We have seen much concerning the experience of Christ. We have begun with the lamb of the passover and passed through many different items such as the daily manna, the cleft rock with the flowing stream, the Ark of the Testimony with its enlargement, the tabernacle, all the various offerings, the priests with the priesthood, and the holy army. Eventually we have come to the land, the all-inclusive land. We have seen that this land is everything both to God and to the people of God. The picture is abundantly clear.
All the items from the lamb to the land are types of Christ. Each one, as a type, is complete and perfect in itself, but the last one, the land, is the all-inclusive and greatest type. The passover lamb as a type of Christ is indeed complete and perfect, yet it is a type of Christ on a much smaller scale. As far as the Lord Himself is concerned, He is not circumscribed, but as far as our experience of Him is concerned, there is such a limitation. When we come to the Lord and accept Him as our Redeemer, the Christ we receive is whole, complete, and perfect, but as far as our experience of Him is concerned, we experience Him only on a small scale, just as a little lamb.
From the time we experienced Christ as the lamb, we have always been progressing and advancing; we have continually made improvement in our experience of Christ and have enjoyed Him more and more. This does not mean that Christ has become larger and larger. No, Christ is the same, but according to our experience we sense that He is greater and greater to us. Day by day in our experience, Christ is becoming greater and greater. At the stage of our experience in which we reach the last item, the all-inclusive land, Christ is unlimitedly great to us. He is a spacious land. He is a land whose dimensions are the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height. There is no limit to the breadth and the length; there is no limit to the depth and the height. No one can tell you how great Christ is—His spaciousness is unlimited. This is the land we have entered. The other items can be measured. There is an extent, a limit, to the features and experiences of the Christ they prefigure. Not so with the land. The Christ who is typified by the land is inexhaustible and immeasurable.
When we enjoy Christ as the lamb, God demands that we stop all our work. At the time of the passover, no one was allowed to work—all work must be stopped (Exo. 12:16). There was nothing to do but enjoy the lamb. The blood was put upon the door, and the meat of the lamb was eaten within the house. There was nothing more to do. The same applied to the eating of the manna. The manna came down from heaven for their enjoyment. Nothing needed to be done but simply to take and enjoy it. So it is when we enjoy Christ in such a way. When we take Him as our Savior and as our daily food supply, there is absolutely nothing for us to perform. We only need to accept freely and fully what has already been provided. Any manner of work from us can only hinder the enjoyment of Christ in these aspects and would be an insult to God.
But when we come to the Ark, it is a different story: there remains something for us to do. With the experience of Christ as the Ark we have the building up of the tabernacle. The aspect of work is even further intensified when we come to the land, for as we have already seen, unless we work upon the land, it will produce nothing for us. The land is indeed different from the lamb and the manna. The manna descended with the dew from heaven (Num. 11:9). There was no work required for its enjoyment but simply to rise, gather, and partake. But when the people of Israel entered the land and began to enjoy its goodness, the manna from heaven ceased, and the fruit of the land took its place as their food supply (Josh. 5:12). We must be deeply impressed with this difference: to enjoy the manna requires no work, but to enjoy the produce of the good land depends very much upon our work. It is entirely different.
When we are newly saved and spiritually immature, we do enjoy Christ. He is so good and wonderful to us! Oh, Christ is our lamb, our daily manna, and our rock with the flowing stream—He is so good! He does everything for us! But as we gradually mature in the Lord, we discover that we have something to do. We must bear some responsibility; we must work. In our human families, for instance, there are the little ones, the infants and the toddlers. They have nothing to do but enjoy what is being continually provided for them. Everything for them is prepared by others. But when they grow a few more years, they are given a little responsibility in the family, perhaps looking after some younger members, perhaps doing some minor chores. Then when they mature a few more years, they are charged with greater responsibility. And when they reach the age of twenty or more, they must take employment and earn their entire living. It is exactly the same in the spiritual realm. When we enter into the all-inclusiveness of Christ, we enjoy much more of Him. But at the same time there is considerable responsibility which must be taken by us. The more we work on Christ, the more we will produce of Christ, the more we will enjoy Christ, the more we will have of Christ to share with others, and the more we can offer Christ to God. All this depends on the amount of our labor upon Christ. When we enter the land, we must work!
Brothers and sisters, when are you going to have your corporation registered in your city? What corporation? Christ Incorporated! Christ Incorporated, Los Angeles! Christ Incorporated, San Francisco! Christ Incorporated, Sacramento! Every group of believers as a local expression of the Body of Christ must be a corporation, a factory to turn out Christ in mass production. We must be working on Christ and producing Christ day by day. We must make Christ our industry. If others ask us what our business is, we should be able to answer that it is Christ, and our firm is Christ Incorporated. We want to see that this corporation will have branches in every city throughout the entire world. How wonderful if everywhere we go there would be this reality—a group of people whose only business is Christ. Christ Incorporated, London! Christ Incorporated, Paris! Christ Incorporated, Tokyo! Sometime we can have a world fair. Christ Incorporated in Taipei can bring something. Christ Incorporated in Hong Kong can bring something. From every city the Lord’s children can bring the Christ they have produced and have an exhibit of His manifold riches. Let us come together to have an exhibition of Christ. We are not speaking of some kind of human organization but of those who are built together in Christ in a practical way, whose only purpose is to work upon Him in order to produce Him, enjoy Him, share Him, and express Him. This is what God intends that we do.
Consider again the people of Israel in the ancient times. After one year of laboring upon the good land, cultivating the ground, sowing the seed, watering and pruning the plants, the day of the Feast of Tabernacles came. Then from all over the land, from all the cities and towns, the people came together to their center in Jerusalem, bringing the tithes and firstfruits of their produce. There was an exhibition of all the products of the land of Canaan. This feast together with God’s people and with God Himself all depended upon their diligent work on the land.
Now we are enjoying Christ as the very reality of that exceeding good land. It is indeed the grace of God to give us such a land, but it is a matter which involves our full cooperation. We must cooperate and coordinate with God. God has prepared and provided this piece of land—that is, God has given us Christ. And God has poured out the rain from heaven upon this land—that is, God has given us the Holy Spirit. The land is the type of Christ, and the rain is the type of the Holy Spirit. Yet there is the need of our cooperation. We must cooperate with God; then we will have the produce. How much do we cooperate with God? This is the problem.
In some so-called churches, you cannot realize that anything exists as the produce of the good land. All they can afford people is the lamb of the passover and the manna from heaven. All they can minister to people is Christ as the redeeming lamb or Christ as the daily manna. They cannot minister Christ as the good land because they themselves have never entered the good land. But in some local churches, when you contact the people and attend their meetings, you realize that whenever they come together, there is a rich exhibition; all kinds of the produce of Christ are displayed. Why? Because they have entered the good land and they are working diligently upon Christ. They have many good things which they have produced from Christ.