Christ was Judged and Tried in His Living; we take Him as our Covering before the Enemy

Christ is the One who was judged and tried in His living and walk, and He is our covering; His feet are like polished bronze, and we can take Him as our bronze helmet to cover us before the enemy.

Praise the Lord for our Christ, the One who is all-inclusive to be our good land for our enjoyment and experience!

On the one hand He is all the foodstuffs for us to eat, partake of, be filled with, and be constituted with; He is the wheat, the barley, the vine tree, the pomegranates, the fig tree, and the olive tree, and He is a land flowing with milk and honey.

On the other hand, He is the more solid elements – the minerals; He is the stones, the mountains, the iron, the copper and bronze.

We need to advance in our experience of Christ from merely enjoying Him as our food and drink to experiencing Him as the more solid Christ, the Christ who makes us materials for the building of God.

The mountains in the good land typify the resurrected and ascended Christ; He has resurrected and ascended on high – He is the high mountain.

We need to enjoy and experience Christ in His resurrection and ascension so that we may be constituted into stones for the building of God.

In His ascension Christ is the highest person in the universe; He transcends all, and He is above all, having all authority in heaven and on earth. And from His ascension Christ is calling us, His loving seekers, that we may be joined to Him and may be one with Him to engage in spiritual warfare.

We need to experience Christ in His ascension so that we may know the peaks of reality (signified by Amana), victory (signified by Senir), and the destruction of the enemy (signified by Hermon).

When we are in ascension by putting aside anything of the natural man and the natural life, we enjoy the reality of all that the Triune God has and is, we enter into and enjoy the victory of Christ over the enemy, and we are one with Christ for the destruction of the enemy. Hallelujah!

Here in ascension we wear soft armor; we don’t have to wear heavy armor for battle – we can wear soft armor for the battle has been won, and we stand in the victory of Christ. Hallelujah!

May we advance in our experience of Christ and be brought up to a high mountain, being elevated and uplifted from our low position into the position of ascension, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

Amen, may we be those who experience Christ as the mountains, the rocks, the iron, and the copper and bronze for the building of God and for the fighting of spiritual warfare!

Copper (bronze) Signifies the Judgment of Christ; Christ was Judged and Tried by God to become Bright like Polished Bronze

In the Old Testament bronze and copper are words used interchangeably for the same materials; the good land is a land of copper and bronze.

What does bronze or copper signify? Copper (bronze) signifies the judgement of Christ (Deut. 8:9; Dan. 10:6; Rev. 1:15). The burnt offering was made of bronze; there, at the burnt offering altar, we are terminated, for it is a type of the cross where God’s judgement was exercised.

After God judged Korah and his company for rebelling against God, the earth opened up and swallowed them, and God told Moses to pick up the censers of the serving ones – which were made of bronze – and beat them into plates and use them to cover the altar.

Bronze typifies God’s judgement; God judges all the rebellion and all the things against Him.

In Dan. 10:6 we see that Christ’s feet and arms are like the gleam of polished bronze; this signifies that Christ’s work and move were judged by God, for He was fully under God’s judgement.

As a man on earth, Christ lived a life fully under the judgement of God; He didn’t do anything of Himself, didn’t say anything of Himself, and didn’t go anywhere of Himself but everything passed through God’s judgement.

Christ’s move and actions and words were altogether under the judgement of God. Bronze signifies God’s judgement, which makes people bright.

Christ was judged and tried by God, and God’s trial and judgement made Christ bright like polished bronze.

The reason Christ had such a bright walk as a man on earth was because He was fully under the judgement of God; He didn’t do anything out of Himself, He said nothing out of Himself, and He submitted everything unto the Father’s judgement.

His life was a life full of brightness, with nothing opaque, nothing shadowy in His living and work, because all things were judged by God.

The feet of Christ are like shining bronze – see Rev. 1:15, signifying that His perfect and bright walk qualifies Him to exercise divine judgement.

Now Christ has the judging power, because He Himself has been judged through all the trials that He suffered. His feet are like burnished bronze refined in the furnace; His walk and life on earth has been refined, burnished, tested, and tried by God.

Also, He has been tested by men and also by the enemy, and no one found any fault in Him; even the Lord testified that the ruler of the world is coming, and in Him he has nothing.

Because He was thoroughly judged, the Lord’s life and walk has been proved and has come forth perfect, bright, and shining; now He is qualified to judge others, because He has first been tested, judged, and refined.

Christ is equipped not only with bronze – because He has been judged and tested to the uttermost, He is equipped with refined and shining bronze. Hallelujah for our Christ as the reality of the bronze and copper!

Taking Christ as our Covering – He has been Tested and Proved, in Him Satan has Nothing

We can apply Christ as the copper (bronze) by first realizing that He is the perfect One, the shining One, the One who has been tested and proved (Eph. 6:11).

We should not look at ourselves but look at the right and perfect One – look at Him, He is the One who has been judged, tested, and approved, and we can apply Him!

Christ, the tested and proved One, is the bright, perfect, and shining One to be our covering; in Him the enemy has no ground, no opportunity in anything (John 14:30).

As He was walking on earth, He submitted everything to God’s judgement; He didn’t defend Himself, He didn’t vindicate Himself, but He submitted all things to the judgement of God.

The evil one, Satan, came, and in Him he had nothing – no ground, no possibility in anything, for everything in Christ was judged by God.

Apparently Christ was a lowly and despised man from Nazareth, a Nazarene, but actually He was a man of bronze, a bronze man. His walk and actions were fully judged and approved by God.

If we are not thoroughly judged, Satan may still have the ground to accuse us; how can we fight the battle when there’s still room and ground in our being for Satan to accuse us? Jesus was able to stand upright and boldly say: In Me Satan has nothing; but we are not able to say this.

So we need to look not at ourselves but at Him, and we need to apply Him as our covering, as our bronze helmet. We can daily come to Him and take Him as our sin offering and as our burnt offering.

No matter how much we go on with the Lord, sin still dwells in us, we are still full of imperfection and shortcomings and failures, but praise the Lord, we have the One who is without sin and blemish in us, and we can take Him as our sin offering!

Also, He is our burnt offering – He is perfect and absolute, He is accepted and well-pleasing to the Father; this is the judged Christ as our protection and covering.

So we need to apply Christ as our covering (Eph. 6:13); we shouldn’t try to seek perfection in ourselves but take Christ as the perfect One, take this judged Christ as our covering.

The breastplate of righteousness covers our conscience and guards us from Satan’s accusations; this breastplate is Christ as our righteousness (Eph. 6:14; 1 Cor. 1:30).

To stand before the enemy we need righteousness; we need our conscience to be covered by passing through God’s judgement, and we do this by being joined with the judged Christ so that we can have a conscience void of offense; in this way, Satan has no ground to accuse us!

The helmet of salvation for covering our mind is the saving Christ that we experience in our daily life (Eph. 6:17; 1 Thes. 5;8; John 16:33).

Sometimes as we follow the Lord and serve Him, or maybe when we come to a meeting and want to share something, we may have a thought that we’re so dirty and sinful.

What do we do at this time? We ask the Lord to cover us with His precious blood and cover our mind with Himself.

This is the helmet made of bronze; we realize that Christ is the perfect One, the One who has been tested and proved, and in faith we exercise to apply Him and deal with the enemy.

We may even tell the enemy, Satan, I am dirty and sinful, but praise the Lord, He is the perfect One; He is the One who has been tested and proved, and He is my covering!

We can exercise our spirit to apply the tested, proved, and perfect Christ as a helmet for our head; He has the ability and strength, the qualification and the ground to withstand all attacks. When the enemy encounters Him, he flees.

We shouldn’t fight the battle by ourselves; the battle is the Lord’s, we simply need to learn to apply Him as our covering.

Lord Jesus, we take You as our covering before the enemy. We take You as the judged, proved, and qualified One to be our covering and our protection from any attack of the enemy. We do not look at ourselves, Lord, but we look to You, for only You are the One in whom Satan has nothing – no ground, no possibility in anything. We take You as our breastplate of righteousness to cover our conscience and guard us from Satan’s accusations. We take You as our helmet of salvation to be covered in our mind and experience Your organic salvation. Amen, Lord Jesus, You are our covering – You are our bronze helmet for our head, and we apply You! Yours is the battle and Yours is the victory; we stand one with You and we hide ourselves in You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ,” ch. pp. 261-263, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 4, The Goodness of the Land – Its Minerals.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Christ also is the Man of bronze / Before the building’s gate, / Whom God has judged on our behalf, / Most qualified His state. / He knows our real condition and / Has paid our debt with blood. / He measures us, possessing us, / To mingle us with God. (Song on, The Holy Building of God)
  – Christ is a land of iron stones, / Whence comes authority. / We must dig out this solid Christ / To bind His enemy. / Then we must through the sufferings pass / To be refined as burnished brass. / With iron bind, as brass refined, / Is our need. (Hymns #1164)
  – The burning Christ has feet as brass / Which in the furnace bums, / His eyes are as a flame of fire— / ’Tis to this Christ we turn! / How could we ever lukewarm be / When on His face we gaze? / O Lord, we give ourselves to You / To set us all ablaze! (Hymns #1262)