The second crucial item in the Bible is the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8). The riches of Christ are who He is, what He has, and what He has accomplished, attained to, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable and unlimited.
Our general understanding regarding God’s salvation is that our forefather Adam sinned and fell, causing all of mankind to be trapped in sin and to become sinners before God. Although this was our condition, because of God’s great love with which He loved us, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to accomplish redemption for us. Jesus Christ then died on the cross to deal with all of our sin, was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit, and is now living in us to be our life. Today as long we repent, believe in Him, and receive Him as our Savior, we will be saved and regenerated, we will have the living God as our life, and we will have light, joy, and peace. Then this living God will transform us so that we may be sanctified to be like Him. This is our understanding of the salvation of God. Even though this understanding is all correct, it is not thorough enough and has not entered into the main content of God’s New Testament economy.
God’s eternal economy is to gain a group of people that He may dispense Himself into them to be their life and everything so that they may be joined to Him as one, be filled and occupied with Him, and be one entity with Him on the earth to be the Body of Christ, the church, for His expression. This expression begins in the church today, proceeds to the millennial kingdom in the next age, and continues in the New Jerusalem in eternity. For this, God created the universe. In this universe there is the earth, which is a globe enveloped by a layer of air, and there are various living creatures upon the earth. All these things were created for the existence of the man whom God created. Hence, man is the center of God’s created universe.
Zechariah 12:1 tells us that God created the heavens, the earth, and the spirit of man. God created the heavens for the earth, the earth for man, and man with a spirit for God. God created man in three parts—the spirit in the inmost part, the soul in the inside, and the body on the outside (1 Thes. 5:23). Medical doctors study only our physical and psychological problems, which are related to our body and soul, but they do not know anything about the spirit. It is the same in education today—all the topics of study are related either to our physical or psychological needs; they totally disregard the spirit in man.
John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness,” and 2 Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” The Bible says that man has three parts. According to these two verses, the most important part is the spirit, the organ for man to contact God. This matter not only is not known by people outside of Christianity, but even many who are in Christianity do not know it. People usually confuse the spirit with the soul and are unable to distinguish between the spirit, the soul, and the heart. But in God’s creation of man, He created man with three distinct parts—the outward visible part is the body, the inward invisible part is the soul, and the spirit, which is for contacting God, is enveloped within the soul. The purpose of God in creating man was to create a vessel for Himself that man would be able to receive and contain Him. This vessel within man is like a radio. A radio has an outer shell, but its most important part is its inner receiver, which enables it to receive the outward radio waves. If the receiver is broken, the radio will not work and will have no use. Because of the fall and man’s sins, the spirit of the people in the world is deadened and has become like a broken radio receiver. As a result, they cannot touch or sense God and have lost their function before God.
For this reason, God came to be a man, Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin named Mary, lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years, died on the cross to bear our sins and solve all the negative problems of the universe, was raised from the dead, and was transfigured to become the life-giving Spirit. This process may be likened to that of a grain of wheat (John 12:24). A grain of wheat is sown into the earth and dies. This death, however, is its birth. The grain of wheat passes through death and grows up out of the ground. What is sown into the ground is one body, but what grows up out of the ground is another body (1 Cor. 15:37-44). The Lord Jesus was like a grain of wheat. What was sown into the earth was a humiliated Nazarene, but what grew up was the life-giving Spirit (v. 45).
Christ is both God and man. He both created the universe and became flesh. He also passed through human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, was made Lord and Christ, and became the life-giving Spirit. Today His divine attributes, His human virtues, and His unsearchable riches are all contained in the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is all-inclusive, and by this Spirit, God can enter into us.
In the natural world, the best example of God entering into man is air entering into the human body. Air enters into man and has a close relationship with man’s physical life. Man can survive without eating for seven days and can survive without drinking for a day, but if man does not breathe for five minutes, he will die. Hence, as far as man’s physical life is concerned, eating is not as important as drinking, and drinking is not as important as breathing. Air, which is in the natural world, symbolizes the all-inclusive Spirit, who is in the spiritual world. The Spirit is the ultimate expression of the processed God. The Lord Christ is the God who created all things, became a man, passed through human living, died on the cross, and was resurrected. In resurrection He came back to His disciples in the form of the Spirit and breathed into them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). The Holy Spirit is the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit whom Christ became and the breath of life who comes into us to be our life.
Today the Spirit has been completed. As long as a person confesses that Jesus is Lord, believes in Him, and opens himself to call on His name, the Spirit will immediately enter into him, causing him to be regenerated and to receive the life of God. The spirit of an unsaved sinner is deadened. But if he hears the gospel, believes that Jesus Christ is God who became a man, died for him on the cross, was resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit, and also confesses with his mouth and calls on the Lord from deep within, saying, “O Lord Jesus,” at that very moment, the Lord as the life-giving Spirit will enter into his spirit to enliven and regenerate him. To be regenerated is to receive God’s life in addition to our human life. Once this person receives God’s life, this life will begin to function in him so that he may be sanctified and gradually transformed. This is the way in which Christ is rich to all who call upon Him (Rom. 10:12).
The third important item in the Bible is the church, the Body of Christ. Ephesians 3:10 says, “In order that now to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies the multifarious wisdom of God might be made known through the church.” The church is produced from the unsearchable riches of Christ. When God’s chosen people partake of and enjoy the riches of Christ, these riches constitute them into the church. Through the church, the angels—the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies—may know the multifarious wisdom of God.
We who are saved and regenerated all have this kind of wonderful opportunity. When we who have the life of God gather together and call on the Lord, the Body of Christ will have a practical expression among us and will become a testimony of God in the universe. God in His economy has to obtain this Body, not only that He may be lived out and be testified among the human race on the earth, but also that the angels may know the multifarious wisdom of God.
All of us were damaged by Satan, and all of us are fallen, have sinned, and were corrupted to the point that we were dead. But because of Christ’s redemption, the Triune God came to save us. Now we are not only regenerated but are being sanctified and transformed to become a corporate person—the Body of Christ, the church. This corporate person will be His testimony on earth among men and a declaration to the heavenlies that will cause all the opposing and rebellious angels to be speechless, to prostrate themselves, and to confess the multifarious wisdom of God.
I hope we all can keep these three matters in mind—God’s New Testament economy, the unsearchable riches of Christ, and the Body of Christ, the church. The reason why I fellowship with you regarding these things is that even though Christianity has been on the earth for almost two thousand years, very few people know and release this kind of truth and light. Today not only do we need this, but the whole earth needs this. Therefore, we must know these deep truths properly, study them thoroughly, dive into them, and speak them to people using everyday language. I hope that those among us in their twenties will practice this way. I believe that if we practice this, in less than ten years we all will be able to speak to people. We will be able to speak not only to the Chinese here but also to the people in other countries of the world, and we will not speak the superficial and low gospel, but we will be able to speak God’s economy, which is mysterious and high.
I hope that this message will be a guide concerning the new way for the young people that they may know which way they should take as Christians and on which way they should pursue. I hope that we all will be able to read the Bible properly, know God’s economy completely, know the economy of the mystery of God, pursue the unsearchable riches of Christ, and at the same time, enter into the church, which is produced by these riches for the expression of the multifarious wisdom of God. May God bless us to pursue this way from our youth that we would be those who are blessed in God’s New Testament economy.