In this message and the next we want to see more points concerning the all-inclusive Christ. These points are of three sections, and these three sections are mostly according to our participating in the Divine Trinity. The first section is from Christ being God (John 1:1) resulting in His being the spring of living water (4:14). Christ is God for the purpose of dispensing Himself into us as the flowing God issuing in the spring of the living water. This section is covered in John 1— 4. John 1 unveils God (v. 1), the Word (vv. 1, 14), the life in the Word (v. 4a), the light of life that shines forth God (v. 4b), the flesh (v. 14a), the tabernacle (v. 14b) to be God's dwelling place among His elect, and a group of four items: the Lamb (v. 29), the Spirit (v. 32), the house, and the ladder (v. 51). The Lamb is for redemption. The Spirit is for life-giving and transforming. Then the transformed stones are built together into the house of God, the church of God and the Body of Christ, which consummate in the New Jerusalem as the real Bethel. The house of God is a base for Christ to be the ladder to join heaven and earth.

In John 2 Christ is the temple of God (vv. 19-21), built with Christ Himself and all His overcomers as the constituents. In John 3 He is the serpent (v. 14), the eternal life (vv. 15-16, 36), and the Bridegroom, the increasing Christ (vv. 29-30). In John 4 He is the spring of living water to quench our thirst, to satisfy us, make us happy, and be our pleasure (v. 14).

In the second section, the section of enjoyment, Christ is the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. After this section of feasting, He is the Shepherd to care for us outwardly (10:11, 14, 16) and the Comforter, the Paraclete, to comfort and cherish us inwardly (14:16-17). Eventually, this comforting Spirit becomes the Spirit of life breathed into all Christ's believers (20:22).

There are some other items of Christ in the vast field of the Gospel of John. Some of these "gleanings" are that Christ is the only begotten Son of God to declare and express God (1:18) and the Messiah, the Christ, anointed by God to carry out His commission (v. 41). He carries out God's commission by being the Lamb to redeem, the Spirit to dispense life and transform, the house, and the ladder.

Christ is also the Son of Man (v. 51). Jacob in his dream saw angels ascending and descending on a ladder (Gen. 28:12). When the Lord referred to that dream, He said the angels of God ascend and descend upon the Son of Man. The glory of the only begotten Son of God declares and expresses God in His divinity. However, to be the ladder that joins heaven and earth together requires humanity. This is the ministry of the Son of Man. Today, after His resurrection, Christ is still the Son of Man. Jesus told the high priest that he would see "the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven" (Matt. 26:64), and Stephen, when he was being persecuted, said, "I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:56). When John saw Christ as the High Priest caring for the lampstands, He was like the Son of Man (Rev. 1:13). For eternity the Lord Jesus will be the Son of Man. Many Christian teachers have seen that He became a God-man, but they have not seen that He also became the man-God, the God in humanity, the God who is the Son of Man. For eternity the Lord Jesus will be the universal, steady, and strong ladder bearing the burden of the heavens and the earth as the Son of Man.

Additional gleanings of Christ in the Gospel of John include grace (God enjoyed by us) and reality (God realized and gained by us). John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, full of grace and reality. Verse 17 says that grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. Christ is also the Creator who can change death into life (water into wine) in chapter two. As the new wine, Christ is for our pleasure and our satisfaction to stir us up. The riches of Christ revealed in the Bible are inexhaustible.