How can Christ come into us? He died on the cross for our sins and shed His blood. Then He was resurrected, and by resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). This life-giving Spirit is symbolized by the water. In typology in the Old Testament, the living water came out of the cleft rock. Today Christ is the cleft rock. Out of Him has come the living water, the Spirit which is just Himself. When we believe in Him and call, “O Lord Jesus,” whether we understand justification or not, we are justified. Now Christ as the Spirit has come into us, not as a power or an influence, but as a living person. Now we are not only saved, but also regenerated. And this living person in us will make us the bride. It is a mystery. But this is what the Bible tells us.
The ultimate consummation of the Bible is a bride. The New Jerusalem, in Revelation 21 and 22, is called the wife of the Lamb. The Bible closes with the bride of the Lamb of God.
Today, Christ is working within us in the churches to build His bride. This is His ultimate purpose. This may be new to you. Some of these terms and even this whole concept may be strange to you. But don’t be bothered by this. Many specific points of God’s revelation have been missed by Christians. Today, in the Lord’s recovery, He is recovering all of these things. He is opening all the mysteries to us. All these truths are based upon the pure Word.
Now, I believe, we are all clear about the Gospel of John. In the beginning, Christ was the Word who was God, and this Word became flesh to be the Lamb of God. Then, on the cross, He took away our sins, and by resurrection and in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. When we believe in Him and call on His name, our sins are forgiven and He Himself comes into us. By His life working within us, He will build His bride. This is why He is eventually revealed in the book of John as the Holy Breath. (The Greek word for spirit and breath are the same.) After His resurrection He came back to His disciples to breathe upon them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Breath” (John 20:22). This is all made clear to us in John’s Gospel.
Now we must return to Matthew. Matthew tells us that Jesus is the son of David and the son of Abraham. John starts from the beginning. But regardless of how John starts, or from whom Matthew begins, eventually they both tell us nearly the same thing. Matthew also tells us that Jesus is the Bridegroom. “And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?” (Matt. 9:15). The disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus to ask Him about religion. But Jesus told them that He was the Bridegroom, caring nothing for religion.
Then in Matthew 25, He tells us that He will come back as the Bridegroom. “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him” (Matt. 25:1, 6).
However, Matthew still differs somewhat from John. John tells us that the Bridegroom will come into us to make us His bride. But Matthew says that the bride must be put into Him. The Gospel of John closes with Jesus coming as the life-giving Spirit in resurrection to come into His bride. But Matthew closes with Jesus coming after His resurrection to tell His disciples to baptize people into Himself. “Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 28:19, Gk.).
Have you seen these two aspects? One aspect is that Christ comes into us. The other is that we are baptized into Him. It is so wonderful that we have one verse that covers both aspects: “For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13, Gk.). On one hand we have been put into the Spirit, and on the other hand we must drink the Spirit into us. Eventually, it is rather difficult to say who is in whom. This is why Jesus said in John 14:20, “At that day [the day of resurrection] ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”
In the translation of Matthew 28:19, there is a real problem. The King James Version says, “baptizing them in the name.” So many Christians think that this means to baptize others in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And as they are baptizing them they say, “I now baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” But the Greek word for the preposition “in” is “into.” It is the same Greek preposition used in Galatians 3:27, where it is properly translated by the King James Version. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” It is just like the water into which we are baptized. When we are baptized into the water, we are put into the water. So the real baptism is to put people into the Triune God, with the water as a symbol. Whenever we baptize others, we should not do it in a formal way. We need to exercise our faith that we are putting them into the Triune God. As they have believed in the Lord Jesus and called on His name, we baptize them into Him as the Spirit. It is not a formality; it is a reality. “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Then after we have been baptized into Him, we must drink of Him. We all need to drink of the one Spirit. So eventually we are in Him, and He is in us.
This is the two Gospels of Matthew and John. John concludes with the fact that Jesus gets into us. Matthew ends with the fact that we are put into Jesus. Hallelujah! We all have been baptized into Him, and now we all are drinking of Him as the Spirit. He is such a wonderful person, yet He is so one with us. May the Lord remove all the veils from our background and from our concepts that we may see the vision from the pure Word. In these two Gospels it is so clear that the main purpose of the gospel is for Christ to be the Bridegroom to obtain His bride. He is the wonderful Bridegroom, and He is everything to us that we might become His bride as His counterpart for eternity.