THE SPIRITUAL WARFARE OF THE CHURCH AS THE NEW MAN
Message Four
Fighting the Spiritual Warfare through Living in Christ's Ascension as the New Creation in Resurrection to Become Christ's Duplication and Counterpart
Scripture Reading: S. S. 4:4, 8, 12-16; 6:4, 10, 13; 8:5-6, 13-14
I. "Your neck is like the tower of David, / Built for an armory: / A thousand bucklers hang on it, / All the shields of the mighty men"—S. S. 4:4:
A. The neck signifies the human will under God; the Lord considers the submission of our will a most beautiful thing.
B. The lover of Christ is beautiful in having a will that is submissive to Christ (neck like the tower of David) and that is rich in the defending power (bucklers and shields of the mighty men):
1. If we have a submissive will, a will that has been subdued like a flock of goats on a mountainside (v. 1b), our will is expressed like the tower of David that holds all kinds of weapons against the attacks.
2. The lover of Christ has come out of her natural will, and now she is standing in her resurrected will against the enemy—Eph. 6:11, 13.
3. The more our will is subdued, the more we will be transformed—Rom. 12:2.
4. First, our will must be subdued; then it will be strong in resurrection and be like the tower of David, the armory for the spiritual warfare—Eph. 6:10:
a. The weapons for spiritual warfare are kept in our subdued and resurrected will—2 Cor. 10:3-5.
b. The bucklers and shields that protect us against the arrows of the enemy are kept in the tower of the subdued and resurrected will of the Lord's seeking one.
II. "Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; / With me from Lebanon come. / Look from the top of Amana, / From the top of Senir and Hermon, / From the lions' dens, / From the leopards' mountains"—S. S. 4:8:
A. The experience of Christ's death and resurrection has brought the seeking one into His ascension, and now she is on the mountaintop of Christ's ascension and is living in ascension—Eph. 1:20; 2:5-6.
B. Christ calls His lover to live with Him in His ascension, as He had called her to remain in His cross—S. S. 2:14:
1. Christ asks His lover as His bride to look with Him from His ascension (Lebanon), the highest place of the truth (Amana) and of Christ's victory in His fighting (Senir, meaning "soft armor, " and Hermon, meaning "destruction") and from the heavenly places of the enemies (the lions' dens and the leopards' mountains)—4:8.
2. When the lover of Christ is living in ascension, she and Christ are living in one condition, the condition of ascension, to be a couple; they are the same in life and nature, perfectly matching each other.
C. In Christ's ascension is His victory; there is no more fighting, for the enemy has already been defeated, and we wear soft armor to enjoy our victory in Christ; the position of prayer is ascension, that is, a heavenly position—Rom. 8:37; Eph. 2:6.
III. Through her living in Christ's ascension as the new creation in resurrection, Christ's transformed bride becomes a garden for Christ's private enjoyment—S. S. 4:12-16.
IV. When the overcoming lover of Christ becomes one with God to be God's dwelling place, in the eyes of God she is as beautiful as Tirzah and as lovely as Jerusalem; however, to the enemy she is as terrible as an army with banners—6:4, 10:
A. The lover of Christ is beautiful and comely before the Lord, as solid as the heavenly city and as serene as the sanctuary; at the same time, she displays the glory of her victory before the enemy and the world—v. 4:
1. Weapons are the most important thing to an army in battle, but unfurled banners, signifying the glory of victory, are the most important thing in victory—Exo. 17:15.
2. Banners indicate a readiness to fight and are also a sign that the victory has been won—Isa. 59:19.
B. A life within the veil is not only a life before the Lord but also a life before the enemy—S. S. 6:4; Heb. 10:19; 2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 6:10-12:
1. God has no intention that the lovers of Christ possess the heavenly beauty without possessing a warring nature—2 Cor. 11:2; 10:4-6.
2. The overcoming lover of Christ not only has a future that is full of hope and a life that is absolutely heavenly, but she also is a victor who constantly triumphs in her victory—S. S. 3:7-8.
C. The lovers of Christ should be lovable and terrible at the same time; however, many believers have lost their loveliness before the Lord and their terribleness before the enemy—6:4, 10.
D. The building of God is always an army; when we become a city to the Lord, we are an army to the enemy—v. 4:
1. Building cannot be separated from spiritual warfare; wherever the building is, there is the battle—Neh. 4:1-23.
2. Fighting always accompanies the building, and the building always brings in the victory in the battle—Matt. 16:18-19.
3. This is the consummation of the Christian life; the uttermost completion that the seeking lover of Christ can attain is to be a city as an army.
E. A terrible army signifies that the Lord's overcomers terrify God's enemy, Satan—S. S. 6:4, 10:
1. Satan is afraid of only one kind of people—those who do not love their soul-life—Rev. 12:11.
2. The enemy is terrified of Bethel, the house of God—Gen. 35:1-5.
3. The enemy is frightened by the church that is built up as the city of God—Neh. 6:15-16; Psa. 102:12-16.
4. The demons and the evil angels are terrified of the one new man created by Christ on the cross—Eph. 2:15-16; Col. 2:14-15.
5. Satan is not afraid of individualistic Christians, even if they number in the thousands, but is terrified of the church as the Body of Christ, the corporate warrior fighting against him and his kingdom—Eph. 6:10-20.
V. On the day of His wedding, Christ will marry those who have been fighting the battle against God's enemy for years; that is, Christ will marry the overcomers, who have already overcome the evil one—Rev. 19:7-9, 11-16:
A. When Christ comes to fight against Antichrist and his army, He will come as the Son of Man, and as the Son of Man, He will need a counterpart to match Him and complete Him; this counterpart will be His bride—14:14; 19:7-9:
1. Eventually, the overcomers will be a bride collectively to marry Christ; after their wedding, this bride will become an army to fight alongside Christ, her Husband, to defeat Antichrist and his followers—vv. 11-16.
2. When Christ, the Bridegroom, sees that we have reached maturity, He will marry the bride and then come with her to defeat Antichrist and his army and to terminate human government—Dan. 2:34-35, 44-45.
B. The overcomers who constitute the bride of Christ fight the battle against all the enemies of God and defeat them—Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21:
1. The overcomers fight against the self—the inward adversary and the most difficult foe—slaying it by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God—Eph. 6:17-18.
2. The overcomers resist and defeat the principle of antichrist and the characteristics of antichrist—1 John 2:18, 22; 2 John 7; 2 Thes. 2:3-12.
3. The overcomers war the good warfare against the differing teachings and to carry out God's economy—1 Tim. 1:3-4; 6:3-5, 12, 20-21; 2 Tim. 2:3-4.
4. The overcomers engage in the warfare of life against death and reign in life over death—Matt. 16:18; 1 Tim. 6:19; 2 Tim. 1:10; 1 John 3:14; Rom. 5:17, 21.
5. The overcomers conquer the destructive satanic chaos and triumph in the constructive divine economy; instead of being delivered out of the present chaos, they conquer the chaos by the processed and consummated Triune God as the all-sufficient grace—2 Tim. 1:9, 15; 2:1, 17-18; 4:22.
VI. In the maturity of Christ's life, the lover of Christ becomes the Shulammite, signifying that she has become the reproduction and duplication of Christ to match Him for their marriage—S. S. 6:13; cf. 8:13-14; Rev. 22:20:
A. To say that we are the same as God in the Godhead is a great blasphemy, but if we say that we cannot be the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function, this is unbelief; the Bible tells us repeatedly that God's intention is to be one with us and to make us one with Him—21:2; 22:17a; cf. Heb. 4:2.
B. The Shulammite is likened to the dance of two camps, or two armies (Heb. mahanaim), in the sight of God; after Jacob saw the angels of God, the two armies of God, he named the place where he was Mahanaim and divided his wives, children, and possessions into "two armies"—S. S. 6:13; Gen. 32:1-2:
1. The spiritual significance of the two armies is the strong testimony that we more than conquer, we "super-overcome," through Him who loved us, according to the principle of the Body of Christ—Rom. 8:37; 12:5.
2. God does not want those who are strong in themselves; He wants only the feeble ones, the weaker ones, the women and children—1 Cor. 1:26-28; 2 Cor. 12:9-10; 13:3-5.
3. God needs a people who are one with Him, a people who are submissive to Him, signified by the plaited hair (S. S. 1:11), and obedient to Him with a flexible will, signified by the neck with strings of jewels (v. 10).
4. Those who are counted worthy to be overcomers will be the weaker ones who depend on the Lord—Eph. 3:8; Rev. 3:8; Gal. 2:20.
5. When we consider how to arrive at the highest peak of the divine revelation, we should not trust in ourselves but depend on the Lord as love, power, and mercy to make us vessels of mercy, honor, and glory—Rom. 9:16, 21-23; S. S. 8:5-6.