In 1 Corinthians 3:21b-23 Paul presents Christ as the center of God and all things: “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all are yours, but you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” The believers are the church, and all things are for the church. Furthermore, the church is for Christ, and Christ is for God. In other words, all things are ours for the church, the church is for Christ to be His Body, and Christ is for God to be His expression. The all-inclusive Christ is God’s center, God’s centrality and universality, in the church as His fullness for His expression. Christ is the centrality and universality of God and of His move in the divine economy. Christ is the center and circumference of God’s economy for the producing of His fullness for His expression. Our heart must be touched by God’s center, the centrality and universality of Christ regarding God’s economy. We need to be touched by this center so that in every book and every chapter of the Bible, we would see Christ.
Christ is also the center of all things. Verses 21b through 23 reveal that all things are ours, we are Christ’s (2 Cor. 10:7), and Christ is God’s. Since we are Christ’s, we are God’s. First, the expression all things are yours means that all things belong to us. Here Paul does not say that all things are for us; rather, he says that all things are ours. Second, the expression you are Christ’s means that we belong to Christ. Third, the expression Christ is God’s means that Christ belongs to God. Here we see that God is the Head in the universe (1 Chron. 29:11), and Christ is the center of all things in the universe, and we ourselves, who belong to Christ as His members, are part of this center.
God is the Head in the universe, and this universe subsists in Christ as the hub. In Colossians 1:17 Paul tells us that all things cohere in Christ. Through death and resurrection He was enlarged from the individual Christ to the corporate Christ—Christ as the Head with the believers in Christ as the members of His Body (John 12:24; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 12:12). For this reason, the hub in which the universe subsists is now a corporate hub, the corporate Christ. Christ and His members form a corporate hub as the center of all things in the universe. All things are ours in the sense that they subsist by both Christ and us as their holding center. Just as all the spokes of a wheel cannot subsist without the hub as their holding center, but instead fall apart, all things in the universe cannot subsist without Christ and without us, His members, as their holding center, a corporate hub. Christ is the center of all things, and all His members are part of this center.
In 5:7-8 Christ is revealed as the Passover and the unleavened bread.
In verse 7 Paul says, “Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened; for our Passover, Christ, also has been sacrificed.” Here the word Passover indicates not only that the judgment of God passes over us because of the blood of Christ, the real Passover lamb (John 1:29); it also refers to the Feast of the Passover. The Passover was a feast in which the children of Israel enjoyed the roasted Passover lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs. The entire Passover, including the Passover lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs, is a type of the all-inclusive Christ in redemption. As our Passover, Christ is the reality of the lamb, the unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs. Christ as the Feast of the Passover has saved us from God’s death-judgment. We have been saved from God’s judgment by enjoying Christ as such a feast.
The passover portrayed in Exodus 12 is an all-inclusive type of Christ as our redemption to begin our experience of God’s salvation. The entire Passover is a type of Christ (1 Cor. 5:7). Christ is not only the Passover lamb (John 1:29) but also every aspect of the Passover. In order to be our Passover, He was sacrificed on the cross that we might be redeemed and reconciled to God. Thus, we may enjoy Him as a feast before God.
According to Exodus 12, the passover lamb was taken on the tenth day of the month (v. 3) and was examined for four days to confirm that it was unblemished (v. 5); then it was killed on the fourteenth day. In the same way, the Lord Jesus as the real Passover lamb was examined for four days and was found to be perfect, without fault (John 8:46; 18:38; 19:4, 6), before He was killed on the day of the Passover (Luke 22:7-8, 14-15; John 18:28).
In the Bible seven days signifies a period of completion, and the end of a week denotes the end of life. The fact that the passover lamb was killed on the fourteenth day of the month, the end of two complete weeks, signifies that Christ’s death terminated the entire history of our old life.
According to Exodus 12:13, God passed over the children of Israel because the blood of the passover lamb had been sprinkled on the lintel and the doorposts of their houses. The blood put on the doorposts and the lintel of the houses typifies the redeeming blood of Christ (Matt. 26:28; John 19:34; 1 Pet. 1:18-19). This blood opened the way for the redeemed ones to enter into the houses, implying that the blood of Christ opens the way for us to enter into Christ, who is typified by the house (Heb. 10:19). The same blood closed the way to the destroyer, thereby guarding the redeemed from judgment (Exo. 12:23).
Christ is the house whose lintel and doorposts have been sprinkled with the redeeming blood and in which the children of Israel ate the passover lamb. The lamb was the means of redemption, and the house was the means of preserving the redeemed ones. As the redeeming One, Christ is the Lamb, and as the keeping One, He is the house. The blood of the lamb was on the door, and the flesh of the lamb was in the house. The lamb, the house, and those who enjoyed the passover thus became one. This is a picture of the identification of the redeemed ones with Christ.
To participate in the passover, the children of Israel had to enter into and remain in the houses that had been sprinkled with the blood (vv. 13, 22-23). In the same principle, to participate in Christ and His redemption, we must be identified with Christ by entering into Him and remaining in Him (Eph. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:30; John 15:4; cf. Gal. 5:2, 4). The house and the blood were inseparable; likewise, Christ and His redemption are one.
If the children of Israel had not remained in the house, they would have been deprived of the benefit, profit, enjoyment, and experience of the passover. To participate in the passover there was the need to remain in the house. To remain in the house is to abide in Christ and to be identified with Him. We need to remain in Christ, that is, to maintain our identification, our union, with Him. We should maintain our identification with Christ, with a constant realization that we are nothing and that He is everything.
According to Exodus 12:8-10, the flesh of the passover lamb was to be eaten for life supply. The blood of the passover lamb was for redemption, to redeem the children of Israel out of God’s death-judgment, and the flesh of the lamb was for life supply, to strengthen the people to move out of Egypt. The flesh of the lamb signifies the crucified and resurrected life of Christ as the supply for God’s redeemed people. Through Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection His flesh has become the food of God’s redeemed. In the reality of the passover, Christ’s blood is drinkable, Christ’s flesh is eatable, and Christ in totality is eatable (John 6:51-57, 63).
In Exodus 12:8 the children of Israel were given the proper way to eat the flesh of the passover lamb, roasted with fire. Fire signifies God’s holy wrath exercised in judgment. When Christ was on the cross, the holy fire of God judged Him and consumed Him. He cried, “I thirst” (John 19:28) because He was being burned by the holy fire of God’s judgment. On the cross Christ suffered for us under God’s judgment. He was “burned” and “roasted” by the holy fire of God’s wrath. As our Redeemer, Christ was judged for us. To eat Christ “roasted with fire” is to believe that on the cross Christ suffered for us under God’s holy wrath exercised in His judgment.
According to Exodus 12:9, the children of Israel were to eat the lamb’s head with its legs and inward parts. The head signifies wisdom, the legs signify activity and move, and the inward parts signify the inward parts of Christ’s being, including His mind, emotion, will, and heart with all their functions. Eating the passover lamb with the head, legs, and inward parts signifies taking Christ in His entirety, in His wisdom, activities, move, and inward parts (John 6:57; 1 Cor. 1:24; Rev. 14:4b; Phil. 1:8).
In Exodus 12:8 the children of Israel were to eat the flesh of the lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. In the Scriptures leaven signifies what is sinful, evil, corrupt, and unclean in the eyes of God (1 Cor. 5:6, 8). To eat with unleavened bread means to eliminate all sinful things. To eat with bitter herbs means to regret and repent, to experience a bitter taste regarding sinful things.