The Scriptures are a record of a wonderful person. I believe that in the past three messages, we have seen what a wonderful person the Lord Jesus is. This wonderful person is for the producing of the church, and eventually He becomes the Head of this entity. He is the Head, and the church is the Body. This is what is called in the New Testament, the New Man. This New Man is the Body of Christ. Before producing the church, He was the individual Christ, but after producing the church, this wonderful person becomes the Body-Christ.
Christians have seen that the Lord Jesus was incarnated to be a man. And they have seen that He died on the cross for our sins, was buried, resurrected, and is now in the third heavens at the right hand of God. Moreover, they believe that He is coming again. All of these things are true, but they are very elementary.
For example, on the outside of a man we see his nose, his ears, his eyes, and his mouth. We see his two shoulders, his arms, and his hands. It is easy to speak about all of these things. But this is not the real person. This is just the framework, the superficial exterior and structure of his being. His real person is something else. To see his exterior framework is easy, but it is not so easy to know what is inside of him.
In the same way, we should not think that it is easy to know the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew that only the Father knows the Son. “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knows the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matt. 11:27). Only the Father knows the Son, and only the Son knows the Father. It is not easy to know Jesus in a deep way.
What is really in Jesus? This is a vast, deep, unsearchable, immeasurable, and unlimited ocean. But we do have some terms in the Bible. In the one book of the Gospel of Matthew, there are many terms regarding Christ. However, I am afraid that most Christians read this Gospel with colored glasses. They read it according to the traditional knowledge that they have received from the past. Not many have seen that Jesus is the greater Solomon, the greater Jonah, and even the greater temple.
In the Gospel of Matthew, there are many names attributed to Christ. Of course, the first is Emmanuel, God with us. We have seen something about this in the previous messages. Moreover, He is not only the son of David and the son of Abraham; he is also called the carpenter’s son. “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matt. 13:55). He is also called the greater temple (Matt. 12:6), the greater Jonah (Matt. 12:41), and the greater Solomon (Matt. 12:42), the Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8), the great light (Matt. 4:16), and the stone rejected by the builders (Matt. 21:42).
He was also ascribed with some bad names. Did you know that Jesus was called a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber? He was also called the friend of sinners. We like to hear this now, but it was not good in those days. “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners” (Matt. 11:19). Jesus had all kinds of poor names. He would eat anywhere with anyone, especially with publicans and sinners. He did this because His sole purpose was to dispense Himself into man. Regardless of whether they were a sinner, a publican, or a Pharisee, He did whatever He could to impart Himself to them. He was not for eating. His eating gave Him the opportunity to impart Himself into a publican by the name of Matthew. It seems that Matthew invited Jesus to come and eat with him, and He went. The Pharisees condemned Him for it, but Jesus did not care. By His eating, Matthew was fully caught, and in time one of the foremost publicans became one of the foremost disciples.
Jesus was not legal or religious. He was very flexible. As long as He could dispense Himself into someone, He did not care what He had to do. If it was eating, He would eat. Whatever Jesus was, and whatever He was called was only for the purpose of dispensing Himself in God’s chosen people, that they might be converted and transformed into His Body, the church. His only purpose was to produce the church.