In His Resurrection Christ Released the Glory of His Divinity and Cast Fire on Earth

Starting from this week in our morning watch with the Lord we’re getting into the matter of, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection and Ascension. We need to first see a vision of Christ in His resurrection and ascension and then enter into some experience in a practical and subjective way.

The resurrection and ascension of Christ are not some religious or “doctrinal” matters in the Bible but they are related to a wonderful person, Jesus Christ! The most central vision in the Lord’s recovery is about the wonderful person of Jesus in His wonderful accomplishments in God’s economy.

We need to see a clear vision that the content of God’s New Testament economy is NOT a movement or a religion but a Person who both divine and human, both God and man, who has passed through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, and has been consummated in the all-inclusive, processed, compound, life-giving and indwelling Spirit imparted into us in His resurrection as life to us and poured upon us in His ascension as power to us that we may live the divine life to express God and move with the divine power economically to carry out God’s economy.

Through Christ we have been regenerated to receive the divine life and partake of the divine nature, and we can bear His image to express Him in His glory. This is much higher than divine healing, tongue-speaking, or miracles; this is the greatest blessing in the universe!

Christ, the God-man, went through four main steps: incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, to carry out God’s purpose and accomplish God’s economy. Of these four steps, the most mysterious and profound are His resurrection and ascension.

Christ’s resurrection is based upon His crucifixion, and His ascension is just the peak of His resurrection. Just as Joseph was one with Jacob and their history was one – Joseph being the reigning aspect of Jacob’s mature life – so ascension is the highest peak of Christ’s resurrection and is one with Christ’s resurrection; they are not two separate things but one, not exactly the same but one.

We need to see the vision and have the experience of this Christ in His resurrection and His ascension; these two experiences are crucial to us in our daily enjoyment and experience of Christ for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.

The matters of Christ’s resurrection and ascension are NOT common matters; we need to realize the depth and profoundness of these matters – and for this we need to be open, unoccupied, unveiled, and fresh with the Lord so that He may show us more light and truth concerning these matters.

God’s Desire is the Universal Incorporation of the Triune God with His Believers

This week we are particularly focusing on a very high and mysterious matter: the universal incorporation of the consummated Triune God with the regenerated believers in the resurrection of Christ.

What is this “universal incorporation” and where can we see this in the Bible? We are so blessed and fortunate today at the end of the church age to be the beneficiaries and enjoyers of the culmination of the opening of the divine revelation in the whole Bible – as the Lord showed to His servants throughout generations and, in this present age, it has been revealed to us through our dear brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee.

The highest truth in relation to the resurrection of Christ is that God takes a further step to accomplish His heart’s desire, the universal incorporation of the Triune God with His believers. God’s relationship with man can be described with three words: union, mingling, and incorporation.

First, when we receive God’s life, our life with His life are united; we are grafted together and there’s a union in life with the Lord – we are one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). This is illustrated by the grafting of two trees; the two lives are joined as one.

Furthermore, we are also mingled with the Lord, just as the oil and the spices are mingled with the fine flour for the meal offering (see Lev. 2); this mingling is of the divine nature with the human nature, and the result is a God-man where both God and man can distinctly be seen (there’s no third nature or substance being produced).

The highest understanding and view of God’s relationship with man can be seen in John 14 where we see that the Father is in the Son, the Son is in the Father, and the Son is in us, and we are in the Son – this is an “incorporation“.

An incorporation, by definition, is a combining and blending together thoroughly of two things, and a uniting in or as one body. What God desires is not only to be united with us in life and mingled with us in nature but also incorporated with us in person, that is, He wants to be in us and us to be in Him just as the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son (John 14:20-23).

We, the persons, are being brought into the person of the Triune God, and the Triune God is in us in His entirety as a person. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit exist as an incorporation; when the Son came, He always spoke the Father’s words, sought the Father’s glory, and did the Father’s works, and He told us that the Spirit – which He will send from the Father – will not speak of Himself but will tell us of the Son.

God’s desire is to enlarge this divine and mystical incorporation to include man; for this, God became a man, and through His resurrection He opened the way for man to be incorporated into the Triune God. The universal incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with His regenerated, redeemed, and transformed believers took place in the resurrection of Christ.

God’s desire is to include us as His redeemed and regenerated people into a universal incorporation of God and man, which consummates in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate fulfillment and consummation of the universal incorporation of the consummated Triune God and the regenerated believers. Wow, to see this and enter into this in our daily Christian experience!

Lord, thank You for regenerating us with Your divine life so that we may be united with God in life, mingled with God in nature, and even incorporated with God in person. Lord, we are one with You in spirit, we are daily enjoying the mingling of the divine nature and the human nature, and we want to enter more into the divine-human incorporation! Oh Lord, remove any religious concepts and veils from our eyes to see the universal divine-human incorporation of the Triune God with His regenerated believers!

In His Resurrection Christ Released the Glory of His Divinity and Cast Fire on Earth

One of the most amazing things that happened in the resurrection of Christ is that He released the glory of His divinity (and this was His glorification by the Father with the divine glory) and thus cast fire on the earth. In His resurrection Christ was not only raised from the dead, that is, it wasn’t just that His human body was enlivened to live again.

In John 12 many were seeking to see the Lord, and so He said, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 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 (John 12:24).

Christ’s glorification was not the way we expect it, with “praise and glory from everyone”, but it was through His death and resurrection to release the glory of the divine life from within Him. When God became a man in the person of Christ, He was a regular man living as the son of a carpenter, but within Him there was the glory of God’s divinity, and this glory wanted to be released!

No one knew what was within Him; in Matt. 17 He “unzipped His being” for His disciples to see a glimpse of the glory within Him (and then He “zipped back up”), but the divine glory was concealed within the shell of Christ’s humanity. Outwardly Christ was a man, but inwardly the glory of His divinity was ready to explode and spread about; through His death the shell of His humanity was broken and in His resurrection His divine life was released and Christ was glorified!

Throughout His life Christ desired to be baptised with the baptism of His death and cast fire on earth (Luke 24:26); the baptism of His death broke the shell of His humanity, and in His resurrection He “cast fire on earth” – He cast the divine fire of the divine life!

In His resurrection Christ released the divine glory from within Himself, and the pulse of this life is the divine fire burning on earth! Hallelujah! Many “caught the divine fire” when they received the Lord Jesus, and this fire burns within all the Lord’s genuine believers right now!

From the time of the Lord’s resurrection there has been a divine fire burning throughout the ages and all over the earth, spreading from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth, reaching even us! The divine fire as the impulse of the spiritual life is now burning in Europe, Russia, America, Australasia, Asia, the Arab countries, the Middle East, South America, and all over the earth!

Christ today is a burning fire; the divine life which was released through His death and resurrection is now burning in Christ’s believers and it burdens them to spread this fire! Hallelujah this fire is burning on, and no one can stop it!

In a sense, this fire has caused much trouble to mankind, but actually it has brought light and life to mankind, being the greatest blessing for mankind throughout the ages.

Without the fire of the divine life burning in man, the world is in darkness and death; but what a blessing it is when many catch the fire of the divine life, are burned by this fire, and spread the fire all over the earth to raise up churches, the golden lampstands burning with the divine fire! How glorious it is that in His resurrection Christ released the glory of His divinity and thus cast fire on the earth!

Praise You Lord for Your resurrection, Your glorification by the Father with the divine glory! Thank You Lord for releasing the glory of Your divinity in Your resurrection, thus casting the divine fire on the earth! Hallelujah, we caught the divine fire, and the fire is now burning in us! Lord, we praise You for releasing the concealed divine life with the divine glory from within the shell of Your humanity through Your death and resurrection, and now we all can receive the divine fire, burn with this fire, and let the fire burn all over the earth for God to accomplish His purpose: the universal incorporation of God and man!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, ch. 1 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection and Ascension, week 1 / msg 1, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection (1) – The Universal Incorporation of the Consummated Triune God with the Regenerated Believers in the Resurrection of Christ (you can buy this morning revival book here via LSM and here via Amazon).
• A Hymn to strengthen the burden in this article says, Christ’s divinity’s glorious indeed; / ’Twas concealed in Him as in a grain of wheat. / While incarnated, He was pressed, constrained / For the release of His glory within. / Incorporation! Incorporation— / The issue of Christ’s glorification. / In our daily walk, we must join to Him / And must live in Him, and work as one with Him. (sing it & enjoy it here)