In 1:25 Paul says, “Of which I became a minister according to the stewardship of God, which was given to me for you, to complete the word of God.” In this message we shall consider the matter of completing the word of God.
At the time of Paul, the word of God included the Old Testament and the word preached by the early disciples. In Acts 4:29 the disciples prayed that they might preach God’s word with boldness. According to Acts 4:31, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” In Acts 6:4 we see that the apostles gave themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Acts 6:7 tells us that “the word of God increased.” Those who were scattered because of the persecution against the church following the death of Stephen “went every where preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). Furthermore, Acts 12:24 says that “the word of God grew and multiplied.”
Although the word of God preached by the early disciples grew and multiplied, it was not yet completed according to God’s economy. For this completion, God’s revelation to Paul was needed. Because the Jews have only the Old Testament, they do not have the complete oracle of God. Moreover, although Christians have both the Old Testament and the New Testament, in actuality many of them do not have the complete revelation of God. In their experience and in their understanding, they may have only the Gospels, Acts, and part of Romans. Many have studied the Bible, but still lack an adequate understanding of the divine revelation.
According to the stewardship of God, Paul became a minister of the church to complete the word of God. Consider what a lack there would be if we did not have the Epistles of Paul. Without them, there would be no completion of the word of God. Paul’s stewardship was to complete the word of God in order to dispense Christ with all His riches into the churches. The revelation given to Paul was for the completion of God’s word. Therefore, it is crucial that we all know the revelation that was given to Paul.
Paul received the revelation of Christ as the mystery of God. In 2:2 he speaks of the “full knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ.” This term, the mystery of God, is not found in the Old Testament. The Gospels do not record any time that it was used by the Lord Jesus. It was first used by Paul in his Epistles. The mystery of God is Christ as the embodiment of God. Colossians 2:9 says, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”
As the mystery of God, Christ must be both the embodiment of God and the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17). All fundamental Christian teachers believe that Christ is the embodiment of God, but very few see that He is also the life-giving Spirit. In order for us to know Christ in reality as the embodiment of God, we need to experience Him as the life-giving Spirit. Because the enemy knows the crucial significance of this, he attacks this point intensely. If we do not realize that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, the fact that Christ is the embodiment of God is merely doctrine or theory. It is just an objective teaching not at all related to our Christian experience. If this is the situation, there is no way for theory to become reality. The reality of Christ as the embodiment of God is in Christ as the life-giving Spirit.
In John 14:16 through 18 the Lord Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter, that He may be with you forever; even the Spirit of reality, Whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him; but you know Him, because He abides with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you.” The One who is the Spirit of reality in verse 17 becomes the very One who is the Lord Himself in verse 18; He becomes I. This indicates that after His resurrection the Lord became the Spirit of reality. First Corinthians 15:45, which deals with the matter of resurrection, confirms this by saying that the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. Paul was bold and not at all ambiguous in declaring the fact that Christ is the Spirit. To the natural mind it is not logical that the last Adam, a man in the flesh, could become a life-giving Spirit. Nevertheless, Paul uncompromisingly declared this fact. Furthermore, in 2 Corinthians 3:17 he said, “Now the Lord is that Spirit.” According to the context of the whole chapter, the Spirit in verse 17 is the Spirit who gives life in verse 6. Furthermore, in 2 Timothy 4:22 Paul clearly said, “The Lord be with thy spirit.” How clear is Paul’s word!
In 1964 I was warned by an intimate friend not to teach that Christ is the Spirit. This one admitted that the Bible teaches that Christ is the Spirit. However, because religious tradition makes others unwilling to accept this fact, he was not bold to declare it. I told my friend, “If I do not teach that Christ is the life-giving Spirit, I have no ministry. I came to this country with the burden mainly to minister along this line.” Later that year I gave a series of messages on Christ as the Spirit. These messages are printed in The Economy of God.
Many of us can testify of the help we have received in life through realizing that our Lord today is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. If Christ were not the Spirit in our spirit, how could we experience Him as our life? We would have no experience of Christ as life. Instead, we would simply have another form of religious practice. But because we have Christ as the life-giving Spirit, we do not have a religion. We have the living Christ in our experience. On the one hand, He is the embodiment of the fullness of God and, on the other hand, He is the life-giving Spirit indwelling our spirit. This revelation of Christ is part of the revelation given to Paul for the completion of the word of God.