EXPERIENCING, ENJOYING, AND EXPRESSING CHRIST (1)

Message Nine
Christ as the Resurrection and the Grain of Wheat

Scripture Reading: John 11:25; 12:23-24; Luke 12:49-50; 2 Cor. 1:8-9; 4:16; Exo. 25:31-40; Num. 17:8

I.　We can experience, enjoy, and express Christ as the resurrection—John 11:25:

A.　In order to live in resurrection, we must see the unveiled truth concerning Christ's resurrection:

1.　Christ in His humanity was begotten by God in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God—Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29b.

2.　All the believers of Christ were regenerated by God the Father through the resurrection of Christ for the producing of the church as His Body, His reproduction—1 Pet. 1:3; John 12:24; 1 Cor. 10:17.

3.　Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit—15:45b.

4.　Without these major items of the Lord's resurrection (the firstborn Son as the Head of the Body, the many sons as the members of the Body, and the Spirit as the essence and reality of the Body), there would be no church, no Body of Christ, and no economy of God—cf. Col. 1:18; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:4.

B.　The Spirit is the reality of the Triune God, the reality of resurrection, and the reality of the Body of Christ:

1.　The reality of the processed Triune God is the consummated Spirit of reality—John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:6.

2.　The reality of resurrection is Christ as the life-giving Spirit— John 11:25; 20:22; 1 Cor. 15:45b.

3.　The Spirit of reality makes everything of the processed Triune God a reality in the Body of Christ—John 16:13-15.

4.　Without the Spirit, there is no Body of Christ, no church— Eph. 4:4.

C.　In order to be in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be absolutely in the resurrection life of Christ:

1.　The church is absolutely of the element of Christ, absolutely in resurrection, and absolutely in the heavenlies—1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:6; cf. Gen. 2:21-24.

2.　The golden lampstand, typifying the church as the Body of Christ, portrays Christ as the resurrection life, growing, branching, budding, and blossoming to shine the light—Exo. 25:31-40; Num. 17:8; Rev. 1:11-12.

D.　The budding rod signifies that Christ, the resurrected One, should be our life, our living, and the resurrection life within us and that this life should bud, blossom, and bear fruit to maturity— Num. 17:1-11:

1.　After the children of Israel rebelled, as recorded in Numbers16, God commanded the twelve leaders to take twelve rods according to the twelve tribes of Israel and put them in the Tent of the Testimony before the Ark; then He said, "The rod of the man whom I choose shall bud"—17:5.

2.　All twelve rods were leafless, rootless, dry, and dead; whichever one budded was the one chosen by God; here we see that resurrection is the basis of God's selection and that the basis of service is something apart from our natural life; thus, the budding rod signifies our experience of Christ in His resurrection as our acceptance by God for authority in the God-given ministry.

3.　The principle to every service lies in the budding rod; God returned all the eleven rods to the leaders but kept Aaron's rod inside the Ark as an eternal memorial; this means that resurrection is an eternal principle in our service to God—vv. 9-10.

4.　The budding of the rod is a humbling experience; a rod signifies human position, whereas budding signifies the resurrection life; thus, only a foolish person would be proud and say that he is better than others—cf. Mark 11:9; 2 Cor. 3:5; 1 Pet. 5:5.

5.　Resurrection means that everything is of God and not of us; it means that God alone is able and that we are not able; all of those who know resurrection have given up hope in themselves; they know that they cannot make it.

6.　As long as the natural strength remains, the power of resurrection has no ground for manifestation; as long as Sarah could conceive a child, Isaac would not come—Gen. 18:10-15; 21:1-3, 6-7.

7.　What we can do belongs to the natural realm, and what is impossible for us to do belongs to the realm of resurrection; resurrection speaks of the things that are beyond us, which we cannot do in ourselves—Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27.

8.　A man must come to the end of himself before he will be convinced of his utter uselessness; if a man has never realized his own inability, he can never experience God's ability; resurrection means that we cannot make it and that God is the One who does everything in us, through us, and for us—cf. 2 Cor. 1:8-9; 4:7.

9.　To be a Christian is not merely difficult—it is impossible; only the processed and consummated Triune God living in us as the all-inclusive Spirit can be a Christian; only the Spirit can be a Christian, and only the Spirit can be an overcomer.

E.　When we do not live by our natural life but live by the divine life within us, we are in resurrection; the issue of this is the Body of Christ—Phil. 3:10-11:

1.　We all need to be discipled by the Lord to be divine and mystical persons, living the divine life by denying our natural life—cf. John 3:8.

2.　Anything that is carried out even scripturally but in the natural life is not the reality of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 3:12.

F.　In order to live in resurrection, we must know, experience, and gain the God of resurrection—2 Cor. 1:8-9:

1.　God is working through the cross to terminate us, to bring us to an end, so that we will no longer trust in ourselves but in the God of resurrection—v. 9.

2.　Although the living God can perform many acts on man's behalf, the life and nature of the living God are not wrought into man; when the God of resurrection works, His life and nature are wrought into man:

a.　God is not working to make His might known in external acts but is working to impart and work Himself into man— Gal. 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19.

b.　God uses the environment in order to work His life and nature into us—2 Cor. 4:7-12; 1 Thes. 3:3.

c.　In order to live in resurrection and be constituted with the God of resurrection, we must be conformed to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God through "all things"— Rom. 8:28-29; Heb. 12:10; Jer. 48:11.

d.　The primary purpose of suffering in this universe, particularly as it relates to the children of God, is that through it the very nature of God may be wrought into the nature of man so that man may gain God to the fullest extent.

e.　As we pass through afflictions, there needs to be a continual renewing taking place in us day by day so that God can accomplish His heart's desire to make us the New Jerusalem—Ezek. 36:26; 2 Cor. 4:16; 5:17; Rev. 21:2.

3.　In order to live in resurrection, we must be renewed day by day by being nourished with the fresh supply of the resurrection life—2 Cor. 4:16.

4.　The real Christian life is to have the God of resurrection added into us morning and evening and day by day—Col. 2:19; Rom. 8:10, 6, 11.

5.　In order to receive the renewing capacity of the divine life in resurrection, we need to contact God, open ourselves up to Him, and let Him come into us to be a new addition in us day by day—Phil. 2:12-13; 3:10-11; Psa. 18 title; 2 Cor. 4:10-12, 16; Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23; 5:26.

II.　We can experience, enjoy, and express Christ as the grain of wheat—John 12:24:

A.　The glory of Christ's divinity with His divine life was concealed in Him as in a grain of wheat—vv. 23-24.

B.　While the glory of His divinity was concealed by the shell of His humanity, He was pressed and constrained, longing to be baptized with the baptism of His death for the release of the glory of His divinity with the fire of His divine life—Luke 12:49-50.

C.　The release of the glory of Christ's divinity was through the breaking of the shell of His humanity by His death—John 12:24:

1.　He was the unique grain that contained His divine life with His divine glory.

2.　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.

3.　In this sense, His death is considered a life-releasing death with His glory released simultaneously.

D.　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—vv. 23-24; Luke 24:26.

E.　Christ in His human living prayed that His Father would glorify Him, and the Father answered His prayer—John 17:1; Acts 3:13.

F.　Such a glorification transferred Christ from the stage of incarnation into the stage of inclusion, in which He, as the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit in resurrection.

G.　Through His life-releasing death and life-dispensing resurrection as the grain of wheat, Christ brought all His believers into an incorporation with the processed Triune God:

1.　God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation—John 14:10-11.

2.　The consummated Triune God and the regenerated believers became an incorporation in the resurrection of Christ— vv.16-20.

H.　In the resurrection of Christ, the enlarged, divine-human, universal incorporation of the processed Triune God with the regenerated believers came forth from Christ as the transfigured grain of wheat in three aspects:

1.　The first aspect is the Father's house for His rest, satisfaction, and manifestation—v. 2:

a.　All the believers in Christ are the abodes in the Father's house—v. 2a.

b.　The Father's house is built up by the constant visitation to the redeemed elect of the Father and the Son with the Spirit—vv. 21, 23; Eph. 2:19-22; 3:16-19.

2.　The second aspect is the true vine for God's enlargement, spreading, and glorification—John 15:1-8, 16:

a.　The true vine, as a sign of the all-inclusive Christ, is the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God.

b.　Its grafted branches have been regenerated with the divine life, brought into the life union with the crucified and resurrected Christ, and incorporated with the processed and consummated Triune God.

3.　The third aspect is the child of the Spirit, the new man, to carry out God's eternal economy—16:13-16, 19-22:

a.　A new child, a new man, was born by the consummated Spirit—Eph. 2:15.

b.　Our putting on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind will eventually consummate the Body of Christ, which will consummate the New Jerusalem—4:23-24.