We who believe in Christ and enjoy Him as our rest and freedom are likened in the Bible to a crop. In 1 Corinthians 3:9 Paul says, “You are God’s farm.” To God, we are a crop. The harvest of the good land was to be offered to God without delay. If we live in Christ, enjoying Him as our rest and freedom, we shall grow in life. In other words, when we live in Christ, we are farming, growing Christ by laboring on Him as the good land to produce a harvest, even the fullness of the harvest. This fullness must be offered to God without delay.
The mention of fullness here implies that we are living in the good land. Apart from Christ as the good land, how can we have a harvest with its fullness, and how can we have grapes and olives that are pressed to produce wine and oil as tears? The mention of fullness and tears implies that God’s chosen people are in the good land. According to typology, this land is the all-inclusive Christ. We need to flee into Christ, enjoy Him as our rest and freedom, and then live in Him, the all-inclusive One, as the good land. As we live in the land, we are farming, laboring, growing a crop. Both the good land and the harvest produced in the land are Christ. The fullness of the harvest thus refers to the reaping of the rich experience of Christ.
In our experience of Christ not only should we have the fullness, but we should also have the tears, the flow of wine and oil. The tears in 22:29 signify the overflow from our experience of the cross. When some saints share in the meetings of the church, part of their testimony may be the fullness of the harvest, and another part may be the tears, the overflow of the experience of Christ through the cross. The presses used to make wine and oil signify the cross. By the press, by the cross, wine flows out to cheer God and man, even to be used as a drink offering, and oil flows out to please God. The fullness and the tears signify the rich experience of Christ and the overflow from the suffering of the cross. This fullness and tears should be offered to God without delay. Have you experienced Christ today? If so, you should come to the meeting and offer to God the fullness of your harvest. This is to offer the harvest with its fullness.
One category of the experience of Christ is that of the fullness of the harvest; another category is that of the tears, the overflow of the presses, the experience of Christ through the cross. Apart from the presses, we may have grapes or olives, but we shall not have wine or oil flowing as tears. On the one hand, Christ is typified by the vine tree; on the other hand, He is typified by the olive tree. Hence, Christ is not only the wheat and the barley, but He is also the grape to produce wine and the olive to produce oil. When the wine flows forth, it cheers God and man, and when the olive oil flows, it pleases God. Both the wine and the oil require the press. This indicates that Christ as the grape and the olive needs the cross. In our experience, we also must be pressed by the cross. In a very real and positive sense, the church life is a wine press and also an oil press. We need to be pressed so that wine and oil may flow as tears. If we do not experience the pressing in the church life, the grape and the olive will remain whole. The Christian life is a life continually under the pressing of the cross in order that the riches of Christ may flow.
If we would live in Christ, we need both the fullness of the harvest and the tears, the flow from the wine and oil presses. In this matter, do not be deceived by the shallowness and superficiality widespread among Christians today. We need to follow the way of growing Christ and reaping Christ in order to have a harvest of Christ in full. We also need to experience the cross that we may have the tears, the flow of wine and oil. Then, without delay, we should bring the fullness and the tears to the church meetings and offer them to God. The reason there should be no delay is that the producing of the fullness and the tears is not for us, but for God’s enjoyment and satisfaction.