Christ as the Word of God speaks for God; He became flesh to make God contactable, touchable, receivable, and enjoyable, and He has become the Spirit for us to receive Him and enjoy Him! Hallelujah, what a Christ we have!
The Gospel of John is an amazing Gospel, speaking not of an objective Christ or about any objective doctrines but concerning the wonderful person of Jesus Christ, who came for us to enjoy Him and partake of Him, even to experience Him.
This book, the gospel of John, reveals that we as believers in Christ should have the subjective experiences of Christ.
Christ has come to us to be our very life; He is not just the eternal life of God, the divine life of God – He is the life of God that was incarnated, processed, consummated, and coming to us to give us life.
Hallelujah, we today can enjoy God in Christ as our very life, for He as the Spirit is the life-giving Spirit with our spirit! God the Father is the source of the divine life; God the Son is the embodiment of the divine life; God the Spirit is the Giver of life.
The Father as the source of life is being expressed and manifested in Christ as the embodiment of life; when Christ came, He expressed the Father, He embodied the Father, and He fully manifested the Father in an individual man.
Furthermore, this Jesus Christ who lived and died on earth, was raised from the dead and, in resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit; the Spirit is the Giver of life.
The Lord Jesus spoke concerning this in John 6:63, after telling the disciples that they have to eat His flesh and drink His blood so that they would have a part in Him; He said that the flesh profits nothing – it is the Spirit who gives life.
The Lord doesn’t want His disciples to eat some sort of a physical something that is His flesh and blood; He wants us to enjoy Him as our life by partaking of the Spirit and receiving the Spirit, for the Spirit gives life.
The more we enjoy Christ as life, experience Christ as life, and partake of Christ as life, the more we grow in life, and the more there will be an overflow of life; this is for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
This is what the gospel of John reveals to us; what we see in this gospel is not mere doctrines or the history of Jesus on earth, but the way for us to have the subjective experience of Christ.
What we need today is more subjective experience of Christ as life for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
The more we all as members of the Body, enjoy the Lord, experience Christ as life, and take Him as our life supply, the more there will be an increase of Christ, a growth in life, and the result is the building up of the Body of Christ.
Christ as the Word of God Speaks for God through His Creation, Incarnation, Becoming the Lamb of God, and Becoming the Spirit
Chapter 1 of John reveals Christ as the eternal Word of God; this book starts with, In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
This Word which was with God and was God, He became a man; He was incarnated by putting on humanity. Christ is the Word of God, and He speaks for God through His creation.
It is through Christ as the Word of God that the whole universe was created (John 1:3). Everything that exists was created through Christ as the Word of God; Christ as the Word speaks for God through His creation.
Christ as the Word of God speaks for God through His incarnation; when He was incarnated, He became the tabernacle of God, for God tabernacled on earth in Jesus Christ (John 1:14).
The matter of Christ’s incarnation is a major event in human history; at incarnation, God became a man, and the infinite God became a finite man, even a little baby born in a manger. Wow!
This changed the course of human history. Christ as the Word of God speaks for God in His becoming the Lamb of God for redemption (John 1:29).
The incarnated God-man, Jesus Christ, became the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world; this speaks for God, expressing God and manifesting God in man.
What a great event this was, Christ as the Lamb of God dying on the cross to be the redeeming Lamb, taking away our sins!
This surely spoke for God to manifest His love, His care, and His desire to bring us back to Himself!
Christ as the Word of God speaks for God through His becoming the anointing Spirit for the transformation of God’s redeemed people into stones for the building of God’s house (John 1:32-42, 51; cf. Gen. 28:11-22). Amen!
Christ became the Spirit who anoints man for the transformation of man into stones for God’s building so that God would have a house, an organic building, for His corporate expression.
We were sinners, lost in the world, without God and without hope, but Christ came as the Word of God to speak for God.
He speaks through His creation, through His incarnation, through His death, and through His resurrection.
And all these are found in the first chapter of John, where Christ is introduced as the Word of God who defines God, explains God, lives out God, and expresses God; this Christ speaks for God by the major events in human history.
Christ speaks for God through His creation of all things; if we look at creation, we can clearly see the characteristics of God, and we cannot but marvel at His wisdom.
Christ speaks for God through His incarnation; if we look at Christ’s incarnation and read concerning His God-man living, we will be amazed to see that God tabernacled in a man, and Christ expressed God in full.
Christ speaks for God in being crucified to be the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world; if we look at Christ’s crucifixion, we are amazed to see how He redeemed us, reconciled us to God, and shed His blood for us, making peace through His death.
Christ speaks for God through His becoming the Spirit, for as the Spirit He comes to transform us from dust, clay, into living stones, precious stones, suitable for God’s building.
Lord Jesus, we love You as the Word of God, the One who speaks for God to express God and explain God! Praise You for Your creation of all things: in Your creation we can see the divine characteristics and wisdom of God. Praise You for Your incarnation, through which the Triune God became a tripartite man, and God tabernacled in a human being to be expressed on earth. Praise You for Your crucifixion: thank You for dying as the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. Praise You for being resurrected to be the anointing Spirit to transform us into materials for God’s building! Hallelujah for Christ as the Word of God who speaks for God!
Christ’s Incarnation made God Contactable and Receivable, and His becoming the Spirit made Him available for us to Breathe, Eat, Drink, and Enjoy!
Christ’s incarnation is full of significance and meaning; through His incarnation, God became a man, and the God who dwells in unapproachable light became contactable.
When Christ as the Word of God became flesh (John 1:14), He made God contactable and touchable.
Through becoming a man in the person of Jesus Christ, God could be seen, contacted, and touched.
Even more, through His incarnation, God became receivable and experienceable; God is now available for man to receive and experience.
Before the incarnation of Christ, God was not able to be received and experienced by man; through the Triune God becoming a God-man to mingle divinity with humanity, God became contactable, touchable, receivable, and experienceable.
Now the very God who was in eternity became the very embodiment of the Triune God, which is typified by the tabernacle; He became “a solid entity” for people to contact, receive, touch, experience, enter into, and enjoy.
This is what we see in the Gospel of John – a God who became man for man to enjoy God, contact God, receive God, touch God, experience God, and enter into God.
Because God became a man, because Christ came through incarnation, now we can contact God, touch God, receive God, experience God, enter into God, and enjoy God, so that God might work Himself into us.
God is no longer apart from us, for He has become one of us, and now we can touch Him, enjoy Him, receive Him, and experience Him.
This is what God desires; He doesn’t want only to reveal His heart’s desire to man and unveil His economy to the man created in His image – He wants man to enjoy God, experience God, touch God, contact God, enter into God, and become one with God.
This is the subjective truth that we find in the Gospel of John, and this subjective truth helps us to experience God, the Word who became flesh.
Now we can be those who are contacting God, touching God, experiencing God, receiving God, entering into God, enjoying God, and allowing God to work Himself into us; this is His economy.
Furthermore, Christ became the Spirit as the breath for us to breathe Him; He became the living water so that we may drink Him, and He became the bread of life for us to eat Him (John 4:10, 14; 6:32-33, 35, 51, 54-57; 7:37-39; 20:22).
All this is revealed in the Gospel of John, a gospel concerning our subjective experience of Christ as life.
In John 4 and 7 we see that the Lord Himself gives and even is the living water; we all are thirsty, and the water we drink from does not quench our thirst – but the water He gives us causes us to be satisfied and even to flow out rivers of water of life.
In John 6 the Lord said He is the bread of life, the living bread, and the bread that comes out of heaven from God; as such a One, He wants to be enjoyed by us, eaten by us, and taken into us so that He may constitute us with Himself.
In John 20 we see that, after His resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit, for He can now breathe Himself into us for us to receive the Holy Spirit, the holy breath. Amen!
The Christ revealed in the Gospel of John is so subjective to us; we can touch Him, enjoy Him, receive Him, experience Him, and enter into Him.
Even more, we can breathe Him in, for He is the breath of life, the Spirit who gives life; we can drink Him, for He is the living water to quench our thirst; we can eat Him, for He is the bread of life to satisfy us and cause us to live because of Him.
This is not mere doctrine: this is the subjective truth, and we can experience such a One today!
Thank You, Lord Jesus, for becoming a man to make God contactable, touchable, receivable, experienceable, enterable, and enjoyable, so that God may work Himself into us. Amen, Lord, we come to You to contact God, touch God, receive God, experience God, enter into God, and enjoy God, so that God may be wrought into us. Thank You for becoming the Spirit as the breath for us to breathe You in. Thank You for being the living water to quench our thirst; we come to You and drink of You as the living water! Amen, Lord, thank You for being the bread of life, the living bread, the bread of God, and the bread that comes down out from heaven; we come to eat of You and be satisfied! Oh, what a Christ we have!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” ch. 1-2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing the Truth, being Absolute for the Truth, and Proclaiming the Truth in this Present Evil Age (2021 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 4, The Recovery of the Subjective Truths in the Gospel of John.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Lamb of God so pure and spotless, / Lamb of God for sinners slain. / Thy shed blood has wrought redemption, / Cleansing us from every stain. / Lamb redeeming, Lamb redeeming, / Bearing all our sins away. (Hymns #1089)
– We have seen Christ is reality: / But it’s not sufficient just to see: / He in our experience must be / Everything to us. / We in prayer behold Him face to face, / In the Word and meetings know His grace; / But in daily life, in every place, / What is He to us? / Hallelujah! By His light we see / Oh, how real, how full our Lord will be / If we’ll only turn to Him at every time, / in every day, / Every thing, in every way and— / Be specific for reality! / And be done with generality! / If we’ll just apply Him, we will see / He’s everything to us. (Hymns #1178)
– The Spirit today is the air that we breathe; / Our spirits rejoice in this living inflow. / For just as our body the breath does receive, / So also in spirit to live it is so. (Hymns #1114)
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