AN OVERVIEW OF THE CENTRAL BURDEN AND PRESENT TRUTH OF THE LORD'S RECOVERY BEFORE HIS APPEARING
Message Eleven
The Divine-human Incorporation of the Consummated God with the Regenerated Believers— the Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory
Scripture Reading: Luke 12:49-50; John 12:23-24; 14:2, 10-11, 17, 20-21, 23; 15:1-8, 16; 16:13-16; Rev. 21:3, 22
I. We have to see that in the entire universe, there is only one thing that God wants, that is, the universal incorporation of Himself as the consummated God with the regenerated believers— John 14:10-11, 20; 17:21, 23; 14:23; Rev. 21:3, 22:
A. The believers' relationship with the Lord is described by the words union, mingling, and incorporation; union is concerning our oneness in life with the Lord, mingling is related to the divine and human natures, and incorporation is persons indwelling one another, coinhering— John 15:4-5; 2 Pet. 1:4; John 14:20.
B. The three of the Divine Trinity are an incorporation from eternity both in what They are and in what They do—v. 10:
1. The three of the Divine Trinity are incorporated by coinhering mutually—"I am in the Father and the Father is in Me"—vv. 10a, 11a.
2. The three of the Divine Trinity are an incorporation by working together as one—"The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works" (v. 10b); "believe because of the works themselves" (v. 11b).
C. Acts 2:23 indicates that this universal divine incorporation, the three of the Divine Trinity, held a council in eternity and agreed to send the second of the Divine Trinity into time to become a man for the carrying out of God's divine economy—1 Pet. 1:20; Micah 5:2; cf. Gen. 1:26.
D. Before the incarnation, this universal incorporation consisted of three parties; then the second of the Divine Trinity brought this universal incorporation into humanity— John 14:10-11.
E. The three in the Divine Trinity were incorporated already in eternity past; this incorporated One came into time in order to incorporate all His chosen ones into His incorporation to make a great, universal, divine-human incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers—17:21.
F. John 14:20 reveals that the consummated Triune God and the regenerated believers became an incorporation in the resurrection of Christ:
1. "In that day"—in the day of the Son's resurrection.
2. "You will know that I am in My Father" (the Son and the Father are incorporated into one), "and you in Me" (the regenerated believers are incorporated into the Son and into the Father in the Son), "and I in you" (the Son in the Father is incorporated into the regenerated believers).
3. The in of the Spirit of reality in verse 17 ("the Spirit of reality…abides with you and shall be in you") is the totality of the three ins in verse 20.
II. The release of the glory of Christ's divinity is His being glorified by the Father with the divine glory (12:23-24) in His resurrection through His death (Luke 24:26); the release of the glory of His divinity with His divine life was to cast fire on the earth (12:49-50):
A. The glory of Christ's divinity was concealed in Him as in a grain of wheat; His humanity through His incarnation became a shell to conceal the glory of His divinity with His divine life— John 12:23-24.
B. The Lord was pressed and constrained, longing to be baptized with the baptism of His death for the release of the glory of His divinity with His divine life through the breaking of the shell of His humanity—Luke 12:49-50; John 12:23-24:
1. He was the unique grain that contained His divine life with His divine glory; when the shell of His humanity was broken through His crucifixion, all the elements of His divinity—His divine life and His divine glory—were released simultaneously.
2. His unlimited and infinite divine being with His divine life, after being released through His physical death, became the impulse of the believers' spiritual life in resurrection.
C. The release of the glory of Christ's divinity was His being glorified by the Father with the divine glory in His resurrection through His death; Christ in His human living prayed that His Father would glorify Him, and the Father answered His prayer—17:1; Acts 3:13; Luke 24:26.
D. Such a glorification transferred Christ from the stage of incarnation into the stage of inclusion, in which He, as the last Adam, became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit in resurrection— John 1:14; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Phil. 1:19.
E. Through His glorification in His resurrection Christ became the firstborn Son of God, possessing both divinity and humanity (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29); He became the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ (1 Cor. 15:45b; John 20:22); and He regenerated all His believers to be God's children, God's species (1 Pet. 1:3).
III. The issue of Christ's glorification, His resurrection, is the incorporation of all of God's chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people with Himself in three aspects—the Father's house, the Son's vine, and the Spirit's child:
A. The first aspect of the incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers in resurrection is the house of the Father, typified by the temple— John 14:2; 2:16-21; 1 Tim. 3:15:
1. The Father's house is a divine and human incorporation of the processed and consummated God constituted with His redeemed, regenerated, and transformed elect; all the believers in Christ, redeemed through His blood, regenerated with His life by His Spirit, and transformed with the divine element by the life-giving Spirit, are the "abodes" in the Father's house— John 14:2, 23.
2. The Father's house is built up by the constant visitation to the redeemed elect of the Father and the Son with the Spirit who indwells the redeemed elect to be the mutual dwelling place of the consummated Triune God and His redeemed elect.
B. The second aspect of the incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers in resurrection is the true vine of the Son—15:1-8, 16:
1. The true vine as a sign of the all-inclusive Christ is the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God.
2. Its branches are the believers of Christ, who by nature were branches of the wild olive tree and have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree (Rom. 11:17, 24) through their believing into Christ (John 3:15); both the cultivated olive tree and the true vine signify Christ; hence, to be grafted into the cultivated olive tree is to be grafted into Christ.
3. Its grafted branches have been regenerated with the divine life, brought into the life union with the resurrected Christ, and incorporated with the processed and consummated Triune God.
C. The third aspect of the incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers in resurrection is the new child of the Spirit—16:13-16, 19-22:
1. A new child, a new man, was born by the consummated Spirit in resurrection; this new child, the new man, was created by Christ on the cross by abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances—vv. 21, 13-15; Eph. 2:15.
2. This new child, the new man, was regenerated by the Father with the resurrected Christ in His resurrection and born by the Spirit in the believers' spirit—1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 1:4; John 3:6b.
3. The first group of Christ's believers, who suffered Christ's departure through His death, was the delivering woman, and the Christ who returned in resurrection was the newborn child to be the new man—16:20-22; Col. 3:10-11.
4. The new man is put on by the believers through their being renewed in the spirit of their mind to consummate the Body of Christ—Eph. 4:23-24.
IV. To abide in Christ, taking Him as our dwelling place, and to allow Him to abide in us, taking us as His dwelling place, are to live in the reality of the universal incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the redeemed and regenerated believers— John 14:2, 10-11, 17, 20, 23:
A. To abide in Christ so that He may abide in us is to have our living in Christ, taking Him as our everything; to take Him as our habitation, our eternal dwelling place, is the highest and fullest experience of Christ—Psa. 90:1; 91:1, 9; John 15:4-5; Rev. 21:22.
B. We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by loving Him— John 14:21, 23:
1. By loving the Lord with the first love, we give Him the first place in all things, and we are incorporated into the Triune God to be His dwelling place—Rev. 2:4-5; Col. 1:18b; John 14:21, 23; Eph. 3:16-17; cf. Psa. 27:4.
2. When we love the Lord Jesus, He manifests Himself to us, and the Father comes with Him to make an abode with us for our enjoyment; this abode is a mutual abode, in which the Triune God abides in us and we abide in Him— John 14:23.
3. The more we love the Lord, the more we will have His presence, and the more we are in His presence, the more we will enjoy all that He is to us; the Lord's recovery is a recovery of loving the Lord Jesus—1 Cor. 2:9-10; Eph. 6:24.
C. We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by dealing with the constant word in the Scriptures, which is outside of us, and the present word as the Spirit, which is within us—John 5:39-40; 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rev. 2:7:
1. By the outward, written word we have the explanation, definition, and expression of the mysterious Lord, and by the inward, living word we have the experience of the abiding Christ and the presence of the practical Lord—Eph. 5:26; 6:17-18.
2. If we abide in the Lord's constant and written word, His instant and living words will abide in us—John 8:31; 15:7; 1 John 2:14.
3. In this way we take root downward into Christ as our soil, our earth, and bear fruit upward for the Father to be glorified—2 Kings 19:30; Isa. 37:31; John 15:7-8.
4. We abide in Him and His words abide in us so that we may speak in Him and He may speak in us for the building of God into man and man into God—v. 7; 2 Cor. 2:17; 13:3; 1 Cor. 14:4b.
5. Morning by morning we need to be sanctified by touching the Word and allowing the Spirit to touch us in order to move out of ourselves, our old lodging place, and into the Triune God, our new lodging place, the place of the coinhering oneness of the Triune God— John 17:17, 21; Eph. 5:26.
V. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated, sanctified, renewed, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite church—Rev. 21:3, 22:
A. The New Jerusalem is a corporate person, a corporate, great God- man; this corporate person is a couple—the processed Triune God married to the transformed tripartite man; this is the Spirit and the bride being united, mingled, and incorporated together to become one entity—22:17a.
B. God is three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—a corporate person; we, the millions of believers, are also a corporate person; these persons are now in one another— John 14:20-21; 15:5; 1 John 4:15-16.
C. We are God's tabernacle for His dwelling place, and God is our temple for our dwelling place—the mutual abode of God and man—Rev. 21:2-3, 22-23; Psa. 90:1; 27:4; Deut. 33:27.
D. The New Jerusalem is the tabernacle of God, and the center of the tabernacle is Christ as the hidden manna; the way to be incorporated into this universal, divine-human incorporation, the mutual abode of God and man, is to eat Christ as the hidden manna—Rev. 21:3; Exo. 16:32-34; Heb. 9:4; Rev. 2:17:
1. Christ as the hidden manna is in God the Father as the golden pot; the Father is in Christ as the Ark with His two natures, divinity and humanity; and Christ as the indwelling Spirit lives in our regenerated spirit to be the reality of the Holy of Holies—this means that the Son is in the Father, that the Father is in the Son, and that the Son as the Spirit is the reality of the Holy of Holies.
2. We should not be joined to the world—we should be incorporated into the New Jerusalem by eating Christ as the hidden manna; when we eat Him, we live by Him in this great incorporation, which today is the corporate Body of Christ and which eventually consummates the New Jerusalem.
3. The holy city, the New Jerusalem, is the goal of God's eternal economy; the unique God is eventually enlarged into one city for His eternal enlargement and eternal expression as a great divine-human, universal incorporation.