As we read chapter thirteen of the Gospel of Mark, we should not be distracted from the main point in this chapter. The crucial matter here is that the Lord was telling His close followers that the entire world situation is for the producing of a new man. This new man can be produced only through Christ’s all-inclusive death and His wonderful resurrection. This is the reason we need to be brought into His death and resurrection.
If you study the account of Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost, you will see that he emphasized the two matters of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He told the people that the One they despised and crucified has been honored by God, for God raised Him from among the dead. They crucified Him, but God resurrected Him. The Lord’s followers were His witnesses. In particular, they were witnesses of His death and resurrection.
We have seen that Christ’s death was the termination of the old creation and that His resurrection was the germination of the new creation. In the new creation we enjoy Him, the all-inclusive One, as our universal replacement provided by God. Christ is not only our Savior—He is our life and everything to us. Not only is He everything to us; He is everything in God’s economy. God’s economy is to produce a new man, and in this new man there is nothing but Christ. In the new man Christ is in everyone, Christ is everyone, and Christ is everything. We all need to see this marvelous vision.
Concerning the vision of God’s economy, the crucial matter for us to see is that we need to enter into Christ’s death and resurrection so that we may participate in the full enjoyment of Him as the universal replacement. Today as our replacement Christ is the life-giving Spirit. It is not our intention to argue in a doctrinal way concerning the Trinity or the Spirit. Our aim is to help the believers know that we need to enter into the all-inclusive death of Christ so that we may be in His resurrection. Then in His resurrection we shall participate in Him and enjoy Him as the life-giving Spirit to be our replacement. This Spirit now dwells in our spirit. We have actually become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). As we live in the Spirit and even live this Spirit, He will make Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension real to us.
The entire world situation is for the completion of the re-formation of Israel and also for the completion of the birth of the new man. Because we have a clear view concerning these two matters, we can see something that statesmen and politicians cannot see. They do not realize that the world situation is for the re-formation of Israel and the birth of the new man. Thank the Lord that we know the purpose for the things happening in the world. We thank Him for a clear view of the world situation.
Not only do we know where the world is in relation to God’s economy; we also know where we are as believers. We are in the death and resurrection of Christ, and we are in the enjoyment of Him as our all-inclusive replacement. This means that we are in Christ.
Many talk about being in Christ without having a full realization of what this means. To be in Christ is to be in the full enjoyment of Him as the entire, universal replacement through His all-inclusive death and His wonderful resurrection.
We need the Gospel of Mark to help us see that Christ is our replacement through His death and resurrection. It was not in an external, outward way that the New Testament believers entered into the death and resurrection of Christ. From the Gospel of Mark we see that the early disciples, our representatives, followed the Lord from the very beginning. Eventually, they, and also we, passed through the process leading into Christ’s all-inclusive death and into His resurrection.
If we see the vision of the all-inclusive death of Christ, we shall realize that when He was crucified, we were crucified with Him and in Him. Likewise, when He was resurrected, we were resurrected in Him. We also are in ascension with Him. Therefore, now we can declare, “Hallelujah, in Christ’s resurrection and ascension I am participating in the enjoyment of Him as my replacement!”
As our replacement, Christ is the indwelling, life-giving Spirit in our spirit. As we live by this Spirit, the Spirit will become in us the reality of Christ Himself with His death, resurrection, and ascension as our complete and full enjoyment. It is in this way that the new man is delivered. May we all see the vision of the bringing forth of the new man through our participation in Christ and in His death, resurrection, and ascension.