CHRIST HAVING BECOME THE LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT
In order to accomplish God’s eternal redemption and plan, Christ as God’s Anointed took two great steps. First, as God He was incarnated to become a man (John 1:1, 14), the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45b), that He might die and accomplish redemption for us (Heb. 9:26-28; 10:12). Second, through death and resurrection He as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) that He may enter into us (John 14:20) to be our life (Col. 3:4) and to live in us (Gal. 2:20) that we may live Him out (Phil. 1:20-21).
By these two great steps Christ passed through incarnation and tasted all the sufferings of human life; then He died and was resurrected. From being God He became a man, and from being a man He became the Spirit. Thus He accomplished God’s eternal redemption and full salvation to carry out the commission for which He was anointed by God.
CHRIST BEING ALL-INCLUSIVE
In resurrection Christ became the life-giving Spirit, who is the Spirit indwelling us today (Rom. 8:9-11). This indwelling Spirit is all-inclusive. The incarnated Christ is in this Spirit; the resurrected Christ is in this Spirit; even all of the Triune God is in this Spirit for us to experience. This life-giving Spirit as everything and as the reality of Christ is in us to be our life and all our supply within.
In 1966, I wrote many hymns in Taiwan, one of which was Hymns, #510: “I’ve found the One of peerless worth,/My heart doth sing for joy;/And sing I must, for Christ I have:/Oh, what a Christ have I!” In this hymn, I pointed out over thirty items of what Christ is. Our Christ is all-inclusive! The last part of this hymn says, “My Christ, the all-inclusive One,/My Christ what shall I call?/He is the first, He is the last,/My Christ is All in all.” This is our Christ, who is the mystery of God.
CHRIST AS GOD’S FULLNESS AND GOD’S EXPRESSION
Romans 1:20 says that through the created things we can know the invisible things of God, both His eternal power and divine characteristics. The divine characteristics include glory, truth, wisdom, light, love, and others. Through all the created things, man is able to know all these manifested characteristics of God. However, the very substance of God Himself cannot be expressed by the created things. Only a living/ Person—Jesus Christ—can fully express it. Therefore, if we want to know the substance of God, we must know Christ. God’s substance, which is all the fullness of the Godhead, dwells in Christ bodily (Col. 2:9). Christ is the embodiment of God. Hence, Hebrews 1:3 says that Christ is the “effulgence of His glory and the impress of His substance.”
What the created things express are only the outward manifested characteristics of God, not God’s intrinsic substance or God’s own being. The mysterious substance of God, the glorious deity of God, could be expressed perfectly only by the incarnated Christ. When Christ was living on the earth, all His move and work showed people God Himself, God’s substance. This is why John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.” This only begotten Son who declared the Father is God’s embodiment. Hence, His disciples called Him God.
What Christ expressed was the overflow of the fullness of the Godhead which was in Him. John 1:16 says, “For of His fullness we have all received.” This is not only riches, but even more this is fullness, being so full to the extent of overflowing to become an expression. Our Lord was so full of God’s substance within that He overflowed God’s substance to become God’s expression. Hence, He is God’s fullness and God’s expression.
CHRIST AS OUR LIFE
Colossians 3:4 goes a step further to tell us that this all-inclusive Christ, who is God’s expression, is our life. This is not objective but subjective. It is something within us. Now this Christ is sitting at the right hand of God (3:1) in the heavens, but He is also within us as our life and everything. This is truly too mysterious and too glorious! This life is the life of God, including all the riches of God. When we live by this life, we enjoy everything of God!
CHRIST AS EVERYTHING TO THE NEW MAN, THE CHURCH
Following this, 3:10-11 tells us that this all-inclusive Christ who is life within us makes us a corporate new man. This new man is composed of all the saints who have Him as life. The content of this new man is not our natural man: not Scythian nor Jew nor Chinese nor American nor German nor Japanese nor Filipino nor Malaysian. The content of this new man is Christ, who is the mystery of God and who is the life in all men. He is the life of the new man, and He is everything to the new man.
(Five Great Mysteries in the Bible, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
