The title of this message is very simple but what it conveys is inexhaustible. The content of God's entire New Testament economy is Christ as the Son of Man cherishing us and as the Son of God nourishing us.

The whole Bible is composed of both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament the revelation concerning God's economy—with God, Christ, and the all-inclusive, compound, consummated Spirit—is vague without the explanation and reality of the New Testament. Mary McDonough wrote a marvelous masterpiece entitled God's Plan of Redemption. She and some others used the word plan instead of economy. The word economy is not mentioned in the Old Testament, but it is mentioned in the New Testament by the apostle Paul (Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4—the same Greek word is used in 1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 3:2; Col. 1:25). God's New Testament economy covers only one person—the all-inclusive Christ. He has two statuses. One is the Son of God and the other is the Son of Man. The New Testament unveils to us the very God who is the Divine Trinity.

One day at the beginning of the new testament age, about two thousand years ago, God became a man. He came in a way to visit, to contact, His fallen creatures. Four thousand years before His first coming, He created the universe, and in the universe He created man as the very center in His image and after His likeness (Gen. 1:26). God created every creature after its kind, but He did not create man after man's kind. Man was created in the image and likeness of God, so he looks like God. Man is a copy, a photo, of God. A photo does not have a person's element or life, but it does have that person's image and likeness. One day, the Creator of the man Adam became a real man. He was conceived in a human womb and was born as a human being. Isaiah 9:6 says that a child is born to us, a son is given to us, and His name is the Mighty God and the Eternal Father.

My burden is to show you that in the New Testament the first vision is that our God suddenly became a human being, and He was born as a man in the lowest status, not into a rich man's home, but into a poor man's home. He was born in Bethlehem, but He was raised up in Nazareth. His birth at Bethlehem was covered up by His being raised up in Nazareth. People called Him a Nazarene (Matt. 2:23). This means that He was a despised man from a despised city and a despised region. Isaiah 53 says that He was a man without any outward beauty or attraction (vv. 2-3). He was just a poor Nazarene.

Such a poor man could contact every kind of man. If He had been born as a king, few would have been able to approach Him. But He was born as a poor man, and He could and did approach every class of man, especially the poor and sick ones, such as the blind, the lepers, the sinners, and the tax collectors. He became their friend. His coming in humanity made Him a very cherishing person.

To cherish someone is to make that person happy. Sinners cannot save themselves, but Christ can take away their sins to cherish them. He came to redeem us and He died on the cross for us. He came as a Physician for the sick ones and comforted them (Matt. 9:12). He told the ones who were toiling and burdened to come to Him so that He could give them rest (11:28). He also told the thirsty ones to come to Him and drink so that they would never thirst again (John 4:10, 14; 7:37).

The Jesus who is portrayed in the four Gospels is very cherishing. He came to the world just to cherish people. All people need Him to cherish them, to make them happy, comfort them, and give them rest. If He came to us in His divine status, this would intimidate us. But even the most sinful tax collectors could sit with Him as friends, eating and talking with Him (Luke 15:1; Matt. 9:10). The scribes and Pharisees, the self-justified ones, could not bear to see Him eating with tax collectors and sinners. They did not realize that they also needed Him to be their Physician. I can testify that when I was a poor young man, Jesus came to me and cherished me. Whatever I need and want, He is. What He is meets our every need. The four Gospels reveal Christ as the cherishing Son of Man to meet the need of every fallen sinner. If you are sick of leprosy, He will cleanse you. If you are blind, He will give you sight. This is the Jesus in the four Gospels.

We have seen that the full ministry of Christ is in three stages: incarnation, inclusion, and intensification. His ministry in the first stage of incarnation was to cherish people, to draw and attract people to Him. Once He was walking in a pressing crowd, and a sick woman desperately touched the fringe of His garment and was healed (Matt. 9:20-22). Everyone needs Him, can approach Him, and can touch Him. No one who came to Him was rejected by Him. He receives all without preference or discrimination.

Once when people brought their children to the Lord, the disciples prevented them. But the Lord stopped their preventing and asked them to let the children come to Him (Matt. 19:13-15). He attracted and cherished people. His visiting was His cherishing. His death on the cross was the biggest cherishing to redeem us. Without His redemption, who could come to Him? When we heard the story of His death on the cross, our tears came down. We were attracted by Him. This is His ministry in the four Gospels.

In resurrection He was transfigured to become the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of the bountiful supply (1 Cor. 15:45b; Phil. 1:19). This Spirit is for nourishing. As the all-inclusive Spirit from Acts through the Epistles, Christ nourishes us. This nourishing produces the church, builds up the Body of Christ, and will consummate the New Jerusalem. Because of the church's degradation, Christ's nourishing becomes sevenfold intensified in the book of Revelation to bring forth the eternal goal of God, the New Jerusalem. The totality of His nourishing will be this great universal city, which is the enlargement and expression of God. This city is the consummation of the bountiful supply of Christ as the life-giving, sevenfold intensified Spirit for nourishing us. The New Testament is composed of just two sections—cherishing and nourishing. With this revelation the entire New Testament has become a new book to me.

Now we want to look at eight illustrations in the New Testament which unveil Christ as the Son of Man cherishing us and as the Son of God nourishing us.