In the last message, we saw that Christ is the eternal portion given to us from God. This eternal portion is not a thing, but a living person. He is the embodiment of the Triune God. God in the Son is embodied in a man of flesh and blood. Outwardly speaking, He was a man; but inwardly speaking, He was God. He was a wonderful God-man who was born in a manger, grew up in Nazareth, was crucified on the cross, died and resurrected, and in resurrection became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). This is the One whom God has given us to be our common portion (1 Cor. 1:2). He is the One into whom we are called (1 Cor. 1:9). During these few meetings, we have saints coming together from all directions. We may not have known each other before, yet we can pray, praise, and speak in the same way because the factor of our fellowship is Christ Himself.
First Corinthians 1 begins by showing us explicitly and clearly that God has given us Christ as our eternal portion, to be our power, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. God gave His Son to us as our eternal portion, so that we can be supplied and sustained and can live a life that no one can live, endure sufferings that no one can endure, taking ways that no one can take, and doing a work that no one can do. In this way, we become men among men, and men of men. Today, in following the Lord, in serving Him, in administrating the church, and in testifying for the Lord, the best way is to be crucified with the Lord and to live with Him in resurrection. In the church or in His work, whenever we encounter difficulties, criticisms, or even opposition, and it appears that we have come to a dead end, our way out is Christ and His cross. Our whole Christian living, our administration of the church, and the Lord’s leading in our service, all depend on our dying and living with Christ. This is the power, and this is the wisdom.
Moreover, Christ has also become our righteousness from God. He is the living righteousness within us, enabling us to live a righteous and proper living. What we live out should not be our own righteousness, good works, or moral behavior, but the righteous Christ. Furthermore, Christ becomes our sanctification from God. He is the power and factor of our sanctification, sanctifying us not only positionally, but dispositionally, so that our whole being, spirit, soul, and body, will be fully sanctified. In the end, Christ becomes our redemption from God. Everything in us that is of the natural being, the flesh, self, the world, sin, the old creation, and everything satanic has to be crucified on the cross and judged by God before we can be redeemed and glorified. Superficially speaking, the book of 1 Corinthians deals with all the confusion, division, and improper situations in the church in Corinth. Actually, it reveals to us the all-inclusive Christ, the One who has died and resurrected, and His cross. Hence, in order to solve the problems in the church, we have to give Christ the proper ground in us and among us, so that He can be our everything, and we can receive His dispensing. In this way, whatever problem we have, whether it is a relationship among the saints, between husbands and wives, or with unbelievers, will be solved readily when we experience the death of Christ and live in His resurrection.
This is the picture shown in 1 Corinthians 1. It depicts a group of people satisfying the desire of God’s heart and produced according to His economy through His dispensing and Christ’s redemption in death and resurrection. All of us should be this kind of people, having Christ as our power, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption within, and being supplied by Him unceasingly. When we all reach this condition, our coming together will be the church, the Body of Christ, as God’s habitation, for the expression of God’s glory.
From 1 Corinthians 2 to the last chapter of 2 Corinthians, there are twenty-eight chapters. They show us the way Christ is worked into the believers through the divine dispensing. From these chapters I have summarized four pairs of items, with eight things. The first pair is described in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. Christ is the Passover Lamb and the unleavened bread. Both items are food and are life supplies. The real gospel is not only a matter of the redemption by the blood of the Lamb, but a matter of the life supply of the unleavened bread. On the night the Israelites left Egypt, every house had to kill a lamb and to strike the blood on the two side posts and on the upper doorpost of the house to escape God’s judgment. In addition, they had to eat the flesh of the lamb with the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs. While they ate, they had to gird their loins, with shoes on their feet, with their staff in their hand, and they had to eat in haste (Exo. 12:1-11). This was for their supply in life and for their warfare and move. Christ is the Passover Lamb and the unleavened bread; both are for the divine dispensing. Hence, the all-inclusive Christ as the Passover Lamb and as the unleavened bread not only supplies the believers with the power of life to run the God-ordained course of following Him, but supplies the believers with the nourishment of life to increase God’s element of growth in them.
This shows us that God’s salvation is to dispense Himself to us as our Savior and Redeemer. The way to have this dispensing is to take Christ in as food. Every time we come to the Lord’s table to remember Him, we do not come for a religious worship, but to eat and drink of Him. In this way, He will have the true remembrance from us (Matt. 26:26-28; Luke 22:19).
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