From July 29 to August 1, 2008, trainees and trainers of the Full-Time Training in Malabon (FTTM), together with the co-workers from Regions I-V1 became the duplication of Mary portrayed in the Gospel of Luke as someone simply sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to His word. This happened during the FTTM’s video training on the Crystallization-study of the Gospel of Luke held at the fifth floor meeting hall of the church in Malabon.

This crystallization-study began with the incarnation of Christ, which fulfilled the purpose of God in creating man. Then it shows us how the Lord Jesus as a man fulfills God’s purpose by having the highest standard of morality. He is a real man filled with God and living God and who is expressing the divine attributes in His humanity through His human virtues. What He was expressing was the God-man living, which is the primary factor of the Man-Savior’s dynamic salvation. This salvation issues in the reproduction of the first God-man, which brings in the kingdom of God as the enlargement of Christ in the divine administration. This brings us to the wonderful messages on jubilee. In Christ God has gained a man who can express Him and represent Him and who is living Him out as the highest standard of morality. As He is the fulfillment of the jubilee, we also as the many God-men, must be the corporate reality of the jubilee. We should be the many God-men today who live out not ourselves, but another life, the God-man life in the highest standard of morality. Today, the jubilee is carried out by the Man-Savior as a man of prayer. In order to follow Him and stand with Him on Mount Zion, we need to deny our soul-life and prepare our being for the rapture call. For this, we need to consider His resurrection, and make His resurrection the principle of our living. Then ultimately, we have to see the Man-Savior’s ascension and His heavenly ministry. We have to see how He, as the High Priest, is caring for us and bearing us, how He is doing the best for us according to God’s economy.

Praise the Lord for unveiling Himself in such a fresh way through the twelve messages in the Crystallization-study of Luke. Below are the crucial truth and burden embodied in these messages:

In His incarnation, Christ brought the infinite God into the finite man and manifested the complete God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—in the flesh as the perfect man (Luke 1:35; 1 Tim. 3:16). Through His incarnation Christ brought God into man and made God one with man, the mingling of divinity with humanity. This God-man was the union, mingling, and incorporation of the Triune God with the tripartite man (Luke 1:35; John 1:1, 14). The incarnation of Christ is also related to God’s purpose in creating man, i.e., in God’s image and according to God’s likeness to be God’s duplication for God’s expression (Gen. 1:26-27). Since the divine nature with its attributes was expressed in the Man-Savior’s human nature with its human virtues, the living of the Lord Jesus can be described as humanly divine and divinely human (1 Cor. 1:26-35). This is the Gospel of Luke—a revelation of the God-man who lived a human life filled with the divine life as its content, thereby expressing God in humanity.

The highest standard of morality is the standard of life required by God. It is a kind of living where the human life is filled with the divine life and the human virtues are strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes (Matt. 5:48; Luke 6:35; 7:36-50). Moreover, the highest standard of morality is a person—the Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the Man-Savior—living in us and making it possible for us to live Christ (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:20-21a).

When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He lived a life of expressing the highest standard of morality as portrayed in the gospel messages, gospel parables, and gospel cases in the Gospel of Luke. This God-man was arrested, mocked, blasphemed, despised, and judged, but as He passed through all these, He is fully portrayed as having the highest standard of morality, possessing the human virtues with the divine attributes and with the all-surpassing divine splendor. As the true God and a real and proper man, He was fully qualified to be the Substitute for the sinners (Luke 23:34, 43). He became processed and consummated to be the first God-man in order to reproduce Himself in men to become the many God-men.

The Man-Savior is a genuine man with the real human nature and the perfect human virtues which qualified Him to be man’s Savior (1 Tim. 2:5). He is the complete God with the true divine nature and the excellent divine attributes which empowered and ensured His ability to save man (Col. 2:9). In His humanity, Christ expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues, attracting and captivating people, not by living His human life in the flesh but by living His divine life in resurrection (Matt. 4:18-22; Luke 8:1-3).

The meal offering typified the God-man living of the Man-Savior (Lev. 2:1-16). If we eat Christ as the meal offering, we will become what we eat and live by what we eat. If we drink of the Spirit of Jesus and feed upon the humanity of Jesus, we will become “Jesusly” human (John 6:57; 7:37-39).

 

 

The Gospel of Luke also unveils the ministry of the Man-Savior in His human virtues with His divine attributes. In order to be one with the Man-Savior in His God-man living and ministry, we must sit at His feet and listen to His word so that we will be infused with His life for the expression of God and with His desire for our service to God unto the building of God (Luke 10:38-42).

The Man-Savior’s God-man living constituted a prototype for the mass reproduction of the God-man in the believers (Luke 1:31-32, 35; 6:35). As the unique prototype, He became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit as an extract of Himself (1 Cor. 15:45b). The first step in the reproduction of the God-man is that we must be reborn of the pneumatic Christ in our spirit with His divine life and nature (John 3:6b). Secondly, we need to be transformed by the pneumatic Christ in our soul with His divine attributes to uplift, strengthen, enrich and fill our human virtues for His expression in our humanity (2 Cor. 3:18). To live Christ as the God-man, we need to take His mind, requiring us to be one with Christ in His inward parts (Phil. 2:5; 1:8). The mind of Christ is a mind of lowliness affecting our entire thought process; thus, we count others as better than ourselves. The ultimate issue of such reproduction of the God-man is the church as the reproduction of God—a corporate God-man and the universal incorporation, consummating in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2, 7).

In the New Testament Jehovah, who is salvation, is Jesus, the incarnated God (Isa. 12:2; Matt. 1:21; Luke 2:30). God’s incarnation made Him a man, His crucifixion accomplished full redemption for man, His resurrection vindicated His redemptive work, and His exaltation inaugurated Him to be the ruling Leader that He might be the Savior of man (Luke 1:31-32, 35; 23:14-15; Acts 2:22-24, 32, 36). Christ Himself is the salvation prepared by God for us and given to us. He has accomplished full salvation for us, the sinners. What He is and what He has accomplished make Him competent to be the able Savior to save us to the uttermost from all our problems (Heb. 7:25). The Man-Savior’s highest standard of morality is His qualification and the basic factor for His dynamic salvation (Luke 1:31-32, 35).

The church today is Christ’s increase in life; the eternal kingdom of God is Christ’s increase in administration. The Gospel of Luke is rich in revelation concerning the kingdom of God (Luke 1:32b-33; 4:43; 8:10a; 13:29; 17:20b, 21b; 19:12). Though God’s economy concerning the kingdom of God was a hidden mystery, this was unveiled to the disciples. It was Christ, Himself, who was sent to announce the gospel of the kingdom of God. There is the recovery of the house of David in the millennium. During the millennial kingdom, it will be a feast, a time of enjoyment. To enjoy the kingdom is to inherit the kingdom, and to inherit the kingdom is to enjoy the kingdom. The Lord is the kingdom of God wherein all His various stages—in His first coming, in His suffering, in His second coming, and in His overcomers’ rapture—He is within us as the kingdom of God. He ascended to receive a kingdom and will come back to reward His slaves, who have been faithful in service in His absence.

Jubilee is not an event but a person initially of the first, unique God-man, then a composition of the many God-men who lived by another life, the God-man life in the highest standard of morality. This is the real jubilee that will ultimately consummate in God’s kingdom and the New Jerusalem. The year of jubilee was recorded in Leviticus 25:8-17 and prophesied in Isaiah 61:1-3. Its fulfillment in reality is seen in Luke 4:16-22. In the year of jubilee in Leviticus, every man returned to his lost possession of his allotted portion of the good land; and, those who sold himself into slavery regained his freedom and returned to his family. Then God Himself came in Christ to be the fulfillment, the reality, of the jubilee in the New Testament age, the age of grace. God accepted the returned captives of sin and those oppressed under the bondage of sin enjoy the release of God’s salvation (Luke 15:17-24; Rom. 7:14-8:2). The believer’s enjoyment of the jubilee in the age of grace will issue in the full enjoyment of the jubilee in the millennium and in the fullest enjoyment in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. The year of jubilee is the age of Christ as grace dispensed into us for our enjoyment by His words of grace; the New Testament jubilee is an age of ecstasy for our salvation (Luke 4:22; 2 Cor. 6:2). Jubilee means freedom from worry or anxiety, concern or care, lack or shortage, sickness or calamity. We need to live by Him that we will be ushered to the practical jubilee day by day. Breaking bread from house to house is an issue of the jubilee.

 

Announcing the gospel to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and sending away in release those who are oppressed are the freedoms and blessings of the jubilee (Luke 4:18-19). In the enjoyment of the jubilee, we are brought back to God as our inheritance and possession, and we are no longer poor. All sinners sold under sin, Satan, and the world are released that they may return to God and God’s family, the household of God, and may rejoice with shouting in the New Testament enjoyment of God’s salvation. God’s salvation causes us to have real freedom. Our possession is God and our freedom comes from our enjoyment of God. The freest persons are those who enjoy God as their possession the most. We need to have a living of jubilee, which is a living in the enjoyment of Christ, a living of enjoying God as our inheritance and real freedom. We have such a Christ who is continually dispensing Himself into us to be our supply. Today, we simply come forward to enjoy Him, touch Him, contact Him, love Him, and receive His words of grace. The only way to be released from the three kinds of labor in human life—the labor to be a good person, the labor of anxiety, and the labor of suffering—is to take Christ as our enjoyment, satisfaction, and rest. The Christian life should be a life full of enjoying the Lord, a life full of joy and praises. When we enjoy the Lord fully, He becomes our jubilee.

According to Luke 11 the way to experience jubilee is by prayer. The Man-Savior was a man of prayer. Prayer to God literally means “the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12 footnote 2). This means that it was God praying in Him and through Him. Prayer is the real denial and repudiating of our self for the enjoyment of Christ as our jubilee (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 3:3). To pray ourselves into God is to love Him by setting our entire being absolutely on Him like Mary who sat at the Lord’s feet to listen to His word. To pray this way is to receive His riches into our being for our supply (Luke 11:14). Being filled with the riches of His supply, we experience the Man-Savior in His divine attributes and human virtues.

The Man-Savior taught the disciples about persistent prayer (Luke 18:1-8). Although, seemingly God does not do anything on behalf of His persecuted people, we must learn to be one who prays to God persistently. The Man-Savior also instructed us how to humble ourselves before God in prayer so that we may be justified by God and enter into the kingdom of God. By praying ourselves into God and humbling ourselves before God in prayer, we are empowered in Christ to repudiate ourselves, renounce all our material possessions, and follow the Man-Savior.

If we want to save our soul-life, we will lose it, but if we lose our soul-life for the Lord’s sake, we will save it. If we allow our soul to suffer the loss of its enjoyment in this age for the Lord’s sake, we will cause our soul to have its enjoyment in the kingdom age, i.e., we will share the Lord’s joy in ruling over the earth. In our human life, though we have needs, we should not be attached to anything. If we lose our soul-life today, we participate in the rapture of the overcomers where we enjoy the Lord’s parousia (presence, coming) and escape the great tribulation. We must overcome the stupefying effect of man’s living today. Preserving the soul-life is related to lingering in the earthly and material things. Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt because she lingered and looked back at Sodom. To linger and look back is to love and treasure the evil world that God will judge and utterly destroy. Although Lot’s wife did not perish, she was not fully saved. Like the salt that became tasteless, she was left in a place of shame—a solemn warning to the world-loving believers. Hence, Luke 17:32 charges us to “remember Lot’s wife,” never look back, but just look away unto Jesus.

The Man-Savior’s resurrection was God’s vindication and approval of His person and His all-inclusive redemptive work by His death. His resurrection was also His success in overcoming and defeating all His enemies such as death, Satan, Hades, and the grave. Furthermore, His resurrection was His glorification, His birth as the firstborn Son of God, His transfiguration into the life-giving Spirit to enter into the believers, His germination of the new creation to impart the divine life into His believers for their regeneration as the many sons of God, and His propagation to produce the church as His reproduction. The Man-Savior’s resurrection also caused Him to live within us that we may live by Him to be His reproduction.

The Man-Savior’s resurrection began while He was dying, just as the resurrection of a grain of wheat begins with its death. While He was dying outwardly, He was rising up inwardly (John 12:24; 1 Pet: 3:18). While He was living in the human life, He was resurrecting by dying. When we were regenerated by the resurrected Man-Savior as the life-giving Spirit, we were “born crucified.” Now, we also die to live and live to die (Luke 3:5-6; Gal. 2:20). We must follow the pattern of the Lord Jesus, who lived a crucified life to express the divine life, living out the divine attributes as His human virtues. Only when we do not live by our natural life and live by Him as the life within us are we in resurrection. We die to live Him, and He lives by our dying.

The Man-Savior’s ascension was His inauguration into His heavenly office through the process of creation, incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection as God and man, as the Creator and the creature, and as the Redeemer, the Savior, and the life-giving Spirit, to execute God’s administration and to carry out God’s New Testament economy (Luke 24:44-53). In the Lord’s ascension, He was inaugurated into His heavenly statuses and imbued with His fourfold power and authority as Lord and Christ. Christ in His ascension transcended Hades, the earth, the air, and all the heavens (Eph. 1:20-21; 4:8-10; Heb. 4:14; 7:26).

The ascended and transcending Christ is transmitting to the church, the Body of Christ, all the rich dispensing of the Triune God with all the accomplishment and attainment obtained for the heading up of all things in Christ (Eph. 1:1923, 3-14). Such an all-inclusive transmission brings us into Christ’s heavenly ministry.

In His heavenly ministry in ascension, Christ is serving us by dispensing Himself as the reality of the New Testament jubilee into us for our enjoyment. As the life-giving Spirit He is transforming us with the riches of the Triune God to become a “palanquin,” for the move of Christ in and for the Body of Christ (S.S. 3:9-10). Moreover, Christ is functioning as our great High Priest. He is cherishing and nourishing the churches to care for them. As the High Priest, He cares for God’s need and interests. Christ’s heavenly ministry as the High Priest in ascension consummates in the New Jerusalem, which will be the mingling of divinity with humanity—the very expansion, enlargement, increase, and expression of the Triune God in humanity forever (Rev. 21:2, 9-11).