Week of 4 April 2021
The Intrinsic Divine Revelation concerning the Move of God with and among Men in the Old Testament and concerning the Move of God in Man in the New Testament to Accomplish God’s Heart’s Desire and to Meet Man’s Need before God
The move of God with men and among men is in the Old Testament; God’s move with men and among men was not the direct move to carry out His eternal economy for Christ and the church but the indirect move in His old creation for the preparation of His direct move in His new creation for His eternal economy. As the man created by God in His image, man needed to take God (symbolized by the tree of life) as his life that he might live, express, and represent God. As a fallen man, man needed to receive Christ for his redemption (typified by the sacrifice with its shed blood) that he might be justified by God in Christ (typified by the coats of the sacrifice’s skins); fallen man also needed to receive Christ as the seed of the woman that he might be delivered from Satan the “serpent’s” death-power. God regarded man and was pleased with man in the burnt offering; Christ is the reality of the burnt offering.
God promised Abraham that in his seed (Christ) all the nations of the earth would be blessed. As a person chosen by God, man needed to receive and answer God’s call, to live before God through Christ as his burnt offering, to be exposed by the law that he might know that he was sinful and did not have the capacity to keep the law, and to live with God by taking Christ as the tabernacle, the Priest, and the offerings so that he might enter into God and enjoy all that God is with Christ and in Christ.
According to the way of Job’s nomadic living and the way he offered the burnt offering for his children, it seems that Job and his friends probably lived in the age of Abraham. In their debates concerning God’s relationship with man, there is no hint that indicates that they had received divine revelation beyond God’s judgment and God’s regard for man in his burnt offering. Job and his friends did not speak any word that implies anything concerning Christ and the Spirit of God; they were in the primitive stage of the divine revelation.
The move of God in man is in the New Testament to meet man’s need before God; the move of God in man is from the first coming of Christ to the manifestation of the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth; this move is unprecedented in human history.
As a person who has been chosen and called by God, man needs to believe into Jesus Christ, who is the incarnated God, who lived a human life, died, resurrected, and ascended for them and with them, and who became the life-giving Spirit as the pneumatic Christ to them, that He may be their salvation, life, and everything (which is revealed in Matthew through Romans). As a believer in Christ, man needs to grow in the divine life of Christ that he may be transformed into what Christ is through the life-dispensing Spirit, that he may be built up with the saints to be the Body of Christ, the organism to express the Triune God in Christ, and to be the new man as God’s new creation to carry out God’s eternal economy in the consummation of the New Jerusalem as a mingling of the processed Triune God with the glorified tripartite man, to be the corporate God-man’s manifestation in eternity (which is revealed in 1 Corinthians through Revelation).
God redeemed us in Christ, forgave our sins, washed us, justified us, and reconciled us to Him. God has regenerated us through the resurrection of Christ, and now He renews us, transforms us, and conforms us to His image of glory. In His renewing and transforming, He consumes us, putting us into His death for our fellowship of His sufferings, which work out for us an eternal weight of glory, that we may experience Him in His resurrection and gain Him in His unsearchable riches.
The Father, the Lord, and the Spirit as the Triune God have become the source, the element, and the essence of the church as the Body of Christ. Christ, as the divine portion allotted to the saints by God and as life in the believers, has become all the members of the new man and is in all the members of the new man. God in Christ will carry out His transforming work in us until His transformation consummates in the New Jerusalem, first with the overcomers in the millennial kingdom and consummately with all the saints in the new heaven and new earth, making all His chosen and redeemed people His corporate expression, manifesting Himself, not any kind of merely human virtues (as Job did), to the fullest extent in eternity.
(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)
Having the Loving and Forgiving Heart Of Our Father God and The Shepherding and Seeking Spirit of our Saviour Christ
I love Luke 15. Verse 1 says, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to Him to hear Him.” The gentlemen and righteous men were not joined to Him, but the tax collectors and sinners were. Therefore, the Pharisees murmured and complained again. Then the Lord spoke three parables. The first is concerning a shepherd seeking the one, unique, lost sheep. Of one hundred, this one was a lost one, so the shepherd came purposely for him. Why did the Lord go to a house full of sinners and tax collectors? It was because among them there was one lost sheep of His, whom He had come to seek. The second parable is concerning a woman who lit a lamp and swept the house to seek her lost coin. The third parable is about the prodigal son. The shepherd is the Son, the woman is the Spirit, and in the parable of the prodigal son there is the Father. As the prodigal son was returning, he was preparing and considering what to speak to his father. He prepared himself to say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants”. While he was walking and thinking like this, the father saw him. Verse 20 says, “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him affectionately.” That the father saw the son a long way off was not an accident. From the time the son left home, the father must have gone out to look and wait for his coming back every day. We do not know how many days he watched and waited. When the father saw him, he ran to him. This is the Father’s heart. The father interrupted the son while he was speaking his prepared word. The son wanted to speak the word he had prepared, but the father told his servants to bring the robe, the ring, and the sandals and to prepare the fattened calf. A teacher among the Brethren told me that in the whole Bible we can see God run only one time, in Luke 15, where the father saw the returning prodigal son. He ran; he could not wait. This is the Father’s heart.
(A Word of Love to the Co-workers, Elders, Lovers, and Seekers of the Lord, Ch. 2)
The Gospel being the Church's only Commission and Profession
The church has only one commission on this earth—to live for the gospel. Please do not take this word in a light way. The church does not exist on this earth for any other purpose. It does not exist for jobs, education, or its own future. The church exists for the gospel of God, but how many brothers and sisters remember that they do not live for their business, family, living, and future, but for the gospel? When we were saved, God gave us not only a new life but also a new profession, which is the preaching of His gospel. On the day we were saved, not only did our old life die, but our old profession died as well. The basic problem with many brothers and sisters is that though their life has changed, their professions have not changed; they are still pursuing their former resolves. They want to be ahead of others, earning fame and riches. Some young people have not yet entered a profession, yet they are already dreaming of the day when they will be a great doctor or a famous engineer. If a Christian does not experience a change in his profession, he cannot become God's means. This is the reason we want the brothers and sisters to hand themselves over. We can call this a handing over, or we can call this consecration. We are for the fact, not the terminology. The Bible says that every saved person is changed in his life as well as his profession; he has become a preacher of the gospel.
Many of the co-workers have the wrong concept that some people are specially called by God to be workers. Some of us think that we change our profession because we have acquired some kind of gift, but this is wrong. The Bible does talk about different gifts, but the Bible does not say that Christians have different professions. We have the same life, and we have the same profession. I have searched through the whole Bible. I cannot find one case where a person has a new life but does not change his profession. We may think that it is enough for our life to change, but this is wrong. Our profession must change as well. When I was saved, I became God's goal. When I changed my profession, I became God's means. I, my very person, became His way. The profession that God assigns for a Christian is dedicated entirely to the gospel. God has not only given us a new life; He wants to use us as His means to save others. The Bible shows us that God did not give this new profession—the proclamation of the gospel—to individuals only. The spreading of the gospel cannot be achieved by one man alone. God's commandment concerning the spreading of the gospel is for the whole church.
(CWWN, Vol.61 , set 3, ch. 12, p. 122-125)
