Let us come back to the economy of God. In God’s economy there are five great mysteries: first, the Triune God; second, Christ as the embodiment of God; third, the Spirit as the realization of Christ; fourth, the Body of Christ; and fifth, the New Jerusalem. You brothers need to learn to speak these five mysteries in a very thorough way. We have seen the economy of God, the Body of Christ, and the New Jerusalem. Now we will go on to see something concerning the mystery of the Spirit.
In brief, the Spirit has been processed to be the consummated, compound, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, and sevenfold intensified Spirit. When you speak concerning the Spirit, you must cover all these six points. This Spirit has been consummated and is therefore compounded and all-inclusive. The Spirit with these three qualifications becomes the life-giving Spirit to dispense life to us; as a result, this life-giving Spirit becomes the indwelling Spirit. Not only so, since the church has become fallen, the Lord has intensified the Spirit sevenfold in His economy that we may overcome the degradation of the church by such a sevenfold intensified Spirit.
John 7 says that “the Spirit was not yet” before the resurrection of Christ (v. 39). What does this mean? Nearly no one in Christianity today can give a clear explanation. The Spirit was not yet means that the Spirit was not yet consummated. To be consummated, the Spirit had to pass through various processes. The Spirit was consummated in Christ’s resurrection. The resurrection of Christ was the completion of the processes that the Triune God passed through. The first step of what the Triune God had passed through was His becoming flesh, the second step was His living the human life, the third step was His suffering of death, and the fourth step was His entering into resurrection. Every step was a process. When God became a man, He did not simply become a man in an instant, although as the almighty God He could have. Rather, He entered into the womb of a virgin and stayed there for nine months by following the proper procedure according to the proper human way. Matthew 1:20 says clearly, “Joseph,...do not be afraid to take Mary your wife, for that which has been begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Before Christ was born, God had been born first into Mary through His Spirit. He was in the virgin’s womb nine months; this was a process. After He was born, this man Jesus lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years; this was another process. The human ordeals, troubles, and hardships that He went through were all processes. Then at a certain time He delivered Himself up to men. People did not seize Him; rather, He gave Himself up voluntarily (John 10:17-18; 18:1, 11). When those who were arresting Him said that they were seeking Jesus the Nazarene, He immediately said, “I am.” They knew “I Am” is the name of Jehovah; hence, when Jesus said “I am,” they drew back in fear and fell to the ground (18:5-6). Eventually, the Lord delivered Himself to those who came to arrest Him; He was judged by the Jewish Sanhedrin and later was transferred to Herod and Pilate, the Roman rulers, to be judged all night (Luke 23:6-12). The next day they forced Him to bear the cross for Himself and go to Golgotha, where He was crucified (John 19:17-18). This was a process He went through. Furthermore, He was crucified and was sent to the tomb. He lay in the tomb three days, and afterwards He was resurrected. Were these not the processes which He went through? It was through all these processes that God entered into resurrection and became the consummated Spirit.
Some criticize us, saying that it is wrong for us to say, “The Lord is small and we are great.” Such people have very limited knowledge and take things out of context. It is based on John 6 that we say that the Lord is small and we are great. The people came and wanted to make Him King, yet the Lord said that He was not a king but “the bread that came down out of heaven” (v. 41). A king comes to rule over people, whereas bread is to be eaten by people. Therefore, the Lord said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (v. 57). Are the people who eat the bread greater, or is the bread greater? There is a very good hymn in Christianity on how great the Lord is. I really enjoyed the tune of that hymn, so I used the same tune to write another hymn on how small the Lord is (Hymns, #1110). The Lord is so small that He became our food. This means that His intention is for us to receive Him as our life. If Christ is not smaller than us, how can He be our food? Christ is not only smaller than we are; He also made Himself smaller than those who arrested Him and those who crucified Him. If those who arrested Him were not greater than He, how could they have arrested Him? If those who crucified Him were not greater than He, how could they have crucified Him? The book of Hebrews tells us that He was made a little inferior to the angels (2:9); actually, He made Himself smaller than all men. He was made smaller than men temporarily that He might become their food to give life to them and save them. Hence, it is irrefutable for us to say that Christ is small. Only those who have not studied the Word deeply would say that we are wrong.
The embodiment of God is Christ, the realization of Christ is the Spirit, the issue of the Spirit is the Body of Christ, and the consummation of the Body of Christ is the New Jerusalem. These five mysteries cannot be clearly explained by today’s traditional theology in Christianity. What I have fellowshipped with you is very serious, and I hope that we can all see that our commission today is not so simple. The Lord’s burden given to us is that we bear the testimony of His recovery, and one of the main points is to refute and correct the defects and errors of traditional Christian theology. We cannot say that traditional theology is all wrong; in fact, some of it is quite right. Nevertheless, it is incomplete. The Nicene Creed is an excellent creed, and to this day it is still kept by the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches. Yet the Nicene Creed is lacking in that it does not refer to the compound Spirit, nor to the consummated Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit, or the sevenfold intensified Spirit. It also does not tell us what it means that “the Spirit was not yet” (John 7:39).
Brothers, this is not a small thing; this is a fierce warfare. In his days Martin Luther fought against the Catholic doctrines and brought in the recovery of justification by faith. Today we bear the testimony of the Lord’s recovery against Judaism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Christianity. Judaism is satanic (Rev. 2:9), Catholicism is devilish (vv. 20, 24), Protestantism is lifeless (3:1b), and Christianity is Christless (v. 20). Today all the elders and co-workers need to learn the truths. We should refute and correct traditional theology, not in minor points but in the fundamental points. We must present the truth concerning the economy of God item by item according to the entire Bible. This is the Lord’s special commission to us.