Before God could be received by man, He had to first become a man. Therefore, creation was followed by incarnation. In the process of incarnation, God became a man, born of the virgin Mary in a very humble way. According to Isaiah 9:6, the child born to us was the mighty God. This means that the infant born in that manger in Bethlehem was the mighty God Himself. As a child, He grew up in Nazareth, in the despised region of Galilee. He did not live in the mansion of a rich man, but He lived in the house of a poor carpenter. Imagine that Jesus, the mighty God incarnate, lived in a carpenter’s house in Nazareth for about thirty years! The Creator of the whole universe lived on earth in such a way. This is a vital part of God’s history.
To this day, the Jews do not believe in the incarnation. Rather, they would proclaim that their God is not that small. However, we believe and declare that our God became a small man and lived on earth for thirty-three and one half years. According to Isaiah 53 and the four Gospels, the Lord Jesus was a man without form or comeliness. Furthermore, the very One who said, “Let there be light” and caused light to shine out of darkness was the One who worked for years as a carpenter.
At the end of His life on earth, the Lord Jesus was crucified. We need to realize that the One who was crucified was God Himself. In a hymn written by Charles Wesley there are these lines:
Amazing love! How can it be
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
God was crucified and hung on the cross for us. Afterward, He was buried in the tomb and took a tour through Hades, the region of death. Although Satan did everything possible to hold Him, on the third day He arose from the dead and came out of the tomb in resurrection. Now, in resurrection, He is the life-giving Spirit. By incarnation God became a man, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit.
After His resurrection, Christ appeared to His disciples a number of times. He was manifested to them on the day of His resurrection, when they were meeting in a room behind closed doors. Suddenly, He appeared with a body of flesh and bones. Thinking that He was a ghost, the disciples were frightened. He said to them, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39). Eight days later He appeared again, especially for the benefit of Thomas, who had said that unless he could see in His hands the print of the nails, put his finger into the print of the nails, and thrust his hand into His side, he would not believe (John 20:25). After appearing, the resurrected Christ suddenly disappeared again. Later, when some of the disciples, under the leadership of Peter, were fishing, He was manifested once more and asked them if they had anything to eat. When they replied that they had nothing, He told them to cast the net on the right side of the ship. They did so and caught a multitude of fishes (John 21:6). Then the disciples enjoyed a good breakfast with the Lord, after which He disappeared again. On another occasion, He held a conference with them on a mountaintop, the place He had appointed. Finally, the disciples witnessed the ascension of the resurrected Christ. Ten days later, He descended upon them in a wonderful way as the all-inclusive Spirit. As we all know, through their preaching of the gospel, thousands were added to them.
As we consider all the aspects of God’s history, we see that the history of God is Christ. As the history of God, Christ is the mystery of God. Because the Jews do not have Christ, the God in whom they believe does not have such a history. Apart from Christ, there is neither the history of God nor the mystery of God.
As Christ is the history of God, so the church is the history of Christ. As the history of Christ, the church is the mystery of Christ. In the church we are a continuation of this history.
We have pointed out that the Christ we have received is the mystery of God and the history of God. The Christ we have received is God with His wonderful history. As the all-inclusive One, Christ includes divinity, humanity, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, glorification, and enthronement. He includes all the divine attributes and human virtues. This is the One we have all received.