By His work in His resurrection Christ brought forth the corporate child-the corporate new man-including Himself as God’s firstborn Son and His many brothers as God’s many sons (John 16:19-22; Rom. 8:29). In John 16:20 and 21 the Lord Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. When a woman gives birth she has sorrow, because her hour has come; but when she brings forth the child, she no longer remembers the affliction because of the joy that a man has been born into the world.” Here the Lord Jesus indicates that the disciples were like a woman travailing in birth, and He was the child to be brought forth in His resurrection (Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5; Rom. 1:4). Actually, the man in John 16:21 includes Christ and all believers. According to Acts 13:33, the Lord Jesus was begotten in resurrection to be the Son of God with respect to His humanity. The Lord’s resurrection, therefore, was a birth. This means that when Christ was resurrected, He was born.
We may wonder why it was necessary for Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, to be born in resurrection as the Son of God. In eternity Christ was the only begotten Son of God. Then in His incarnation He was born of Mary, and in resurrection He had another birth. When Christ was born of Mary, He was born as a man, and His humanity had nothing to do with God’s sonship. Strictly speaking, the human part of Jesus was not the Son of God but the Son of Man. Therefore, it was necessary for the human part of the Lord Jesus to be born into the divine sonship through resurrection. Hence, Christ’s resurrection was a new birth for Him. He was already the only begotten Son of God before His incarnation. Then through incarnation He was born to be a man. Now in resurrection He was born to be the firstborn Son of God.
Furthermore, Christ’s being the firstborn Son of God implies that He has many brothers and that He is the Firstborn among these brothers (Rom. 8:29). The birth that took place through Christ’s resurrection involved the birth not only of an individual but of a group, a group that includes the firstborn Son of God and the many sons of God. This indicates that through one birth, one delivery, many sons were brought forth. According to God’s view, the divine view, all His chosen people were born together with Christ in His resurrection. This resurrection was the birth of a corporate child.
We should not think that Christ as the firstborn Son was born in His resurrection and that all His brothers, the many sons of God, have been born gradually during the centuries following His resurrection. No, we were all born to be sons of God in the resurrection of Christ. This is the reason 1 Peter 1:3 says that we have been regenerated through the resurrection of Christ. When Christ was resurrected, we were regenerated. All the believers, including the early apostles and those who will be the last to believe in the Lord Jesus, were regenerated together. We all were brought forth by means of a single universal delivery. In Christ’s resurrection millions of God’s sons were born. Therefore, the Lord’s word in John 16:21 concerning the corporate man born in resurrection includes Himself as the firstborn Son and all the believers as the many sons.
The corporate man brought forth by Christ’s work in His resurrection is the new man spoken of in Ephesians 2:15: “Having abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might create the two in Himself into one new man.” This new man includes Christ as the Head and all the believers as the Body. The Head is the firstborn Son of God, and the Body is a composition of all the many sons of God, the many brothers of the Lord. This new man, this child, was brought forth through Christ’s work in resurrection.
Christ in His resurrection rebuilt God’s temple, making it a corporate one (John 2:19-22; 1 Cor. 3:16-17). In John 2:19 the Lord Jesus said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” In speaking this word, He was referring to “the temple of His body” (v. 21). The physical body of Jesus was destroyed on the cross. When Christ became flesh, He took on a physical body. John 1:14 clearly indicates that the Lord’s physical body was a tabernacle. According to John 2, His physical body was also the temple. When the Lord Jesus was in the flesh, His body was the tabernacle and temple of God. Both the tabernacle and the temple are God’s dwelling place. Realizing that the physical body of Jesus was God’s dwelling place on earth, Satan did his best to destroy this body, and he did destroy it on the cross. In a sense, Satan destroyed Christ’s physical body. In another sense, the Lord Jesus gave up His body to death.
After Satan destroyed Christ’s physical body on the cross, His body was put into a tomb and rested there. When Christ arose, He Himself raised up His dead and buried body. The body of Jesus that was destroyed on the cross was small and weak; the Body of Christ in resurrection is vast and powerful. After the Lord’s resurrection, His Body, that is, the temple, was reared up on a much larger scale. The body the enemy destroyed by crucifixion was merely the body of Jesus. What was raised up by the Lord in resurrection was not only His own body but everyone who is joined to Him by faith (1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:6).
Christ’s word in John 2:19 was actually a prophecy concerning His death and resurrection. In this prophecy the Lord Jesus indicated that He would rebuild the temple, God’s house, in resurrection. This rebuilding of the house of God in resurrection was to be an enlargement of God’s house. This is proved by the fact that not only was Christ Himself resurrected but that all the believers, who constitute His Body, were resurrected with Him. This resurrection was both a rebuilding and a birth. With respect to the house of God it was a rebuilding in resurrection. With respect to the new man it was a birth in resurrection. By this we see that, in one sense, the resurrection of Christ was a birth and, in another sense, it was a rebuilding.
In John 14:2 the Lord Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” This word is a fulfillment of the prophecy given by the Lord in 2:19. In chapter two of John the Lord Jesus prophesied that He would rebuild the temple, the house of God, in resurrection and that He would build it in an enlarged way. If we did not have chapter fourteen we would not see where the prophecy given in chapter two is fulfilled. John 14:2 is the fulfillment of 2:19.
We need to realize that the rebuilding of the destroyed temple has already been accomplished. In Christ’s resurrection we all have been resurrected. As we have seen, we were regenerated through the resurrection of Christ (1 Pet. 1:3). This means that in God’s view, according to His accomplishment in His economy, the Body of Christ has already been built. The tense of certain verbs in the book of Revelation indicates this. For example, the Apostle John does not say that the New Jerusalem will come; he tells us that he saw the New Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God (Rev. 21:2). Approximately nineteen hundred years ago, John saw the New Jerusalem. This indicates that, according to God’s way of seeing, the Body of Christ, the enlarged temple, has already been built up through Christ’s work in His resurrection.
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