The four Gospels give us a full picture of the Lord Jesus from four directions. I believe we all know that Matthew reveals the Lord Jesus as the King. Mark shows us a picture of Him as the slave, the servant of God. Luke portrays the Lord Jesus as the perfect man. The last Gospel, John, reveals that Christ is God Himself; He is the Son of God. So from these four Gospels we obtain four words: King, Servant, Man, and God. The Lord Jesus is so much! He is the King; He is the Servant; He is the Man; and He is also the very God. But what He is in all these directions and aspects depends upon His humanity. That is why in all the Gospels there are verses concerning His humanity.
Let me illustrate in this way. Among the types in the Old Testament, there is the ark made of wood overlaid with gold. The wood, not the gold, is the frame of the ark. The gold gives the beauty, the worth, and the value, but the gold is not the frame. The gold is the decoration upon the wood. The frame and the main basic structure that holds and supports the gold is the wood. In typology, wood signifies humanity; hence, this wood of the ark signifies the humanity of Christ. The humanity of Christ is the basic structure that supports the gold of the ark.
The tabernacle is built with forty-eight wooden boards which are the frame of the tabernacle. This means that the humanity of Jesus is the frame of the tabernacle. If He were not a proper man, He could never be the King, the Servant, and the perfect Man. The very God revealed in John is not God alone, but a God-man; He is God in man. But if Jesus were not a perfect man, how could God be incarnated in Him? If Jesus were not perfect and God was incarnated in Him, God would be depreciated and lose His value. The divine value, however, is complemented by a perfect humanity. It was a complete, solid, and perfect humanity in which God could be contained in a full way. Even for Jesus to be God requires the humanity of Jesus. If He were not a perfect man, He could never be the King, the Servant, the Man, or the very God incarnated in a man. All these aspects of the Lord Jesus depend upon His humanity.
How we need such a humanity today in the church life! We have already seen that the ark is the type of Christ, and the tabernacle is the type of the church. The tabernacle is the enlargement of the ark. In the same way today the church is the enlargement of Christ. If it is necessary for Christ to have such a humanity to be God’s testimony, then we as the church also need the same strong and perfect humanity.
Wood is the basic structure of the ark, and wood is also the main structure of the tabernacle. Hence, it is the humanity of Jesus that is the main structure of Christ as God’s testimony, and it is the humanity of Jesus that is the basic structure of the church life. If we do not have this humanity, as typified by acacia wood, it is impossible for us to have a proper church as the Body of Christ. For a real building up of the Body of Christ in our locality, we all need the humanity of Jesus. There is only one kind of wood that is good for the structure of both the ark and the tabernacle-that is acacia wood. And there is only one kind of humanity that is good for God’s testimony today in the local church life-that is the humanity of Jesus.
Our humanity is not good for God’s building. Many of us may be good, but regardless of how good we are, our humanity is of no use. It may be useful for many other things, but not for the church life. For the building up of the ark and the tabernacle, there is only one kind of wood which is useful-that is the acacia wood, the humanity of Jesus.
Many people today say that all we need is the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring from above. That is wonderful, but consider yourself: what kind of humanity do you have? The Spirit is typified by the gold, but this is not the basic structure. The basic structure is the wood. Suppose we were going to build a tabernacle and had tons of gold, yet the wood we used was rotten. That tabernacle would not stand. Regardless of how much gold we have, without the proper wood, we can never build a tabernacle. I have seen people praying, seeking, and crying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and eventually they received it. But their building fell apart. It was not due to the gold, but to the poor quality of the wood. This is the thing that is neglected by today’s Christianity. Today’s Christians pay much attention to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but where is the proper humanity? The tabernacle as a type of the church was not built purely with the gold. It was built with the wood as the main structure. The gold was just a kind of decoration. Of course, without the overlaying gold, there would be little value or beauty. The wood alone is not of much worth. But although the value is in the gold, gold is not the main structure. The gold requires something solid to support it. That is the proper, solid, strong, and perfect humanity. Do we have such a humanity? We do not have it in ourselves, but we do have it in Christ. He is the perfect humanity within us.
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