2009春季长老
总题:服事者的异象、为人、生活与职责
Message Two The Vision of a Serving One (2) The Vision of God's Building and God's Move
Scripture Reading: John 1:1, 14, 16-17, 51; 2:19; 14:23; Psa. 68:1, 11-13, 18-20, 24, 27-28, 35
I. The central thought of God, the desire of God's heart, the goal of God's economy, and the meaning of the universe are God's building; God's building is a divine-human person; God's building is a God-man—Gen. 2:22; Matt. 16:18; 2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Acts 9:4-5, 15:
A. God's building is God becoming man that man might become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead; God became man through incarnation (bringing heaven to earth), and man becomes God through transformation (joining earth to heaven)—Gen. 28:12-17; John 1:1, 51; Rom. 1:3-4; 5:10; 8:28-29; 2 Cor. 3:18.
B. The meaning of the name Habakkuk ("embracing" or "clinging to") reveals the heart's desire of God—God became a man on the earth that He might embrace sinners and sinners might cling to Him in order to become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead; this is God's complete salvation of judicial redemption and organic salvation so that redeemed sinners might be deified, "Christified," in their spirit by regeneration, their soul by transformation, and their body by glorification—Hab. 1:1; S. S. 1:4; Hosea 11:4; Phil. 3:12-14, 21; Rom. 5:10; 8:2, 6, 10-11.
C. God's building in the Gospels is the individual God-man, Jesus, who is the tabernacle of God and the temple of God—John 1:14; 2:19.
D. God's building in Acts and the Epistles is the corporate God-man, the new man, the church, as the corporate manifestation of God in the flesh, the house of the living God, and the masterpiece of the Triune God—Acts 9:4-5; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Eph. 2:10, 15, 21-22; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; Col. 2:19; 3:10-11.
E. God's building in Revelation is the ultimate, consummate, great corporate God-man, the New Jerusalem, the "bride-building," the eternal mutual abode of God being built into man as the tabernacle of God and of man being built into God as the temple of God—Rev. 21:2, 9-10, 22; John 14:23.
F. God's move in man is to deify man, making man the same as He is in life and in nature but not in the Godhead; the move of God is the divine history within human history for the spreading and building up of the church as the corporate manifestation of Christ—Micah 5:2; Hag. 2:7; Joel 2:25, 28-29, 32a; Acts 2:16-18, 21.
II. Psalm 68 reveals God's move on earth; God's move in the tabernacle with the Ark from Sinai to Zion typifies the Triune God's move in Christ as His all-inclusive embodiment from Christ's incarnation to His ascension and His move in and through the church with Christ as the center of the church—John 1:16-17; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Acts 28:31; Psa. 68:4, 7, 11-13, 18-20, 24, 27-28; 48:2; 50:2:
A. "Let God arise; let His enemies be scattered; / And let those who hate Him flee before Him"—wherever the Ark, a type of Christ, went, the victory was won— 68:1; Num. 10:35; Psa. 68:12a, 14; Eph. 6:12.
B. "A Father to the orphans and a Judge for the widows / Is God in His holy habitation. / God causes the solitary to dwell in a household; / He brings the prisoners forth into prosperity"—God causes the needy ones, the bound ones, and the solitary ones to dwell in the church—Psa. 68:5-6a; Eph. 2:22.
C. "The Lord gives the command; / The women who bear the glad tidings are a great host"—these women of Israel signify the weak ones who proclaim the gospel by loving God with the love of God, praying to God with the prayer of God, giving to God by the giving God, and going with God by the acting God in the move of God—Psa. 68:11; 2 Cor. 5:14; Luke 6:12, 38; Rev. 14:4; Dan. 11:32.
D. "She who abides at home / Divides the spoil"—the spoil signifies all the gains of the accomplishment, consummation, attainment, and obtainment of Christ as the reapings of the victory of His death, resurrection, and ascension—Psa. 68:12b.
E. "There are dove wings covered with silver, / And its pinions, with greenish-yellow gold"—this verse reveals four items among the spoil—v. 13b:
1. The dove wings signify the moving power of the Spirit; silver signifies Christ in His redemption for our justification, which is indicated by the color white, the color of approval; pinions (the feathers at the end of a bird's wings giving it the strength to fly and soar) signify the flying and soaring power of the Spirit; the greenish-yellow, glittering gold with which the pinions are covered signifies God's nature glittering in the divine life and glory—Matt. 3:16; Isa. 40:31.
2. The contents of the above four items, as Christ's spoil in His victory for the enjoyment of God's elect, are actually the Triune God with all the items of His complete, full, and all-inclusive salvation—Rom. 5:10, 17, 21; 2 Pet. 1:4; Mal. 4:2.
3. "Blessed be the Lord, who day by day loads us with good; / God is our salva-tion. Selah"—the good here is the Triune God—the dove wings covered with silver and its pinions covered with greenish-yellow, glittering gold; God's elect enjoy all the above items as their portion in Christ and announce them to others as the glad tidings—Psa. 68:19, 13, 11; Rom. 8:28; Matt. 19:17; Phil. 1:19-21a.
F. "You have ascended on high; You have led captive those taken captive; / You have received gifts among men, / Even the rebellious ones also, / That Jehovah God may dwell among them"—Psa. 68:18:
1. Those taken captive refers to the redeemed saints, who were taken captive by Satan and imprisoned before being saved by Christ's death and resurrection; Christ defeated Satan and captured his captives (including us); then like a general leading his captives, Christ in His ascension to the heavens led us to the Father—cf. 2 Cor. 2:14-16.
2. The Amplified New Testament renders He led captive those taken captive in Ephesians 4:8 as "He led a train of vanquished foes"; in Christ's ascension there was a procession of these vanquished foes, led as captives from a war, for a celebration of Christ's victory.
3. We have been captured by Christ, presented by Christ to the Father, and then given to Christ by the Father as gifts; the gifts received by Christ have become the gifted believers, whom He gave to His Body for its building up—Psa. 68:18; Eph. 4:8, 11-12.
G. "God is to us / A God of deliverance, / And with Jehovah the Lord / Are the goings forth even from death"—when we enjoy God as our saving life, the God of resurrection, we escape death—Psa. 68:20; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 1:8-9; Eph. 1:19-23.
H. "Bless God in the congregations, / Even Jehovah, O you who are of the fountain of Israel. / There are little Benjamin, who rules them, / And the princes of Judah in their company, / The princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali. / Your God has commanded your strength; / Strengthen, O God, that which you have done for us"—Psa. 68:26-28:
1. As the son of affliction, Ben-oni typifies Christ, who, as the man of sorrows in His incarnation and human life on earth, accomplished God's eternal redemption for His full salvation; as the son of the right hand, Benjamin typifies Christ, who, as the Son of the right hand of God in His resur-rection, victory, and ascension, ministers in the heavens to carry out the application of God's redemption for His salvation—Gen. 35:18a; Isa. 53:3; Heb. 8:1-2; 7:25; cf. Gen. 41:51-52.
2. Judah typifies Christ as the victory for God's people (the lion with the power and the scepter), and the peace (Shiloh) to God's people; from Christ's incarnation to His ascension, He is Benjamin; from His reigning with divine authority to His return as the King of Peace, He is Judah—Rev. 5:5a; Gen. 49:8-10, 27; Eph. 2:14-15.
3. Zebulun typifies Christ as the "shore" of the evangelists for the trans-portation and spreading in the preaching of God's gospel; on the day of Pentecost at least one hundred twenty gospel "ships," all of whom were Galileans, set out from the "shore" to spread the gospel—Gen. 49:13; Acts 2:7; 13:31.
4. Naphtali typifies Christ as the One who is released from death in resurrection, signified by the hind let loose (Psa. 22, title; 18:33; S. S. 2:8-9), and gives beautiful words for the preaching of His gospel (Gen. 49:21; Matt. 28:18-20); in typology Zebulun and Naphtali form a group for the spreading and the propagating of the glad tidings of Christ's redemption for God's salvation.
I. "Strengthen, O God, that which You have done for us. / Because of Your temple at Jerusalem"—following God's strengthening of what He has done for His elect, the influence of the enjoyment of God in His house spreads to the entire city of Jerusalem—Psa. 68:28b-29a; cf. Eph. 3:16-17a; John 16:13.
J. The influence of the enjoyment of God in God's building as the house of God and the city of God will gain the whole earth for God—Psa. 68:29b-35; Matt. 19:28; Isa. 2:2-3; Zech. 14:16; Rev. 21:24.
K. The psalmist concludes by praising and blessing God for His move on earth with Christ as the center—"You are awesome, O God, from Your sanctuaries. / The God of Israel, He gives strength and power to the people. / Blessed be God!"—Psa. 68:35.