THE GOSPEL OF GOD’S ECONOMY

SERIES SEVEN

THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST

Message One

The Subjective Christ in Our Experience

Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

4:19 My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.

Eph. 3:17-18 That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, May be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are.

2 Pet. 1:4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.

Our Christ Being Subjective and Experiential

For centuries, the subjective Christ has been ignored by the believers. Many devoted Christians have directed their love to the objective Christ. They believe in Him, respect Him, exalt Him, and take Him as the object of their worship. However, in many cases, they regard Him as One who is far away in heaven. Although they may love Him, they may not experience Him abiding in them. They may work diligently for Christ, but not realize that Christ is not only in heaven, but also dwelling within them. Some have even received the wrong teaching that Christ does not dwell in the believers, but is merely represented in them by the Holy Spirit. They think of the Holy Spirit as an agent sent by Christ to represent Him, to work in them, to move in them, and to inspire them. However, according to the Word of God, the indwelling Spirit is not an agent of Christ; He is actually Christ Himself. According to Christian experience, the Christ who dwells in us is identical to the Spirit who indwells us. The indwelling Spirit is the practical Christ, the subjective and experiential Christ. If we have a proper realization of this, we shall not try to separate the Spirit from Christ. The Three of the Godhead are one. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is realized as the Spirit. When the Spirit reaches us and comes to live in us, all Three of the Godhead come to dwell in us. How wonderful that Christ is in us! Our Christ is subjective and experiential.

Christ Seeking to Settle Himself in Us, and He Also

Working to Saturate Our Entire Being with Himself

If we would live Christ, we must realize that He is subjective as well as objective. As the mighty God, the Lord of all, the One who has ascended to the heavens, and who has been enthroned and crowned with glory, Christ is objective. Of this we should not have any doubt. But Christ is also subjective. He dwells in us, He lives in us, He is seeking to settle Himself in us, and He is also working to saturate our entire being with Himself.

Further Reading: Life-study of Philippians, msg. 39

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THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST

Message Two

Experiencing Christ Progressively in Five Stages

Gal. 1:16 To reveal His Son in me….

2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me….

4:19 My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.

Eph. 3:17-19 That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith…that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.

4:13 Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Five Stages of Our Progressive Experience of Christ

Our experience of Christ has five progressive stages. Galatians 1:16a says, “To reveal His Son in me,” and 2:20a states, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” The first verse speaks of Christ being revealed in us, and the second verse speaks of Christ living in us. Verse 19 of chapter 4 says, “My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.” This verse reveals that Christ can be formed in us. Ephesians 3:17 speaks of Christ making His home in our hearts: “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” Verse 19 goes on to say that we are “filled unto all the fullness of God.” Finally, verse 13 of chapter 4 says that we will eventually arrive “at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Together these verses reveal five stages of our progressive experience of Christ—Christ is revealed in us, Christ lives in us, Christ is formed in us, Christ makes His home in us, and Christ’s measure becomes our measure.

What God Planned and Intended in Eternity Past

Being for a Christian to Be a Person Who Is Full of Christ

First Christ is revealed in us. Then He lives within us, is formed within us, and makes His home in our hearts. Finally the result of Christ being revealed in us, living in us, being formed in us, and making His home in our hearts is that we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is what God planned and intended in eternity past for a Christian to be a person who is full of Christ. God desires that we would be filled with Christ not only in our spirit but also in our mind, emotion, will, and heart. At His coming, even our body will be full of Christ. At that time He will be glorified in us and through us, and we will be in His glory.

Further Reading: CWWL, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The Mystery of God and the Mystery of Christ,” ch. 6

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Message Three

Christ Being the Complete God and the Perfect Man

Rom. 9:5 Whose are the fathers, and out of whom, as regards what is according to flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

Exo. 3:14 And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. And He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.

Luke 24:7 Saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise up.

Christ Being Both the Complete God and the Perfect Man

For us to experience Christ, we must receive a revelation concerning His person. We must see the two major aspects concerning the person of Christ. The first aspect is that He is the complete God, and the second aspect is that He is the perfect man. Christ is both the complete God and the perfect man. In brief, He is both God and man. We do have a wonderful Christ. He is not only wonderful as the complete God, but He is also wonderful as the perfect man.

The Complete God

First, the Bible tells us that Christ is the complete God. Romans 9:5 says that “Christ…is God over all, blessed forever.” In the entire universe there is only one God (Isa. 45:5; 1 Cor. 8:4; 1 Tim. 2:5). This unique God is real, true, and living. Christ Himself is this very God. Christ is the complete God, not merely a part of God.

The Perfect Man

This perfect man, Christ, was conceived of the Holy Spirit in a human virgin (Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35). The conception of a person is the constitution of that person. Christ was constituted of the Holy Spirit in a human virgin.…The word Holy refers to the Spirit, indicating the complete God…. Because Christ was constituted of God and man in His conception, He was born a God-man. This means that He is both God and man. He is both the complete God and the perfect man.

In the four Gospels we can see in Christ the marvelous and mysterious God. Yet, in the same Christ we can also see an ordinary man. He is nothing less than God, and He is nothing short of a genuine man. The life He lived was the life of a man. He walked, He worked, He talked to people, and He ate and drank as a man. While living as a man. He also lived God. In His human life God was expressed, yet while He was expressing God, He was a genuine man. This is the reason that when Christ was living on this earth, many people watching Him would say, “Who is this man?” This man is not simple. He is both God and man. In Him, the one person, we see both God and man. This is wonderful!

Further Reading: CWWL, 1980, vol. 2, “The Secret of Experiencing Christ,” ch. 1; ch. 2

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Message Four

Christ Being the Firstborn of All Creation

Col. 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation.

Heb. 2:14 Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil.

Isa. 9:6 For a child is born to us, A son is given to us; And the government Is upon His shoulder; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

Christ Being the Firstborn of All Creation

In 1:15 Paul goes on to say that Christ is the firstborn of all creation. This means that in creation Christ is the first. Christ as God is the Creator. However, as man, sharing the created blood and flesh (Heb.2:14), He is part of the creation. “Firstborn of all creation” refers to Christ’s preeminence in all creation, since from this verse through verse 18 the apostle stresses the first place of Christ in all things. This verse reveals that Christ is not only the Creator, but also the first among all created things, the first among all creatures.

Christ Being the Creator as God and Being a Creature as Man

Some insist that Christ is only the Creator, not a creature. But the Bible reveals that Christ is both the Creator and a creature, for He is both God and man. As God, Christ is the Creator, but as man, He is a creature. How could He have flesh, blood, and bones if He were not a creature? Did not Christ become a man? Did He not take on a body with flesh, blood, and bones? Certainly He did.

Christ Having to Be Born as a Man

because Birth Being the Carrying Out of Creation

As God, Christ is eternal and did not need to be born. But in 1:15 He is called the firstborn of all creation. Anything that requires birth must be a creature, part of creation. If Christ were only God and not man, He could not have been born, for God is infinite and eternal, without beginning or ending. But as a man, Christ had to be born. Hallelujah, Christ was born as a man! Isaiah 9:6 says, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…and his name shall be called The mighty God, The everlasting Father….” As the child born to us, Christ is called the mighty God. As the Son given to us, His name is called the eternal Father. As the mighty God and the eternal Father, Christ is eternal. But as the child and a son, He had to be born. Some argue that Christ was born, but not created. According to the Bible, birth is the carrying out of creation. Therefore, to be born is to be created.

Further Reading: Life-study of Colossians, msg. 8

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Message Five

Christ Being Both the Creator and a Creature

Col. 1:16 Because in Him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and unto Him.

Col. 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation.

Christ Being Both the Creator and a Creature

According to the Complete Revelation of the Bible

According to the complete revelation of the Bible, Christ is both the Creator and a creature, because He is God and He is man—He is God who creates; He is also man who is created. As to His being God, He is the uncreated Creator, the I AM who is without beginning. But as to His being man, He is created, the Firstborn, with a beginning.

We should never try to use our limited, logical mind to analyze our unlimited Lord. The Pharisees recognized that Christ was the Son of David, based on one aspect of the Bible; however, they did not know that the Bible also reveals another aspect of the Lord that Christ is also David’s Lord. We should be warned not to repeat their mistake by limiting ourselves to one aspect of the biblical revelation of Christ and neglecting or rejecting the other aspect. The Scripture, on one hand, says that Christ is the Creator; on the other hand, it says that He is a creature. This is the complete, clear revelation of the Bible; we should not deviate from it or come short of it. Our all-inclusive Lord is too wonderful! He is so wonderful that it is hard for us to comprehend Him. He is really worthy to be called “Wonderful!” He is really worthy also to be appreciated and loved by us!

If we confess only that our Lord is the Creator yet deny that He is a creature, in principle this is the same as those who deny that the Lord came in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3). Hence, we should never deny the created aspect of our Lord simply because of our narrow, limited view. He is the uncreated God; He is also a created man. He is the Lord of creation, and He is also a creature, even the Firstborn of all creation.

Christ Not Losing His Eternal, Uncreated Nature

and Remaining the Creator When He Became a Creature

When Christ became a creature, He did not lose His eternal, uncreated nature. He remains the Creator. In like manner, when He became a man, He did not lose His divine nature-He is still God. Although He became a created man, He remains the uncreated God. Although He became a creature, He still is the Creator. Now He is the all-inclusive Christ who has both divinity and humanity and who has the uncreated divine life as well as the created human life. He is the uncreated I AM; He is also the created Firstborn. May we love and worship Him forever and ever! Amen!

Further Reading: CWWL, 1970, vol. 3, “Concerning the Person of Christ,” Concerning the Person of Christ

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THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST

Message Six

The Truth Concerning Mingling

Lev. 2:4 And when you present an offering of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened cakes mingled with oil or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.

1 Tim. 3:16 And confessedly, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.

The Type of Mingling

God’s intention and desire is to work Christ, who is the very embodiment of God, into us to make us one with Christ. This intention and desire of God’s is the central theme of the sixty-six books of the Bible.

The word that best describes the oneness that God desires to have with man is mingling. This word is used in Leviticus 2:4 to describe the mingling of fine flour with oil to constitute the meal offering: “When you present an offering of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened cakes mingled with oil or unleavened wafers anointed with oil,” The meal offering consisted of two main ingredients-fine flour and olive oil. In the Bible fine flour represents humanity with the human nature, and olive oil typifies the Spirit of God with the divine nature. In the preparation of the meal offering, fine flour was mingled with oil. In type, this mingling indicates that humanity and divinity are mingled together in Christ and in His believers as the church (cf. 1 Cor. 10:17)

The Prototype of the Mingling

The mingling of God and man first took place in the God-man, Jesus Christ. He, as the mingling of God and man (Matt. 1:18, 20, 23; Luke 1:35), was the manifestation of God in the flesh, the great mystery of godliness (1 Tim. 3:16). The phrase God manifested in the flesh means that God mingled Himself with man to be manifested in man.

God’s Working of Christ into Man to Mingle Divinity

with Humanity Being God’s Purpose in Incarnation

The central thought of the Bible from the first chapter to the last is God’s working of Christ into man to mingle divinity with humanity. This was God’s purpose in incarnation. When Christ was incarnated, He brought God into man (John 1:1, 14). Consequently, His living on the earth for thirty-three and a half years was the living of God in man, the living of a God-man. Through His death, resurrection, and ascension He brought man into God. Today as the ascended One in heaven, Christ is man in God (Acts 7:55-56). This Jesus is the mingling of God with man and of man with God. As such, He is the mystery of godliness.

Further Reading: CWWL, 1964, vol. 1, “Exercising Our Spirit to Practice the Body Life,” ch. 7

THE GOSPEL OF GOD’S ECONOMY

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THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST

Message Seven

The Two Natures of Christ Retaining

Their Distinction in the Mingling

Lev. 2:4 And when you present an offering of a meal offering baked in the oven, it shall be of fine flour, unleavened cakes mingled with oil or unleavened wafers anointed with oil.

Matt. 1:18 Now the origin of Jesus Christ was in this way: His mother, Mary, after she had been engaged to Joseph, before they came together, was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.

The Divine Conception Being a Mingling of the Divine Essence with the Human Essence

Christ was the very embodiment of the fullness of the Godhead of the Triune God when He lived on this earth in His incarnation. We may make such a statement based upon Colossians 2:9: “In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Such a One was conceived and born of God with the divine essence mingled with the human essence. He was born of these two essences through the Holy Spirit and through the chaste virgin (Matt. 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-35; 2:1-7). Through the Holy Spirit He received the divine essence, and through the human virgin He received the human essence. The divine conception was a mingling. These two essences, the divine and the human, became mingled together in His divine conception.

Mingling Meaning That Two Elements Are Joined and

Mingled Together without Losing Their Particular Natures

Mingling means that two elements are joined and mingled together, but the two elements do not lose their particular natures. Their two natures retain their distinction, and they are not joined together to produce a third nature. Therefore, such a One was born to be a God-man who is both the complete God and the perfect man, possessing two natures and two lives, the divine nature and the divine life, and the human nature and the human life, mingled together as one but without any confusion, without any loss of their distinctive natures, and without anything produced to be a third nature or a third element. Such a short definition helps us to be clear about the incarnation of Christ and His person in two natures with two kinds of life.

Further Reading: CWWL, 1984, vol. 2, “Elders’ Training, Book 2: The Vision of the Lord’s Recovery,” ch. 1

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Message Eight

Man Becoming God in Life and in Nature

but Not in the Godhead

1 John 3:1-2 Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and we are. Because of this the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been manifested what we will be. We know that if He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.

Having Been Made God in His Nature and in His Life,

but Not in His Godhead in God’s New Covenant

In God’s new covenant (Jer. 31:33-34), we have been made God in His nature and in His life, but not in His Godhead. This is because we have been begotten of God (John 1:13). Dogs beget dogs; lions beget lions; and man begets man. Since your father is a man, and you are born of him, are you not a man? As believers in Christ, we have been born of God; we have been regenerated by God. God is our Father, and we are His sons. Since our Father is God, what are we, the sons? The sons must be the same as their Father in life and in nature. We have been born of God to be the children of God (1 John 3:1). Eventually, when Christ comes, He will make us fully the same as God in life and in nature (v. 2). However, none of us are or can be God in His Godhead as an object of worship. In a family, only the father has the fatherhood. The children of the father do not have his fatherhood. There is only one father with many children. The father is human, and the children also are human, but there is only one father. In the same way, God is our unique Father; only He has the divine fatherhood. But we as His children are the same as He is in life and in nature.

The early church fathers used the term deification to describe the believers’ participation in the divine life and nature of God, but not in the Godhead. We human beings need to be deified, to be made like God in life and in nature, but it is a great heresy to say that we are made like God in His Godhead. We are God not in His Godhead, but in His life, nature, element, essence, and image.

Exercising Our Spirit to Enjoy, Receive,

and Absorb the Divine Substance to Be

Constituted with the Processed Triune God

We need to learn to exercise our spirit. …In our spiritual breathing by the exercise of our spirit, we enjoy, receive, and absorb the divine substance with the divine essence, the divine element, and the divine expression. This will cause us to be deified, that is, to be constituted with the processed Triune God to be made God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. In this sense we may speak of the deification of the believers, a process that will consummate in the New Jerusalem.

Further Reading: CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” msg. 12; Life-study of Job, msg. 22

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Message Nine

Calvin’s Lecture on Being Really and

Fully United To the Almighty God

John Calvin: United to God through Christ

“We shall at length be really and fully united to Thee [Almighty God] through Christ our Lord.”—Calvin, Lecture 123

What is the source of the koinonia or communion, which exists among us, but the fact that we are united to Christ so that “we arc flesh of His flesh and bone of Hi bones”? For it is necessary for us to be incorporated, as it were, into Christ in order to be united to each other. Besides, Paul is discussing here not a mere human fellowship, but the spiritual union between Christ and believers, in order to make it plain from that, that it is an intolerable sacrilege for them to be contaminated by communion with idols. Therefore from the context of this verse we can conclude that koinonia or communion of the blood is the alliance which we have with the blood of Christ when he ingrafts all of us into His body, so that He may live in us, and we in Him.

In explaining the image of ingrafting into Christ in his comments on Romans 6, Calvin finds it necessary to move to the language of 2 Peter 1:4: “In the grafting of trees, the graft draws its nourishment from the root, but retains its own natural quality in the fruit which is eaten. In spiritual ingrafting, however, we not only derive the strength and sap of the life which flows from Christ, but we also pass from our own nature into his (sed in eius naturam ex nostra demigramus).”

Further Reading: Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, edited by Christensen and Wittung, p. 210-211

THE GOSPEL OF GOD’S ECONOMY

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THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST

Message Ten

Martin Luther’s Idea on

God’s Becoming Man to Make Man God

The Idea of Deification Being

an Integral Motif in Luther’s Theology

Simo Peura, who has written a full-scale monograph on the idea of deification in Luther,41 shows that the idea of deification is an integral motif in Luther’s theology. The most explicit passage comes from Luther’s Sermon on the day of St. Peter and St. Paul (1519):

“For it is true that a man helped by grace is more than a man; indeed, the grace of God gives him the form of God and deifies him, so that even the Scriptures call him ‘God’ and ‘God’s son.’”

Another Example Coming from

Luther’s Christmas Sermon of 1514

“Just as the word of God became flesh, so it is certainly also necessary that the flesh become word. For the word becomes flesh precisely so that the flesh may become word. In other words: God becomes man so that man may become God. Thus power becomes powerless so that weakness may become powerful. The logos puts on our form and manner.”

Further Reading: One With God, by Veli-Matti Karkkainen, p.47