THE LORD’S INVISIBLE PRESENCE
Even today He is here, but He would not appear to us. According to our weakness we all would like to see Him appear. But you have to realize that His appearing is not so good as His not appearing. The Lord Jesus came to train His disciples to realize His invisible presence because they were used to His visible appearance. They never had the experience of His invisible presence. So the Lord Jesus came to train them by appearing to them and then by disappearing. Where did He go after He disappeared? He remained in them. From that time He never left, but Peter and all the other disciples did not realize this. Soon they became disappointed again, and Peter said he was going fishing (John 21:3). When he went fishing all the others went fishing with him. They didn’t realize that when they went fishing they took the Lord Jesus with them because He was in them. Suppose you go to a movie. Do you realize that when you go to a movie you take the Lord Jesus there because He is within you? While they were fishing, the Lord Jesus was suffering. It may be that the Lord Jesus did something to keep all the fish away, because they fished the entire night and caught nothing.
TWO STEPS OF BECOMING
Through His death and resurrection He became a Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b says that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. The last Adam is not so simple as the first one. The first Adam did not have God in him, but the last Adam was God becoming flesh. This is very meaningful. The last Adam was a God-man. The good news is that after Him there is no more Adam, because He was the last Adam! You may ask then, Am I not an Adam? In Adam you are an Adam, but in this last Adam you are no more an Adam. The last Adam was the ending of Adam.
The last Adam who was God becoming a man became the Spirit. There are two "becames" with Him. The Word became flesh, and this flesh was the last Adam, and this last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. Without these two steps He could never get into us. He became flesh first to dwell among men, and then He became the Spirit to dwell in His believers. He reaches us by two steps of becoming. First, He as God became a man to be the last Adam, and second, this last Adam became a Spirit to enter into us. The last Adam in the flesh went to the cross to redeem us and to solve all the problems of sin and sins. After solving those problems He became the life-giving Spirit to impart Himself into us as life.
First, the Word became flesh and dwelt among men to be the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). After taking away the sin of the world as the Lamb of God, He took another step to become the life-giving Spirit. Today He is both the Lamb, the Redeemer and the Spirit, the life giver. He is both! Most Christians today only know a gospel of Christ as the Lamb. They do not know a gospel of Christ as the life-giving Spirit. They only know that Christ is the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. They do not realize that the same Christ is also the Spirit to give life. He is both the Lamb to take away sin and the Spirit to give life. If He were just the Lamb to take away sin, that would not be adequate. We may illustrate with the altar in the tabernacle. Just to come to the altar to solve your sin problem is not adequate. If you only come to the altar, you are still not in the expression of God. You must enter into the tabernacle to be in God’s expression. How can you enter into the tabernacle? The Redeemer who has become the life-giving Spirit has to enter into you, and then He becomes the very way of life for you to enter into God. Today He is no more merely the Lamb, the Redeemer, to take away our sins. He is also the Spirit that gives us life. In John 10:10 He said that He came that we might have life and even have it abundantly. But if He had never entered into resurrection how could He give us life? It would be impossible. He had to enter into resurrection that He might become the life-giving Spirit. Today He is not only the Redeemer, but also the life giver. Now in resurrection He is the life-giving Spirit.
(Concerning the Lord's Recovery, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee)
