What is the present truth (2 Pet. 1:12)? What is the present revelation of God to us in this age? Each age has a particular “present truth”, and if we would have lived in the time of Martin Luther, we should have joined him and enjoy the blessings of being recovered back to justification by faith – God justifies us freely, not by our paying penance to the Catholic church.
Today we are in the last days before the Lord’s return, and His present truth is all-encompassing and all-inheriting; the present truth is the highest peak of the divine revelation, which is the revelation of the eternal economy of God. God’s economy was hidden in Him throughout the ages (Eph. 3:9), but it has been revealed to us in the last days that we may see how God became a man so that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead so that God would have a corporate expression in man.
This is the “diamond” in the “box” of the Bible, and it takes much digging and seeking for us to see this and have it wrought into our being.
The Entire Bible is the Autobiography of the Triune God becoming our Autobiography
The entire Bible is God’s autobiography; the Bible starts with God (in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, Gen. 1:1) and ends with God (the Spirit and the Bride say, Come! – and, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints, Rev. 22).
What we see in the Bible is not merely stories of how the creation happened, how the people of Israel came about and what their history is, etc; what the Bible speaks is of how God stepped out of eternity onto the bridge of time to create man, call man, be related to man, speak to man, and eventually become a man, become the life-giving Spirit, be intensified to be the seven Spirits of God, and the result is that God gains the New Jerusalem, the mingling of God with man, the mutual dwelling place of God with man.
The entire Bible, which is the explanation of the eternal economy of God, is the autobiography of the Triune God, seen in the two sections of eternity and on the bridge of time. Furthermore, in the Bible we see how the Triune God’s autobiography becomes our biography; when we experience His autobiography we are writing our autobiography! It is so wonderful to be part of the autobiography of the Triune God!
Let us now trace the aspects of God’s autobiography in the Bible.
The Single but Triune God Indirectly Moving with Men and Among Men
First of all, in eternity past God was; He simply existed, and the Bible doesn’t say anything of whether He did or did not do anything then, except that He was planning His work in time. In the Old Testament we see the Triune God stepping out from eternity past onto the bridge of time, creating all things, calling Abraham, and being related to man by moving indirectly among men and with men (John 1:1, 3).
In the Old Testament God was outside of man – He came as the Spirit to speak to man, strengthen man to do God’s work, and moving man to accomplish His purpose. His original purpose was to have man in His image to express Him and represent Him (Gen. 1:26).
God Became a Man for His Direct Move in man to Accomplish His Redemption
In the New Testament we see that God Himself became a man, the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and reality (John 1:14). The Lord Jesus was human yet divine, God yet man; in Him God took a further step from eternity into time and into humanity to be directly related to man.
Wow, God entered into humanity and He mingled His divinity with humanity, and He lived a God-man life (as seen in the four Gospels) for the accomplishment of His judicial redemption (John 1:29). God’s original intention was to become man’s life and everything so that man would express Him and represent Him, and through incarnation God laid the foundation for this to happen.
God’s judicial redemption is the procedure for His organic salvation, and through it we have forgiveness of sins, the washing away of sins, justification by God, reconciliation to God, and positional sanctification unto God.
In Resurrection Christ became the Compounded God – the All-inclusive Life-giving Spirit
This God-man, Jesus Christ, was crucified and died to accomplish an all-terminating judicial redemption, and in His resurrection He became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Now Christ is no longer merely in the flesh: He has been transfigured to be the life-giving Spirit, and this Spirit is a compound Spirit; this Spirit includes Christ’s divinity, humanity, incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection.
As seen in the type of the compound ointment in Exo. 30:23-25, the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19) is the compounding of the Spirit of God (olive oil), the precious death of CHrist (myrrh), the sweetness and effectiveness of His death (cinnamon), the precious resurrection of Christ (calamus), and the repelling power of Christ’s resurrection (cassia).
Our God is now a compound God as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, and He is with our spirit to meet our every need. God became a man and then He became the compound Spirit so that He may save us organically in His life; as the Spirit He comes into our spirit through regeneration, and a metabolic process of organic salvation takes place (Rom. 5:10, 17).
Just as the tea bag is put in water and causes the water to become tea, so God as the compound Spirit comes into us through regeneration and saturates all our being to make us the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
First we are being regenerated, then we’re being shepherded by God through the saints, we’re being dispositionally sanctified, renewed, transformed, built up, conformed, and glorified; eventually we will fully be regenerated in our spirit, transformed in our soul, and saturated with God’s life in our body to be glorified, made the same as He is.
Through our experience of God’s autobiography, we are writing our autobiography so that He may be made man for us to be made God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
The Spirit was Intensified Sevenfold to Produce the Overcomers
Due to the degradation of the church, the life-giving Spirit has been intensified sevenfold (see Rev. 1-20) to produce the overcomers (Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6). Today God is the intensified God: He is the seven Spirits of God before the throne as the seven eyes of the Lamb.
God has been intensified to bring the degraded church back to the enjoyment of Himself as the tree of life, the hidden manna, and the feast for the consummation of God’s eternal economy.
Today we are not only in the age of the church; we are in the age of the intensification, and we enjoy God in an intensified way to bring us back to the enjoyment of Himself. When we enjoy the Lord in an intensified way we cooperate with the intensified God to become His overcomers.
In Eternity Future God is the Corporate God, the New Jerusalem
As seen in Rev. 21-22, in eternity future God will be the corporate God, the New Jerusalem, for the universal incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated, transformed, and glorified believers as the goal of God’s eternal economy (John 1:51; Rev. 21:3, 22).
The New Jerusalem is the corporate God-man, God dwelling in man and man dwelling in God. In the New Jerusalem God is our dwelling place and we are His dwelling place, He abides in us and we abide in Him, and when others see God they see us!
The New Jerusalem is the reflection and fulfillment of the divine revelation concerning the garden of Eden; in the New Jerusalem we have the tree of life, the river of water, the precious materials (this time they are built together), and a couple.
Hallelujah, today God is in the process of building a woman, a counterpart for Himself, which is the church today and will be the New Jerusalem for eternity!
Thank You Lord for becoming a man to bring God into man and express God in man. Lord, thank You for becoming the life-giving Spirit to come into our spirit and regenerate us, transform us, and glorify us so that we may be made the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function, but not in the Godhead. Lord, thank You for being intensified to be the sevenfold intensified Spirit to bring us back the enjoyment of God as the tree of life, the hidden manna, and the feast. Lord, work Yourself into us, infuse us with Yourself, and build us up to be Your bride, the church!
The Central Revelation of God and the Lord’s Recovery
God’s autobiography as revealed in the Bible and pointed out in a crystallized way above is the central revelation of God. As believers in Christ we need to see what is the central revelation of God, which is God becoming flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming intensified sevenfold to build up the church to issue in the Body of Christ and to consummate the New Jerusalem.
In a similar way,
If we are asked to explain what the recovery is today, we should be able to answer in one simple sentence: The Lord’s recovery is God becoming the flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit to build up the church that becomes the Body of Christ and that consummates the New Jerusalem. Regarding the Lord’s present recovery, I hope that none of you would be held back by your old theology or by your old understanding of the recovery. (The Divine and Mystical Realm, pp. 17-18)
May we allow the Lord to shine on us and remove the veils of old concepts, opinions, and theology so that we may see what the central revelation in the Bible and the Lord’s recovery is. The Lord today is recovering us back to His original intention, and the whole Bible shows us the autobiography of the Triune God becoming our autobiography through our experience and enjoyment of Him.
Lord Jesus, grant us a clear view of the central revelation of God. May we see that the central revelation of God and the Lord’s recovery is God becoming the flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit to build up the church as the Body of Christ and consummate the New Jerusalem! Lord, may our mind be renewed and our old concepts be removed so that we may clearly see God’s economy!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of the Body of Christ, chs. 1-2 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Need for a New Revival, week 1 / msg 1, Reaching the Highest Peak of the Divine Revelation (1) – The Vision of the Age.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# In the Holy Bible / Is a central line, / Truths and revelation / Span the bridge of time. / ’Midst the supplemental / And the “branch” or “leaf” / Is the Christ anointed / For eternity. / Christ in the beginning / Was the Word of God; / As a living person / Christ on earth did trod. / As the Word Incarnate / He is God defined, / So that by His speaking / Life and light men find. (Song on the Central Line in the Bible)
# Christ is the hope of glory, He is my history: / His life is my experience, for He is one with me; / He comes to bring me into His glorious liberty, / That one with Him completely I’ll ever be. (Hymns #949)
# Oh, what a wonderful story / Of me and my glorious Lord. / Together we make our history; / A mingling of God and of man— / Becoming the New Jerusalem, / Full of God’s glory. Hallelujah! (Song on God’s history becoming ours)
About aGodMan
Amen. Thank You Lord, “that we may be made the same as God in life, nature, expression and function, but not in the Godhead.” Thank You Lord, that You are “the sevenfold intensified Spirit to bring us back to the enjoyment of God as the tree of life” ….. Lord Jesus, from where we are in You, we want to co-operate with You in a full way, for the dispensing of the process Triune God to have His way in us, for the building up of the church. …..