Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament is the God-man, the union and mingling of the entire Triune God and the complete tripartite man, mysterious, wonderful, rich, bountiful, all-inclusive, and immeasurable. He is the center of the entire New Testament economy of God and the contents of the whole New Testament. We can never exhaust Him in words. He needs the church which is rich in His life to testify Him in this age, the kingdom which is full of His authority and power to exalt Him in the next age, and the New Jerusalem which will be overflowing with His fullness to express Him in eternity fully, completely, multifariously, and eternally! He is truly worthy to receive our worship, exaltation, praise, and love without limit and without end unto the age of the ages!
Christ’s resurrection began with His spirit, passed through His soul, and consummated in His body. Its achievements consist of seven items: God’s vindication and approval of Him and His work; the sign of His universal success; His victory over death, including Satan, Hades, and the grave; the release of the glory of His divinity, which was concealed in the shell of His human body, enabling Him to enter into the divine glory with humanity; His becoming the life-giving Spirit; His being born as God’s Firstborn with humanity; and the regeneration of His believers that they may become God’s many sons to be His Body, the church. On the night of resurrection after He came to the disciples and breathed Himself as breath into them to be their divine life and essence, He stayed with them for forty days, appearing and disappearing, to train them to experience His invisible presence. Afterwards, He ascended to the height of the heavens that He might fill all things, and was seated at the right hand of God, enthroned and crowned, and received many important offices. According to these offices He is carrying out His heavenly ministry as Lord and Christ, Head over all things, the Baptizer in the Holy Spirit, the Giver of spiritual gifts, a Leader and Savior, the Mediator and Surety of the new covenant, a Minister of the true tabernacle in the heavens, the High Priest, an Advocate, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, and the Opener of the mystery of the new covenant, until the time of the restoration of all things.
His second coming has two aspects: from the heavenly throne to the air secretly and from the air to the earth openly. Before the secret aspect begins, the overcoming and early-matured believers will be raptured to His throne in heaven. Then Christ will bring them with Him to descend secretly from heaven to the air, where they will stay for a period of time, and where also the majority of the saints will be raptured and judged. The overcoming believers will be married to Christ to be His bride in the millennium and to enjoy His marriage feast. Following the secret aspect, the open aspect of His second coming will begin. He will bring the overcoming believers from the air to the earth. First, He will smite Antichrist and his armies and then save the people of Israel, judge the Gentiles of the nations living on earth, bind and imprison Satan in the abyss for one thousand years, and establish the millennial kingdom. At the end of the millennium, He will destroy the group of people involved in mankind’s last rebellion against God, and He will cast the Devil, who had been loosed from the abyss to deceive the people, into the lake of fire, thus completing God’s declared judgment on Satan. Following this, Christ will sit on the great white throne to judge all the dead in the universe, including the dead human beings on earth and the dead demons in the sea, and will make the entire universe orderly and clean. Thus, the new heaven and new earth will be brought in and eternity future will also begin. Christ will be the Husband of the New Jerusalem, the composition and mingling of all those redeemed in the different dispensations of the old creation with the processed Triune God. Thus, Christ will be one with all the redeemed and will be the entrance for them to enter into the divine organism. He will also be the temple, the lamp, the center, and the supply for their enjoyment and experience eternally. This is Christ’s eternity future, divine, glorious, transcendent, and boundless!
This Christ is the God-man, the mingling and union of the Triune God and the tripartite man. He is so rich, bountiful, and all-inclusive. He needs the church which is rich in His life to testify Him in this age, the kingdom that is full of His authority and power to exalt Him in the coming age, and the New Jerusalem which is filled with His glory to express Him completely and eternally in eternity! He is worthy of our worship, exaltation, praise, and love forever!
(This lesson may be divided into two sections and taught in two sessions on the same day.)