Whenever people offered something to God in the Old Testament, they laid their hand upon the sacrifice, signifying their union or identification with it. God's asking Abraham to offer the cattle and birds to Him implied that Abraham had to be one with all of the things that he offered to God. God seemed to be saying to him, "Abraham, you must be in union with all of the things that you offer to Me. You must be identified with the cattle and the birds." This indicates that we also have to be cut in Christ's being cut and crucified in His crucifixion. Our natural man, our flesh, and our self must be cut and crucified. As we are identified with Him in His crucifixion, we are also identified with Him in His resurrection. We are dead in His death (Rom. 6:5a, 8a) and we are living in His resurrection (Rom. 6:5b, 8b) to fulfill God's purpose. We were terminated in His crucifixion and we were germinated in His resurrection. It is in this way that we are enabled to fulfill God's eternal purpose.
It is impossible for the natural man to have the church life. Among us we have many different kinds of brothers and sisters. Humanly speaking, it is impossible for us to be one. Nevertheless, in the church we are truly one by the crucified and resurrected Christ. We are so one in Him that even the Devil has to admit that we are one. Our old man was terminated in Christ's crucifixion. Whenever my terminated old man comes out of the grave, I immediately rebuke him, saying, "What are you doing here? You have been terminated already. It is wrong for you to come here." We all have been terminated in Christ's crucifixion and germinated in His resurrection. In His resurrection we all are living, not living by ourselves but by the resurrected Christ who lives within us and who enables us to have the church life.
Now we see how God can have such a wonderful seed and land as the people and the sphere in and with which He can establish His kingdom and build up His habitation for His expression and representation. How can God do this? Only by Christ's being crucified as our peace offering, sin offering, and burnt offering and being resurrected to be our life. Now we, the called ones, those who offer Christ to God and are identified with Him, are one with Christ. When Christ was crucified and resurrected, we also were crucified and resurrected with Him. We were crucified in His crucifixion and resurrected in His resurrection. Now we can all declare, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). It is by this fact that we can be living today in order to have the church life. In the church life we have Christ within as the seed and Christ without as the land. How can we get into such a land, into such a church life? Only through the crucified and resurrected Christ, through the heifer, she-goat, ram, turtledove, and pigeon. On the one hand, we all have been crucified; on the other hand, we all are living. So here God can have the seed and the land for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose. Hallelujah for such a Christ as the seed for us to live by and as the land for us to live in!
Verses 12 through 16 speak of the affliction of the promised seed. This affliction was signified by the great darkness that fell upon Abraham. As the sun was going down, Abraham fell into a deep sleep, and a horror of a great darkness came upon him. In that darkness God prophesied concerning Abraham's seed, saying, "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years..but in the fourth generation they shall come hither again" (vv. 13, 16). God seemed to be telling Abraham, "Abraham, you should not doubt that I will give you the land. Your seed will inherit the land. But your descendants are going to suffer affliction for four hundred years." The Lord's prophecy here is very meaningful. In the church life today, at a certain point the sun will go down, the dark night will come, and most of the people will be sleeping, that is, they will be out of function and no longer useful. Such a time is a time of affliction. Here with Abraham we see three things: that the sun was going down, that a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and that a horror of a great darkness fell upon him. It is during such a time that God's called people are under suffering. God told Abraham that his seed would be suffering like that for four hundred years. Those four hundred years were to be one long night, a dark age when all the children of Israel would be sleeping, out of function, and suffering affliction. Abraham's sleep signified that the four hundred years were to the children of Israel a dark night through which they passed.