As believers in Christ, we have the Lord Jesus living in us, and we can experience the incarnated and limited Jesus growing in us as the reality of the grain of wheat in the midst of our limitations.
What a Christ we have!
On one hand, Christ is all-inclusive, unlimited, and unsearchably rich. On the other hand, He is the grain of wheat, the incarnated Christ who is limited and confined.
We need to enjoy and experience the all-inclusive Christ in all the aspects of what He is, and the first item is that He is a land of wheat.
Wheat can be seen in John 12:24 where the Lord Jesus likened Himself to a grain of wheat falling into the earth to die to bring forth much fruit.
We can experience Christ as such a One; in our limitations and restrictions, Christ can be expressed in us and we can be satisfied even in the midst of limitations and restrictions.
May we be those who come to the Lord again and again and allow Him to remove any veils from our eyes so that we may see who Christ is and how all-inclusive He is to us and for us.
What a Christ we have!
There’s a real warfare today to keep us, the believers in Christ from knowing, seeing, and enjoying the all-inclusive Christ.
Satan is actively working and fighting to veil us from seeing the all-inclusive Christ.
Satan is fiercely working today, as we draw night to the consummation of the age, to darken people’s minds, to veil people’s understanding, so that they would not see and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ.
Christ has been veiled and misunderstood throughout the ages. Paul revealed in his epistles the wonderful Christ of God, the One who is God’s mystery and in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hidden.
Christ is the mystery of God, the depths of God, and His dimensions are the dimensions of the universe – breadth, length, height, and depth.
We can know this One in the Body and together with the saints, for we can apprehend His universally vast decisions.
But who today appreciates and enjoys Christ?
So many Christians are focused on their own problems, their prosperity, their peace, and their salvation, but who cares for the all-inclusive Christ that has been allotted to us for our enjoyment?
There’s a fierce poverty among Christians today; there’s great hunger among the children of God because not many are eating the all-inclusive Christ nor are they feasting on His unsearchable riches. Oh, Lord Jesus!
We need to realize that Christ is the all-inclusive good land, and we need to advance in our experience and enjoyment of Christ as the good land.
We need to ask the Lord again and again to bring us further with Him in the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ in our daily living.
Christ’s Humanity through His Incarnation became a Shell Concealing His Divinity – He was Limited as a Grain of Wheat
John 12:23-24 shows how Christ is the reality of the grain of wheat. We can experience Christ as wheat today by experiencing what He is and has, what He has accomplished and obtained, and what He has gone through.
Through incarnation, Christ put on humanity as a shell to conceal, hide, and contain the glory of His divinity. Christ’s humanity through His incarnation became a shell that concealed His divinity and thereby concealed His glory (John 1:14; 12:23-24; Luke 12:50).
God became man; the Word through whom all things were created and who holds all things by the word of His power – this One became a man, part of the creation.
The glory of His divinity was concealed by the shell of His humanity; therefore, the Lord Jesus was pressed and constrained.
He even said that He longed to be baptized with the baptism of His death for the release of the glory of His divinity (v. 50).
On one hand, Christ was willing to be incarnated and therefore be limited in time and space, and He was subject to mortality and to being dependent on God for everything.
On the other hand, He desired to go through death and resurrection so that He may release the glory of His divine life from within the shell of His humanity.
It took thirty-three and a half years in God’s arrangement to be the right time for Him to release the glory of His divinity.
Meanwhile, in all those years, He was constantly pressed, constantly constrained, constantly restricted, and constantly limited, waiting for that moment.
What a suffering this was for Him!
He longed for His glory to be released to become the impulse of the divine life in us, to regenerate us for His Body.
But He was willing to be limited and to conceal the glory of His divinity within the shell of His humanity.
The hardest thing for us as human beings is to wait.
It is hard to wait, especially when you have a pressing hope, and you know what will happen – but you still have to wait.
It’s easy to do many things, but it is not easy to wait.
The Lord Jesus needed to undergo physical death so that His unlimited and infinite divine being with His divine life might be released from His flesh.
![Jesus therefore said to them, My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready...You go up to the feast; I am not going up to this feast, because My time has not yet been fulfilled...But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not openly, but as [it were] in secret. John 7:6, 8, 10](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Jesus-therefore-said-to-them-My-time-has-not-yet-come-but-your-time-is-always-ready-683x1024.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Jesus therefore said to them, My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready...You go up to the feast; I am not going up to this feast, because My time has not yet been fulfilled...But when His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up, not openly, but as [it were] in secret. John 7:6, 8, 10")
He knew that death was coming, and He was willing to go through death, the final barrier.
Yet He had to wait, waiting for the Father’s timing.
The Lord Jesus fell into the ground and died, and that death released Him from His human shell (John 12:24).
He fell into the ground and died so that His divine element, His divine life, might be released from within the shell of His humanity.
In resurrection, Christ was freed from that limitation.
The Lord Jesus, as a grain of wheat falling into the ground, lost His soulish life through death in order to release His divine life.
The way of God, the way of God’s salvation, the way of God’s process was that this man, Jesus Christ, would be broken.
He had to go not only through being limited and constricted and confined but even death.
The grain of wheat had to fall into the ground to die. He laid down His soul life willingly for the divine life to be released and imparted into us.
This is God’s way. His life and experience of limitation eventually brought forth the release of God’s life in this universe into us. Praise the Lord!
Lord Jesus, we praise You as the incarnated God-man. Thank You for being willing to become a man and be limited in humanity. Thank You for Your incarnation. The glory of Your divinity was concealed by the shell of Your humanity. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being willing to be pressed and constrained in Your incarnation. Praise You for undergoing physical death so that Your unlimited and infinite divine being might be released from Your flesh. Hallelujah, the Lord Jesus was not only constrained and limited in incarnation but was also willing to go through death so that His life may be released! Praise the Lord, through His death, the divine life was released from within the shell of His humanity to be imparted into us! Thank You, dear Lord Jesus, for being willing to be a grain of wheat falling into the ground by losing Your soulish life in order to release His divine life! Amen, Lord, we want to follow in Your footsteps today!
Experience the Incarnated and Limited Jesus Growing in the Midst of our Limitations
The Lord Jesus was a grain of wheat falling into the ground to die, and we as believers in Christ were produced through His death and resurrection to be His duplication, His multiplication (John 12:24).
Now we are like Him, the many grains of wheat, experiencing the incarnated and limited Jesus growing in the midst of our limitations.
Christ was one day incarnated and became limited; the unlimited God was limited in Jesus, a little carpenter from Nazareth.
Somehow the infinite, eternal, unlimited God came to be a man, limited in the matter of time and space.
Those around Him did whatever they wanted to do, and went to the places they wanted to go, but the Lord Jesus was limited and constrained.
Others’ time was always there, but His time has not yet come (John 7:6).
We can experience the incarnated and limited Jesus growing in the midst of our limitations.
When we are single, we think we’re free like a bird, going wherever we want and doing whatever we want.
But when we get married, we find ourselves to be in a limited and limiting situations.
We may have liked to open the window when we go to sleep, but our spouse has to close all the windows and all the doors.
The marriage life becomes like a cage, where we are limited and constrained.
There’s no divorce or separation for us as Christians, so we need to remain in the cage of our marriage life.
But in the midst of our limitations, we can experience the incarnated and limited Jesus growing.
As time goes by, we may have some “little birds” together with us, the “big birds” in the “cage” of our marriage life.
The children come, and each one of them brings in more restrictions. As the years go by and children grow up, we experience more and more limitations.
It seems that we cannot just do what we want: we are limited, pressed, and constrained from every side.
In all these limitations we can experience the incarnated and limited Jesus growing.
We can cry out to Him and ask Him what to do; as we cry out to Him, as we open to Him, and then read the Bible, we see who He is.
Christ was the unlimited God who was limited to be a man and even more, was limited and constrained in so many ways in His human life.
When we ask the Lord to change this person or remove that limitation, He may simply encourage us to be limited and restricted, for He lived such a life and He in us lives such a life.
He lived in such a way for a little over thirty years, but we may have to live even longer.
We may have not only children but also sons and daughters-in-law, and we may even have grandchildren; more and more limitations are coming in.
What shall we do? As we ask the Lord about this again and again, as we open to Him, He will simply infuse us with Himself.
In the midst of limitations and restrictions, we can experience the incarnated and limited Jesus to let Him grow in us and be expressed through us.
Our opening to the Lord and coming to His word will cause us to realize that He is the limited Christ, the Christ who dwells in us and is willing to be limited and confined.
We are not willing to be limited or constrained, but the One who was limited and constrained in His human living is more than willing to do this in us.
May the Lord show us the vision of the incarnated Christ, the wheat, and may we realize that this One lives in us.
When we see a vision of the limited Christ, we will worship Him and thank Him for His arrangement.
We will no longer dislike or be weary of our limitations but rather we will thank the Lord for the persons and things around us that limit us.
We may even pray to the Lord that He would work in us what He desires, even in the midst of limitations and restrictions.
When we pray to contact the Lord in the midst of our limitations and restrictions, He as wheat grows in us.
Then, we will have a field of wheat in our experience.
The wheat is the incarnated Jesus growing in the midst of our limitations. He is growing in us.
We are growing in Him. He is the wheat growing in us, and as we experience Him as such a One, He grows in us and we express Him.
What a Christ we have!
Lord Jesus, grant us to see a vision of the limited Christ who lives in us. Keep us coming to You again and again to contact You concerning all things, especially the limitations and restrictions we face. Amen, Lord, may we realize that You are the One who lives in us. May we see that You are our life to be our living today. Live in us, dear Lord. Be expressed through us. Thank You for being in us as the incarnated and limited Christ. Save us from trying to escape our limitations. May we keep coming to You in all things and concerning all matters. May we see the vision of the limited Christ, the Christ who was limited in His incarnation, crucifixion, and burial. Amen, Lord, thank You for Your arrangement in our environment. Thank You for our spouse, for our children, for the saints, and for all persons and matters around us. May we enjoy and experience the incarnated Jesus growing in the midst of our limitations.
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 Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” ch. 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Laboring on the All-inclusive Christ Typified by the Good land for the Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Reality and the Manifestation of the Kingdom, and for the Bride to make Herself Ready for the Lord’s Coming (2023 Winter Training), week 3, entitled, A Land of Wheat and Barley.
- Hymns on this topic:
– The work is Thine, O Christ our Lord, / The cause for which we stand;And being Thine, ’twill overcome / Its foes on every hand. / Yet grains of wheat, before they grow, / Are buried in the earth below; / All that is old doth perish there / To form a life both new and fair: / So too are we from self and sin made free. (Hymns #899 stanza 1)
– Thou art the grain of wheat divine, / That died and rose with glory, / To bring forth us as many grains / To form Thy glorious Body. (Hymns #187 stanza 22)
– A little bird I am, / Shut from the fields of air, / And in my cage I sit and sing / To Him who placed me there; / Well pleased a prisoner to be, / Because, my God, it pleaseth Thee. / Nought have I else to do, / I sing the whole day long; / And He whom most I love to please / Doth listen to my song; / He caught and bound my wandering wing; / But still He bends to hear me sing. (Hymns #724 stanzas 1-2)
About aGodMan
Luke 12:50, footnote 2, Recovery Version Bible
Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” pp. 218-220
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A Land of Wheat and Barley (Week 3, Day 2)
“The Wheat in Deuteronomy 8:8a Typifies the Incarnated, Crucified, and Buried Christ” (Part 2) – Christ’s Humanity, through His Incarnation, Became a Shell that Concealed His Divinity and Thereby Concealed His Glory
Throughout the process of incarnation, the Lord Jesus accomplished many works. First, He brought the infinite God into the Finite man in a real way. Second, He lived in man to pass through all the sufferings of human life. Third, He went to the cross to accomplish the all-inclusive death.
On the negative side, He solved the problem of our sin (John 1:29; 1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:26, 28; 1 Cor. 15:3), dealt with the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), crucified the old man on the cross (6:6), destroyed Satan (Heb. 2:14) together with his world (John 12:31), terminated the old creation, and abolished the law of the commandments in ordinances which divided man (Eph. 2:14-16). On the positive side, He released the glorious, divine, unlimited, and eternal life.
Christ’s humanity through His incarnation became a shell to conceal the glory of His divinity. Instead of the words His humanity, it is perhaps better to use the expression His flesh, for John 1:14 tells us that the very God became flesh. This flesh, this humanity, became a shell to conceal the glory of Christ’s divinity. Christ’s divinity is itself the divine glory. Just as God is light, divinity is glory. When Christ was in the flesh, in His humanity, His flesh was a shell that concealed His divinity and thereby concealed His glory.
Christ’s humanity through His incarnation became a shell to conceal the glory of His divinity. Instead of the words His humanity, it is perhaps better to use the expression His flesh, for John 1:14 tells us that the very God became flesh. This flesh, this humanity, became a shell to conceal the glory of Christ’s divinity. Christ’s divinity is itself the divine glory. Just as God is light, divinity is glory. When [319] Christ was in the flesh, in His humanity, His flesh was a shell that concealed His divinity and thereby concealed His glory.
Although Christ expressed the attributes of God in His human living as His virtues in His humanity, the glory of His divinity was mostly concealed by the shell of His humanity, His flesh. When He was living on earth in the flesh, on the one hand, He was God, who is glory, and on the other hand, He was flesh. This flesh was a shell that concealed the very God who is glory.
Because the divine glory was concealed within the shell of His flesh, it was necessary for Him to be glorified. In John 12:23 He said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” In John 17:1 He prayed, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.” In verse 5, He went on to say, “Now, glorify Me along with Yourself, Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
As God, Christ Himself was glory, but this glory was concealed in the shell of His humanity, and thus His divine glory could not be seen. Others could see His shell, but they could not see His glory concealed within the shell. However, in his Gospel the apostle John says, “We beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father” (John 1:14). He, along with Peter and James, beheld the Lord’s glory when He was transfigured on the mountain. His transfiguration was a glorification. While He was living in the shell of His flesh, He temporarily came out of His flesh and was glorified.
While the glory of His divinity was concealed by the shell of His flesh or humanity, the Lord Jesus was pressed and constrained, longing to be baptized with the baptism of His death for the release of the glory of His divinity. In Luke 12:50, the Lord said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am pressed until it is accomplished!”
The Greek word translated “pressed” can also be rendered “constrained.” The Lord was constrained in His flesh, which He had put upon Himself in His incarnation. The glory of His divinity was constricted in the cage of His flesh. He needed to undergo physical death, to be baptized, that His unlimited and infinite divine being with His divine life might be released from the cage of His flesh.
The Lord Jesus therefore desired to be released from the constraint of the cage of His flesh. He referred to this release in John 12:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If the Lord Jesus as a grain of wheat had not died, He would have remained the same. But He fell into the ground and died, and that death released Him from His human shell, the cage.
The Lord’s incarnation caused His divine glory to be concealed in His flesh, but through His death His glory was released for the producing in His resurrection of the many grains, which become His increase as the expression of His glory. Today, we, the believers in Christ already received the incarnated Christ in our regenerated spirit, but He is very much constricted by our flesh. We need to allow Him to grow and spread into our soul until He is eventually manifested in our flesh. At the time of our glorification, His divine glory will be manifested from within us and through us.
“We praise You, Lord Jesus, for allowing Yourself to be constricted in the shell of Your humanity. Only by Your death on the cross that the shell of Your humanity was broken, and Your hidden divine glory was eventually released. Amen.”