enjoying Christ

We need to know Christ in His resurrection designated as the Son of God in power with His human nature, for this One is the prototype and the producer of many sons of God who are being conformed to the image of Christ. Hallelujah!

As believers in Christ, we are those who are daily learning to experience Christ, enjoy Christ, and express Christ. Our experience of Christ is mainly in our spirit, while our enjoyment of Christ is mainly in our soul.

Day by day we need to exercise our spirit to experience Christ, and we also need to set our heart on the Lord and turn our heart to Him so that we may enjoy Him in our soul.

What we experience of Christ in our spirit needs to become the enjoyment of Christ in our soul.

It is not only when things go well, when we feel good, and when our soul is happy that we can or should enjoy Christ.

We may not be a morning person, nor may we find any cause of joy throughout the day, but we can learn to turn our heart to the Lord in the morning and set our whole being on Him throughout the day.

We need to learn to both exercise our spirit to experience Christ and turn our heart to the Lord so that we may enjoy Him and love Him.

The Lord is the Shepherd of our soul; He shepherds us from within, and He leads us to waters of rest, restoring our soul, and being the joy in our soul.

He wants us to have joy; He wants us to enjoy Him. Our enjoyment of Him, however, is based on our experience of Him.

It starts with our spirit; we need to exercise our spirit and learn to live one spirit with the Lord so that we may experience Him and enjoy Him.

Even though we fail, and we do fail quite a lot, the Lord still comes to us as the Shepherd of our soul to care for us, restore us, and recover our first love for Him.

John 15:11 tells us that the Lord wants His joy to become our joy, even to make our joy full.

His joy is full and He wants our joy to be made full. He is shepherding us into this.

Though we suffer and are abased through many trials and difficulties, we can still turn our heart to the Lord and set our whole being on Him so that we may enjoy Him and experience Him.

May His joy become our joy. May His heart’s desire become our heart’s desire.

And in particular, may the truth concerning Christ being designated the Son of God in power out of the resurrection from the dead become something that nourishes us and encourages us to go on with the Lord in the church life for the fulfillment of His purpose.

In Incarnation, Christ is the Seed of David, the Son of Man, having His Divinity Concealed in His Humanity

Before we can know Christ in His resurrection designated as the Son of God in power with His human nature (as seen in Rom. 1:3-4) we need to know that, in His incarnation, Christ is the Seed of David, the Son of Man.

Christ came not as a king or a mighty man but as a man in the flesh.

The Bible considers the flesh as something negative, for God created man, but man fell and became flesh.

Man was originally created by God in His image and according to His likeness, but man fell and became flesh.

When man fell, Satan brought sin into man’s nature and changed the created man into the fallen man.

Man fell to such an extent that God said that His Spirit will not struggle forever with man, for man has become flesh (Gen. 6:3).

Christ was incarnated to become flesh, coming in the likeness of the flesh of sin but without the sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3).

He came in the form of the fallen man but without the sinful nature of the fallen man.

He did not possess any sin, He did not commit any sin, and He had nothing to do with sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:5).

He was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin and did not have the sin of the flesh.

When the Jews saw Him, they realized He was a man in the flesh, and at best, they admitted that He was a royal descendant of David (Matt. 1:1; 9:27; 12:23; 21:9, 15) and that He was one of the prophets.

The Lord Jesus, in His incarnation, had His divinity concealed in His flesh to such an extent that no one around Him realized He was the Son of God; they all saw Him as the Son of Man and maybe one of the prophets, but no one realized He was the Son of God.

Without heavenly revelation none of them could realize that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God as Peter saw (Matt. 16:16).

Even more, there was a controversy among the Jews when the Lord was on earth, for He claimed He is the Son of God but to them, this was a blasphemy (Mark 2:5-7; John 6:41-42).

Eventually, those around Him condemned Him to death because Jesus Christ claimed that He was the Son of God (Matt. 26:63-66; 27:43; Mark 14:61-64).

This was a blasphemy before the Jewish leaders, and they condemned Him and brought Him before Pilate to be put to death (John 10:30-33, 36). Oh, Lord Jesus!

We need to realize that Christ was the Son of God from eternity, but through incarnation, He put on the flesh, and in His living on earth, the others could not see the glory of His divinity.

He had to be designated to be the Son of God in power with His human nature.

He yearned for this, and He longed to be baptized with the baptism that will bring Him into glory, for He wanted to cast the fire of the divine life on the earth.

While on the earth in His flesh, the Lord Jesus had His divine nature concealed by the flesh.

Through His death on the cross, His humanity was broken open to release the divine life from within Him, and in His resurrection, He was designated as the Son of God in power with His human nature (Rom. 1:3-4). Hallelujah!

His resurrection was not like any other resurrection – others like Lazarus were raised from the dead (John 11:41-44; Luke 7:11-17; 8:49-54) but then died eventually, but He had a particular kind of resurrection! Hallelujah!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to be incarnated as a man in the flesh. Thank You for coming as the Son of God who became the Son of Man. How we worship You for Your incarnation and human living, for You were willing to be limited and have Your divine nature concealed in Your humanity while on earth. Oh Lord, we love You and we praise You for all that You are and all that You have done. Grant us to have divine revelation to see that Jesus Christ is not just one of the prophets or a descendant of David but even more, He is the Son of the living God! Hallelujah, Jesus Christ who was the seed of David according to the flesh was designated in His resurrection as the Son of God in power with His human nature! We praise You, Lord Jesus, for Your resurrection, which was Your designation! We believe into You as the Son of God who became the Son of Man and then was designated to be the Son of God in power, even the firstborn Son of God! Hallelujah!

Know Christ in His Resurrection Designated as the Son of God in Power with His Humanity

May the Lord remove any veils from our eyes so that we can see and know Christ in His resurrection, designated as the Son of God in power with His human nature, as revealed in Rom. 1:3-4.

Before His incarnation and resurrection, Christ was the Son of God, the only begotten Son (John 1:18; 3:16).

Although He was already the Son of God before the incarnation, Christ still needed to be designated the Son of God out of resurrection because by incarnation He had put on the human nature, which had nothing to do with divinity (1:1, 14; Rom. 8:3).

Through incarnation, He put on the human nature, which had nothing to do with God or with the divine nature.

He was the Son of Man on the earth in incarnation, but He was not designated the Son of God in His humanity until His resurrection.

After the Son of God became incarnate, His divine nature was concealed by the flesh.

However, by His resurrection, Christ sanctified and uplifted His human nature, His humanity, and He was designated out of the resurrection as the Son of God with this human nature (Rom 1:3-4; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5).

In this sense, Christ was begotten the Son of God in His resurrection.

Hallelujah for His resurrection! His resurrection was like no other resurrection.

It did happen that men were raised from the dead, but later, they still died; Jesus Christ, however, had a particular resurrection. In His resurrection, Christ was designated the Son of God.

The concealed divinity within His flesh needed to be designated, made manifest, by the resurrection.

This is what happened in His resurrection: He was designated, or manifested, the Son of God with His humanity. Hallelujah!

He sanctified and uplifted His human nature, bringing it into God and divinizing it.

We need to know Christ in His resurrection designated as the Son of God in power with His humanity, His human nature.

When we know Christ in this way, we realise that He is just the first One who went through this process, and we all follow today.

He opened the way for us all to be designated sons of God. Praise the Lord!

In His resurrection, Christ was designated as the Son of God, and everyone could see that Jesus Christ is Lord, even God Himself, for He was glorified!

He was also begotten by God to be His firstborn Son, possessing both divinity and humanity.

Such a One, as Rom. 8:29-30 says, God used to mass reproduce to obtain many brothers of Christ who are conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God.

He is the prototype, the model, to produce many sons of God and conform them to the image of Christ for the corporate expression of God.

Now, we as the many sons of God have the divine life and the divine nature, and we are in the process of being designated sons of God.

Christ’s resurrection and HIs being designated the Son of God in His humanity in resurrection opened the way for millions of believers in Christ to become sons of God and be designated sons of God in full! Hallelujah!

This is why we need to know Christ in His resurrection designated as the Son of God in power in His humanity.

Our knowledge of Christ in this way, our knowing Christ in His designation, will cause us to open to Him more, cooperate with Him, and allow Him to grow in us, transform us, renew us, and conform us to the image of Christ so that we may be the many sosn of God who are designated like Him!

Rom. 8:19, 21, and 1 Cor. 15 all tell us that, even as Christ was resurrected and designated, so we will be resurrected and designated, and we will have the same body of His glory in resurrection, for we will be sons of God in full! Praise the Lord!

Our humanity today is still not yet designated; we are still experiencing being crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20), having Christ live in us, being conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), and Christ being formed in us (Gal. 4:19).

But one day we will be fully conformed to His image to become part of His corporate expression, and on that day, we will be designated sons of God in full for God’s glorious corporate expression!

For Him, it was with divinity and then humanity, and with us, there’s humanity and then divinity.

Today, His divinity is saturating our humanity and growing in our humanity until one day, we will be swallowed up in glory!

May we see that the way was opened for the power of His resurrection to function in us in an unlimited way so that we may be designated sons of God!

Lord Jesus, we want to know Christ in His resurrection designated the Son of God in power in His humanity. May we see that Christ brought His humanity through death and into resurrection to divinize it and designate it the Son of God in power! Wow, Lord, how we praise You for being designated the Son of God in power in Your resurrection! Thank You for opening the way for us all, the believers in Christ, to be regenerated and become children of God! Hallelujah, in Christ’s resurrection we were regenerated to be the many sons of God! Amen, Lord, we want to become Your sons in full. Keep us in the process of being designated sons of God. May Your death and resurrection operate in us day by day to put to death anything that is natural and impart the divine life in us until we are fully designated sons of God! Praise the Lord, even as Christ was designated the Son of God in His resurrection so we are in the process of being designated sons of God! Hallelujah!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Romans, msg 54 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (2) (2024 December Training), week 13, The Seed of David Becoming the Son of God.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – What is the Significance of Christ’s Resurrection? More via, Hearing of Faith.
  – Knowing Christ in His Resurrection as the Son of God Designated in Power with His Human Nature and as the Firstborn Son of God Born in Resurrection, PDF outline via, LSM.
  – Spiritual transformation – a sharing via, CSOC UT Austin: Christian Students on Campus youtube channel.
  – How can Christ be both the only begotten Son of God and the firstborn Son of God? More via, Joshua Davis blog.
  – Does God Have a Plan? More via, Bibles for America blog.
  – The Body of Christ being produced through death and resurrection, a portion from, A General Outline of God’s Economy and the Proper Living of a God-Man, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – Romans (Program #54) – Designation by Resurrection, via, Bible study radio.
  – Christ’s Birth in Resurrection, via, Living to Him.
  – What are saints according to the Bible? More via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The seed of David becoming the Son of God speaks of the process of Christ’s being designated the firstborn Son of God by resurrection—Rom. 1:3-4, via, The Church in Regina.
  – New Jerusalem is Heavenly, Spiritual, via, New Jerusalem blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – In the flesh by incarnation, / Into man He God hath brought; / By His death and resurrection, / Into God He man hath brought; / God and man together mingled, / In Himself is fully wrought. (Hymns #277 stanza 3)
  – Once Thou wast the only grain, Lord, / Falling to the earth to die, / That thru death and resurrection / Thou in life may multiply. / We were brought forth in Thy nature / And the many grains became; / As one loaf we all are blended, / All Thy fulness to proclaim. (Hymns #203 stanza 3)
  – By divine regeneration / We the sons of God became, / But we must mature to fullness, / Thus the birthright to obtain. / Born and fully grown to manhood, / God’s adoption we may share; / By the measure of full stature, / We God’s sonship will declare. (Hymns #741 stanza 2)