In the previous message we saw the accomplishments of Christ in the stage of His incarnation. Now we want to see His accomplishments in the stage of His inclusion from His resurrection to the degradation of the church. We need to be constituted with all the items of this revelation so that we can nourish people with the unsearchable riches of Christ in His full ministry in the three stages.
The degradation of the church began at the end of the early apostles' ministry. In Paul's second Epistle to Timothy we can see this degradation. We need to see the three major things which Christ accomplished in the stage of His inclusion from His resurrection to the degradation of the church. In Christ's resurrection He was begotten as God's firstborn Son, He became the life-giving Spirit, and He regenerated the believers for His Body.
An excellent illustration of Christ's death and resurrection was given by the Lord when He likened Himself to a grain of wheat falling into the earth to die and to bear much fruit in resurrection. After the grain of wheat is sown into the earth, on the one hand it is dying, but on the other hand it is rising up. The shell is dying, but the life element within the grain is growing. Eventually, a new sprout comes out from the death and resurrection of the grain. According to 1 Peter 3:18, Christ's resurrection was going on while He was dying on the cross. He was "on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the Spirit." According to His flesh He was crucified for our sins, but according to the Spirit He was very active. Resurrection was not a sudden event. Actually, while Christ was dying in the flesh on the cross, He was active, moving, and energized with life to rise up.
From eternity past without beginning, Christ was God's only begotten Son, possessing only divinity, without humanity. At that time He had not passed through death into resurrection.
In incarnation the only begotten Son of God became flesh to be a God-man, a man possessing both the divine nature and the human nature.
Through death and resurrection, Christ in the flesh as the seed of David was designated to be the firstborn Son of God. In death His humanity was crucified. In resurrection His crucified humanity was made alive by the Spirit of His divinity and was uplifted into the sonship of the only begotten Son of God. Thus, He was begotten by God in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God.
First Corinthians 15:45b says, "The last Adam [Christ in the flesh] became a life-giving Spirit." The last Adam was the last man. Christ's crucifixion was the end of man. In His resurrection Christ, the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit for dispensing life.
According to John 7:39, prior to the glorification of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, "the Spirit was not yet." This means that the life-giving Spirit "was not yet" before the resurrection of Christ—the glorification of Christ. Before Christ was resurrected, the Spirit of God was not the life-giving Spirit.