The apostles’ teaching is the entire speaking of God concerning God’s New Testament economy from the incarnation of God to the consummation of the New Jerusalem (Matt. 1:18-25; Rev. 21:1-3, 9-11). This speaking is not concerning baptism, head covering, foot-washing, or the Lord’s table; it is concerning God’s New Testament economy. Many Christians have never heard the term God’s New Testament economy. The Greek word for economy may also be translated arrangement, administration, or plan. God has a plan, and thus, He has an arrangement. In order to carry out His plan under His arrangement, He needs an administration. Every day I have a plan. I rise up early in the morning to be with the Lord. Then I eat breakfast. After breakfast I walk for about ten minutes. Then I go to do my day’s work. I may read or answer some correspondence, or I may listen to the reading of some messages, or write some outlines, or study some verses. At 11:30 I may have an appointment. After that I have lunch. In the afternoon after a nap, I may have another appointment. Then I have dinner. After dinner I may have an evening meeting. This shows that I have a plan. God’s New Testament plan is to get Himself incarnated (Luke 1:30-31, 34-35). How marvelous this is! For thousands of years God remained as the divine God, but He had a New Testament plan. The first step of His plan was to become incarnated, to get Himself mingled with man in order to enter into man. This was the procedure by which God was brought into man that He might mingle Himself with man. God was born in a virgin (Matt 1:18, 20) and spent nine months in Mary’s womb. In this way He partook of man’s blood and flesh (Heb. 2:14a). After His birth He passed through human living (Acts 10:38; 1:21). Human living is a part of the incarnation. God became a man in order to live on this earth. He did not become a man to stay on the earth for only a few hours and then go back to the heavens. No, He stayed here for thirty-three and a half years. He spent approximately thirty years in a carpenter’s home. Then He began to travel as a traveling preacher. That was His living. He suffered very much, and He knew the feeling of summer and of winter. He knew all the turmoils common to man. The second step in God’s plan is the marvelous, all-inclusive death of Jesus Christ. Such an all-inclusive death dealt with sin (2 Cor. 5:21) and with sins (1 Pet. 2:24; 3:18; 1 Cor. 15:3). It also dealt with the old man (Rom. 6:6) and the flesh (Gal. 5:24). The all-inclusive death of Christ also dealt with Satan, the serpent (John 3:14; Heb. 2:14b), and with the world (John 12:31-33, 24a), which is hanging on Satan (1 John 5:19). This death solved all the problems between man and God and accomplished God’s eternal redemption, signified by the blood flowing out of the crucified Jesus (Heb. 9:12; John 19:34). The all-inclusive death of Jesus Christ also released the divine life as the eternal life, signified by the water flowing out of the crucified Christ (John 19:34). The all-inclusive death of Christ is our death and is our history, because we are in Him. How marvelous is His death! After His all-inclusive death, the Lord Jesus resurrected (Matt. 16:21b; Acts 2:24; 3:15; 5:30). The resurrection of Jesus Christ testifies that God is satisfied with His death for us and that we are justified by God in Him and with Him (Rom. 4:25b). Our being justified in Him is the objective justification, and our being justified with Him is the subjective justification. Christ now lives with us, and we live with Christ. Thus we live a life that enables us to be justified subjectively. In His resurrection Jesus the man was begotten as the Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4). The resurrection of Jesus Christ was Christ’s birth. Jesus the man was born as the Son of God. The resurrection of Christ also imparted the divine life into the believers of Jesus Christ and begot them as the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:29; John 12:24b). The resurrection of Jesus Christ also made Him the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Finally, this resurrection consummated the Triune God and made the Spirit of God the ultimate consummation of the Triune God as the Spirit (Matt. 28:19; John 7:39; Rev. 22:17). Before His incarnation the Triune God as the divine person did not have the human nature. Thus, we may say that He was perfect but not completed. He was short of the human nature. Through incarnation He obtained the human nature; yet He was still short of something in that He had never entered into death. Even after He died on the cross, the Triune God was still short of something because He had not yet entered into resurrection. In resurrection the consummation of the Triune God was completed. It was not until this consummation of the Triune God in resurrection that the Triune God’s title “the Father, the Son, and the Spirit” was mentioned. After His resurrection the Lord Jesus met the disciples on a mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16), and He told them to go and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). The Triune God has now been completed; He has now been consummated. Christ’s resurrection was the consummating of the Triune God. The Spirit of God is now released, and the Spirit of God is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God as the Spirit. The title “the Spirit” is simple, but the significance of this title is not simple. The Spirit is the processed Triune God. John 7:39 says, “But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Jesus was glorified in His resurrection. After He was glorified, the Spirit was there. In the last chapter of the last book of the New Testament, the title “the Spirit” is used (Rev. 22:17). In such a title no reference is made to God, to Christ, to the Son, or to the Father. The Spirit is the consummated, processed Triune God. This One is the Bridegroom. Our Bridegroom is a marvelous person—the Triune God, processed and ultimately consummated as the Spirit. In the Spirit is the Father, the Son, the human nature, the all-inclusive death, and the resurrection. Everything is in the Spirit. The Spirit is the Bridegroom, and the regenerated, sanctified, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite man is the bride. At the end of the Bible there is a wonderful couple who constitute a wonderful story of the Bridegroom with the bride. Still, with Christ’s resurrection God’s plan was not yet finished.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 21:24:00 +0000