THREE BEQUESTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT—
CHRIST AS THE GOD-MAN, THE ACHIEVEMENT
OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST, AND CHRIST
AS THE LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT
Christ as the God-man, the achievement of His cross, and Christ as the life-giving Spirit are three bequests in the New Testament. These have been bequeathed by Him to us through His death and resurrection. Today Christ in resurrection is these three items. We were chosen by God in eternity, and we were called by God in time. Now through His choosing and calling, we have become believers and members of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, who was processed through incarnation, death, and resurrection. In Him we have divinity, the proper humanity, the cross accomplished by His all-inclusive death, and resurrection. He is the life-giving Spirit and we are His members. His divinity, humanity, all-inclusive death, and the riches of resurrection are all with us. These riches are the totality of what He is as the life-giving Spirit.
THE WAY TO ENJOY CHRIST—
THE CROSS
We have been joined to Christ (1 Cor. 6:17). Our need is to enjoy what He is as the consummated Spirit, the consummation of the Triune God. The way for us to enjoy Him is to bear the cross. In my youth as a devoted Christian, I spoke a lot about bearing the cross, but like most Christians, my understanding concerning bearing the cross was mainly that of suffering. We need to see the real significance of the cross. The cross is the centrality and universality of Christ’s redemptive work. Christ in His redemptive work first brought us all with Him to the cross to terminate us. He terminated us with the whole old creation for the purpose of germinating us with Himself as the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. His death was for His resurrection. Christ’s death was not the goal. It was the means to reach the goal of resurrection. His death was the termination of the old creation for the germination of the new creation in resurrection.
He is the life-giving Spirit within us in resurrection making us the new creation. The turning point of His making the old creation into the new creation is the cross. If we are going to live a life in the new creation, we must bear the cross. In other words, we must be under the termination of the cross all day long. The termination of the cross is a lifelong matter. Our crucifixion with Christ was accomplished once and for all at the cross, but the experience of His cross is lifelong. When we experience the cross terminating us in a daily way, we are eventually led to live not an exchanged life but a grafted life.
(The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee)
