For the past nineteen centuries thousands of Bible lovers have studied the Bible. If they were asked what the Bible teaches, they would give many different answers. What I have presented to you in this chapter is the highest standard of what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches only five things: the God-men, the new man, the new creation, the Body of Christ, and the New Jerusalem. The first three—the God-men, the new man, and the new creation—are the factors to bring forth one object of two aspects—the Body of Christ and the New Jerusalem. The God-men, the new man, and the new creation are for the producing of the Body of Christ, which will consummate the New Jerusalem as God’s ultimate goal. This is the real and intrinsic understanding of what the Bible teaches.
In the past seventy-three years, from 1922 until [1995], the Lord in His recovery has used us to develop the intrinsic understanding of His Word. In these seventy-three years Brother Watchman Nee’s ministry occupied the first thirty years, from 1922 to 1952, the year he was imprisoned. During that period Brother Nee laid a very good foundation. From 1952 until today, a period of forty-three years, we, the co-workers of Brother Nee, have continued to develop what he laid as a foundation. In the past two years we have reached the ultimate consummation of our development. This devel¬opment consummates in the God-men, the new man, the new creation, the Body of Christ, and the New Jerusalem. This is the conclusion of our seventy-three years of labor on this Holy Book. I believe that nothing could be higher than this. In the past two years I have been occupied with this day and night. To release this high revelation, there is a need to put out the crystallization-study of the holy Word. (The God-men, pp. 22-23)
THE CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY
In this series of messages, I have the burden to crystallize the book of Romans. Romans is a very common and popular book among Christians. I myself have expounded this book in congregations a number of times. Eventually, I had the Life-study on Romans in [1974]. Even though we did this, I still feel some things are hidden there, and these things are the intrinsic essence of God’s divine revelation in the Epistle to the Romans. (The Crystallization of the Epistle to the Romans, p. 4)
[In 1994 the Lord] led us to begin the crystallization-study of the Bible, a study which goes even deeper than the life-study of the Bible. Recently, I have been on the crystallization-study of Romans every Wednesday night.…The life-study opens the entire Bible to us in a general way, but we still need to touch the depths, the crystals, of the holy Scriptures. Although we are acquainted with the book of Romans and I have expounded it several times, there are still many hidden things as the intrinsic essence of the divine revelation. By such a crystallization-study, the Lord can reveal to us the intrinsic essence of the divine revelation, item by item. (The Governing and Controlling Vision in the Bible, p. 13)
GOD BECOMING MAN TO MAKE MAN GOD IN LIFE AND NATURE
BUT NOT IN THE GODHEAD
All the saints should be motivated by the Triune God’s revelations and visions to join with Him for His move to accomplish His New Testament economy on the earth. Today almost all the countries of this world, except the Muslim countries, have been evangelized. Nearly every place is filled with Christians. Since this is the case, what are our revelation and our vision today? Our revelation and vision have been greatly uplifted in the last three years because we have seen the high peaks of God’s revelation. These are mainly concerning God becoming a man so that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. This is the center of the high peaks of the divine revelation among us.
Today our vision is to go tell the high-peak truths to the Christians. This is what we have been doing in Russia for the past few years. We need to enlighten those in Christianity with the high peaks of the divine revelation. There is a hot market for these high peaks today. Wherever we go today, we will be greatly welcomed if we can speak these high peaks. (The Triune God’s Revelation and His Move, p. 97)
If we read the Bible without paying attention to this crucial point, then, in a very real sense, the Bible is to us an empty book. This means that although the Bible is real in itself, in our understanding of it the Bible is empty. As an illustration, let us suppose that a certain box, which is quite attractive, contains a large diamond. A child may be interested in the box but not in the diamond. An adult, however, would focus his attention on the diamond contained in the box. Today, many Christians care for the Bible as the “box,” they have not seen and do not appreciate the “diamond” which is the content of this box, and they may even condemn those who have a proper appreciation of the “diamond” in the “box.” The “diamond” in the “box” of the Bible is the revelation that in Christ God has become man in order that man may become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead.
The vast majority of today’s Christians neglect the crucial point in the Bible that in Christ God has become man in order to make man God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead and that God desires to mingle Himself with man to be one entity. Some not only neglect this; they falsely accuse as heretical those who teach it. Today many believe one aspect of this crucial point—that God became a man named Jesus—but they do not believe the other aspect—that man is becoming God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. (Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, p. 204)
Hence, beginning from 1984 I released many messages on the economy of God. Then in the spring of [1994] I continued to go higher. I saw that it is only by God’s becoming man to make man God that the Body of Christ can be produced. This point is the high peak of the vision given to us by God.
Actually, early in the fourth century Athanasius, who was present at the Nicene Council, said that “He was made man that we might be made God.” At that time he was an unnoticed young theologian. This word of his became a maxim in church history. However, later, gradually people in Chris¬tianity not only would not teach this but did not dare to teach this. (The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of The Body of Christ, p. 15)
In the Chinese-speaking conference in February of [1994]…my burden was to speak about this matter. For twenty-seven years I had not written a new hymn. Several days before the Chinese-speaking conference I wrote a new hymn with four stanzas:
1. What miracle! What mystery!
That God and man should blended be!
God became man to make man God,
Untraceable economy!
From His good pleasure, heart’s desire,
His highest goal attained will be.
2. Flesh He became, the first God-man,
His pleasure that I God may be:
In life and nature I’m God’s kind,
Though Godhead’s His exclusively.
His attributes my virtues are;
His glorious image shines through me.
3. No longer I alone that live,
But God together lives with me.
Built with the saints in the Triune God,
His universal house we’ll be,
And His organic Body we
For His expression corp’rately.
4. Jerusalem, the ultimate,
Of visions the totality;
The Triune God, tripartite man—
A loving pair eternally—
As man yet God they coinhere,
A mutual dwelling place to be;
God’s glory in humanity
Shines forth in splendor radiantly!
In the two-thousand-year history of Christianity there is not one hymn that is of this category. This is the unique hymn in this category of hymns. This hymn speaks very clearly concerning the high peak of God’s vision. (pp. 16-17)
THE NEW JERUSALEM—THE HIGHEST GOAL OF GOD’S ECONOMY
In…the Bible [God] shows us…a great revelation, that is, that God wants to make Himself the same as man.…He is God, yet he took on human nature, put on a human body, and had a human life to dwell and live together with men in order to make men, His chosen people, the same as He is. Thus, although these men are human, they have His divine life and His divine nature.…He is God and has our human nature; likewise, we are man and also have His divine nature.…By these two natures and two lives God mingles Himself with man in order that His divine life may be lived out through humanity among men, and in order that His redeemed may have His divinity and in His divinity may live out the likeness of God through the resurrected and uplifted humanity.
Eventually, this will make God and man alike and mingled together and even built together. God builds Himself…into man and builds man into Himself.…This is the one new man in the universe. This is what Ephesians 4 shows us. The ultimate consummation of this new man is the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is a constitution of God and man and man and God, who are constituted into one; it is divinity expressed in humanity and humanity glorified in divinity. Therefore, they two—divinity and humanity—become a mutual dwelling place. The One who is God yet man dwells in the one who is man yet God, and the one who is man yet God dwells in the One who is God yet man. They are a mutual dwelling place. Thus, His divine glory shines forth radiantly with great splendor in humanity.…This economy is God and man becoming one entity, as one who is God yet man and man yet God. (The Dispensing, Transformation, and Building of the Processed Divine Trinity in the Believers, pp. 37-38)
THE UNIVERSAL INCORPORATION OF THE UNION AND MINGLING
OF DIVINITY AND HUMANITY
The Bible actually unveils just one thing—the universal incorporation. The purposeful God has an economy, and in His economy He intends to have a universal incorporation. Deep within Himself, God has the purpose to produce a universal incorporation. Eventually, for eternity in the new heaven and new earth, there will be the New Jerusalem, the unique goal of God in His economy.
Although we have seen that the New Jerusalem is the goal of God’s economy, we did not see that the New Jerusalem is an incorporation. In Revelation 21:2 the apostle John says, “I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem,” and in the next verse he speaks of the New Jerusalem as “the tabernacle of God.” As the tabernacle of God the New Jerusalem is God’s dwelling place. We are quite familiar with this aspect of the New Jerusalem; it has become old knowledge to us. Now we need to learn something new and see that as the tabernacle of God the New Jerusalem is the universal incorporation. (The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father With the Divine Glory, pp. 29-30)
Then in [John chapter 14] verse 20 the Lord said that on the day of resurrection the disciples would know that He is in the Father, that they are in Him, and that He is in them. The Son, the person, is in the Father, another person. Then we, the millions of persons, are in the Son, the person. Also, the Son is in us. Union and mingling refer to our relationship with the Lord in our life and nature but not in our person. Humanly speaking, no person can be in another person. But in the divine and mystical realm, the consummated God and the regenerated believers, the persons, indwell one another. This is an incor¬poration. In this universal, divine-human incorporation, persons indwell one another, that is, they coinhere.
In the whole universe, there are God, man, Satan, and the angels. The angels, including Satan and his fallen ones, are not considered persons. God and man are both corporate persons. God is not just a single person. He is three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—a corporate person. We, the millions of believers, are also a corporate person. These persons are now in one another. This is not a mingling but an incorporation.
The word incorporation also indicates that these persons are incorporated together to carry out their purpose, that is, to carry out God’s economy. God’s economy is a big career, a big business. In order to carry out His economy, God needs man to be incorporated into Him. Man and God, humanity and divinity, as persons, are incorporated together for the same purpose, for the same goal, to carry out the same career, that is, God’s eternal economy. (p. 41)
THE ORGANIC ASPECT OF GOD’S SALVATION
How does God make man God? After God regenerates us with Himself as life, He continues to carry out the work of sanctification, renewing, and transformation in us by His Spirit of life. God became man through incarnation; man becomes God through transformation. When the Lord Jesus lived as a man on this earth, He went up on the mountain and was transfigured. That transfiguration was a sudden occurrence. Our transformation into God, however, is not something that happens unexpectedly. Rather, it is a lifetime transformation until we are conformed to His image. Even¬tually, we will enter with Him into glory; that is, we will be redeemed in our body. That will be the final step of the redemption of our whole being that brings us into glory. Therefore, it is through regeneration, sanctification, renew¬ing, transformation, conformation, and glorification that we may become God. When we reach this point, 1 John 3:2 says that when “He is manifested, we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is.” (The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of The Body of Christ, p. 31)
[God’s complete salvation having the aspect of judicial and organic,] that which is accomplished judicially is the initial step as redemption with five items, that which is carried out organically is a further step as salvation, which is different from redemption and includes eight items. Redemption is accomplished judicially, whereas salvation is carried out organically. The eight items in the organic aspect issue in the church of God to constitute the Body of Christ which will consummate the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate goal of God’s eternal economy, that is, an organism constituted with the processed Triune God and His regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified elect joined and mingled as one to be the enlargement and expression of God in eternity.
Unfortunately, most of the believers through the generations have considered the redemption which God accomplished for us in procedure as the purpose of God’s salvation.…This is a great shortcoming of the majority of believers today in salvation in God’s life. As a result, they neglect the pursuing and growing unto full growth in God’s life and hardly see anything concerning the building of the Body of Christ, much less the consummation of the ultimate goal of God’s eternal economy, which is the New Jerusalem. Moreover, even concerning the New Jerusalem as the conclusion of the entire Bible, nearly no one knows what it is, yet some consider the New Jerusalem as the heaven where the believers will go after their death. Because of the lack of knowledge concerning the universal oneness of Christ and the unique goal of God’s economy, they form different sects and establish their own churches according to the partial truths of their fragmentary seeing, thus resulting in the divided and confused condition of Christianity today. (The Organic Aspect of God’s Salvation, pp. 14-15)
THE FULL MINISTRY OF CHRIST IN HIS THREE STAGES
I hope that all the co-workers will see the three stages, the three sections, of Christ: incarnation—the stage of Christ in the flesh; inclusion—the stage of Christ as the life-giving Spirit; and intensification—the stage of Christ as the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit. These three stages are the three sections of Christ’s history. This means that Christ’s history is divided into the section of His incarnation, the section of His inclusion, and the section of His intensification.
Therefore we emphasize these three words—incarnation, inclusion, and intensification—and stress the facts that incarnation produces redeemed people, that inclusion pro¬duces the churches, and that intensification produces the overcomers to build up the Body, which consummates in the New Jerusalem as the unique goal of God’s economy. This is the revelation in the New Testament. (Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification, p. 21)
The New Testament clearly shows us that our Lord became something three times. First, as God, He became flesh; that is, as the infinite God, He became a finite man. Next, as the last Adam, a man in the flesh, He became the life-giving Spirit. Third, as the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, He became the seven Spirits. In the New Testament we see that Christ has these three stages. The majority of Christians have seen only one age, the age of the New Testament; they have not seen that within this one age there are three stages. In the first stage He was the Son of Man in the flesh; this is the stage of His incarnation in the four Gospels. In the second stage He is altogether the Spirit; this is the stage of His inclusion from Acts to Jude, the twenty-two books dealing with the life-giving Spirit. In the third stage the life-giving Spirit has become the seven Spirits, the sevenfold intensified Spirit; this is the stage of His intensification in Revelation. These are Christ’s three “becomings” in His three stages. His first becoming is in the stage of His incarnation, His second coming is in the stage of His inclusion, and His third coming is in the stage of His intensification. This is the New Testament. (How To Be a Co-worker and an Elder and How to Fulfill Their Obligations, p. 61)
THE DIVINE AND MYSTICAL REALM
We have seen that the Spirit has been consummated and that Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. Thus, we may now speak of the divine and mystical realm of this consummated Spirit and of this pneumatic Christ. What a marvelous realm this is!
We have pointed out that the three of the Divine Trinity are self-existing, ever-existing, and coinhering, and as such the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are a divine and mystical realm. With the Triune God Himself as a mystical realm there are no “complications,” but in the divine and mystical realm of the consummated Spirit and the pneumatic Christ there are a number of “complications,” all of which are blessings to us.
God wanted us to be in Him. If He were merely the Triune God without Christ’s humanity, death, and resurrection, and we could enter into Him, we would find the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but nothing of humanity, death, and resurrection. However, when we enter into the divine and mystical realm of the consummated Spirit and the pneumatic Christ, we have not only divinity but also the humanity of Christ, the death of Christ with its effectiveness, and the resurrection of Christ with its repelling power. Everything is here in this wonderful realm. (The Divine and Mystical Realm, p. 40)
The believers must consider highly the entry into this realm, realizing that without Christ becoming the life-giving Spirit, without Christ being the pneumatic Christ, without Christ being the Lord Spirit, and without Christ being the Christ in resurrection and not only in the flesh, there is absolutely no way for the believers to participate in, experience, and enjoy the organic section of God’s complete salvation in Christ. (pp. 47-48)
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