Christ lived as a God-man on this earth for thirty years in Nazareth. At thirty years of age, He came out to minister, to speak, to prophesy. Since we are His members, we all must prophesy as He did. His prophesying presents God to us. When we listen to His speaking, we see God; when we accept His speaking, we accept God. Through His speaking for three and a half years, the wonderful Triune God, who is altogether organic, was sown into all His disciples. They, however, did not have this realization. They were ignorant and unconscious of this. The disciples simply thought that He was their Teacher and their Master and that one day He would be the King in the heavenly kingdom. James and John were concerned about who would sit on His right and on His left in the kingdom (Mark 10:35-37).
The disciples did not know what they were doing or where they were going, but Jesus, Jehovah the Savior, knew. He was going forward boldly to Jerusalem to hand Himself over to the chief priests and scribes to be crucified (Matt. 20:18-19). When they came to arrest Him at Gethsemane, He said, “Whom do you seek? They answered Him, Jesus the Nazarene. He said to them, I am....When therefore He said to them, I am, they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:4-6). They knew that “I am” was the name of Jehovah (Exo. 3:14). They did not have the capacity, the power, the strength, the might, to arrest this One who was Jehovah God. Actually, He handed Himself over to them to accomplish God’s will (Matt. 26:53-54).
Christ as the complete God and the perfect man went to the cross and died an all-inclusive death. On the one hand, through His death He accomplished a full and eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12). He terminated all the negative things in the universe, including Satan (Heb. 2:14; John 12:31), the world (John 12:31), the old creation (Col. 1:20), the old man (Rom. 6:6), the flesh (Gal. 5:24), the self (2:20), sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3; John 1:29), sins (1 Pet. 2:24; Isa. 53:6), and religion (Gal. 6:14). On the other hand, through His death He released the divine life concealed within Him so that this life could be imparted into His believers (John 12:24).
When the Lord was on the cross, two substances came out of His pierced side: blood and water (John 19:34). Blood is for redemption, dealing with sins (John 1:29; Heb. 9:22) for the purchase of the church (Acts 20:28); water is for imparting life, dealing with death (John 12:24; 3:14-15) for the producing of the church (Eph. 5:29-31). The Lord’s death is, on the negative side, to take away our sins, and, on the positive side, to impart life into us. Hence, it has two aspects: the redeeming aspect and the life-imparting aspect. The death of Christ is an all-inclusive death.
In resurrection He became the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29; Acts 13:33). He was the only begotten Son of God in incarnation (John 3:16). However, after His death and His resurrection, He became the firstborn Son among many brothers, many sons. In resurrection He regenerated us, the sinners, to be God’s many sons and His many brethren (1 Pet. 1:3). Now in the divine sonship there are many sons. The firstborn Son is Jesus Christ, and we are the many sons.
In resurrection He also became the life-giving Spirit, the life-giving pneuma. He became the pneumatic Christ, the pneumatic, organic, life-giving Spirit. Whenever a person calls on the Lord’s name, He comes into this person as the regenerating One to be the indwelling Spirit. He is indwelling us and is now one spirit with us (1 Cor. 6:17). He is living within us. This is also included in the biography of Christ.
(Five Emphases in the Lord's Recovery, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)