In Revelation Christ is first presented as the High Priest for the churches. He walks in their midst, taking care of their shining and holding all the leading ones in His hand, that the churches may go on, even in the dark night of a degraded situation.
Christ is next portrayed as the overcoming Lamb, the Lion-Lamb qualified to execute the new testament.
Then in chapters seven, eight, ten, and eighteen, He is referred to as “another Angel.” That this title of “another Angel” refers to Christ is clear from the context. God has sent forth many angels, but Christ as God’s sent One is extraordinary. In this role He is called another Angel.
In chapter seven Christ as God’s Angel controls the whole universe, directing the other angels to carry out God’s judgment upon the earth (7:2-3).
In chapter eight Christ is again depicted as another Angel, offering the prayers of the saints to God (8:3-5). For His administration He needs our prayers. Our prayer is the response to His heavenly ministry. As we pray, He administrates. As He administrates, we are praying. These prayers He offers to God, then pours out God’s answers to them on this earth. This is the meaning of verse 5: “And the Angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it to the earth; and there were thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake.” The pouring out of God’s answers to our prayers is equivalent to His universal administration. This Administrator is qualified in every way, yet He needs our prayers. We may say that Christ is administrating this whole universe through our prayers.
In chapter ten another strong Angel is seen “coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud; and the rainbow was upon His head, and His face was as the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire...And He placed His right foot on the sea and the left on the land” (10:1-2). Here Christ as another Angel has left the throne in the heavens and is on the way back to earth. That He is clothed with a cloud indicates that at this stage His coming is secret. He is secretly on His way back to earth to possess it in its entirety. His one foot on the sea and the other on earth symbolizes His taking possession. The earth is the Lord’s. It must all be His inheritance. He will come in power to take possession of it.
In 18:1 we are told: “After these things I saw another Angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was illumined with His glory.” No longer is He enveloped by a cloud. He is out in the open and very close to earth. He comes to exercise His authority over Christendom, the Great Babylon. After thoroughly judging this evil religion, He will overcome Satan and establish the millennial kingdom on earth.
In that kingdom He will rule, with all His overcomers as co-kings (Rev. 3:21; 20:4, 6). He will be the head Administrator of the kingdom. After those thousand years there will be the New Jerusalem, with its center the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1, 3). There the redeeming Lamb will be the Ruler for eternity. Even for eternity He is the Administrator. This universal administration is a great part of Christ’s heavenly ministry.
Without Paul’s completing ministry, Christ has no way to carry out His heavenly ministry. The two correspond to each other. One is in the heavens, the other among the saints on this earth. Today we are under these two ministries. Even now Christ is ministering in the heavens, and Paul’s completing ministry is being carried out here among us.
This completing ministry is carrying out God’s economy to prepare a Body for Christ. The Head needs a Body. Consider what you could accomplish if you had only a head but no body. You could do nothing! Without the church, His Body, Christ can do nothing. The completing ministry, then, is to bring forth the Body so that the Head can carry out God’s administration on earth.
Paul’s completing ministry, as we shall see further in the upcoming messages, focuses upon Christ as the center of God’s economy and the circumference of God’s purpose. This Christ must live in us, and we must live Him. He is the all-inclusive One.
Then there is the wonderful church life! God has passed through a process to become the life-giving Spirit and to enter into our spirit. These two spirits become one when we are regenerated. From this point on, this all-inclusive Spirit would spread from within our spirit into our soul, that it might be saturated with the Triune God. This spreading of God within us is called transformation and the growth in life. By means of this growth, we are fitted together to be one Body. This Body is built up, not by teaching or arranging or going through formalities, but by the transformation of our soul. Then we grow together, not only as the Body, but also as the universal new man. Christ has His Body, and God has a new man. Then Christ can act, and God can carry out His eternal purpose.
This is the way in which Paul’s completing ministry carries out Christ’s heavenly ministry. After the series on the completing ministry of Paul, we shall continue with the mending ministry of John. With these three ministries the Bible is consummated, and the new heaven and earth with the New Jerusalem are brought in.