Now we want to consider the element of Christ’s divinity. Christ as God is divine, but it is difficult to understand the involvement of Christ’s divinity. The divinity of Christ is involved with His being two kinds of Sons of God. First, as the divine One in His divinity, He is the only begotten Son of God from eternity (John 1:18). Second, He is the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29). As the only begotten Son of God, He is merely divine and is self-existing and ever-existing, eternal, without beginning or ending. But His being the firstborn Son of God involves much more because the firstborn Son of God is a composition of His divinity plus His humanity. His divinity is exactly the same as the divinity of the only begotten Son of God, but His humanity was added by His being incarnated. The only begotten Son of God with only divinity put on blood and flesh. This means that when He was incarnated, He put humanity upon His divinity. Then He became a God-man. From His incarnation to His death, He still was the only begotten Son, and this only begotten Son is the divine part of Christ as the God-man.
The cross killed His human part, but His divine part still lived and was very active. This part of divinity is called by Paul in Romans 1:4 the Spirit of holiness. In resurrection the divine part of Christ, as the Spirit of holiness, resurrected the killed human part of Christ by germinating it with the divine power. Thus, the killed humanity of Christ in resurrection was uplifted. This is what Paul means when he says that Jesus Christ as the seed of David was designated the Son of God. This designation was a kind of process.
In these many years, through a deep study of the Bible, the Lord has shown us the crystallization of this word designate. How was the seed of David designated to be the Son of God? This took place first by the seed of David as a man being put on the cross to be killed. Right away this God-man’s divinity as the Spirit of holiness was a kind of power to resurrect His humanity by germinating His killed humanity with the divine element to raise it up, to uplift it. This is designation. In this designation Jesus Christ became the firstborn Son of God.
The humanity of Christ became divine in Christ’s resurrection. Christ’s divinity had the power to uplift His crucified humanity, to resurrect that humanity. When Paul said that Jesus Christ was designated the Son of God, this means that Christ’s resurrection uplifted His humanity and put His divinity into this humanity. So by this resurrection, His humanity was born to be a part of the Son of God. This is why Acts 13:33 tells us that in resurrection, Christ as the Son of Man was born to be the Son of God. As the Son of God with humanity, He is the God-man. This composition of divinity and humanity becomes a God-man, and this God-man is a prototype to produce something.
In His resurrection, all His believers were born, regenerated, with Him as His millions of “twins” to make all these twins the same as He is (1 Pet. 1:3). These many twins are the reproduction of the prototype. The prototype is the firstborn Son of God, and the reproduction is the many sons of God. The Firstborn indicates that more sons are coming. If there were not more sons to follow, He would remain merely the Only Begotten. When Jesus as the Son of Man through death and resurrection was born to be the firstborn Son of God, the millions of God’s chosen people were born in the same birth.
Now He is the God-man, with humanity mingled with divinity, including His death and His resurrection. He is such a prototype to produce millions of God-men. These millions of God-men are the mass reproduction who are exactly the same as the wonderful person Jesus Christ. This mass reproduction of the prototype becomes the members of the prototype to be His Body, the Body of Christ, and this Body of Christ consummates in the New Jerusalem, which is the corporate expression of the Triune God, processed and consummated in Christ and becoming the life-giving Spirit.
As the only begotten Son of God, in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). In His divinity He was the Holy Spirit already. But in His resurrection He put the uplifted humanity into His divinity, and this One in resurrection became the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the very germinating power to germinate every part of the new creation of God. The new creation of God is the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ will consummate in the New Jerusalem, which is the unique expression of God’s mingling Himself with man for eternity. This shows us the all-inclusive and all-extensive involvement of Christ’s divinity in His wonderful person.
The life-giving Spirit is the consummation of the Triune God and the Consummator of the tripartite man as Christ’s Body, which ultimately consummates in the New Jerusalem. By this we can see that the person of Christ involves the entire New Testament, from the first page of Matthew to the last page of Revelation. The first page of Matthew speaks of the genealogy of Christ (1:1-17), and the last page of Revelation speaks of the Spirit and the bride (22:17a). This is the consummation.