began as He was dying.
It is significant that the Lord Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). The Lord did not say that He is the life and the resurrection; He said first that He is the resurrection and then that He is the life. Why does resurrection come first in John 11:25? Resurrection is mentioned first in this verse because throughout His life the Lord Jesus was dying and resurrecting.
When the Lord Jesus told Martha that her brother would rise again, she replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection in the last day” (John 11:24). Here Martha prolonged the resurrection to the distant future, to a time just before the millennium. Therefore, the Lord Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.” The Lord was indicating that He is the resurrection now, the resurrection in the present. He did not say, “I shall be the resurrection;” He said, “I am the resurrection.” The Lord could say this because while He was living in the human life, He was resurrecting by dying.
When did the Lord’s death begin? His death began immediately after He was born. When did His resurrection begin? His resurrection began with His dying. The Man-Savior was dying to live; He lived by dying.
The Lord’s life on earth for thirty-three and a half years was a life of dying to live, a life of living by dying. Eventually, His death was completed on the cross, and His resurrection was completed on the third day after His crucifixion. There was a beginning of His death and also a completion of it. Likewise, there was a beginning of His resurrection and a completion of resurrection. I encourage you to bring this matter to the Lord in prayer.
Praise the Lord that He was the dying-to-live Man-Savior and also the living-by-dying Man-Savior! While He was living, He was dying, and while He was dying, He was living. We may even say that while He was dying, He was resurrecting. His thirty-three and a half years on earth were a long process of death and also of resurrection. With Him resurrection and death went together.
According to our opinion, we may think that the Lord Jesus should have said to Martha, “Do you not know that I am the life? One day I will die, and then I shall be the resurrection.” However, the Lord said that He was the resurrection and the life. The fact that He was resurrection proves that He was also life. If He had not been resurrecting, He would not have been able to live.
After a person is born, does he begin to live, or does he begin to die? Actually, as soon as a human being is born, he begins to die. Death, therefore, does not come as an accident. On the contrary, death comes as a process. For some, this process is short; for others, it is very long. But whatever the case may be, all unbelievers are in the process of dying.
What is our situation as believers? Are we dying or living? Today we believers are dying to live, and we are living by dying. The unbelievers only have the process of dying, but we have both dying and living, both death and resurrection. Actually, the more we die, the more we are resurrected.
In the previous message we pointed out that through the incarnation humanity was added to God. In other words, through the process of incarnation God put humanity upon Himself. In a similar way, in the process of resurrection certain elements were put into the Spirit. In particular, these elements include the Lord’s human living and His all-inclusive death. Therefore, resurrection was a process of transfiguration in which these elements were put into the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. This is the Spirit who has entered into the believers.
In order to understand the Man-Savior’s resurrection as His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit, we need to read John 14:10-20 carefully again and again. In John 14 we see that when the Son came, the Father was in Him. Furthermore, when the Spirit comes, the Son is with Him. Hence, the Spirit comes as the consummation of the Triune God. This means that the Spirit comes as the Triune God. When the Spirit comes, the Triune God comes.
In the Bible the Hebrew word for Spirit is ruach; the Greek word is pneuma. Both words denote spirit, breath, air. We may say that our processed Triune God is like the air — so available for us to breathe in. Now we can understand why Romans 10:8 says that the word is not far from us but is very near, even in our mouth and in our heart. When we recognize this and respond by calling on the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus comes into us.
When the Lord is in us, the Spirit, the Son, and the Father are all in us. The spiritual air we breathe is actually the Triune God. Sometimes when I consider this, I am beside myself with joy in the Lord.
Do you know where the Triune God is? The Triune God is now in us! This is according to the Lord’s word in John 14. He said that He would ask the Father to give us another Comforter, the Spirit of reality, who would be in us. But eventually the Lord went on to say that He Himself would be in us (v. 20). From the revelation in John 14 we see that the Triune God now dwells in us.
In our study of the Bible we need to pay close attention to portions such as John 14:10-20. We should pay much more attention to verses such as these than to verses that speak about husbands loving their wives and wives submitting to their husbands. What we have in John 14:10-20 is far beyond our natural thought, which is easily occupied with teachings concerning love, submission, and humility. In chapter fourteen of John, however, the Lord Jesus says nothing about being humble, or about wives submitting to husbands and husbands loving their wives. Here He speaks concerning Himself, the Father, and the Comforter. Therefore, we need to pay close attention to this revelation.
Before I was saved, I studied the writings of Confucius. Confucius had much to say about a wife’s submission to her husband. In fact, whereas the Bible teaches a wife to have a onefold submission, Confucius teaches a threefold submission. When I read the Bible after I was first saved, I was still under the influence of such teachings. But eventually I learned to pay attention to what the Bible reveals concerning the Triune God dispensing Himself into the tripartite man. This is the main subject of all my ministry. This is the focal point of all my messages in conferences and trainings. I encourage all the saints to pay their attention to the crucial matter of the Triune God dispensing Himself into the tripartite man and to speak of this to others.
Do you know what is revealed in John 14:10-20? Here we have a revelation of the Triune God dispensed into the tripartite man. Concerning this, John 14:20 says, “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” In this verse the “you” is the tripartite man, and the “I” is the Triune God. Therefore, “I in you” indicates that the Triune God is in the tripartite man. Of course, in order to see this in full, we would need a thorough study of the New Testament.
In order for the Triune God to be in the tripartite man, it was necessary for Him to pass through certain processes: incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. Having passed through all these processes, the Triune God is now not only on the throne but also in us. How wonderful! The Man-Savior’s resurrection was His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit, and as this Spirit He now dwells in us.
