The verses that we read tonight are all from the book of 1 Corinthians. In particular, they are all from the fifteenth chapter. We have seen that chapters fourteen and fifteen are two very meaningful chapters. Chapter fourteen of 1 Corinthians speaks mainly about prophesying. Only prophesying builds the church. Immediately after 1 Corinthians 14, Paul dealt with the question of resurrection in chapter fifteen. This shows us that the prophesying in chapter fourteen must be done in resurrection. In our natural being, we can speak only ordinary words; there is no possibility for us to speak for the Lord. For this reason, we have to learn to remain in resurrection so that we can speak for God and speak forth God.
The reason that we condemn the old way is because it keeps us in the natural realm. We do not know how to apply the power of resurrection nor is there the need to do so in our environment. As a result, we continue on in the old way in our natural being. Whatever we need to do in the new way, we cannot do in our natural being. To preach the gospel according to the way ordained in the New Testament, we have to contact and visit people directly in order that they may be saved from their environment and that we may offer them up to God as sacrifices. However, this is something that the natural man cannot accomplish. Only by the resurrection power can this be achieved.
We know that the Holy Spirit is the reality of resurrection. When you are in the Holy Spirit, you are in resurrection. Although resurrection and the Holy Spirit are closely related, in our subjective experience resurrection is even more closely tied to death. Our natural being with its natural strength and natural views must pass through death before we can enter into resurrection. Hymns, #279 says, “First the blood, and then the ointment, cleansing, then anointing comes; if we pass not thru Golgotha, ne’er to Pentecost we’ll come.” If we do not pass through the death on the cross, we can never receive the Spirit at Pentecost because the Spirit at Pentecost is the reality of resurrection. In order to have the reality of resurrection, we need to pass through Golgotha.
Today we have seen this new way as revealed in the Bible. We also have seen that to take this way there is the need to pass through death and resurrection at every step. I would especially like to show the brothers who are serving as elders in the church that to lead the brothers and sisters on in this new way requires us to be persons who live in resurrection. We must go through death. Then we can enter into resurrection and into the reality of the Holy Spirit.
When Paul spoke of the resurrection of Christ in 1 Corinthians 15, he did not treat it merely as a subject of defense against the heresy in the church. Rather, he applied resurrection to himself. In verse 5, he began by mentioning the Lord’s appearing after His resurrection. Verse 8 says, “And last of all He was seen by me also, even as to one untimely born.” Then Paul went on to say, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not fit to be called an apostle” (v. 9). “But by the grace of God I am what I am...I labored more abundantly than all of them” (v. 10). This shows us that the apostle had one outstanding feature—his labor. The more you labor, the more you are an apostle. Because Paul labored more than all the apostles, he was an apostle among the apostles. But then he said, “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (v. 10). It was the grace of God that constituted him the kind of person that he was.
John 1:1 says, “The Word was God.” Then verse 14 says, “And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us...full of grace and reality.” Verse 17 continues, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” Grace came through Jesus Christ. This shows us that grace is just Jesus Christ, the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. He has passed through death and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit. Today He can enter into our spirit to be our enjoyment. Hence, the consummation of this Triune God, the life-giving Spirit, is now grace.
Also 2 Corinthians 13:14 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Grace, love, and fellowship are not three separate things; rather, they are three aspects of one thing. Love is the source. When love is expressed, it becomes grace. When grace comes to us, it becomes fellowship, and this fellowship is the Holy Spirit. Hence, the Holy Spirit is the coming to us of the Triune God.
By this, we see that grace is the consummated Spirit of the processed Triune God coming into us to be our everything. When this grace came to Paul in resurrection, it made him an apostle among apostles. He became a person that he could not otherwise have been. Therefore he said, “Yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).
At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul applied the grace of resurrection to himself. In the last verse, he exhorted the brothers, “Wherefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (v. 58). To abound in the work of the Lord means that we are filled with the work of the Lord.
If we do not have the work of the Lord with us today, it shows that we are not in grace or in resurrection. Rather, we are in the natural realm. The natural life comes from Adam, but the resurrection life is received at regeneration. In the new way which the Lord has recovered today, no one can meet the need by their natural life. Especially those brothers who are taking the lead in the churches should realize that such work cannot be accomplished by the natural man. Only by remaining in the grace of resurrection can we abound in the work of the Lord for the furtherance of the new way.