Since we were put into Christ before the foundation of the world, we were also in Him when He was crucified. When He went to the cross, He went there with us. He died on the cross with us. This is the reason Paul could say, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). We need to have Paul’s view of Christ’s crucifixion.
Just as we were crucified with Christ, we were also buried and resurrected with Him. When He was buried in Mark 15, we were buried also. Likewise, when He was resurrected in Mark 16, we were resurrected with Him.
The Gospel of Mark is mainly a revelation of Christ’s Person. Although this Gospel does not say anything about His birth, it does emphasize His death and resurrection. Therefore, the emphasis in Mark’s Gospel is on the Person of Christ with His death and resurrection. We need the fourteen Epistles of Paul to give the adequate definition of Christ’s Person and of His death and resurrection.
By now we all should have a clear view of the Lord Jesus as the One who lived a life of sowing the Triune God into His disciples. As the soil collected by Him, the disciples were in a condition portrayed by the different cases in the Gospel of Mark. This means that they were sick with a fever, contaminated, and paralyzed. But they were all healed both in a general way and in a particular way. Their organs of seeing, hearing, and speaking, in particular, were healed.
After the Lord called the disciples, He brought them with Him wherever He went. As He was bringing the soil of the disciples with Him, He was sowing Himself into the soil.
The book of Acts is the direct continuation of the Gospel of Mark. In the first two chapters of Acts we see that Peter and the one hundred twenty had become the reproduction of the Lord Jesus. In Mark the disciples were disputing concerning who was greater. Also in Mark 14 Peter denied the Lord Jesus three times. But in Acts 1 no one cared about who was greater. Instead, they prayed continually in one accord for ten days. How could the disciples experience such a thing? They could experience this only by having the resurrected Christ in them as their life.
In the second chapter of Acts, the power from on high came upon the disciples. As a result, they became the increase, development, enlargement, and continuation of the Lord Jesus. He had brought them through His death and His resurrection, and He had wrought Himself into them. As a result, they were replaced by the Lord and saturated with Him. In this way they became His increase and continuation.
What kind of life did the one hundred twenty live in the book of Acts? They lived a life that was fully according to God’s New Testament economy. They did not live a life of culture or religion. Neither did they live a life of ethics, morality, philosophy, or improvement of character. Just as the Lord Jesus lived absolutely according to and for God’s New Testament economy, so the one hundred twenty in Acts lived the same way.
In Acts 21 and in the book of James, however, we see a contrast to the life that is fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy. In Acts 21 James was a distraction to the life that is fully according to the New Testament economy of God. In James we see a life that is only partially according to God’s New Testament economy. Mainly with James we see a life that is according to the Old Testament, a life according to religion and ethics.
It is not our burden in these messages to study the Scriptures in a doctrinal way. Our burden is to present what God desires today. God wants us to be saturated by Him and with Him so that we may live a life of the divine dispensing. Then we shall sow this life into others for the further dispensing of the Triune God. Concerning this, we all need a revolution in our concept and living so that we may be brought into a life that is according to God’s New Testament economy.