Message Seven
The Intrinsic Divine Revelation concerning the Move of God with and among Men in the Old Testament and concerning the Move of God in Man in the New Testament to Accomplish God's Heart's Desire and to Meet Man's Need before God
Scripture Reading: Job 10:13; 42:1-6; Eph. 3:9; John 1:1, 14; Matt. 1:23; 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:16-17; Rom. 8:29-30; Col. 1:12, 15-19; 3:4a, 10-11; Acts 26:16-18; Eph. 3:16-19
I. The move of God with men and among men is in the Old Testament; God's move with men and among men was not the direct move to carry out His eternal economy for Christ and the church but the indirect move in His old creation for the preparation of His direct move in His new creation for His eternal economy—2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15:
A. As the man created by God in His image, man needed to take God (symbolized by the tree of life) as his life that he might live, express, and represent God; and as such a one, he needed to be transformed into precious materials and to be built up as a counterpart to God—Gen. 1:26-27; 2:9-12, 18-24.
B. 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); 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—3:8-9, 15, 21; Heb. 2:14.
C. God regarded man and was pleased with man in the burnt offering; as the reality of the burnt offering, Christ lived a life that was absolutely for God and for God's satisfaction as a satisfying fragrance to God for His delight and pleasure—Gen. 4:4; 8:20-22; Lev. 1:9; Isa. 42:1; Matt. 3:17; 17:5; 12:18; John 5:30; 6:38; 7:18; 8:29; 14:24; cf. 2 Cor. 2:15; S. S. 4:10-16.
D. God promised Abraham that in his seed (Christ) all the nations of the earth would be blessed—Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:8, 14, 16-17.
E. As a person chosen by God, man needed to receive and answer God's call (Gen. 12:1-4), to live before God through Christ as his burnt offering (v. 7; 13:18; 22:13), to be exposed by the law that he might know that he was sinful and did 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 so that he might enter into God and enjoy all that God is with Christ and in Christ (Exo. 25—Lev. 27).
F. According to the way of Job's nomadic living (Job 1:3) and the way he offered the burnt offering for his children (v. 5), it seems that Job and his friends probably lived in the age of Abraham (Gen. 22:13); at that time the Pentateuch of Moses with the law was not yet written:
1. Surely, Job and his friends had received some revelation from their forefathers verbally; however, what they had received of their forefathers could reach, at most, only the level of the revelation in the age of Abraham.
2. Hence, in their debates concerning God's relationship with man, there is no hint that indicates that they had received divine revelation beyond God's judgment and God's regard for man in his burnt offering.
3. Job and his friends did not speak any word that implies anything concerning Christ and the Spirit of God; they were in the primitive stage of the divine revelation.
4. In His appearing to Job, God seemed to be saying, "Job, you actually do not know who I am; you do not realize that I am unlimited; also, you cannot imagine what I intend to give you; Job, I intend to give you Myself, making Myself your enjoyment so that you can become a part of Me; I am not satisfied that you have your own integrity, perfection, and uprightness; I want you to have Me; My intention is to impart Myself into you and to give you nothing other than Myself."
5. Thus, God's chosen and redeemed people do not need to build up themselves in human virtues, such as perfection, uprightness, and integrity, as Job did, but they need 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 can be everything to them to replace all that they have attained and obtained; this should be the answer to Job's three friends and even to Elihu and Job (Job 10:13; cf. Eph. 3:9).
6. At the end of the book of Job, God came in, indicating that what Job was short of in his human life was God Himself; for this reason, the book of Job does not actually have a completed ending, which should be God fully gained in Christ by Job to make him one with God so that he might enjoy God as his portion in Christ; such a revelation can be fully found only in the New Testament—40:10-14; 42:1-6; 10:13; cf. Eph. 3:9.
II. The move of God in man is in the New Testament to meet man's need before God; the move of God in man is from the first coming of Christ to the manifestation of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth; this move is unprecedented in human history—John 1:1, 14; Eph. 3:16-19; Rev. 21:2, 9-10:
A. As a person who has been chosen and called by God, man needs to believe into Jesus Christ, who is the incarnated God, who lived a human life, died, resurrected, and ascended for them and with them, and who became the life-giving Spirit as the pneumatic Christ to them, that He may be their salvation, life, and everything (which is revealed in Matthew through Romans):
1. God came to be conceived in a human virgin and to be born of her to be a man, thus bringing divinity into humanity and causing God and man to be mingled as one entity but not as a third substance—Lev. 2:4-5; John 1:1, 14; Matt. 1:20, 23; 1 Tim. 3:16.
2. Jesus lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God; God was in His living, and He was one with God; in His human living He has set His suffering life before us as a model so that we can copy it by tracing and following His steps; this does not refer to a mere imitation of Him and His life but to a reproduction of Him that comes from enjoying Him as grace in our sufferings, so that He Himself as the indwelling Spirit, with all the riches of His life, reproduces Himself in us—Eph. 4:20-21; 1 Pet. 2:21.
3. Jesus Christ, as the incarnated Triune God and as the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9), died in His humanity a vicarious and all-inclusive death to terminate all the negative things and to release the divine life from within Him for us (Luke 12:49-51; John 12:24).
4. He overcame death, entered into the all-producing resurrection, was begotten to be God's firstborn Son (bringing humanity into divinity), and became the life-giving Spirit for the producing and constituting of the Body of Christ—Acts 2:23-24, 32; 13:33; Rom. 1:3-4; 8:28-29; John 20:22; 1 Cor. 15:45; 12:13.
5. He accomplished the all-transcending ascension to the heavens and was made Lord, Christ, Leader, and Savior (Acts 2:36; 5:31) for His propagation and for the building up of the church as His kingdom (1:8; 26:16-18).
6. In His death, resurrection, and ascension He made all His believers one with Him; thus, His death, resurrection, and ascension all became theirs, and His experience became their history—Rom. 6:5-6; Eph. 2:5-6; Hymns, #949, stanza 4.
B. As a believer in Christ, man needs to grow in the divine life of Christ that he may be transformed into what Christ is through the life-dispensing Spirit, that he may be built up with the saints to be the Body of Christ, the organism to express 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 a mingling of the processed Triune God with the glorified tripartite man, to be the corporate God-man's manifestation in eternity (which is revealed in 1 Corinthians through Revelation):
1. God redeemed us in Christ, forgave our sins, washed us, justified us, and reconciled us to Him; God has put us into Christ and made Him our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption—Eph. 1:7; 1 Cor. 6:11; Rom. 3:22; 5:10; 1 Cor. 1:30.
2. God has regenerated us through the resurrection of Christ (1 Pet. 1:3), and now He renews us, transforms us, and conforms us to His image of glory (Titus 3:5; Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23; 2 Cor. 4:16; 3:18; Rom. 8:28-30; Phil. 3:21).
3. In His renewing and transforming, He consumes us, putting us into His death for our fellowship of His sufferings, which work out for us an eternal weight of glory, that we may experience Him in His resurrection and gain Him in His unsearchable riches—2 Cor. 4:16-18, 10; Phil. 3:10, 8; Eph. 3:8.
4. God the Father is embodied in God the Son (Col. 2:9), God the Son is realized as God the Spirit, and God the Spirit comes to indwell us to be the reality of the Triune God (John 14:16-20); the Father, the Lord, and the Spirit as the Triune God have become the source, the element, and the essence of the church as the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:4-6).
5. Concerning the mystery of the Triune God being the reality in the believers, Christ had many things to tell His disciples, but they could not bear them until the Spirit of reality came to reveal these things to them (John 16:12-15); this was done by the Spirit of reality mainly with the apostle Paul, who completed the word of God, that is, the divine revelation (Col. 1:25-27) regarding Christ as the mystery of God (2:2b) and the church as the mystery of Christ (Eph. 3:4).
6. Christ, as the divine portion allotted to the saints by God and as life in the believers, has become all the members of the new man and is in all the members of the new man, which is His organic Body; God wants to make Christ, the embodiment of God, everything to us, the believers of Christ—Col. 1:12, 15-19; 3:4a, 10-11; 1 Cor. 12:12-13.
7. As the life-giving Spirit, He dwells in us to make Himself and all that He has accomplished, obtained, and attained real to us so that we may be one with Him and be transformed into the same image as the Lord from glory to glory; by turning our heart to the Lord, we can behold the glory of the Lord to see the Lord ourselves and reflect the glory of the Lord to enable others to see Him through us—2 Cor. 3:16-18.
8. God in Christ will carry out His transforming work in us until His transformation consummates in the New Jerusalem, first with the overcomers in the millennial kingdom (Rev. 2:7) and consummately with all the saints in the new heaven and new earth, making all His chosen and redeemed people His corporate expression, manifesting Himself, not any kind of merely human virtues (as Job did), to the fullest extent in eternity (21:1—22:5).