CRYSTALLIZATION-STUDY
OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

MESSAGE FIVE

THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST—
THE FURTHER REVELATION OF CHRIST
CONCERNING HIS ALL-INCLUSIVENESS
IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

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OUTLINE

1. In addition to the items in the Old Testament unveiling the all-unlimitedness of Christ in God's commission to Him, as God's anointed One, for the universe, for fallen man, and for God's kingdom.
2. In His perfect redemption through His death judicially and in His complete salvation by His life organically for the carrying out of God's eternal economy, He is:
1. God, who is the source of all things and especially the source of the divine life that flows out for its dispensing into God's elect as their life and everything—John 1:1, 14; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Col. 2:9.
2. The Word of God that defines, explains, and expresses God, speaking and revealing God by the Spirit through the Scriptures, the prophets, and the apostles through the ages in many ways—Rev. 19:13; Heb. 1:1-2a; 4:12; 2 Tim. 3:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:10-12; John 6:63.
3. The life contained in Himself as the Word of God (John 1:4a; 11:25; 14:6; 10:10b) to be the base of a believer's life.
4. The light of life (John 1:4b-12; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46) to bring the divine life to the world by shining (speaking) forth God that man may be born of God to be His children, making man God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead.
5. The flesh through His incarnation (John 1:14a), that is, a man fallen in sin, but Romans 8:3 tells us that Christ became the "flesh of sin" only in its "likeness," without its sin in reality. It was in the "likeness of the flesh of sin" that God had the way to condemn sin, that is, to annihilate sin, to abolish sin.
6. The tabernacle of God (John 1:14b), which refers to Jesus as a man in the flesh to be God's temporary dwelling place on the earth. God dwelt in Him as in the tabernacle (tent) in the wilderness, like the children of Israel had the tabernacle of God as God's dwelling place while they were wandering in the wilderness (Exo. 25:8-9).
7. The Lamb, the Spirit, the house (Bethel), and the heavenly ladder (John 1:29-51), which form a group of what Christ is, as the Word of God speaking for God, in the accomplishment of God's eternal economy:
1. Christ is the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world judicially (vv. 29, 36) to make whatever He did for God's economy legal according to the righteousness of God.
2. Christ firstly had the dove, signifying the Spirit of God, abiding upon Him (vv. 32-33), and subsequently in His resurrection He became, organically, the Spirit of God who gives life (1 Cor. 15:45b). As such a Spirit, He transforms God's redeemed people, who were made with clay, into stones (John 1:37-42).
3. It is for the building up of the house of God at Bethel (this house of God is the intrinsic and basic line of the Gospel of John concerning the church, the Body of Christ) that His redeemed people are transformed by the Spirit into stones organically (1 Pet. 2:5).
4. In Bethel, the house of God (the consummation of which is the New Jerusalem—Rev. 21:2), Christ is the heavenly ladder that brings heaven to earth and joins earth to heaven as well (John 1:51).
5. In doing all these things for God's economy, Christ is the Messiah, the Christ of God (John 1:41).
8. The temple of God (2:15-22), which Christ called His Father's house, firstly referring to Christ individually before His resurrection and then referring to Christ with His believers as His increase corporately after His resurrection to be God's permanent dwelling place in the spiritual world. This house of the Father is built by Christ and God with the believers as its constituents (14:2, 23).
9. The serpent lifted up on the cross (3:14), referring to Christ, who was crucified as the biting serpent for all the people bitten by the devil as the serpent, making them serpents (sinners). In His redemption God made Christ the replacement for the sinners, who are serpents in the eyes of God, to suffer God's judgment on the cross. In type the serpent, which signifies Christ as the replacement of God's people, is a bronze serpent, a serpent "in likeness" but not in reality. He "did not know sin" but was only "made sin" by God in its likeness (2 Cor. 5:21). Similarly, in incarnation Christ became "in the likeness of the flesh of sin," without the sin of the flesh (Rom. 8:3).
10. The eternal life (John 3:15, 16, 36). In this book, the Gospel of John, the eternal life is the basic factor of all that Christ is. Because He is the eternal life, the divine life, even God Himself, He can be what He is and is able to speak for God to carry out the full salvation of God organically for the accomplishment of God's eternal economy, which issues in the New Jerusalem.
11. The bride, produced by regeneration and taken by Christ as the Bridegroom, is the increase, the enlargement, of Christ, who gives the Spirit not by measure and, as the immeasurable One, gives eternal life (the unlimited life) to His believers (3:29-30, 34, 36).
12. The spring of living water (4:14) of which God is the fountain. Whoever drinks the living water that Christ gives shall never thirst. Verse 24 in the same chapter indicates that such drinkers are the true worshippers of God, indicating that the true worship of God is to drink of Him in Christ.