Did you know that in the resurrection of Christ the consummated Triune God was incorporated with the regenerated believers? This is the highest vision concerning Christ in His resurrection: He was glorified by the Father by releasing the divine life from within Him, He became the life-giving Spirit, He was begotten of God to be the Firstborn Son of God, He regenerated the believers for His Body, and thus the Triune God has been incorporated with the redeemed and regenerated man to become one universal divine-human incorporation, “you are in Me and I am in you” (John 14:20).
The issue of Christ’s resurrection (which is His glorification) is the incorporation of all of God’s chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people with Himself in three aspects: the Father’s house (John 14), the Son’s vine (John 15), and the Spirit’s child (that is, the one new man, as seen in John 16 and Col. 3:10-11).
The Triune God became a man – He was embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ, He lived a perfect human life on earth, died an all-inclusive, all-terminating, and life-releasing death on the cross, and entered into resurrection where He released and expressed the divine life which was concealed within Him; in His resurrection millions of men were regenerated by the Father with the life of Christ through the Spirit to be part of the divine-human incorporation of the Triune God with man.
This is a very mysterious yet real matter revealed in the Bible, especially in the Gospel of John. This divine-human incorporation has three aspects: the Father’s house, the Son’s vine, and the Spirit’s child. Today we want to see how the mysterious types of the “vine” in John 15 and the “child” in John 16 refer to this wonderful divine-human incorporation.
Christ (the True Vine) and the Believers (the many Branches) are the Organism of the Triune God for His Multiplication
Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5, Recovery Version Bible. Picture credit: here.
The second aspect of the incorporation of the consummated Triune God with the regenerated believers is the true vine of the Son, as revealed in John 15:1-8, 16. Christ is the true vine, the believers are the many branches, and the Father is the husbandman as the source, the author, the planner, the planter, the life, the substance, the soil, the water, the air, the sunshine, and everything to the vine.
All other vines are fake: only Christ is the true vine, and He is the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God with Himself as the vine and the many believers in Christ as the branches in the vine.
We were branches in the wild olive tree but through our believing into Christ we were cut off from our old source and grafted into the cultivated olive tree, Christ as the true vine (Rom. 11:17, 24); we have been grafted into Christ! By believing into Christ we were brought into the life-union with the crucified and resurrected Christ and we were incorporated into the processed and consummated Triune God.
This vine, Christ in His resurrection with and through all His believers as the branches, is spreading all over the earth. The many believers in Christ are the branches of Christ as the vine; you cannot really differentiate the branches from the vine – the branches are the vine, and if you cut the branches, you cut the vine; the glory of the vine is in the branches, and Christ is increased, multiplied, reproduced, and glorified in His many believers as the many branches in Christ.
We have been incorporated one into another: we abide in the Lord and He abides in us; we live Him out and He lives in us. By believing into Christ and by abiding in Him we live in Him and coinhere in one another. Also, we are members one of another: we are not only in Christ but also in and one with all the believers in Christ; we are members one of another.
We can never live an individual independent Christian life since through regeneration we have been grafted into Christ to be part of the universal incorporation with God and the believers; now we are members of Christ and members one of another in the Body of Christ.
This is all for the unlimited Triune God’s multiplication as the increase of the immeasurable Christ, the embodiment of the processed and consummated Triune God, for His universal spreading through the fruit-bearing of the believers in Christ as the branches by their faithful abiding in Christ for the glorification of the Father (John 3:29-30; 15:4-5, 8, 16).
As we abide in the Lord, He grows in us, He flows His rich life-sap into our being, and He flows out of us to bear fruit in us and through us; this fruit is for the multiplication of Christ and the glorification of the Father. The spreading of Christ all around the world is not a matter of man’s work, endeavoring, or “evangelizing” but a matter of the many believers in Christ abiding in Him as the vine and allowing Him to flow in them, supply them, grow in them, and flow out of them to bear fruit in them.
When we all enjoy the riches of the vine and allow the life-sap of the vine flow in and out of us, the fruit will come in a normal way. Whether we’re at home, at school, in our community, at work, or on the street, if we abide in the Lord, He will abide in us and will flow out of us to bear fruit for Christ’s multiplication and the Father’s glorification.
Lord Jesus, we choose to abide in You and we allow You to abide in us so that we may be fruit-bearing branches in Christ, the universal vine as organism of the Triune God. Lord, keep us in the life union with You, abiding in You all the time wherever we are and whatever we do. Flow in us, grow in us, saturate us with Your riches, and flow out of us to bear fruit in us for Your multiplication and for the Father’s glory. Oh, may the universal vine of the Son increase and spread all over the earth for Christ’s multiplication and the Father’s glory!
The new Child of the Spirit – the New Man Regenerated by the Father with Christ’s Life and Born by the Spirit
The third aspect of the incorporation of the consummated God with the regenerated believers in resurrection is the new child of the Spirit (see John 16:13-16; 19-22). The Lord Jesus told His disciples in John 16 that He will leave them, and they will be sorrowful, but after a little while He will return to them, and they will be full of joy – just as a mother rejoices after the child-labor when the child is born into this world.
This is very significant, even though many believers don’t fully understand it. The laboring mother was the early disciples, who were sorrowful that the Lord Jesus left them through death, and the new child refers to the one new man produced by Christ through His death and resurrection (Col. 3:10-11).
Through Christ’s resurrection a new child, a new man, was born by the consummated Spirit (John 16:21, 13-15). This new child, the new man, was created by Christ on the cross by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments in ordinances (Eph. 2:15), thus making peace between peoples in Himself.
This new child, the new man, was regenerated by the Father with the resurrected Christ in His resurrection (see 1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 1:4) and was born by the Spirit in the believers’ spirit (John 3:6). When we believed into the Lord Jesus, we were born of the Spirit and regenerated by the Father with the life of Christ in His resurrection. Hallelujah!
Today we are in the age of the new man, where there are many peoples, cultures, backgrounds, races, and nationalities, but Christ is all and in all. In the new man there’s no room for race, culture, background, or nationality – in the new man Christ is all and in all!
In the church life today we come from different countries, we have different races, colors, nationalities, cultures, backgrounds, customs, etc – but we exercise our spirit to let Christ saturate us and permeate us until He becomes all and in all in us as the new man! Day by day we need to put on the new man through the renewing in the spirit of the mind to consummate the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:23-24).
Christ is the new man; He came into our spirit and made us part of the new man. The new man is a corporate man, and though we all are different in many ways, we are all one in Christ because He is all in all.
As we practice to live in the reality of the new man, we need to exercise our spirit to allow the Spirit to renew our mind from all our concepts, preferences, customs, cultures, and backgrounds, and put on the new man! Every day we need to exercise to put off the old man and put on the new man. Hallelujah, in Christ we are one new man for His expression!
Lord, we exercise our spirit and we allow You to renew our mind from all our concepts and preferences so that You may be all-in-all in the church as the new man. Lord, You have abolished in Your flesh the law of commandments in ordinances; today we exercise our spirit to be one with You and one with one another in the new man by allowing You to tear down any difference, culture, race, and background so that You may be all-in-all in all the saints! Cause us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind so that we may live in the reality of the one new man for Your corporate expression and move!
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. 5 (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:
# He’s the vine and we’re the branches, / We should e’er abide in Him, / And let Him abide within us / As the flow of life within…./ Oh, how precious this abiding, / Oh, how intimate and sweet; / As the fruit of life is added, / And our joy is made complete. (Hymns #1163)
# The living vine, a reality / Of God and man, one organically / Mutual abode, organism sweet. / Expression full, mingling complete. / When we abide, there’s a flow within. / As branches we—are expressing Him. / Our God needs us, we depend on Him. / To bear much fruit, to bring others in. (Song on Abiding in Christ)
# We’re walking in newness of life / And singing a joyful new song; / In newness of spirit we serve, / This new one accord makes us strong. / We’re drinking the new life divine, / Oh, how this new wine our heart cheers! / The new man will walk this new way / Until the new city appears. (Song on the New Man)
About aGodMan
A new child, a new man, was born by the consummated Spirit (John 16:21, 13-15). This new man was created by Christ on the cross by abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances (Eph. 2:15). While Christ was dying on the cross, He was creating this new man. Also this new man was regenerated by the Father with the resurrected Christ in His resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 1:4) and born by the Spirit in the believers’ spirit (John 3:6b). The first group of Christ’s believers who suffered Christ’s departure through His death was the delivering woman (John 16:20-21). The Christ who returned in His resurrection was the newborn child (v. 22) to be the new man (Col. 3:10-11). Now we believers have to put on this new man through the renewing in the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:23-24)….Our putting on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind will eventually consummate the Body of Christ, and this Body of Christ, which is the church, will consummate the New Jerusalem. (Witness Lee, The Issue of Christ Being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory, pp. 45-46)