Jesus’ flesh was crucified and buried. How could it be resurrected? In John 20 Peter and John came to the tomb in which the Lord had been buried. Peter “entered into the tomb; and he beheld the linen cloths lying there and the handkerchief which had been over His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in one place apart” (vv. 6-7). The body surely had not been stolen. How, then, was it possible for the Lord’s dead and buried flesh to be resurrected? The answer to this question is that according to His flesh He had been buried there, but according to His divinity He had remained very active. Between the time of His burial and resurrection, His Spirit as His divinity was working to resurrect His humanity, to uplift it, and to bring it into divinity so that His humanity could be born of God. According to Acts 13:33 it was in resurrection that God begot Jesus to be the Son of God. He was therefore begotten to be the firstborn Son of God by having His humanity uplifted into divinity and even brought into the divine sonship. Simultaneously, He became the life-giving Spirit and thereby became the pneumatic Christ.

We have seen that the Spirit has been consummated and that Christ has become the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ. Thus, we may now speak of the divine and mystical realm of this consummated Spirit and of this pneumatic Christ. What a marvelous realm this is!

We have pointed out that the three of the Divine Trinity are self-existing, ever-existing, and coinhering, and as such the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are a divine and mystical realm. With the Triune God Himself as a mystical realm there are no “complications,” but in the divine and mystical realm of the consummated Spirit and the pneumatic Christ there are a number of “complications,” all of which are blessings to us.

God wanted us to be in Him. If He were merely the Triune God without Christ’s humanity, death, and resurrection, and we could enter into Him, we would find the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, but nothing of humanity, death, and resurrection. However, when we enter into the divine and mystical realm of the consummated Spirit and the pneumatic Christ, we have not only divinity but also the humanity of Christ, the death of Christ with its effectiveness, and the resurrection of Christ with its repelling power. Everything is here in this wonderful realm.

Although I was born in China and have become a naturalized American citizen, I can testify that I do not have the feeling that I am either Chinese or American. My realm is not China or America-my realm is the complicated and complicating Triune God. I am here with the Father, with the Son, who was crucified and resurrected, and with the consummated Spirit. Since I am in such a Triune God, I have whatever I need. If I need crucifixion, I find that in this realm I have been crucified already. If I need resurrection, in this realm I have been resurrected already. Praise the Lord for such a divine and mystical realm!

At this juncture, let us consider what is revealed in John 14 concerning the divine and mystical realm of the consummated Spirit and the pneumatic Christ. Verse 1 says, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” In what realm are we troubled? We are troubled on earth, in the world (16:33), in the physical realm.

In this verse (14:1) the Lord Jesus went on to say, “Believe into God, believe also into Me.” Here the preposition into is very important. We should believe not only in God and in Christ, but we should believe into God and into Christ. Our heart is troubled because we are in the world, and the way for this trouble to be solved is for us to enter into Christ by believing into Him. Here we can see two realms: the physical realm-the world where all the troubles are-and the mystical realm of the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, where peace is.

In 16:33 the Lord Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have affliction, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Here again we see both the physical realm (“the world”) and the mystical realm (“Me”).
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