The history of God in man began with the Lord’s incarnation and continued with His human living, His all-inclusive death, His life-imparting resurrection, His all-transcending ascension, His producing the church, the church as the one new man, the millennial kingdom, and consummates in the New Jerusalem.
It is quite amazing to see and realize that in the Bible there’s not only the outward human history with a lot of events but also the divine history.
And the divine history is not merely what God did among and with His people in a miraculous way in the Old Testament, but even all the more what He does in man in the New Testament.
As human beings, we are drawn to the miraculous, the supernatural, and we may really be impressed with the mighty acts of God in the Old Testament and the miracles the Lord Jesus performed in the Gospels.
However, what God is after is not such things – He is after being joined with man and bringing man in an organic union with God so that God and man would be one, even one entity, a corporate God-man to express God and represent Him on earth and in the entire universe.
For this to take place, God Himself became a man; in a way that is inexplicable and unimaginable, the infinite God whom the universe cannot hold, this One became a finite man.
The entire Triune God became a man in the incarnation of Jesus Christ; Jesus was not just a man but a God-man, even the first God-man, for He united and mingled the Triune God with the tripartite man.
When you saw this man, Jesus, you saw both man and God; God was united with man and mingled with man, and man lived, yet man expressed God.
This Jesus Christ is the most important person in history; He changed the course of mankind by His incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.
There was no one like Him ever before, neither was there one like Him since He came to the earth.
He lived a perfect human life on earth, and in all that He did He expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic human virtues.
Men were just drawn to Him as He spoke, travelled, and performed miracles; He did not have an appealing appearance, but He expressed God in man, and His human virtues expressed the divine attributes, thus becoming fragrant and aromatic. What a God-man!
This One lived not by His human life in the flesh but by His divine life in resurrection; He daily died to Himself so that He might live to God, and He lived by the divine life so that God would be manifested in and through Him.
Through His incarnation, the history of God in man began; before His incarnation, God moved mainly among men and with men, but after His incarnation, God moved mainly in man!
Through His death and resurrection, He produced the church as the one new man, and now God moves in man and through man, for wherever the believers in Christ are, Christ is there also, living the same kind of life that He lived when He was on the earth.
Christ’s Crucifixion was a Vicarious Death, an All-inclusive Death, an All-inclusive Judicial Redemption and a Life-Releasing Death
If we read the entire Bible we see that the death of Christ was an amazing event in history, for the first God-man went to the cross and died an all-inclusive death, a vicarious death.
He died a substituting death; He did not have to die, for He was sinless, but He died as our Substitute, on our behalf, so that we may be redeemed and reconciled to God.
Christ’s crucifixion was an all-inclusive judicial redemption, and through His all-inclusive death on the cross, Christ accomplished five main things.
First, through His death on the cross Christ terminated all the things of the old creation; the entire old creation with all the creatures – including man – was terminated on the cross, and Christ terminated the old creation on the cross.
Hallelujah, the old creation has been terminated! Second, through His all-inclusive death on the cross, Christ redeemed all the things created by God and fallen in sin (Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20); He made peace through the blood of His cross and reconciled to Himself all things on earth and in the heavens.
Third, Christ created (that is, conceived) the new man with His divine element in Himself while on the cross (Eph. 2:15).
On one hand, He died on the cross, but on the other hand, He created the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers in Himself into one new man; He conceived the new man on the cross. This is amazing!
Human death is horrible and ugly, but through His all-inclusive death on the cross, Christ conceived the new man in Himself and with Himself as the very element; now there’s such a thing as the one new man where Christ is all and in all. Hallelujah!
Fourth, as Christ was dying there on the cross, He released His divine life from the shell of His humanity.
He prophesied concerning this in John 12:24, indicating that He was the grain of wheat who would fall into the ground and die (on the cross), and through His death, the divine life would be released to produce many grains.
The divine life with its germinating and life-impacting power was concealed in the shell of Christ’s humanity; through His death, the shell of His humanity was broken, and the divine life was released for the producing of many grains, the many believers in Christ. Hallelujah! What an amazing death!
Fifth, through His death on the cross, Christ laid a foundation for His organic salvation and set up the procedure to attain His ministry in the stage of His inclusion.
He accomplished an all-inclusive judicial redemption through His all-terminating and life-releasing death, and this set the base, the foundation, for Him to organically save the many believers in Christ, and He was qualified to be the all-inclusive Spirit to accomplish God’s organic salvation. Hallelujah!
All we can say is, wow! If we would carefully study both the Old and the New Testament we will see the many types of Christ’s death, the prophecies concerning His death, the figures of the death of Christ (in the Old Testament) and, in the New Testament, we will see the fulfilment of the types, figures, and shadows in the death of Christ on the cross.
Furthermore, in the Epistles and even in the book of Revelation we see the many amazing implications and aspects of the death of Christ, which is part of God’s history in man; His death was all-inclusive, vicarious, and all-terminating, plus it was life-imparting and new-man-conceiving. Hallelujah, what a death!
Praise You, Lord Jesus, for Your vicarious death on the cross! Thank You for dying in our stead to not only bear the judgement of God for us but also redeem us and reconcile us to God. Hallelujah for Christ’s all-inclusive death, His all-inclusive judicial redemption! Thank You for terminating all things of the old creation and redeeming all the things created by God and fallen in sin. Praise You for conceiving the new man in Yourself on the cross, and with Yourself as the unique element and constituent! Thank You, Lord for releasing the divine life from within the shell of Your humanity so that we may be regenerated to be the many sons of God! Hallelujah, what an all-inclusive, all-terminating, life-releasing death!
The Divine History as seen in Christ’s Resurrection, Ascension, the Church as the New Man, the Millenial Kingdom, and the New Jerusalem
After accomplishing His all-inclusive death on the cross, Christ took a further step in God’s history in man: He entered into resurrection.
At the end of His life and ministry on earth, the Lord Jesus went willingly to the cross; He died a vicarious death, an all-inclusive death which terminated the old creation and solved all problems.
Three days after His death, He was ushered into resurrection; on one hand, He was raised by God for our justification, for God approved His death on the cross, and on the other hand, He resurrected Himself. Hallelujah!
In His resurrection Christ not only overcame death – which is an amazing fact in itself, for this is the first and only time in human history that a man overcame death and raised himself from the dead – but also accomplished three amazing things.
In His resurrection, Christ was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God (Acts 13:33; Rom. 1:4; 8:29).
He was the only begotten Son of God from eternity, but when He was incarnated He was also the Son of Man; in His humanity, He was not the Son of God, so through His resurrection, He was begotten in His humanity to be the Firstborn Son of God.
Christ resurrected not only in His divinity but also in His humanity, and He is both the Son of Man and the Son of God in His resurrection; He is the Firstborn Son of God, and we are His many brothers.
In His resurrection, Christ was transfigured to be a life-giving Spirit; the last Adam, Christ, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).
The first man, Adam, became a living soul, but the last Adam, Christ, became a life-giving Spirit.
As such a Spirit, He can come into those who believe into Him to be their life and everything, so that He may regenerate them to be the many sons of God.
This is the third amazing thing He did in His resurrection: Christ regenerated us, the many believers in Christ, to be the many brothers of Christ and the many sons of God (1 Pet. 1:3).
We were not regenerated or born again when we were born again in our human history; in the eyes of God, the resurrection of Christ was a great big delivery of millions and millions of sons of God, for we were all regenerated at the same time that our Elder brother, Jesus Christ, was born to be the Firstborn Son of God. Hallelujah!
Through His resurrection, Christ regenerated millions of believers to be the sons of God and the members of the Body of Christ, the church. Wow!
Now we all are the church, the Body of Christ, to be the continuation of Christ. Christ ascended to the heavens and then descended as the Spirit to produce the church as the one new man for the corporate expression of the Triune God (Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:1-4, 16-21).
We as the church as the reality of the new man are part of the divine history; when we live in this organic union with the Lord, we are part of the intrinsic history of God within the outward, human history.
We as believers in Christ are undergoing a process of regeneration, renewing, transformation, sanctification, conformation, and glorification; we are being built up together to be the church as the Body of Christ, the one new man, the bride of Christ, and the corporate warrior of God.
All these processes are part of the divine history within the human history; as we experience God’s organic salvation, we write the history of God in man.
At the end of this part of the divine history, Christ will come back with His overcomers as His army (Joel 1:4; 3:11) to defeat Antichrist and his army.
Christ with His overcomers as the main figure in the intrinsic, divine history, will come to fight and defeat Antichrist with his armies as the main figure in the outward, human history; Christ will defeat Antichrist and cast him into the lake of fire (Rev. 19:20). Hallelujah!
Following this, the thousand-year kingdom will come; this will be the millennial kingdom as a reward to the overcoming believers to rule and reign with Christ, the wedding feast of the Lamb.
This kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth; the New Jerusalem will be the ultimate, the consummate, step of God’s history.
From eternity past to eternity future, this is a brief history of the history of God in man consummating in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and the new earth.
What a privilege to be part of the divine history in the human history!
Hallelujah for Christ’s resurrection through which Christ was begotten to be the Firstborn Son of God, He became a life-giving Spirit, and we were regenerated to be the many sons of God and the many members of the Body of Christ! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for coming into us as the life-giving Spirit to regenerate us and make us the many sons of God and the brothers of the Firstborn Son of God! Hallelujah, we as believers in Christ are part of the divine history within the human history! We open to You, dear Lord, to experience Your organic salvation day by day. We want to live in the divine history within the human history. We want to cooperate with You to write God’s history in man. Amen, Lord, make us Your overcomers, those who will bring You back, terminate this age, defeat Antichrist and his armies, and bring in the kingdom age!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Joel, pp. 34-36 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man (2020 Thanksgiving Conference), week 6, The Universal History according to God’s Economy — the Divine History within the Human History to Fulfill the Lord’s Heart’s Desire to Have the One New Man in Reality.
- Hymns on this topic:
– The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. / The Lord is the Spirit; the Spirit gives life. / But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. / Oh, we have been joined to the Lord! / We are one spirit with Him. (Scripture song)
– By Thy death and resurrection, / Thou wast made God’s firstborn Son; / By Thy life to us imparting, / Was Thy duplication done. / We, in Thee regenerated, / Many sons to God became; / Truly as Thy many brethren, / We are as Thyself the same. (Hymns #203)
– Now behold the greatest wonder—New Jerusalem descend! / She’s the building of the Triune God with man—a perfect blend! / She’s the Bride, prepared, adorned for Christ—of all God’s work, the end! / The victory is won! (Hymns #1101)
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