In this chapter we will consider the last point: Christ is everything to the church as the new man. This is the mystery of mysteries. The wonderful being of Christ is for the producing of His Body, which is the church.
Christ is God who became a man and was crucified on the cross to die and shed His blood for us to be our Redeemer. Then He was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit to be our Savior. When He enters into us, we are regenerated with the life of God to become the children of God. Furthermore, every child of God has become a member of the Body of Christ. These members added together are the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not an organization but an organism, a new man, because it has the life of Christ. This is just like the human body, which is an organism. The human body has many members. All the members are parts of the body, an organism, and they all have the same life. Since this life flows through all the members of the body, every member is a part of the body. As a whole, the body is an organism.
If we were not regenerated and did not have the life of God, we could never become the members of the organic Body of Christ. How can we be regenerated and have the life of God? It is through God’s becoming flesh, dying on the cross to shed His blood for the redemption of our sins, and entering into resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit to enter into us. In this way we can be regenerated to have the life of God and the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is Christ, and this Christ is both our Redeemer and our Savior. We, who are many, have Christ as life within and thus become the Body of Christ. First Corinthians 12:12 says, “For even as the body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ.” This tells us that today Christ is not only the Head of the Body but also the Body itself. Christ as the Head is the individual Christ; Christ as the Body is the corporate Christ.
Christ, who was God in eternity, in time came to the earth to become a man, the last Adam. He lived the human life on earth and tasted its different experiences. Then He was crucified on the cross and died by shedding His blood for us to accomplish the work of redemption and become our Redeemer. Furthermore, He resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit to be received by those who had been chosen and predestinated by God in Christ before the foundation of the world. When one believes in the Lord in his heart and calls upon the Lord’s name with his mouth, thereby receiving the Lord as his Savior, the Lord as the life-giving Spirit enters into him to be his life. Then this one is regenerated to be a child of God and a member of the Body of Christ. All the members added together, all those who have Christ as their life, become one Body, which is the church. This is the main subject of the New Testament.