KNOWING, EXPERIENCING, AND LIVING THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST FOR THE GENUINE CHURCH LIFE
Message Eight
The Vision, Experience, and Enjoyment of the Glorious and Excellent Christ as the Supreme Preciousness of God for the Genuine Church Life
Scripture Reading: Isa. 6:1-8; John 12:38-41; Dan. 10:4-9, 11, 19; 9:23; Rev. 1:9—2:1, 7; 21:18-21
I. The vision of Christ in glory was seen by Isaiah in his depression—Isa. 6:1-8; cf. 5:20; 22:1; 2 Chron. 26:1-5:
A. The evil time during Isaiah's days is seen by the Lord's warning word—"Woe to those who call evil good, / And good evil; / Who put darkness for light, / And light for darkness; / Who put bitter for sweet, / And sweet for bitter!"—Isa. 5:20.
B. In spite of the rebellion, iniquities, and corruptions of God's chosen and beloved people, Christ, as the Lord, the King, Jehovah of hosts, is still sitting on a high and lofty throne in glory—6:1-5; Lam. 5:19; Rev. 22:1.
C. The One who was seen by Isaiah was Christ—Isa. 6:5b; John 12:38-41:
1. John, in his account of Christ's living and working on earth, said that Isaiah "saw His glory and spoke concerning Him"—v. 41.
2. In order to see the vision of the glorious enthroned Christ, we need to take heed to Isaiah's warning word (Isa. 6:9-10) by exercising our spirit to pray that the Lord would open our inner eyes, soften our heart, and keep our heart turned to Him so that we may receive His inner healing of our blindness and sickness (John 12:40; Matt. 13:14-17; Acts 28:25-27; Rev. 3:18; 4:2; 2 Cor. 3:16-18).
D. Christ's long robe signifies His splendor in His virtues, expressed mainly in and through His humanity; that Christ was wearing a long robe indicates that He appeared to Isaiah in the image of a man; Christ is the enthroned God-man with the divine glory expressed in His human virtues—Isa. 6:1; cf. Ezek. 1:26, 22; Acts 2:36; Heb. 2:9a.
E. Isaiah saw Christ in His holiness based on His righteousness—Isa. 6:2-3:
1. The seraphim signify or represent the holiness of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God; they were standing there for Christ's holiness.
2. Christ's holiness is based on His righteousness; because Christ was always righteous, He was sanctified, separated, from the common people—5:16.
F. As a result of seeing this vision, Isaiah was terminated, finished, realizing that he was a man of unclean lips, dwelling in the midst of a people of unclean lips—6:5:
1. In the New Testament sense, seeing God equals gaining God; to gain God is to receive God in His element, in His life, and in His nature so that we may be constituted with God—cf. Gen. 13:13-14; Gal. 3:14; Matt. 5:8.
2. Seeing God transforms us, because in seeing God we gain God and receive His element into us, and our old element is discharged; this metabolic process is transformation—2 Cor. 3:15—4:1; Rom. 12:2; Phil. 3:8.
3. The more we see God, know God, and love God, the more we abhor ourselves and the more we deny ourselves— Job 42:5-6; Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23; 14:26.
G. After Isaiah realized that he was unclean, he was purged by one of the seraphim, signifying the holiness of God, with an ember from the altar:
1. The application of this ember by the seraphim signifies the effectiveness of Christ's redemption accomplished on the cross and applied by "the Spirit the Holy" in His judging, burning, and sanctifying power—Isa. 6:6-7; 4:4; cf. Luke 12:49; Rev. 4:5.
2. Seeing God issues in being purged and cleansed by God, and being cleansed by God issues in being sent by God to bring His chosen people into a state of living Christ so that they might express Him in His glory, be saturated with His holiness, and live in His righteousness—Isa. 6:6-8; 1 John 1:7-9; Acts 13:47; Phil. 1:21a.
II. The vision of the excellent Christ, who appeared to Daniel in His supreme preciousness as a man, was for Daniel's appreciation, consolation, encouragement, and stabilization—Dan. 10:4-9:
A. Christ appeared as a Priest in His humanity, signified by the linen robe, to care for His chosen people in their captivity—v. 5a; Exo. 28:31-35.
B. Christ appeared in His kingship in His divinity, signified by the girdle of gold, for ruling over all the peoples—Dan. 10:5b.
C. For His people's appreciation, Christ appeared in His preciousness and dignity, as signified by His body being like beryl; the Hebrew word for beryl could refer to a bluish-green or yellow precious stone, signifying that Christ in His embodiment is divine (yellow), full of life (green), and heavenly (blue)—v. 6a.
D. Christ also appeared in His brightness for shining over the people, as signified by His face being like the appearance of lightning (v. 6b), and in His enlightening sight for searching and judging, signified by His eyes being like torches of fire (v. 6c).
E. Christ appeared to Daniel in the gleam of His work and move, as signified by His arms and His feet being like the gleam of polished bronze—v. 6d.
F. Christ appeared in His strong speaking for judging people, as signified by the sound of His words being like the sound of a multitude—v. 6e:
1. The entire world situation is under the rule of the heavens by the God of the heavens in order to give Christ the preeminence in all things, to cause Christ to have the first place in everything—2:34-35; 7:9-10; 4:34-35; Col. 1:15, 18; Rev. 2:4-5.
2. Christ must have the first place, the preeminence, in our personal universe; today Christ, the preeminent One, must be the centrality and universality in our church life, family life, and daily life—Col. 1:17b, 18b; 3:17; 1 Cor. 10:31.
3. Under His heavenly rule God is using the environment to make Christ the centrality (the first) and the universality (everything) to us—Rom. 8:28; Col. 1:18, 27; 3:4, 10-11.
4. As those who have been chosen by God to be His people for Christ's preeminence, we are under God's heavenly rule to make Christ preeminent, to cause Him to have the first place in everything—Dan. 4:26b, 35; Col. 1:18; 3:4, 10-11; Psa. 27:4.
III. The vision of the glorious Christ walking in the midst of the golden lampstands as the High Priest (Rev. 1:9—2:1) was given to John in his spirit for him to see the ascended Christ as the Son of Man "clothed with a garment reaching to the feet, and girded about at the breasts with a golden girdle" (1:13, cf. v. 10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10):
A. The Son of Man is Christ in His humanity, the golden girdle signifies His divinity, and breasts are a sign of love:
1. In Daniel 10 Christ is girded at the loins, strengthened for the divine work (Exo. 28:4; Dan. 10:5) to produce the churches, but in Revelation 1 He is girded about at the breasts, caring for the churches that He has produced by His love.
2. The golden girdle signifies Christ's divinity as His divine energy, and the breasts signify that this golden energy is exercised and motivated by and with His love to nourish the churches.
B. Christ takes care of the churches in His humanity as the Son of Man to cherish them—v. 13a:
1. He dresses the lamps of the lampstands to make them proper, cherishing us so that we may be happy, pleasant, and comfortable—Exo. 30:7; cf. Psa. 42:5, 11:
a. The Lord's presence provides an atmosphere of tenderness and warmth to cherish our being, giving us rest, comfort, healing, cleansing, and encouragement.
b. We can enjoy the cherishing atmosphere of the Lord's presence in the church to receive the nourishing supply of life—Eph. 5:29; cf. 1 Tim. 4:6; Eph. 4:11.
2. He trims the wicks of the lamps of the lampstand, cutting off all the negative things that frustrate our shining—Exo. 25:38:
a. The charred part of the wick, the snuff, signifies things that are not according to God's purpose and need to be cut off, such as our flesh, our natural man, our self, and our old creation.
b. He trims away all the differences among the churches (the wrongdoings, shortages, failures, and defects) so that they may be the same in essence, appearance, and expression—cf. 1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 12:18; Phil. 2:2.
C. Christ takes care of the churches in His divinity with His divine love, signified by the golden girdle at His breasts, to nourish the churches—Rev. 1:13b:
1. He nourishes us with Himself as the all-inclusive Christ in His full ministry of three stages—incarnation, inclusion, and intensification—so that we may grow and mature in the divine life to be His overcomers to accomplish His eternal economy.
2. As the walking Christ, He gets to know the condition of each church, and as the speaking Spirit, He trims and fills the lampstands with fresh oil, the supply of the Spirit—2:1, 7; cf. Zech. 4:12-14.
D. The Lord's seven eyes are like a flame of fire for watching, observing, searching, judging by enlightening, and infusing; Christ's eyes are for God's move and operation on earth, since seven is the number for completion in God's move—Rev. 1:14; 5:6; Dan. 10:6; 7:9-10; Rev. 2:18; 19:11-12.
E. Christ is the One who lives forever and ever; by knowing the Lord as the God who lives forever and ever, we can be assured of His presence in our spirit all the time; nothing establishes us more than the assured presence of the Lord— 1:17-18; 2 Tim. 4:22; Matt. 1:23; 28:20; Exo. 33:14-16.
IV. Peter speaks in his Epistles about the supremely precious Christ and the items organically related to Him:
A. Christ Himself is the preciousness to His believers—1 Pet. 2:7.
B. The precious stone for God's building is Christ Himself—vv. 4, 6-8.
C. The precious blood of Christ has redeemed us from our vain manner of life— 1:14, 18-19.
D. The precious and exceedingly great promises have been granted to us by our God and Savior, Jesus Christ—2 Pet. 1:1, 4.
E. God has allotted to all the believers equally precious faith—v. 1.
F. The precious proving of our faith is by trials that come through sufferings—1 Pet. 1:7.
V. We must redeem the time to enjoy Christ as the supreme preciousness of God so that we can be constituted with Him to be men of preciousness, even preciousness itself, as His personal treasure for us to become the New Jerusalem as a miraculous structure of treasure for His glory—Dan. 9:23; 10:11, 19:
A. We need to ask the Lord to grant us the light to have a thorough change in our concept of value so that we will continually choose Christ and all that He is as our super-excelling portion—Mark 9:7-8; Phil. 3:7-8; 2 Cor. 2:10; 4:7; 1 Pet. 1:8.
B. When we minister God's word, we need to take heed to Jeremiah's admonition— "If you bring out the precious from the worthless, / You will be as My mouth"—Jer. 15:19, 16.
C. We must treasure the Lord's words more than all earthly riches so that we can speak oracles of God to dispense the unsearchable riches of Christ as the varied grace of God into His people—Psa. 119:72, 9-16; Eph. 3:2, 8; 2 Cor. 6:10; 1 Pet. 4:10-11.
D. We need a vision to see that the New Jerusalem is the Triune God, the Divine Trinity, as three basic factors wrought into and structured together with His redeemed as the conclusion of the whole Bible—the gold as the base of the city typifies God the Father; the pearls as the gates of the city typify God the Son; and the jasper wall of the city typifies God the Spirit—Rev. 21:18-21.
E. As we live in Christ's precious and present presence, enjoying Him as our portion, even as He enjoys us as His treasure, He builds Himself into us to make us His spiritual house and His holy and royal priesthood for the accomplishment of His heart's desire—1 Pet. 2:1-9; 3:4; 2 Cor. 2:10; Psa. 16:5; Exo. 19:4-6; 2 Pet. 3:8, 11-12.