Message Three

How the Ministers of the New Covenant
and Their Ministry Are Constituted,
How They Behave and Live,
and How Their Ministry Is Carried Out

(2)

Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 3:16, 18—4:1, 6-7

1. The ministers of the new covenant are mirrors beholding and reflecting the glory of Christ in order to be transformed into His glorious image—2 Cor. 3:16, 18—4:1:
   1. Whenever our heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away from our heart, and we can behold the Lord of glory with an unveiled face—3:16, 18.
   2. Actually, our turned-away heart is the veil; to turn our heart to the Lord is to take away the veil.
   3. An unveiled face is an unveiled heart to behold the glory of the Lord—vv. 16, 18; 1 Sam. 16:7; Eph. 1:18a.
   4. The glory of God is in the face of Christ, and His face, His person, is the indwelling treasure in our spirit— 2 Cor. 4:6-7; 1 Pet. 3:4:
      1. We are earthen vessels who are worthless and fragile, but within our spirit we contain a priceless treasure, the face, the person, of Christ Himself— 2 Cor. 2:10; 4:6-7.
      2. In the whole universe, there is nothing so precious as to behold the face of Jesus—Gen. 32:30; Exo. 25:30; 33:11; Psa. 27:4, 8; Rev. 22:4:
         1. It is only when we are living in His presence, looking at the index of His being, that we sense that He is such a treasure to us.
         2. Seeing God equals gaining God, which is to receive God in His element into us to transform us—Job 42:5-6.
         3. The very God whom we look at today is the consummated Spirit, and we can look at Him in our spirit to absorb the riches of God into our being and be under the divine transformation day by day—2 Cor. 3:18b; Matt. 14:22-23; Col. 4:2:
            1. (1) The glory of the Lord is the resurrected Christ as the Lord Spirit.
            2. (2) From glory to glory means “from the Lord Spirit to the Lord Spirit”; this means that the Lord Spirit as the rich supply is continually added into our being.
            3. (3) As we open to the Lord, He as the life-giving Spirit enters into our being to infuse His life essence into us, to operate within us by His life power, and to shape us into His image.
            4. (4) If you have some problem, you just need to tell Him; He is right within you, and He is with you face to face—Phil. 4:6.
      3. Beholding is to see the Lord ourselves; reflecting is to enable others to see Him through us—2 Cor. 3:18—4:1; Phil. 1:19-21a.
      4. As we turn our heart to the Lord in our spirit to behold Him face to face and to reflect Him for others to see, we are in the process of being transformed into His glorious image unto the day when “we will be like Him because we will see Him even as He is”—1 John 3:2.
   5. Transformation is not an outward change or correction but a spiritual metabolism; it is the metabolic function of the life of God in the believers:
      1. Metabolism includes three matters:
         1. First, the supplying of a new element.
         2. Second, the replacing of the old element with the new element.
         3. Third, the discharge, or removal, of the old element so that something new may be produced— 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Col. 3:10-11.
      2. As we receive the Lord as the new element into us, a spiritual metabolism takes place within us to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ, manifesting the metabolism in life.
      3. Only that which is expressed outwardly through the inward metabolism is genuine health and real beauty—Exo. 28:2; Psa. 90:17.
2. The ministers of the new covenant are earthen vessels to contain the Christ of glory as the excellent treasure—2 Cor. 4:7:
   1. These vessels are like today’s camera, into which Christ the figure enters through the flash of God’s shining— vv. 6-7.
   2. Christ as the priceless treasure is contained in us, the worthless and fragile vessels; this makes the worthless vessels ministers of the new covenant with a priceless ministry—v. 7; cf. Gen. 4:26.
   3. This treasure, the indwelling Christ, in us, the earthen vessels, is the divine supply and power for the Christian life; God’s power is manifested in man’s weakness, and man’s weakness cannot limit God’s power—2 Cor. 4:7; 12:10.
   4. The new covenant ministers are Christ’s chosen vessels to contain and express Him—Acts 9:15; cf. Dan. 5:2-3, 23:
      1. We are vessels containing Christ as mercy—Rom. 9:16, 23:
         1. We were chosen by God according to His sovereign mercy; it is altogether a matter of mercy that we are believers and that we are in the church life—vv. 11-16, 20-21.
         2. The goal of God’s selection in His sovereign mercy is to have many vessels to contain Him and eternally express Him; this is the climax of our usefulness to God—v. 21.
      2. We are vessels containing Christ as honor—v. 21:
         1. We are vessels unto honor through our cleansing ourselves from the vessels unto dishonor— 2 Tim. 2:20-21.
         2. We are vessels unto honor by being filled with Christ as the Spirit to honor God and by ministering Christ as the Spirit to honor man—Judg. 9:9; cf. John 7:37-39a.
      3. We are vessels containing Christ as glory—Rom. 9:23:
         1. Instead of living by our life with our nature to express ourselves, we must live by the Father’s life with His nature to express Him; this is glory, and in this glory we all are one—John 17:22-24.
         2. We have been prepared by God unto glory through glorification—the last step of God’s full salvation—Rom. 8:21, 23, 30; Phil. 3:21.