However, is it enough merely to have the Ark? No, the Ark needs the tabernacle as its match. In other words, such a perfect Christ still needs the church as His match. Therefore, after the Gospels is the book of Acts, which shows us that after this God-man resurrected from among the dead, He was transfigured into the Holy Spirit and entered into everyone who believed into Him. This was the enlargement of the principle of incarnation, that is, the enlargement of the principle of wood overlaid with gold. The Ark was enlarged to be the tabernacle, and likewise Christ has been enlarged to be the church.
In the Gospels there was only an individual—Jesus the Nazarene. He alone was wood overlaid with gold. In Acts 1, however, there were at least one hundred and twenty Galileans, including Peter, James, and John, who were wood overlaid with gold. In a sense, they were the enlargement of Jesus the Nazarene in the Gospels. Furthermore, on the day of Pentecost three thousand persons were saved, and later five thousand more were added. All of them were also persons of wood overlaid with gold. They all had the life of Christ within them and had been baptized in the Holy Spirit into one Body, and like the standing boards that were united by the golden bars in the golden rings, they were being built together into a tabernacle, the church. Therefore, the tabernacle was the enlargement of the Ark, and the church is the enlargement of Christ. This is the enlargement of the principle of incarnation. God was first expressed richly and bodily in Christ and is now expressed in the church.
A real Christian is one into whom Christ has entered. One time I asked someone who was a Christian, “Who are you?” Being puzzled by my question, he did not know how to answer. Then I asked again, “Please tell me, are you a man or are you Christ?” He said, “Of course, I am a man.” Then I said, “Then are you Christ or not?” He said, “How could I say that I am Christ?” I said, “What is your relationship with Christ?” He answered, “I believe in Him as my Savior.” I asked, “Is that all?” He answered, “That is about all.” I asked, “Has Christ come into you?” He replied, “He has come in.” I asked again, “Then what kind of man are you?” He answered, “I am just the kind of man that I am.” How foolish was this person! Do not laugh at him, however, for we are often just as foolish. Eventually, I pointed to a glass of tea on the table and asked him, “What is in this glass?” He said, “It is tea, obviously!” I asked, “Is it not water?” He said, “The tea is in the water, so it is tea!” Then I asked him, “Since Christ is in you, who are you? Has there been a change in you?” Finally he understood and said, “Oh, I am Christ!”
Actually, what he said was not entirely accurate. The northern Chinese refer to tea as “tea-water.” This is more accurate. When Christ came into us, we became Christ-men. When we are speaking of someone who is a Christian, what we are speaking of is not merely a disciple of Christ but a Christ-man, one who has Christ within. In Acts there was a group of Christ-men who were the enlargement of the Ark made of wood overlaid with gold. They had become the many standing boards made of wood overlaid with gold. This was the enlargement of the principle of incarnation, the mingling of two natures—divinity and humanity. These standing boards were united by the golden rings and golden bars and became the tabernacle, which is the church. This is what happened when the church was produced in the beginning at Pentecost. It began in Jerusalem, then it reached Samaria, and then it spread to all of Judea. At the present time, this expansion is still going on.