After His resurrection Christ still possesses divinity and humanity, but His humanity has been uplifted and joined with His divinity through His resurrection. This means that He was begotten to be the Son of God in His humanity. So it is with our regeneration. We were human beings with the human nature, but we were without the divine life and had no share in the divine nature. At the time of our regeneration, when the life of God entered into us, we were born again. We were regenerated in the Lord’s resurrection. When Christ was designated in His humanity to be the Son of God by the Spirit of holiness (the divinity of Christ), we were also designated with Him as the many sons of God. We were born with Christ in the same delivery. In this delivery, He was the first One, so He was the firstborn Son; we were those who came after Him, so we were the many sons. The many sons of God and the firstborn Son of God were born at the same time. What a revelation this is! This is the crystallization of our study, which is not seen in Christianity.
We are not only the brothers of Christ, but even more we are genuine brothers born with Him in the same delivery. Just as His flesh (His human nature) was begotten of the divine nature and the divine life, so also our human nature is begotten of the divine nature. As a result, we all have become the many sons of God, the many brothers of Christ, born with Him in the same delivery. Two thousand years ago, before we were born of our parents, we were regenerated. According to man’s natural understanding, this principle is illogical, but with God there is no time factor. Today we have not seen the New Jerusalem, but in Revelation the predicates used concerning the New Jerusalem are all in the past tense because in God’s eyes the New Jerusalem has long been in existence.
First Peter 1:3 explicitly says that God has regenerated us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead. Ephesians 2:5 says that even when we were dead in our offenses and sins, God made us alive together with Christ. This, however, was still not resurrection; we were simply made alive out of our sins. Verse 6 goes on to say that God “raised us up together with Him and seated us together with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.” Christ was resurrected two thousand years ago, when we were not yet born, yet in God’s eyes we were resurrected together with Christ. We should believe this fact.
Furthermore, 1 Corinthians 15:45 says that in His resurrection Christ as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. God became flesh and was born as Jesus, but in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul refers to the last Adam instead of Jesus. According to our natural understanding, there were millions of “Adams” after Him. Since neither you nor I are the last Adam, how can Christ be the last Adam? Such a question is in the human concept. In God’s eyes Christ as the last Adam was the conclusion because we were all included in Him. Therefore, we could be crucified with Him on the cross at His crucifixion (Gal. 2:20). Unless we were included in Him, we could not be crucified with Him. Christian theology teaches that His death is merely reckoned as our death. Actually, it is not so. It is not that His death is merely reckoned as our death; rather, His death is our death because we are in Him.
We can use an illustration here: Many Americans came to the United States in the loins of their forefathers, who boarded the Mayflower to come to the new continent and were thereby born as Americans. Hebrews 7:9-10 says that Levi was in Abraham’s loins when Abraham offered tithes to Melchisedec. Levi, who was the fourth generation of Abraham’s descendants, was not yet born, but in God’s eyes he was already in Abraham. In the same principle, when did we first sin? We sinned in Adam when he sinned. When Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we also ate it in him. This is the biblical view. This is what it means to be “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22). “In Adam” means that Adam includes us. Likewise, “in Christ” means that Christ includes us.
Christ as the last Adam included us in Him when He was crucified on the cross. Then in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit referred to in John 7:39: “But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” At the time the Lord spoke this word, the Spirit was not yet, because the Lord had not yet been glorified. Jesus was glorified in His resurrection (Luke 24:26). The resurrection of Jesus was His glorification (1 Cor. 15:43a; Acts 3:13a, 15a). Once Jesus was glorified, the Spirit, the consummated Spirit, was there.
Today the Spirit is the consummated, compound, all-inclusive, indwelling, and sevenfold intensified Spirit. The Spirit was consummated by passing through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. The Spirit is also the compound Spirit, compounded with God and man plus the element of Christ’s death with its effectiveness and the element of Christ’s resurrection with its power (Exo. 30:23-25). Such a Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ with the bountiful supply (Phil. 1:19).