In the Bible we see clearly that God had an eternal purpose in eternity past to work Himself into a group of human beings, that He might be their life, nature, and everything, and that they might be His corporate expression. This is God’s eternal purpose. The Bible calls this corporate expression the Body of Christ, the church, the house of God. Ultimately this corporate entity will consummate in the New Jerusalem, the eternal expression of God in a corporate way.
God’s purpose is a kind of governing principle. If we would understand what is revealed in the Bible, we first of all must see the governing principle. If we do not have such a governing principle, our understanding of the Bible will be loose, wild, and full of error. It is similar to white lines marking the lanes on the highway. They are there to regulate us, and we must drive our car within them. Likewise, whenever we come to the Bible, we must take heed to the governing lines and principles. The regulating lines of the Bible are God’s eternal purpose of working Himself into us that He may be our content, and we may be His expression.
How can God accomplish this? It is by His anointed One, the Christ. Christ came to accomplish God’s eternal purpose. He did not come simply to save us from hell that we might go to heaven. That is altogether too low. Neither did He come to make us spiritual and heavenly like the angels. These are all religious concepts. This is why we need the governing principle of the Bible. God wants to work Himself into us as our content, making us His expression.
For Christ to accomplish His purpose, He had to pass through several steps. The first was incarnation, the second was crucifixion, the third was resurrection, and the fourth was the ascension. Then the fifth step was the baptism of His Body into Himself. Now we are waiting for the sixth step, which will be His coming back.
We have seen that incarnation means the mingling of divinity with humanity, the mingling of God with man. This was a real wonder. God and man were mingled together. God was brought into man, and man was made one with God. This man’s name was Jesus. Jesus was and still is the mingling of God with man. God’s eternal purpose was to work Himself into man. Now Jesus became such an example. He became God mingled with man. This is the real meaning of the incarnation.
What is the meaning of crucifixion? We should not simply say that it is redemption. Crucifixion did accomplish a full, complete, and finished redemption for us. But redemption is not the only significance of crucifixion. Crucifixion is also the termination of all the negative things. Everything that is old, negative, dead, dark, and subtle has been terminated. Even before we were born we were terminated.
We should not attempt to understand this with our logical mind. All spiritual things cannot be fully comprehended by our logical mind. Two thousand years ago we were all terminated. This is what the Bible says! “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him” (Rom. 6:6). As a young child many of us sang the song, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” Now we can say, “I was terminated this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” It is not what we think or feel. We must forget about our thinking and feeling. We only need to accept the pure word of the Bible.
How were we created by God? It is clear that we were born of our parents. Yet the Bible says that God created us. We were created by God when Adam was created six thousand years ago. We all were created in Adam, and we all became fallen in Adam. Adam’s fall was our fall, because we were all within him. Before we were born, we were fallen in Adam. In the same principle, before we were born, we were on one hand redeemed and on the other hand terminated in Christ.
Now we can see how we were terminated at the time of Christ’s crucifixion. We all were terminated there. Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” We were terminated two thousand years ago on the cross with Christ.
Crucifixion means termination, and resurrection means germination. All the old creation was terminated, and the new creation was germinated. After this, we have seen that the ascension means inauguration. Surely this is a heavenly language to say that incarnation is mingling, crucifixion is termination, resurrection is germination, and ascension is inauguration.