THE LORD ENTERING INTO HIS BELIEVERS AS THEIR LIFE AFTER HIS RESURRECTION
On the day of the Lord Jesus’ resurrection, the eleven disciples were in a house, and the doors were shut. Suddenly, the Lord Jesus appeared. After His resurrection He intentionally appeared to the disciples to show them that He was no longer limited by time or space. The disciples were in the house, and the doors were shut, but He was not limited by those things. Why? It was because He had already transcended all those things. On the one hand, He is over all, while on the other hand, He is in all. Whenever someone believes into His name and calls upon His name, He enters into him to be his life.
In Acts, when we see Paul, Peter, John, and Stephen, we cannot but worship the Lord, because He as the only grain had died and already borne much fruit. He is Christ, the eternal life. Through His death and resurrection, everyone who believes in Him receives His life. Hence, everyone who believes in Him is Christ. Paul, Peter, John, and Stephen were all Christ because His life was in them, and He Himself was in them.
THE MULTIPLICATION OF CHRISTIANS
Suppose that in the beginning there was only one seed of wheat. After this seed is sown into the ground, it dies, yet some time later it grows up and becomes thirty seeds. Then, after these thirty seeds are sown into the ground, they also die and later grow into nine hundred seeds. In this way after many decades the whole earth is eventually filled with wheat. This is like the multiplication of Christians. The Christian life is afraid of ease and of being complimented. To prevent Christians from multiplying and spreading, all that is necessary is to pay them a high compliment, offer them a high position, cause them to enjoy happiness, and make them feel at ease. On the contrary, the more Christians are persecuted and opposed, the more they flourish. Christians do not fear men’s opposition; rather, Christians fear men’s praises. Two thousand years of history show us that the more Christians are killed, the more Christians there are. In the second century, the Roman emperor gave the order to kill all the Christians. One day a Roman official presented a letter to the emperor, saying that there would be no more people in the city of Rome if the killing continued. Why was this? This was because everyone believed in Jesus.
What was the process that God’s life went through to enter into man and be released out of man? The life of God was in Christ originally, but there was only one Christ in the flesh—Jesus the Nazarene. When Jesus the Nazarene was in Galilee, He could not be in the land of Judea; when He was in the land of Judea, He could not be in Galilee. He was One who was restricted in the flesh, but one day He died. From the human perspective death is pitiful, yet in the eyes of Christ death was glorious, because after His death He transcended time, space, and every kind of bondage. Moreover, from the day of His resurrection, His life entered into man.
In Acts, Peter and the other apostles testified for the Lord. Their testimony was the testimony of the Lord’s resurrection life. At that time Roman politics, Greek philosophy, and Jewish religion had no way to deal with Peter and the apostles. They testified, saying, “The God of our fathers has raised Jesus, whom you slew by hanging Him on a tree” (5:30). After the Lord’s resurrection they brought three thousand people to be saved on one day (2:41), and five thousand on another day (4:4). The Sanhedrin wanted to arrest them, but they said, “It is necessary to obey God rather than men” (5:29). After the life of the Lord Jesus entered into them, the entire Roman Empire, Greek philosophy, plus the Jewish religion were not able to put them down. This is the immensity of the power brought forth through the resurrection life of Christ.
(The Crucified Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
