The most mysterious issue of Christ’s resurrection was the divine-human incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with His redeemed and regenerated believers. What really happened at the time of the Lord’s resurrection is that He was glorified by the Father, that is, the divine life within Him was released and imparted into millions of people who became believers in Christ, sons of God, brothers of Christ, and members of the Body of Christ.
By releasing the divine life from within the shell of His humanity through His death and resurrection, all the believers in Christ were regenerated and, even more, they were “incorporated into God” – according to John 14:20, in that day (the day of the Lord’s resurrection) we ALL knew that the Son is in the Father, the Father is in the Son, and we are in the Son, and the Son is in us.
This is so wonderful and yet so mysterious: God is in us and we are in God, we are one with God in life, mingled with Him in nature, and incorporated with Him by being one with Him in our person.
If we carefully read John 14-16, the long sermon/speech the Lord gave before He was arrested, we will notice that there is an issue of His resurrection, which in ch. 14 is the Father’s house with its many abodes, in ch. 15 it is the Son’s vine with the many branches abiding in the vine, and in ch. 16 it is the child of the Spirit.
Today we will get into the matter of the issue of Christ’s glorification (His resurrection) being a divine and human incorporation, the first aspect of which is the Father’s house.
As believers in Christ we have been incorporated with the Triune God to be the house of the Father, of which the Lord spoke earlier in John when He kicked out those making business in the temple, and which will eventually consummate in the New Jerusalem.
The Father’s house is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, it is built up by the believers loving the Lord and thus having the Son with the Father come and make their abode with them, has Christ as the cornerstone, and it will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the mutual dwelling place of God and man.
Oh, may the Lord unveil us to see the house of the Father as the issue of Christ’s glorification, the incorporation of God’s chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people with Himself!
What is the Father’s House in John 14:2?
The first aspect of the issue of Christ’s glorification in His resurrection is the Father’s house, of which He spoke in John 14:2, In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.
The house of the Father with its many abodes is NOT the “heavens” or the “heavenly mansions” on which the Lord is supposedly working on to build them until He takes us to Himself; this is a natural concept according to man’s lust and desire in the flesh.
The many abodes in the Father’s house are all the believers in Christ, those redeemed through His blood, regenerated with His life by His Spirit, and transformed with the divine element by the life-giving Spirit. We all, the believers in Christ, are the many rooms, the many abodes, in the Father’s house.
In John 2:16-21 the Lord Jesus made reference to the Father’s house when He cleaned the temple and cast out the money-changers and sellers in the temple; there He referred to the Father’s house as being His Body which was to be destroyed and then resurrected in three days.
This temple, according to Rev. 21, is the tabernacle of God with man, God’s dwelling place; according to Rev. 7, it is the place where man dwells with God. The Father’s house is a mutual dwelling place where God dwells with and in man and man dwells with and in God.
The Father’s house is the incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with His redeemed, regenerated, and transformed believers. The Father’s house will consummate in the New Jerusalem where all God’s people will be His dwelling place and they will all dwell in God.
How we can Build Up and be Incorporated into the Father’s House
The Father’s house in John 14:2 is a divine and human incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God constituted with His redeemed, regenerated, and transformed chosen people (John 14:2, 16-20); today, the Father’s house is the church.
How can we build up the Father’s house today, and how can we be part of the house of the Father in an experiential way? According to the Bible, when we love the Lord and keep His word, the Son and the Father come to us to make an abode with us (John 14:23).
The Father’s house is built up by the constant visitation to the redeemed ones of the Father and the Son with the Spirit who indwells them to be the mutual dwelling place of God and man. Simply by loving the Lord, opening to Him, and allowing Him to come into us, the Triune God comes in, makes His home in our heart, and makes us an abode in the Father’s house.
Just love the Lord; just open to Him, enjoy Him, and touch Him, and He will come in, make His home deep down in our heart, and build up His house in us. Every morning we need to open our being to the Triune God to come and visit us; there’s nothing like the visitation of the Triune God: He knocks on the door of our heart, and if we open, He comes in, eats and drinks with us, supplies us, and builds His home in our heart. It is good to tell the Lord,
Lord Jesus, I open my being to You. I love You. Strengthen me into my inner man with power through Your Spirit so that You may make Your home in my heart. Lord, settle down in my heart as I enjoy You and open to You. Make Your home in my heart, and build me up with You and with the saints into Your dwelling place, the Father’s house!
The more we eat Christ, the more we are incorporated into the universal divine-human incorporation, the Father’s house. According to Rev. 2:17, those who overcome in Pergamos will be given to eat of the hidden manna and they will receive a white stone; the hidden manna was in the golden pot, which was in the ark of the covenant, which was in the Holy of Holies, which was in the tabernacle.
The hidden manna is a hidden portion of the riches of Christ; when we enjoy Christ daily in a hidden secret way before God, He becomes our inward supply.
Eating Christ as the hidden manna ushers us into being incorporated into the divine-human incorporation: as we eat the hidden Christ, we are in the divine life of God the Father (signified by the golden pot), which is in Christ as the testimony of God (signified by the ark), which is in our mingled spirit (signified by the Holy of Holies), which is in Christ (signified by the tabernacle). When we enjoy the hidden manna, we are incorporated into God; just as the Son is in the Father (the manna is in the golden pot), so we are in God and God is in us!
Every day, despite of all that’s going around us, we can feed on Christ and have Him as our hidden inward supply to sustain us in our ups-and-downs. He is with us in the midst of our difficulties or discouragement, and the more we feed on Him, the more we participate in the divine-human incorporation, because Christ is in the Father, the Father is in Christ, and they are in our spirit as the Spirit, one with us, mingled with us, and incorporated with us.
Lord Jesus, keep us eating You as the hidden manna so that we may be incorporated into God! Lord, no matter what the outward circumstances may be like, keep us eating You, enjoying You, and feeding on You as the inward hidden supply that sustains us and incorporates us into God. Thank You we can participate in the divine-human incorporation by feeding on Christ daily as the hidden manna!
The Foundation, Purpose, and Consummation of the Father’s House
The foundation of the Father’s house is the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ as the cornerstone; this house grows into the holy temple of the Lord, which is the dwelling place of God in the believers’ spirit (see Eph. 2:19-22).
The Father’s house is being built up as the Father strengthens the believers into their inner man according to the riches of His glory with power through His Spirit so that Christ may make His home in their heart and they are built up as the fullness, the full expression, of the Triune God (Eph. 3:16-19).
The purpose of the Father’s house is threefold.
- First, the purpose of the Father’s house is for the invisible and mysterious Triune God to have a visible, tangible, and solid manifestation as the church among men on the earth (1 Tim. 3:15-16).
- Second, the purpose of the Father’s house is for the rest and satisfaction of the processed and consummated Triune God; here God is at home and man is at home, and they both enjoy rest and satisfaction.
- Finally, the purpose of the Father’s house is for the eternal and purposeful Triune God to carry out His eternal economy to consummate the New Jerusalem as His eternal goal for His eternal expansion and expression (Rev. 21-22).
The Father’s house will consummate and become the New Jerusalem, the culmination and climax of God’s eternal economy and purpose, where God will be fully expressed in man and man will glorify God for eternity. Hallelujah!
[Disclaimer: most of the utterances in this section are NOT mine; they are a re-speaking and repeat of brother Lee’s utterances in ch. 4 of, The Issue of Christ being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, published by Living Stream Ministry (also online here)]
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. 4 (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.
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# Three aspects of incorporation: / Father’s house for His satisfaction, / The true vine for His multiplication, / Child of the Spirit, for His move on earth. (Song on Incorporation)
# Lord, deeper make Thy home in me / ’Til ev’ry room belong to Thee, / That Thou might fully make me Thee / And so full rest Thou have in me. (Song on Christ making His home in us)
# Our spirit You have filled / At our regeneration, / But mind, emotion, will / Await Your saturation. / How much of You is built in us / To make our heart Your home? / O Triune God, we welcome You. / Come build, oh, build in us. (Song on God’s building in us)
About aGodMan
[There are] three aspects of the incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers….The first aspect…is the house of the Father (John 14:2). Chapters 14, 15, and 16 of John are a long message given by the Lord Jesus shortly before He was arrested. Each of these three chapters covers one of three aspects of the universal incorporation. In John 14 we have the Father’s house; in John 15, the Son’s vine; and in John 16, the child born of the Spirit. The house of the Father, the true vine of the Son, and the child of the Spirit are the three different aspects of the universal incorporation as the issue of Christ’s glorification. (Witness Lee, The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, p. 32)