Our past few fellowships have had a great impact on every one of you. It is only now that people have truly felt the real existence of God and that God truly is very close to man. Although people may have believed in God for many years, they have never truly understood His thoughts and ideas as they do now, nor have they truly perceived His practical deeds as they do now. Whether in understanding or in practice, most people have gained something new and achieved a higher understanding. They have realized the errors in their own past pursuits, realized that their experience is too superficial, and in too many areas does not accord with God’s intentions, and realized that what they lack the most is knowledge of God’s disposition. This knowledge on people’s part is merely some perceptual knowledge; to rise to the level of rational knowledge requires a gradual deepening and strengthening through one’s experiences. Before people truly understand God, on a subjective level, they believe in the existence of God in their hearts, but none of them have a real understanding of specific questions such as what kind of God He actually is, what His intentions are, what His disposition is, and what His attitude toward mankind actually is. This greatly compromises people’s belief in God, preventing their belief from ever achieving purity or perfection. Even if you are face to face with God’s word, or at some point in your experiences have felt that you came face to face with God, it still cannot be said that you completely understand Him. Because you do not know God’s thoughts, or what He loves and what He hates, what makes Him angry and what brings Him joy, you therefore do not have a true understanding of Him. Your belief is built on a foundation of illusion and imagination, based on your subjective desires. It is far from a true belief and from truly following. Explanations of these Bible stories and examples have allowed people to know God’s heart, what He was thinking at every step of His work and why He did it a certain way, what His original intention and His plan were when He did it, how He realized His ideas, and how He arranged and carried out His plan. Through these stories, we can gain a detailed, specific understanding of God’s every specific intention and every real thought, and His attitude toward humans at different times and in different ages, during His six thousand years of management work. When someone can understand what God was thinking, what His attitude was, and the disposition He revealed as He faced every situation, this can help each person more deeply realize God’s true existence, and more deeply feel His practicality and authenticity. My goal in telling these stories is not for people to understand biblical history, nor is it to help them become familiar with the verses of the Bible or the people in it, and it is especially not to help people understand the background of what God did during the Age of Law. Rather, it is to help people understand God’s intentions, His disposition, and every detail about Him, and gain a more authentic and more accurate understanding and knowledge of God. This way, people’s hearts can, little by little, open up to God and become close to God, and they can better understand Him, and better know His disposition, His essence, and the true God Himself.

Knowledge of God’s disposition and what He has and is can have a positive impact on people. It can help them have more faith in God and help them develop true submission to and true fear of Him. Thus, they will no longer blindly follow or worship Him. God does not want muddleheaded people or those who follow the crowd blindly, but rather a group of people who have in their hearts a clear understanding and knowledge of God’s disposition and can bear witness to God, a group of people who, because of His loveliness, because of what He has and is, and because of His righteous disposition, would never leave nor forsake God. As a follower of God, if in your heart you still find God’s true existence, His disposition, what He has and is, and His plan to save mankind to be very vague, ambiguous, and confusing, then your belief cannot gain God’s approval. God does not find it pleasing to have this type of person follow Him, and He does not like this type of person coming before Him. Because this kind of person does not understand God, is unable to give their heart to God, and their heart is closed to Him, their belief in God is full of impurities and their following of God can only be called blind. It is only when people have true understanding and knowledge of God that they can achieve true believing and following, while at the same time developing true submission to and true fear of God. Only in this way can they give their hearts to God and open them up to Him. This is what God wants, because everything they do and think can withstand God’s test and can bear witness for God. Regardless of whether I fellowship with you about the topic of God’s disposition, the topic of what God has and is, or the topic of God’s intention and His thought in everything that He does, and regardless of the perspective or angle from which I fellowship on these topics, it is all to help you be more certain of God’s true existence, more truly understand and appreciate His love for mankind, and more truly understand and appreciate God’s concern for mankind, and His sincere intention to manage and save people.

A Review of God’s Thoughts, Ideas, and Deeds Since His Creation of the World

Today we will first summarize God’s thoughts, ideas, and His each and every move since He created mankind. We will take a look at what work He has carried out from the creation of the world to the formal start of the Age of Grace. We can then discover which of God’s thoughts and ideas are unknown to man, and from there we can sort out the sequence of God’s management plan, and thoroughly understand the context in which His management work came into being, as well as the source and the development process of this work, and also thoroughly understand what results He wants to attain from His management work—that is, the core and the purpose of His management work. To understand these things we need to go back to the distant, still and silent time when there were no humans …

God Personally Creates the First Living Person

When God rose from His bed, the first idea that He had was this: to create a living person, a living, breathing human, to live with Him and be His companion, to accompany Him by His side; this living person could listen to Him speak and pour His heart out, and could also speak with Him. Then, for the first time, God personally took a handful of dust and used it to create the first living person He had conceived in His mind, whereupon for the first time He gave this living creature a name—Adam. When God had gained this living, breathing person, what was He thinking? For the first time, He felt the joy of having a loved one, the joy of having a companion; He felt for the first time the responsibility of being a father, and also felt concern for the first time. It was this living, breathing person who brought God happiness and joy; he made God feel comforted for the first time. This was the first time God had ever done something not with His ideas—much less with His words—but with His own hands. When a living creature such as this—a living, breathing person—stood before God, when such a person made of flesh and bones, having form and image, and able to speak with God, stood before Him, it made God feel for the first time a kind of joy He had never felt before. God truly felt His responsibility, and His heart was concerned for this living creature; at the same time, God was also moved and warmed by this living person’s every action and deed. Moreover, when a living creature such as this stood before God, it also gave God the idea, for the first time, to gain more people like this. This was the series of things that occurred starting from when God had His first idea. For God, these things were all “firsts,” but in doing this series of first things, regardless of whether He felt joy, or responsibility, or concern for man at the time, there was no one for Him to share it with. Starting from that moment, God truly felt for the first time a loneliness and sorrow He had never experienced before. Because He felt that man could not accept or understand His love and concern, or His intentions for man, the sorrow and pain in His heart remained. Although He had done this series of things for man, man was unaware and did not understand. Aside from happiness, the joy and comfort man brought to Him quickly made Him feel for the first time a sorrow and loneliness He had never felt before. These were God’s feelings and thoughts at the time. While God was doing this series of things, His heart shifted from joy to sorrow, and from sorrow to pain, and these feelings were mixed with anxiety. All He wanted to do was to hasten His pace to more quickly let this person, this mankind, know His heart and understand His intentions as soon as possible, after which they could become His followers and be people of one heart and mind with Him, no longer people who only listened to Him speak while unable to respond themselves, nor people who did not know how to cooperate with Him when He worked—above all, they would no longer be humans who showed indifference when facing God’s requirements. The series of things God did at the very beginning is very meaningful and holds great value for His management plan and for mankind today.

After creating all things and mankind, God did not let up His pace. He was eager to carry out His management, and to gain the ones He loved among people.

Before and After the Age of Law, God Does a Series of Items of Work for the First Time

Next, not long after God created human beings, we see in the Bible the story of the flood destroying the world. Noah is mentioned in the record of the flood; it could be said that Noah was the first person to receive God’s call to cooperate in the completion of an item of His work. Of course, this was also the first time God had called upon a person to do something according to His command on earth. Once Noah finished building the ark, God destroyed the world with a flood for the first time. When God destroyed the earth with the flood, it was the first time since creating human beings that He had felt such extreme loathing for them, which led Him, for the first time, to make the painful decision to destroy such a human race with a flood. After the flood destroyed the world, God, for the first time, made a covenant with mankind, stating that He would never again destroy the world with a flood. The sign of this covenant was the rainbow. Because this was the first covenant God made with mankind, the rainbow was the first sign of God’s covenant with man. This sign existed as a material thing, which was the rainbow. It is precisely the existence of the rainbow that makes God often feel the pain of having lost the previous human race, and it is precisely the existence of the rainbow that serves as a constant reminder for Him of what had once happened to that human race…. God was unwilling to slow His pace—He couldn’t wait to continue with the next step in His management. Subsequently, God selected Abraham as His first choice for His work throughout Israel, which was also the first time God selected such a candidate. God resolved to begin His work of saving mankind through this person, and to carry out His work among this person’s descendants. This is what we see in the Bible that God did with Abraham. Shortly thereafter, God, for the first time, chose Israel, and began His work of the Age of Law among the chosen people of Israel. Among the Israelites, God—again for the first time—set out in explicit written form and explained in detail the rules and statutes that man should adhere to. This was the first time God had prescribed—in such a specific, standardized way—how people should offer sacrifices, how they should live, what they should and should not do, and what festivals and special days, or principles for doing things, they should observe. This was the first time God had ever laid down life rules and principles for mankind in such a detailed and standardized way.

When I say “the first time,” it means that God had never undertaken a certain kind of work, that this work was unprecedented. Even though God had created mankind and all manner of creatures and living beings, He had never done this kind of work before. All of this work involved God’s management of man; it all had to do with man and His salvation and management of mankind. After Abraham, God performed another “first”—He chose Job to be the one under the law who could withstand the temptations of Satan while continuing to fear God and shun evil, and standing firm in his testimony for God. This was also the first time that God allowed Satan to tempt a person, and the first time He made a bet with Satan. In the end, for the first time He gained a person who was capable of standing firm in his testimony for Him, bearing witness for Him before Satan, and thoroughly shaming Satan. Since God had created mankind, this was the first person He had gained who was able to bear witness to Him. Once God had gained this person, He even more eagerly intended to continue His management and carry out the next step of His work, preparing the location and the people He would choose for the next step of His work.

After fellowshipping about all of this, do you have any true understanding of God’s intentions? God considers this instance of His management of mankind, of His salvation of mankind, as more important than anything else. He does these things not merely with His thoughts, and not merely with His words, and even less does He do them in a casual manner—He does all these things with His intentions, while having a plan, a goal, and standards. It can be seen that this instance of God’s work to save mankind holds great significance for both God and man. No matter how hard the work is, no matter how great the obstacles to it are, no matter how weak mankind is, or how profound their rebelliousness is, none of this is difficult for God. God keeps Himself busy, He is expending His heart’s blood, and He is managing the work He wants to carry out; He is also arranging everything, and He is holding sovereignty over all those people He wants to work and all the work He wants to do—all of this is unprecedented. This is the first time God has used these methods and paid such a great price to carry out the massive undertaking of managing and saving mankind. While God is carrying out all this work, little by little He is expressing and releasing to mankind, without any reservation, His heart’s blood, what He has and is, His wisdom and almightiness, and every aspect of His disposition, and His expression and release of these things through these methods is unprecedented. So, in the entire universe, aside from man, whom God aims to manage and save, no other creatures have ever been so close to God, and none have had such an intimate relationship with Him. In His heart, the mankind which He wants to manage and save is foremost, and He values this mankind above all else. Even though He has paid a great price for them, and even though He is continually hurt and rebelled against by them, He has no complaints or regrets, He still doesn’t leave man or abandon him, and He keeps performing His work without cease. This is because He knows that sooner or later, the day will come when man awakens to the call of His words, is moved by His words, recognizes that He is the Creator, and then returns to His side …

After hearing all of this today, you may feel that everything that God does is very normal. All along, it seems that people have felt God’s intentions for mankind from His words and from His work to some extent, but there is always a distance between their feelings or their knowledge and what God is thinking. That is why I think it is necessary to fellowship with all people about why God created mankind, and the background behind His wish to gain the mankind He hoped for. It is essential for Me to tell everyone this, so that everyone is clear about it and understands it in their heart. Because God’s every thought and idea, and every phase and every period of His work pertain to, and are closely linked to, His entire management work, therefore when you understand God’s thoughts, ideas, and His intentions in every step of His work, it is the same as understanding how the work of His management plan came about. It is on this foundation that your understanding of God deepens. Although everything God did when He first created the world, which I mentioned previously, for now is merely some “information” to people, and seems irrelevant to their pursuit of the truth, one day in the course of your experiences, you will not think that what I have spoken of is something so simple as a couple of pieces of information or some mysteries. As your life progresses, once God has a bit of a place in your heart, or once you more thoroughly and deeply understand His intentions, then you will truly feel the importance and the necessity of what I am talking about today. No matter the extent to which you comprehend this now, it is still necessary for you to understand and know these things. When God does something, when He carries out His work, no matter whether it is with His ideas or His own hands, no matter whether it is the first time He has done it or the last, ultimately, God has His own plan, and His purposes and His thoughts are in it. These purposes and thoughts represent God’s disposition, and they express what He has and is. These things—God’s disposition and what He has and is—must be understood by every person. Once a person understands them, they can gradually understand why God does what He does and why He says what He says. From that, they can then have more faith to follow God, to pursue the truth and a change in their disposition. Thus, people’s understanding of God and their faith in God are inseparable.

If what man comes to know and understand is God’s disposition and what He has and is, then what he gains will be life that comes from God. Once this life that comes from God has been wrought inside you, your fear of God will grow more and more. This is a result that can naturally be achieved. If you do not want to understand or know about God’s disposition or His essence, if you do not even want to ponder over or pay attention to these things, I can tell you with certainty that the way you are currently pursuing your belief in God will never allow you to satisfy His intentions or gain His approval, much less truly attain salvation—these are the final consequences. When man does not understand God and does not know His disposition, his heart can never truly open up to Him. Once he has understood God, he will have the interest and faith to show understanding toward and savor His heart. When you show understanding toward and savor God’s heart, your heart will gradually, bit by bit, open up to Him. When your heart opens up to Him, you will feel how shameful and contemptible your attempts to make transactions with God, your demands of God, and your own extravagant desires were. When your heart truly opens up to God, you will see that His heart is such a world of unparalleled vastness, and at the same time, you will enter into a realm you have never experienced before. In this realm there is no cheating, there is no deceit, there is no darkness, and there is no evil. There is only sincerity and faithfulness; only light and uprightness; only righteousness and kindness. It is full of love and consideration, full of mercy and forbearance, and it enables you to feel the happiness and joy of being alive. These things are what God will show to you when you open up your heart to Him. This world of unparalleled vastness is filled with God’s wisdom and filled with His almightiness; it is also full of His love and full of His authority. Here you can see every aspect of what God has and is, see what makes God rejoice, what causes Him to worry, what brings Him sorrow, and what provokes His anger…. This is what every single person can see who opens up their heart and allows God to come in. Only when you open up your heart to God can He enter it. Only when God has entered your heart can you see what God has and is, and see His intentions for you. At that time, you will discover that everything about God is so precious, that what He has and is is so worthy of treasuring. Compared to that, the people, events, and things around you, and even your loved ones, your partner, and the things you love, are so unworthy of mention, so insignificant, and so lowly to you. You will feel that no material object will ever be able to draw you in again, or make you pay any price for it again. In God’s humility you will see His greatness and His supremacy. Even more so, you will see in some deed of God that you previously believed to be quite small His infinite wisdom and His forbearance, as well as the patience, tolerance, and understanding He shows you. This will engender in you an adoration for Him. On that day, you will feel that people are living in such a filthy world, and that, whether it be the people by your side or the things that happen around you, or even those you love, their love for you, and their so-called protection or their concern for you, none of this is worth mentioning—only God is your most beloved, and your most precious treasure. When that day comes, I believe that there will be some people who say: “God’s love is so great, and His essence is so holy. In God there is no deceitfulness, no evil, no envy, and no strife, but only righteousness and authenticity. All that God has and is—that is what humans should yearn for, and is also what humans should pursue and aspire to.” On what basis is people’s ability to achieve this built? It is built on the basis of their understanding of God’s disposition, and their understanding of God’s essence. So understanding God’s disposition and what He has and is, is a lifelong lesson for every person; this is also a lifelong goal pursued by every person who seeks to change their disposition, and seeks to know God.

God’s First Time Becoming Flesh to Do Work

We just talked about all the work God carried out in a series of firsts. Every one of these things is relevant to God’s management plan, and to God’s intentions. At the same time, they are also relevant to the disposition of God Himself and His essence. If we want to understand more of what God has and is, we cannot stop at the Old Testament or at the Age of Law—we need to continue onward, following along with the steps God took in His work. And so, as God ended the Age of Law and began the Age of Grace, our footsteps followed behind, into the Age of Grace—an age full of grace and redemption. In this age, God again did something very important for the first time. The work in this new age for both God and mankind was a new starting point—a starting point which was yet another new work done by God for the first time. This new work was unprecedented, something beyond the powers of imagination of humans and all creatures. It is something that is now well known to all people—for the first time, God became a member of mankind, and for the first time He began new work in the form of a human, with the identity of a human. This new work signified that God had concluded His work in the Age of Law, and that He would no longer do or say anything under the law. Neither would He say or do anything in the form of the law or according to the principles or rules of the law. That is, all His work centering on the law was halted forever and would not be continued. Because God wanted to begin new work and do new things, and His plan once again had a new starting point, God had to lead man into the next age.

Whether this was joyful or terrible news to humans depended on the essence of each person. It could be said that to some people this was not joyful news, but terrible news, because when God began His new work, those people who only abided by the laws and rules, who only abided by the regulations, and who did not fear God, tended to use God’s old work to condemn His new work. For these people, this was terrible news. But for every person who was pure and open, who was sincere to God and willing to receive His salvation, God’s first incarnation was tremendously joyful news. For, ever since humans were brought into existence, this was the first time God had appeared and lived among humans in a form that was not the Spirit, instead living and working among humans in the manner and form of the Son of man born from humans. This “first” broke down people’s notions; it was beyond anybody’s imagination. At the same time, all of God’s followers gained a tangible benefit. God not only ended the old age, but He also ended His old working methods and working style. He no longer asked His messengers to convey His intentions; no longer did He hide in the clouds and appear and speak to humans commandingly through thunder. Unlike what He did before, through a method unimaginable to humans that was difficult for them to understand or accept—becoming flesh—He became the Son of man to carry out the work of that age. This act of God caught mankind completely off guard; it put them in an awkward position, because God had once again started new work that He had never done before. Today, we will take a look at what new work God did in the new age, and we will consider what there is for us to learn about from this new work in terms of God’s disposition and what He has and is.

The following are words recorded in the New Testament of the Bible.

1. Jesus Plucks the Ears of Corn to Eat on the Sabbath

Matthew 12:1 At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and His disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat.

2. The Son of Man Is Lord of the Sabbath

Matthew 12:6–8 But I say to you, That in this place is One greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

Let us first take a look at this passage: “At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and His disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat.”

Why have I selected this passage? What connection does it have to God’s disposition? In this passage, the first thing we know is that it was the Sabbath day, but the Lord Jesus went out and led His disciples through the corn fields. What is even more “treacherous” is that they even “began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat.” In the Age of Law, Jehovah God’s law stipulated that people could not casually go out or take part in activities on the Sabbath—there were many things that could not be done on the Sabbath. This action on the part of the Lord Jesus was puzzling for those who had lived under the law for a long time, and it even provoked criticism. As for their confusion and how they talked about what Jesus did, we will put that aside for now. Let us first discuss why the Lord Jesus chose to do this on the Sabbath, of all days, and what He wanted to communicate to people who were living under the law through this action. This is the connection between this passage and God’s disposition that I will talk about.

When the Lord Jesus came, He used His practical actions to tell mankind that God had departed the Age of Law and had begun new work, and that this new work no longer required the observance of the Sabbath. God’s moving beyond the Sabbath was just a foretaste of His new work; the real and great work was still to come. When the Lord Jesus began His work, He had already moved beyond the “fetters” of the Age of Law, and had broken through the rules and principles stipulated in that age. In Him, there was no trace of anything related to the law; He had cast it off entirely and no longer observed it, and He no longer required the people to observe it. So here you see the Lord Jesus went through the corn fields on the Sabbath, and that the Lord did not rest; He was outside working, and not resting. This action of His countered people’s notions and it communicated to them that He no longer lived under the law, and that He had moved beyond the Sabbath and appeared before people and in their midst with a completely new image and a new way of working. This action of His told people that He had brought with Him new work, work that began with emerging from being under the law, and departing from the Sabbath. When God carried out His new work, He no longer clung to the past, and He was no longer concerned about the rules of the Age of Law. Neither was He affected by His work in the previous age, but instead worked on the Sabbath just as He did on every other day, and when His disciples were hungry on the Sabbath, they could pick ears of corn to eat. This was all very normal in God’s eyes. For God, so much of the work He wants to do and the words He wants to say can all have new beginnings. When He begins something new, He neither mentions His previous work nor continues to carry it out. God has His principles in His work, and the time when He wants to begin new work is when He wants to bring people into a new stage of His work and His work enters a higher phase. Because of this, if people continue to act according to the old sayings or rules or continue to hold fast to them, He will not remember or approve of that. This is because He has already brought new work, and has entered a new phase of His work. When He brings new work, He appears to people with a completely new image, from a completely new angle, and in a completely new way so that people can see different aspects of His disposition and what He has and is. This is one of His goals in His new work. God does not cling to old things or walk the old path; when He works and speaks, He is not as people imagine, prohibiting this and that. In God, all is free and liberated, and there is no prohibition, no fetters—what He brings to people is all freedom and liberation. He is a living God, a God who genuinely, truly exists. He is not a puppet or a clay figure, and He is totally different from the idols that people enshrine and worship. He is living and vibrant, and what His words and work bring to man is all life and light, all freedom and liberation, because He has the truth, the life, and the way, and He does all the work He intends to do without being constrained by anything. No matter what people say and no matter how mankind sees or assesses His new work, He will do the work He intends to do without a qualm. He will not worry about anyone’s notions, nor their finger-pointing as concerns His work and words, nor even their strong opposition and resistance to His new work. There is absolutely no chance that anyone among created beings could use human reason, or human imagination, knowledge, or morality, to measure or pass verdict on what God does, to discredit, disturb, or sabotage His work. There is no prohibition in His work and what He does; it will not be constrained by any person, event, or thing, nor will it be disturbed by any hostile forces. As far as His new work is concerned, He is an ever-victorious King, and any hostile forces and all the heresies and fallacies of mankind are trampled under His footstool. No matter which new stage of His work He is carrying out, it will surely be carried out and spread in people’s midst, and it will surely be carried out unhindered and be brought to complete success in the entire universe. This is God’s almightiness and wisdom, His authority and power. Thus, the Lord Jesus could openly go out and work on the Sabbath because in His heart there were no regulations, no knowledge or teachings that originated from man. What He had was God’s new work and God’s way. His work was the way to free and liberate people, to allow them to exist in the light and to live. Meanwhile, those who worship idols or false gods live every day bound by Satan, fettered by all kinds of rules and taboos—today one thing is prohibited, tomorrow another—there is no freedom in their lives. They are like prisoners in shackles, living life with no joy to speak of. What does “prohibition” represent? It represents fetters, bondage, and evil! As soon as a person worships an idol, they are worshiping a false god, an evil spirit, and prohibitions soon follow: One cannot eat this or that, today one cannot go out, tomorrow one cannot cook, the next day one cannot move to a new house, certain days must be selected for weddings and funerals and even for giving birth to a child. What is all this called? This is called prohibition; it is the bondage of people, and it is the shackles of Satan and evil spirits controlling people and fettering their hearts and bodies. Do these prohibitions exist with God? When speaking of the holiness of God, you should first think of this: With God there are no prohibitions. God has principles in His words and work, but there are no prohibitions, because God Himself is the truth, the way, and the life.

Now let us look at the following passage from the Scriptures: “But I say to you, That in this place is One greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:6–8). What does the word “temple” refer to here? To put it simply, it refers to a magnificent, lofty building, and in the Age of Law, the temple was a place for priests to worship God. When the Lord Jesus said “in this place is One greater than the temple,” who did “One” refer to? Clearly, the “One” is the incarnate Lord Jesus, because only He was greater than the temple. What did those words tell people? They told people to come out of the temple—God had already left the temple and was no longer working in it, so people should seek God’s footsteps outside of the temple and follow His steps in His new work. The context in which the Lord Jesus said this was that, under the law, people had come to see the temple as something greater than God Himself. That is, people performed worship at the temple rather than performing worship to God, so the Lord Jesus warned them not to perform worship to idols, but to instead worship God, for He is supreme. Thus, He said: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” It is evident that in the eyes of the Lord Jesus, most people living under the law no longer worshiped Jehovah, but were merely going through the motions of sacrificing, and the Lord Jesus determined that this constituted idol worship. These idol-worshipers saw the temple as something greater and higher than God. In their hearts there was only the temple, not God, and as far as they were concerned, without the temple they would lose their dwelling place. Without the temple they would have nowhere to perform worship and would not be able to carry out their sacrifices. Their so-called “dwelling place” is where they used the false pretense of performing worship to Jehovah God to obtain permission to stay in the temple and carry out their own affairs. Their so-called “sacrificing” was just them carrying out their own personal shameful dealings under the guise of conducting their service in the temple. This was the reason people at that time saw the temple as greater than God. They were using the temple as a cover and sacrifices as a pretense to cheat people and cheat God. It was only because of this that the Lord Jesus spoke these words as a warning to people. If you apply these words to the present, they are still equally valid and equally pertinent. Although people today have experienced different work of God than the people in the Age of Law experienced, their nature essence is the same. In the context of the work today, people may still do things that equate to “the temple is greater than God.” For example, people see doing their duty as their job; they see bearing witness to God and battling the great red dragon as political movements in defense of human rights, for democracy and freedom; they regard their duty, which entails a bit of technical skill, as their career, but they treat fearing God and shunning evil as nothing but a piece of religious teaching to observe; and so on. Do these behaviors not equate to “the temple is greater than God”? The difference is that, two thousand years ago, people were carrying out their personal enterprise in the physical temple, but today, people carry out their personal enterprise in intangible temples. Those people who value regulations see regulations as greater than God, those people who love status see status as greater than God, those who love their career see careers as greater than God, and so on—all their behaviors lead Me to say, “People praise God as supreme through their words, but in their eyes everything is greater than God.” This is because as soon as people find an opportunity along their path of following God to display their own talents, or to carry out their own enterprise or their own career, they push God far away and throw themselves into their beloved career. As for what God has entrusted to them, and His intentions, those things have long since been cast to the winds. How is there any difference between these states that people have and what those in the temple who carried out all manner of personal enterprise did two thousand years ago?

Next, let us take a look at the last sentence in this passage: “For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.” Is there a practical side to this sentence? Can you see the practical side? Every single thing that God says comes from His heart, so why did He say this? How do you understand it? You may understand the meaning of this sentence now, but at the time when it was spoken, not many did because the people of that time had just come out of the Age of Law. For them, departing from the Sabbath was a very difficult thing to do, not to mention understanding what a true Sabbath is.

The sentence “the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” tells people that everything about God is not of a material nature, and although God can provide for all of your material needs, once all of your material needs have been met, can the satisfaction from these things replace your pursuit of the truth? That is clearly not possible! God’s disposition and what He has and is, which we have fellowshipped about, are all part of the content of the truth. Its value cannot be measured against any material objects, no matter how valuable, nor can its value be quantified in terms of money, because it is not a material object, and it supplies the needs of each and every person’s heart. For every person, the value of these intangible truths should be greater than the value of any good thing you can think of. Is this fair to say? This statement is something you need to linger over. The key point of what I have said is that what God has and is and everything about God are the most important things for every single person and cannot be replaced by any material object. I will give you an example: When you are hungry, you need food. The food may be better or worse, as long as you have your fill, that unpleasant feeling of being hungry will no longer be there—it will be gone. You can sit in peace, and your body will be at rest. People’s hunger can be resolved with food, but when you are following God and feel that you have no understanding of Him, how can you resolve the emptiness in your heart? Can it be resolved with food? Or when you are following God and do not understand His intentions, what can you use to make up for that hunger in your heart? In the process of your experience of being saved by God, while pursuing a change in your disposition, if you do not understand His intentions or do not know what the truth is, if you do not understand God’s disposition, then will you not feel very anxious? Will you not feel a strong hunger and thirst in your heart? Will these feelings not prevent you from feeling at rest in your heart? So how can you make up for that hunger in your heart? Is there a way to resolve it? Some people go shopping, some seek out their friends to confide in, some people indulge in a long sleep, others read more of God’s words, or they work harder and expend more effort to do their duties. Can these things resolve your actual difficulties? You all know these practices well from experience. When you feel powerless, when you feel a strong desire to gain enlightenment from God to allow you to know the reality of the truth and His intentions, what do you need most? What you need is not a full meal, and it is not a few considerate words, let alone the transient comfort and satisfaction of the flesh—what you need is for God to directly and clearly tell you what you should do and how you should do it, to clearly make you understand what the truth is. After you have understood this, even if you gain only a tiny bit of understanding, will you not feel more satisfied in your heart than if you had eaten a full meal? When your heart is satisfied, do your heart and your entire being not gain true rest? Through this analogy and analysis, do you understand now why I showed you this sentence, “the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day”? Its meaning is that what comes from God, what He has and is, and everything about Him, are greater than any other thing, including the thing or the person you once believed you treasured the most. That is to say, if a person cannot gain words from the mouth of God or they do not understand His intentions, they cannot gain rest. In your future experiences, you will understand why I wanted you to see this passage today—this is very important. Everything that God does is the truth and life. The truth is something that is indispensable to people’s life, and it is something they can never do without; you could also say that it is the greatest thing. Although you cannot see it or touch it, its importance to you cannot be ignored; it is the only thing that can bring rest to your heart.

When you are trying to comprehend the truth, do you know how to link it to your own states? In real life, you first have to think about what truths the people, events, and things you have encountered relate to; it is within these truths that you can find God’s intentions and connect what you have encountered with His intentions. If you do not know which aspects of the truth the things you have encountered relate to but instead go directly to seek God’s intentions, this is a blind approach which cannot achieve results. If you want to seek the truth and understand God’s intentions, you first need to see what category the things happening to you fall under, and which aspects of the truth they relate to, find the specific truth in the word of God that corresponds to what you’re experiencing, and then look for a path you can put into practice within that truth. In this way, you can indirectly come to understand God’s intentions. Seeking and practicing the truth is not mechanically applying a regulation or following a formula. The truth is not formulaic, nor is it a fixed rule. It is not dead—it is life, it is a living thing, and it is the law that a created being must follow in their life and the law a human must have in order to exist. This is something that you must try to appreciate more through experience. Regardless of the depth of your experiences, you can never do without God’s word or the truth. The disposition of God that you come to understand, and the possessions and being of God that you come to know, are all expressed in His words; they are inextricably linked with the truth. God’s disposition and what He has and is are, in themselves, the truth; it is just that the truth is an authentic embodiment of what is revealed from God’s disposition and what He has and is. It makes what He has and is concrete and explicit; it tells you more straightforwardly what God likes and what He does not like, what He wants you to do and what He does not permit you to do, which people He hates and which people He is pleased with. Behind the truths that God expresses, people see His happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy, as well as His essence—these are the revelations of His disposition. Aside from knowing what God has and is and understanding His disposition from His word, what’s most important for people is to reach this understanding and knowledge through real experience. If a person disengages from real life, it will be impossible for them to know God. Even if there are some people like this who gain some knowledge from the word of God, their knowledge is limited to doctrines and words, and there’s a gap between this and what God Himself is really like.

What we are fellowshipping about now is all within the scope of the stories recorded in the Bible. Through these stories, and through dissecting these things that happened, people can understand God’s disposition and what He has and is that He has expressed, allowing them to know every aspect of God in a broader, deeper, more multifaceted and diversified way. So, is the only way to know every aspect of God through these stories? Not exactly! For what God says and the work He does in the Age of Kingdom can better help people know His disposition, and know it more fully. However, I think it is a bit easier to get people to know God’s disposition and to understand what He has and is through some examples or stories recorded in the Bible that people are familiar with. If I take the words of judgment and chastisement and the truths that God expresses today, word for word, to help you know Him, you will feel it is too dull and too tedious, and some people will even feel that God’s words seem to be formulaic. But if I take these Bible stories as examples to help people know God’s disposition, they will not find it boring. You could say that in the course of explaining these examples, human language is used to tell people all the details of what God was thinking in His heart at the time, and to tell them about God’s state of mind at the time—His emotions, one could say, or His thoughts and ideas. The purpose of telling people these things is to allow them to appreciate and feel that what God has and is is not formulaic, or a legend, or something that people cannot see or touch, but something that truly exists, that people can feel and appreciate. This is the ultimate goal. People living in this age can be said to be blessed. You can draw on Bible stories to gain a broader understanding of God’s previous work; you can see His disposition through the work that He has done; through these dispositions that He has expressed, you can understand God’s intentions for mankind, understand the concrete manifestations of His holiness, and understand the concrete manifestations of His care for humans. In this way, you can reach a more detailed and deeper knowledge of God’s disposition. I believe that all of you can now feel this!

Within the scope of the work that the Lord Jesus did in the Age of Grace, you can see another aspect of what God has and is. All that God has and is in this aspect was expressed through His flesh, and could be seen and appreciated by people through His humanity. In the Son of man, people saw the living out of God’s humanity in the flesh, and they saw the expression of God’s divinity in the flesh. These two aspects of expression allowed people to see a practical God, and they allowed people to form a different concept of God. However, during the period between the creation of the world and the end of the Age of Law—that is, before the Age of Grace—the only aspect of God that was seen, heard, and experienced by people was God’s divinity—the things that God did and said in the non-material realm, and the things expressed by His invisible and intangible true form. Many times, these things made people feel that God was so lofty and that they could not get close to Him. The primary impression God gave people was that He appeared one moment and disappeared the next. Even His every thought and idea felt so mysterious and unfathomable; people found them completely inaccessible—trying to figure them out or know them by experience, then, was even more so out of the question. Everything about God was very distant for people, so distant that they could neither see Him nor touch Him. He seemed to be on the distant horizon, yet also seemed to not exist at all. So, understanding any of God’s thoughts or ideas, or any of His thinking, was unachievable for people, and even more so it was entirely out of reach for them. Even though God performed some concrete work in the Age of Law, and He also expressed some specific words and some specific dispositions, allowing people to have some true knowledge of Him that they could appreciate or see, those were still, after all, what God has and is, which He expressed in the non-material realm, and so what people learned about and understood was still the divine aspect of what He has and is. What God has and is in this divine aspect could not give people a concrete concept, which caused their impression of God to remain limited to the scope of “a spiritual body that is hard to get close to and appears one moment and disappears the next.” Because God did not use a specific thing or an image belonging to the material world to appear before people, they remained unable to define Him using human language. In people’s thoughts and ideas, they always wanted to use human language to prescribe a standard for God, to make Him tangible and to humanize Him, such as how tall He is, how big He is, what He looks like, what specific things He likes, and what His specific personality is. Actually, in His heart God knew that people were thinking this way. He was very clear about people’s needs, and of course He also knew what He should do, so He carried out His work in a different way in the Age of Grace, a way that was both human and divine. During the time that the Lord Jesus was working, people could see that God had many manifestations of His humanity. For example, He could dance, He could attend weddings, He could have heartfelt discussions and speak with people, or talk about certain matters with them. At the same time, the Lord Jesus also did a lot of work that represented His divinity, and of course all of this work was an expression and a revelation of God’s disposition. During this time, God’s divinity was realized in a normal flesh, making it so people could see and touch Him, and no longer feel that He was here one minute and gone the next, or that they could not get close to Him. On the contrary, they could try to figure out the intentions of God or understand His divinity through the Son of man’s behavior, words, and work. The incarnate Son of man expressed God’s divinity through His humanity and conveyed God’s intentions to man. At the same time, through expressing God’s intentions and disposition, He also revealed to man the God of the spiritual realm that cannot be seen or touched. What people saw was God Himself, with form and image, and made of flesh and bones. So the incarnate Son of man made such things as God’s own identity, status, image, disposition, and what He has and is, concrete and humanized. Even though, in terms of the image of God, the Son of man was subject to certain limitations in His appearance, His essence and what He has and is were entirely able to represent the identity and status of God Himself—there were merely some differences in the form of expression. Whether in His humanity or His divinity, we cannot deny that the Son of man represented the identity and status of God Himself. It’s just that, during this time, God worked through the flesh, spoke from the perspective of the flesh, and faced mankind with the identity and status of the Son of man, giving people the opportunity to come into contact with and experience the practical words and work of God among people. It also gave people insight into His divinity, and His greatness in the midst of humility, and allowed them to gain an initial understanding and definition of the realness and practicality of God. Even though the Lord Jesus’ work, ways of working, and the perspective from which He spoke differed from those of God’s true form in the spiritual realm, everything about Him represented God Himself, whom man had never seen before, with absolute precision—this cannot be denied! That is to say, regardless of the manner by which God appears, the perspective from which He speaks, or the image with which He faces man, God represents only Himself; He could not possibly represent any individual, nor could He represent any corrupt human. God Himself is God Himself. This cannot be denied.

Next, we will take a look at a parable told by the Lord Jesus in the Age of Grace.

3. The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Matthew 18:12–14 How think you? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, does he not leave the ninety and nine, and goes into the mountains, and seeks that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, truly I say to you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the intention of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.

This passage is a parable—what kind of feeling does it give to people? The way of expression—the parable—used here is a figure of speech in human language, which belongs within the scope of human knowledge. If God had said something similar in the Age of Law, people would have felt that such words were not quite consistent with God’s identity, but when the Son of man expressed these words in the Age of Grace, people would find these words very comforting, warm, and close to their hearts. God became flesh and appeared in the form of a man. In His humanity He used a very appropriate parable to express the voice of His heart. This voice represented God’s own voice and the work He wanted to do in that age. It also represented an attitude that God had toward people in the Age of Grace. Looking at this attitude of God toward people, He likened each person to a sheep. If a sheep was lost, He would do whatever it took to find it. This represented a principle of God’s work on people on that occasion that He became flesh. God used this parable to describe His resolve and attitude in that work. This was the advantage of God becoming flesh: He could take advantage of human knowledge and use the language of humanity to speak to people, and to express His wishes. Using the language and ways of humanity, He explained or “translated” to man the profound, divine language that people struggled to understand. This helped people understand His intentions and know what He wanted to do. He could also have conversations with people from the human perspective, using human language, and in a way they understood. He could even speak and work using human language and knowledge so that people could feel God’s amiability and approachability, so that they could see His heart. What do you see in this? Is there any prohibition in God’s words and actions? The way people see it, there is no way that God could use human knowledge, language, or ways of speaking to talk about what God Himself wanted to say and the work He wanted to do, or to express His own intentions. This is precisely people’s mistaken imagining. God used this type of parable, which allowed people to feel the realness and the sincerity of God, and see His attitude toward people during that time period. This parable awakened people who had been living under the law for a long time from a dream, and it also inspired generation after generation of people who lived in the Age of Grace. By reading the passage of this parable, people know God’s sincerity in saving man and understand the weight accorded to man in God’s heart.

Let us take a look at the last sentence in this passage: “Even so it is not the intention of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” Were these the Lord Jesus’ own words, or the words of the Father in heaven? On the surface, it looks like it was the Lord Jesus who was speaking, but His intention represented the intention of God Himself, which is why He said: “Even so it is not the intention of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” People at that time only acknowledged the Father in heaven as God, and believed that this person whom they saw in front of their eyes was merely sent by Him, and could not represent the Father in heaven. That is why the Lord Jesus had to add this sentence, so that people could clearly feel God’s intention for man and feel the authenticity and the accuracy of what He said. Even though this sentence was a simple thing to say, it was spoken very considerately and revealed the Lord Jesus’ humility and hiddenness. No matter whether God became flesh or He worked in the spiritual realm, He knew the human heart best, and best understood what people needed, knew what people worried about, and what confused them, and that is why He added this sentence. This sentence highlighted a problem hidden within people: They were skeptical of what the Son of man said, which is to say, when the Lord Jesus was speaking, He had to add: “Even so it is not the intention of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish,” and only by adding this premise could He make His words bear fruit, lead people to believe in the accuracy of His words, and increase the credibility of His words. This shows that when God became an ordinary Son of man, God and man had a very awkward relationship, and that the Son of man’s situation was very embarrassing. It also shows how insignificant the Lord Jesus’ status among humans was at that time. When He said this, it was actually to tell people: You can rest assured—this idea of Mine represents not My own idea, but the idea of the God who is in your hearts. For man, was this not an ironic thing? Even though God working in the flesh had many advantages that His person did not have, He had to withstand man’s doubts and rejection as well as his numbness and dullness. It could be said that the process of the work of the Son of man was the process of experiencing man’s rejection and experiencing man’s contending with Him. More than that, it was the process of working—by way of His own example—to continuously win man’s trust and conquer man through what He has and is, through His own essence. It was not so much that God incarnate was waging an on-the-ground war against Satan; it was more that God became an ordinary man and began a contest of wits with those who followed Him, and in this contest the Son of man, with His humility, with what He has and is, and with His love and wisdom, completed His work, gained the people He wanted, won the identity and status He deserved, and “returned” to His throne.

Next, let us look at the following two passages of the Scriptures.

4. Forgive Seventy Times Seven

Matthew 18:21–22 Then came Peter to Him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus said to him, I say not to you, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

5. The Lord’s Love

Matthew 22:37–39 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Of these two passages, one speaks of forgiveness and the other speaks of love. These two topics really highlight the work the Lord Jesus intended to carry out in the Age of Grace.

When God became flesh, He brought along with Him a stage of His work, as well as the specific work tasks and the disposition He intended to express in this age. In that period, everything that the Son of man did revolved around the work that God intended to carry out in this age. He would do no more and no less. Every single thing He said and every type of work that He carried out was all related to this age. Whether He expressed it in a human way with human language or through the language of divinity—whatever the means or perspective—His goal was to help people understand what He intended to do, what His intentions were, and what His requirements of people were. He might use various means and different perspectives to help people be clear about, know, and understand His intentions, and to understand His work of saving people. So in the Age of Grace we see the Lord Jesus more often using the language of humanity to express what He wanted to communicate with people and, at the same time, more often speaking with people from the perspective of an ordinary guide, providing for their needs, and helping them with what they had requested. This way of working was not seen in the Age of Law that came before the Age of Grace; He became more intimate with and considerate toward people, and in both form and manner, it was more able to achieve practical results. The metaphor about forgiving people seventy times seven very much illustrates this point. The goal achieved by the number in this metaphor is to allow people to understand from these words the Lord Jesus’ purpose at the time that He said this. His goal was that people should forgive others—not once or twice, and not seven times, but seventy times seven. What kind of idea is this “seventy times seven”? It is to cause people to make forgiveness their own responsibility, something they must learn, and a “way” by which they must abide. Even though this was just a metaphor, it served to highlight the crucial point. It helped people deeply appreciate what He meant and find the path they ought to practice and the principles and standards of practice. This metaphor helped people understand clearly and gave them an accurate idea—that they should learn forgiveness and forgive any number of times without conditions, but with the kind of mentality that is forbearing and understanding toward others. When the Lord Jesus said this, what was in His heart? Was He really thinking of the number “seventy times seven”? No, He was not. Is there a number of times God will forgive man? There are many people who are very interested in the “number of times” mentioned here, who really want to understand the origin and the meaning of this number. They want to understand why this number came out of the Lord Jesus’ mouth; they believe that there must be a deeper implication to this number. But actually, this was just a figure of speech which God used while speaking in His humanity, and any implication or meaning in it would have to be understood in relation to the Lord Jesus’ requirements for man. When God had not yet become flesh, man did not understand much of what He said, because His words came out of complete divinity. The perspective and context of what He said were invisible and unreachable to man; it was expressed from the spiritual realm that man could not see, and which man who lived in the flesh could not pass through. But after God became flesh, He spoke to man from the perspective of humanity, and thus came out of and surpassed the scope of the spiritual realm. He could express His divine disposition and intentions, as well as His attitude, through things man could imagine in his own notions, things he saw and encountered in his life, or using methods that man could accept, in a language he could understand, and with knowledge mankind grasped, to allow man to understand and to know God, to comprehend His desires and His required standards within the scope of his capacity and to the degree that he was able. This was the method and principle of God’s work in humanity. Even though God’s ways and principles of working in the flesh were mostly achieved by means of or through humanity, it achieved results that could not be achieved by working directly in divinity. God’s work in humanity was more concrete, authentic, and targeted, the methods were much more flexible, and in form it surpassed the work carried out during the Age of Law.

The next passage talks about loving the Lord and loving your neighbor as yourself. Is this something that is directly expressed in divinity? No, clearly not! These were all things that the Son of man spoke in humanity; only human beings would say something like “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “Love others as you cherish your own life.” This manner of speaking is exclusively human. God has never spoken in this way. At the very least, God does not have this type of language in His divinity because He has no need of this kind of tenet, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” in order to regulate His love for mankind, because God’s love for man is a natural revelation of what He has and is. When have you ever heard God say anything like: “I love mankind as I love Myself”? You have not, because love is in God’s essence and in what He has and is. God’s love for man, and the way and attitude with which He treats man are a natural expression and revelation of His disposition. He does not need to deliberately do this in a certain way, or to deliberately follow a certain method or a moral code to achieve loving His neighbor as Himself—He already possesses this type of essence. What do you see in this? When God worked in humanity, many of His methods, words, and truths were expressed by methods pertaining to humanity. But at the same time, God’s disposition, what He has and is, and His intentions were expressed for people to know and understand. What they came to know and understand was exactly His essence and what He has and is, which are possessed by the inherent identity and status that represent God Himself. That is to say, the incarnate Son of man expressed the inherent disposition and essence of God Himself to the greatest extent possible and as accurately as possible. Not only was the Son of man’s humanity not a hindrance or a barrier to man’s communication and interaction with God in heaven, but it was actually the only channel and the only bridge for mankind to connect to the Creator. Now, at this point, do you not feel that there are many similarities between the nature and methods of the work done by the Lord Jesus in the Age of Grace and the current stage of work? This current stage of work also uses a great deal of the language of humanity to express God’s disposition, and a lot of language and methods from man’s daily life and human knowledge to express the intentions of God Himself. Once God becomes flesh, no matter whether He is speaking from the perspective of humanity or that of divinity, lots of His language and methods of expression come through the medium of human language and methods. That is, when God becomes flesh, this is the best opportunity for you to see God’s almightiness and His wisdom, and to know every practical aspect of God. When God becomes flesh, while He is growing up, He comes to understand, learn, and grasp in humanity some of the knowledge, common sense, language, or methods of expression that come from people. And when God incarnate possesses these things that come from created mankind, they become the tools of God in the flesh for expressing His disposition and His divinity, and allow Him to make His work more pertinent, more authentic, and more accurate when He is working among people, from a human perspective and using human language. This makes His work more accessible and more easily understood for people, thus achieving the results that God intends. Is it not more practical for God to work in the flesh in this way? Is this not God’s wisdom? When God becomes flesh, when God’s flesh is able to take on the work that He intends to carry out, that is when He will practically express His disposition and His work, and that is also the time when the Son of man can officially begin His ministry. This means that there is no longer a “generation gap” between God and man, that God will soon cease His work of communicating through messengers, and that God Himself can personally express all the words and work in the flesh that He intends to. It also means that the mankind God saves is closer to Him, that His management work has entered new territory, and that all of mankind is about to be faced with a new age.

Everyone who has read the Bible knows that many events happened when the Lord Jesus was born. The greatest among those events was Him being hunted by the king of devils, which was an event so extreme that all of the city’s children who were aged two years old and under were slaughtered. It is evident that God assumed great risk by becoming flesh among humans; the great price that He paid for completing His management of saving mankind is also evident. The great hopes that God held for His work among humans in the flesh are also evident. When God’s flesh was able to take on work among humans, how did He feel? People should be able to understand that to some degree, should they not? At the very least, God was happy because He could start carrying out His new work among humans. When the Lord Jesus was baptized and officially began His work to fulfill His ministry, God’s heart was overwhelmed with joy because after so many years of waiting and preparation, He could finally wear the flesh of a normal man and begin His new work in the form of a man of flesh and blood, whom people could see and touch. He could finally speak face-to-face and heart-to-heart with people through the identity of a man. God could finally come face to face with people through the medium of human ways and human language; He could provide for people, counsel them, and help them using human language; He could eat at the same table and live in the same space with them. He could also see human beings, see things, and see everything the way humans saw them and even through human eyes. For God, this was already the first victory of His work in the flesh, or even, one could say, the accomplishment of a great work—this of course was what God was happiest about. Starting from then, God felt, for the first time, a sort of comfort in His work among humans. All of this happened in such a practical and natural way, and the comfort that God felt was so true. This is because, for mankind, each time a new stage of God’s work is accomplished, and each time God feels gratified, that is when mankind can get closer to God, and it is also when man comes closer to salvation. To God, this is also the time when His new work is launched and His management plan moves forward again, and, even more so, when His intentions approach complete fulfillment. For mankind, the arrival of such an opportunity is fortunate, and very good; for all those who await God’s salvation, it is momentous and joyous news. When God carries out a new stage of work, to Him there is a new beginning. When this new work and new beginning are launched and introduced among people, that is when this stage of work has already had its outcome determined and been accomplished and also when God has already seen the final effect and fruit. This is also when this effect brings satisfaction to God; His heart is naturally happy. In God’s eyes, He has already seen, locked onto, and obtained the people He is looking for, and has obtained a group of people able to make His work successful and bring Him satisfaction—and for this reason, His heart is comforted, He puts aside His sorrow, and He feels happy. In other words, when the flesh of God is able to embark upon new work among people, and He begins, without obstruction, to do the work that He wants to do, and when He feels that all has been accomplished, for Him, the outcome is already in sight. Because of this outcome, He is satisfied, and His heart is happy. How is God’s happiness expressed? Can you imagine? May God cry? Can God cry? Can God clap His hands? Can God dance? Can God sing? If so, what would He sing? Of course, God could sing a beautiful, moving song, a song that could express the joy and happiness in His heart. He could sing it for man, for Himself, and for all things. God’s happiness can be expressed in any way—all of this is normal because God has joys and sorrows, and His various feelings can be expressed in various ways. This is His right, and nothing could be more normal and proper. People should not think anything else of it. You should not try to use the “band-tightening spell”^[a] on God, telling Him He should not do this or that, He should not act this way or that, and in this way limit His happiness or any feeling He might have. In people’s hearts God cannot be happy, cannot shed tears, cannot weep—He cannot express any emotion. Through fellowshipping these two times, I believe you will no longer treat God in this way, but will allow God to have some freedom and release. This is a very good thing. In the future, you will be able to truly feel God’s sadness when you hear about Him being sad; you will be able to truly feel His happiness when you hear about Him being happy; at the very least you will be able to clearly know and understand what makes God happy and what makes Him sad. When you are able to feel sad because God is sad, and feel happy because God is happy, He will have fully gained your heart and there will no longer be any barrier between yourself and Him. You will no longer try to fetter God with human imaginings and notions or knowledge. At that time, God will be alive and vital in your heart. He will be the God of your life and the Master of everything about you. Do you have this kind of wish? Are you confident that you can achieve this?

Next, let us read the following passages from the Scriptures:

6. The Sermon on the Mount

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3–12)

Salt and Light (Matthew 5:13–16)

Law (Matthew 5:17–20)

Anger (Matthew 5:21–26)

Adultery (Matthew 5:27–30)

Divorce (Matthew 5:31–32)

Vows (Matthew 5:33–37)

Eye for Eye (Matthew 5:38–42)

Love Your Enemies (Matthew 5:43–48)

On Giving Alms (Matthew 6:1–4)

Prayer (Matthew 6:5–8)

7. The Parables of the Lord Jesus

The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1–9)

The Parable of the Tares (Matthew 13:24–30)

The Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matthew 13:31–32)

The Parable of the Leaven (Matthew 13:33)

The Parable of the Tares Explained (Matthew 13:36–43)

The Parable of the Treasure (Matthew 13:44)

The Parable of the Pearl (Matthew 13:45–46)

The Parable of the Net (Matthew 13:47–50)

8. The Commandments

Matthew 22:37–39 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like to it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Let us first look at each of the various parts of “The Sermon on the Mount.” What do all of these different parts touch upon? It can be said, with certainty, that the contents of these various parts are all more elevated, more concrete, and closer to people’s lives than the rules of the Age of Law. To speak in modern terms, these things are more relevant to people’s actual practice.

Let us read about the following specific content: on the beatitudes—and how you should understand them; on the law—and what you should know about; anger—and how you define it; how to deal with adulterers; what kind of statements and rules pertain to divorce; who can get divorced, and who cannot; the topics of vows, taking an eye for an eye, loving your enemies, giving alms, and so on. All of these things relate to every aspect of the practice of man’s belief in God, and of his following God. Some of these practices are still applicable today, though they are shallower than what is currently required of man—they are fairly elementary truths which man encounters in his belief in God. From the time when the Lord Jesus began working, He was already beginning to carry out work on the life disposition of humans, but these aspects of His work were based on the foundation of the law. Did the rules and statements about these topics have anything to do with the truth? Of course they did! Whether it be the previous rules and principles, or these sermons in the Age of Grace, all relate to God’s disposition and what He has and is, and of course, to the truth. No matter what God expresses, and no matter what mode of expression or language He uses, the things that He expresses all have their foundation, origin, and starting point in the principles of His disposition and what He has and is. This is absolutely true. So even though these things He said seem a little shallow now, you still cannot say that they are not the truth, because they were things that were indispensable for people in the Age of Grace in order to satisfy God’s intentions and to achieve a change in their life disposition. Can you say that any one of these sermons is not in accordance with the truth? No, you cannot! Every one of them is the truth because they were all God’s requirements for people; they were all principles and limits for conducting oneself given by God, and they represent God’s disposition. It’s merely that, based on the level of people’s growth in life at that time, these were the only things that they were able to accept and comprehend. Because people’s sins had not yet been resolved, these were the only words that the Lord Jesus could express, and He could only utilize the simple teachings contained within this kind of scope to tell the people of that time how they should act, what they should do, within what principles and scope they should do things, and how they should believe in God and meet His requirements. All of this was determined based on the stature of people at that time. It was not easy for people living under the law to accept these ways, so the content of the Lord Jesus’ sermon had to stay within this scope.

Next, let us take a look at the various contents of “The Parables of the Lord Jesus.”

The first is the parable of the sower. This is a very interesting parable; sowing seeds is a common event in people’s lives. The second is the parable of the tares. Anyone who has planted crops, and all adults, will know what “tares” are. The third is the parable of the mustard seed. All of you know what mustard is, do you not? If you do not know, you can take a look in the Bible. The fourth parable is the parable of the leaven. Now, most people know that leaven is used for fermentation, and that it is something that people use in their daily lives. The further parables—including the sixth, the parable of the treasure; the seventh, the parable of the pearl; and the eighth, the parable of the net—were all drawn from people’s lives, sourced from people’s real lives. What kind of picture do these parables paint? It is a picture of God becoming a normal person and living alongside people, using the language of life, of humanity, to communicate with people and to provide them with what they need. When God became flesh and lived among people for a long time, after He had experienced and witnessed people’s various lifestyles, these experiences of life became His teaching material through which He transformed His language of divinity into the language of humanity. Of course, these things that He saw and heard in life also enriched the Son of man’s human experience. When He wanted people to understand some truths, to understand some of God’s intentions, then He could use parables similar to the ones above to tell people about God’s intentions and His requirements of them. These parables were all related to people’s lives; there was not a single one that was out of touch with human lives. When the Lord Jesus lived with people, He saw farmers tending their fields, and He knew what tares were and what leaven was; He understood that humans love treasure, so He used the metaphors of both the treasure and the pearl. In life, He frequently saw fishermen casting their nets; the Lord Jesus saw this and other activities related to human life, and He also experienced that kind of life. Just like every other normal human being, He experienced human daily routines and their eating three meals a day. He personally experienced the life of an average person, and observed the lives of others. When He observed and personally experienced all of this, what He thought of was not how to have a good life or how He could live more freely and comfortably. Instead, while experiencing authentic human life, the Lord Jesus saw the misery in human beings’ lives. He saw the misery, the wretchedness, and the lamentableness of humans living under the power of Satan and living in sin beneath Satan’s corruption. While He was personally experiencing human life, He also experienced how helpless humans were who were living in corruption, and He saw and experienced the miserable conditions of humans who lived in sin, who lost all direction amid the torture which Satan and sin subjected them to. When the Lord Jesus saw these things, did He see them with His divinity or with His humanity? His humanity really existed and was very much alive; He could experience and see all of this. But of course, He also saw these things with His essence, which is His divinity. That is, Christ Himself, this person—the Lord Jesus—saw this. Everything He saw made Him feel the importance and the necessity of the work He would take on during this time that He was incarnate. Even though He Himself knew that the responsibility He needed to take on in this incarnation was so immense, and He knew how cruel the pain would be which He would face, when He saw mankind helpless in sin, when He saw the wretchedness of their lives and their feeble struggles under the law, He felt more and more grieved, and became more and more anxious to save mankind from sin. No matter what kind of difficult situations He would face or what kind of pain He would suffer, He became increasingly resolved to redeem man, who was living in sin. During this process, you could say that the Lord Jesus began to understand more and more clearly the work He needed to do and the commission He needed to take on. He also became increasingly eager to complete the work He was to take on—to bear all of the sins of man, to atone for mankind so that they no longer lived in sin, and, at the same time, so that God would not remember man’s sins because of the sin offering, allowing Him to continue to further His work of saving mankind. It could be said that in the Lord Jesus’ heart, He was willing to offer Himself up for mankind, to sacrifice Himself. He was also willing to be nailed to the cross as a sin offering, and furthermore, He was eager to complete this work. So much so that, when He saw the miserable conditions of human life, He wanted even more to fulfill His mission as quickly as possible, without the delay of a single minute or even a single second. Feeling such urgency, He spent no thought on how great His own pain would be, nor did He harbor any further apprehension about how much humiliation He would have to endure. He held just one conviction in His heart: As long as He offered Himself up, as long as He was nailed to the cross and served as a sin offering, then God’s will would be carried out and God would be able to commence new work. Mankind’s life and state of existence in sin would be completely transformed. His conviction and what He was determined to do were both related to saving mankind, and He had only one objective, which was to follow God’s will so that God could successfully begin the next stage of His work. This was what was in the Lord Jesus’ mind at the time.

As God incarnate living in the flesh, He possessed normal humanity; He had the feelings and the rationality of a normal person. He knew what happiness was, what pain was, and when He saw mankind living this kind of life, He deeply felt that merely giving people some teachings, providing them with something or teaching them something, would not be enough to lead them out of sin, and that just having them obey the commandments could not save them from sin either—only when He took on mankind’s sin and became the likeness of sinful flesh could He win in exchange man’s freedom and God’s forgiveness for mankind. So after the Lord Jesus had experienced and witnessed human lives in sin, an intense desire developed in His heart—to allow humans to free themselves from their lives of searching around in sin. This desire made Him feel more and more that He must go to the cross and take on mankind’s sins as soon and as quickly as possible. These were the thoughts of the Lord Jesus at that time, after He had lived with mankind and seen, heard, and felt the misery of their lives in sin. That the incarnate God could have this kind of intention for mankind, that He could express and reveal this kind of disposition—is this something an average person could have? What would an average person see, living in this type of environment? What would they think? If an average person faced all of this, would they look at problems from an elevated perspective? Definitely not! Although the outward appearance of God incarnate is exactly the same as that of a human, and although He learns human knowledge and speaks human language, and sometimes even expresses His ideas through human methods or by quoting human sayings, nevertheless, the way He sees mankind and the essence of things is absolutely not the same as how corrupt mankind sees them. His perspective and the elevation at which He stands are something unattainable for any among corrupt mankind. This is because God is the truth, because the flesh that He wears also possesses the essence of God Himself, and His thoughts and that which is expressed by His humanity are also the truth. For corrupt mankind, what He expresses in the flesh are provisions of the truth, and of life. These provisions are not just for one person, but for all of mankind. In any corrupt person’s heart, there are only those few people who are associated with them. They care and are concerned only for this handful of people. When disaster strikes, they first think of their own children, spouse, or parents. Even a person who is more “universally loving” would at best spare a thought for some relative or good friend, but would they ever consider anyone else? No, never! This is because humans are, after all, humans, and they can only look at everything from the elevation and perspective of a human being. However, God incarnate is entirely different from a corrupt human. No matter how ordinary, how normal, how humble God’s incarnate flesh is, or even how much people look down on Him, His thoughts and His attitude toward mankind are things that no man possesses, that no man could imitate. He will always observe mankind from the perspective of divinity, from the elevation of His position as the Creator. He will always see mankind through the essence and the mindset of God. He absolutely will not see mankind from the elevation of an average person, or from the perspective of a corrupt person. When people look at mankind, they do so with human vision, and they use things such as human knowledge and human regulations and theories as their measure. This is the scope that people can see with their eyes and the scope that is achievable by corrupt mankind. When God looks at mankind, He looks with divine vision, and He uses His essence and what He has and is as a measure. This is the scope that people cannot see, and this is where God incarnate and corrupt humans are entirely different. This difference is determined by humans’ and God’s different essences—it is these different essences that determine their identities and positions as well as the perspective and elevation from which they see things. Do you see the expression and revelation of God Himself in the Lord Jesus? You could say that what the Lord Jesus did and said was related to His ministry and to God’s own management work, that it was all the expression and revelation of God’s essence. Although He did have some human manifestations, His divine essence and the revelation of His divinity could not be denied. Were these human manifestations really human manifestations? His human manifestations were, by their very essence, entirely different from the human manifestations of corrupt mankind. The Lord Jesus was God incarnate. If He had truly been an ordinary member of corrupt mankind, could He have seen mankind’s life in sin from a divine perspective? Absolutely not! This is the difference between the Son of man and regular people. Corrupt people all live in sin, and when anyone sees sin, they do not have any particular feeling about it; they are all the same, just like a pig living in the mud that does not feel at all uncomfortable or dirty—on the contrary, it eats well and sleeps soundly. If someone cleans the pigsty, the pig will actually feel ill at ease, and it will not stay clean. Before long, it will once again be rolling around in the mud, completely comfortable, because it is a filthy creature. Humans see pigs as filthy, but if you clean a pig’s living quarters, it does not feel any better—this is why no one keeps a pig in their house. The way humans see pigs will always be different from how pigs themselves feel, because humans and pigs are not of the same kind. And precisely because the incarnate Son of man is not of the same kind as corrupt humans, only God incarnate can view mankind, and everything else, from the perspective and elevation of God.

When God becomes flesh and lives among people, what is the suffering that His flesh undergoes? Does anyone truly understand? Some people say that God suffers greatly, that although He is God Himself, people do not understand His essence, but tend always to treat Him like a person, causing Him to feel aggrieved and wronged—they say that God’s suffering truly is great. Other people say that God is innocent and without sin, but that He suffers in the same way as people, that He suffers persecution, slander, and indignities alongside people; they say He also endures the misunderstandings and the rebellion of His followers—thus, they say that God’s suffering truly cannot be measured. Now, it seems that you do not truly understand God. In fact, this suffering you speak of does not count as true suffering for God, because there is suffering greater than this. Then what is true suffering for God Himself? What is true suffering for God’s incarnate flesh? For God, people not understanding Him does not count as suffering, and neither does people having some misunderstanding of God and not seeing Him as God count as suffering. However, people often feel that God must have suffered great injustice, that during the time that God spends in the flesh, He cannot show His person to mankind and allow them to see His greatness, and that God is always humbly hiding in an insignificant flesh, and that this must be a great torment for Him. People take to heart what they can understand and what they can see of God’s suffering, and project all sorts of sympathy on God and often will even offer a little praise for His suffering. In reality, there is a difference, a gap between what people understand of God’s suffering and what He truly feels. I am telling you the truth—for God, no matter whether it be God’s Spirit or God’s incarnate flesh, the suffering described above is not true suffering. Then what is it that God actually suffers? Let us talk about God’s suffering only from the perspective of God incarnate.

When God becomes flesh, turning into an average, normal person, living among people, living side by side with human beings, can He not see and feel people’s methods and laws for living and people’s concepts about living? How do these methods and laws for living make Him feel? Does He feel loathing in His heart? Why would He feel loathing? What are mankind’s methods and laws for living? What principles are they rooted in? What are they based on? Mankind’s methods, laws, and the like for how to live—all of this is created on the basis of Satan’s logic, knowledge, and philosophy. Humans living under these types of laws have no humanity, no truth—they all defy the truth and are hostile to God. Let’s take a look at God’s essence: God’s essence is exactly the opposite of Satan’s logic, knowledge, and philosophy. His essence is full of righteousness, truth, and holiness, and other realities of all positive things. When God, who possesses this essence, lives among such a mankind, what does He feel in His heart? Is it not full of pain? His heart is in pain, a pain that no person can understand or experience. This is because everything that He faces, encounters, hears, sees, and experiences is all mankind’s corruption, evil, and their rebellion against and resistance to the truth. All that comes from humans is the source of His suffering. That is to say, because His essence is not the same as that of corrupt humans, the corruption of humans becomes the source of His greatest suffering. When God becomes flesh, is He able to find someone who shares a common language with Him? Such a person cannot be found among mankind. No one can be found who can communicate with or who can have this exchange with God—what kind of feeling would you say God has about this? The things that people discuss, love, pursue, and long for all have to do with sin and evil trends. When God faces all of this, is it not like a knife to His heart? Faced with these things, could He have joy in His heart? Could He find consolation? Those who are living with Him are humans full of rebelliousness and evil—how could His heart not suffer? How great really is this suffering, and who cares about it? Who takes heed? And who is capable of appreciating it? Man has no way of understanding God’s heart, much less appreciating His suffering. Man’s coldness and numbness deepen God’s suffering even more.

There are some people who often sympathize with Christ’s plight because there is a verse in the Bible that reads: “The foxes have holes, and the birds have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head.” When people hear this, they take it to heart and believe that this is the greatest suffering that God endures, and the greatest suffering that Christ endures. Now, looking at it from the perspective of the facts, is that the case? No; God does not believe these sufferings to be suffering. He has never cried out against injustice because of His sufferings of the flesh, and He has never made man repay or reward Him with anything. However, when He witnesses everything about man and the corrupt lives and the evil of corrupt humans, when He witnesses that man is in Satan’s grasp and imprisoned by Satan and cannot escape, that man lives in sin and does not know what the truth is, all of man’s sins become intolerable to Him, and cause His loathing of humans to increase by the day—yet at the same time, He has to endure all of this. This is God’s great suffering. God cannot fully express even the voice of His heart or His emotions among His followers, and no one among His followers can truly understand His suffering. No one even tries to understand or to comfort His heart. His heart endures this suffering day after day, year after year, and time and time again. What do you see in all of this? God does not require anything of humans in return for what He has given, but because of God’s essence, He absolutely cannot tolerate mankind’s evil, corruption, and sin, and instead feels extreme loathing and hatred, which leads to God’s heart and His flesh enduring unending suffering. Have you seen this? Most likely, none of you could see this, because none of you truly understand God. Take your time and experience it for yourselves!

Next, let us look at the following passages of the Scriptures.

9. Jesus Performs Miracles

a. Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

John 6:8–13 One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, There is a lad here, which has five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when He had given thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, He said to His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten.

b. The Resurrection of Lazarus Glorifies God

John 11:43–44 And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave clothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them, Loose him, and let him go.

Among the miracles performed by the Lord Jesus, we have selected only these two because they are adequate to demonstrate what I want to speak about here. These two miracles are truly astonishing and highly representative of the miracles the Lord Jesus performed during the Age of Grace.

First, let us take a look at the first passage: Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand.

What is the idea of “five loaves and two fish”? Ordinarily, how many people could be sufficiently fed with five loaves of bread and two fish? If you base your measurement on the appetite of an average person, this would only be enough for two people. This is the idea of “five loaves and two fish” at its most basic. However, in this passage, how many people were fed by five loaves and two fish? The following is what is recorded in the Scripture: “Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand.” Compared to five loaves and two fish, is five thousand a large number? What does it show that this number is so large? From a human perspective, dividing five loaves and two fish between five thousand people would be impossible, because the difference between people and food is too great. Even if every person only had one tiny bite, it still would not be enough for five thousand people. But here, the Lord Jesus performed a miracle—He not only ensured that five thousand people could eat their fill, but there was even food left over. The Scriptures read: “When they were filled, He said to His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten.” This miracle enabled people to see the identity and status of the Lord Jesus, to see that nothing is impossible for God, and to see the fact of God’s almightiness. Here, five loaves and two fish were enough to feed five thousand, but if there had not been any food, would God have been able to feed five thousand people? Of course He could have! This was a miracle, so inevitably there were aspects inconceivable to people which they felt to be marvelous and unfathomable, but for God, doing such a thing was nothing. Since this was something ordinary for God, why should it be singled out now for interpretation? Because what lies behind this miracle is the Lord Jesus’ intention, which has never before been perceived by mankind.

First, let us try to understand what type of people these five thousand were. Were they followers of the Lord Jesus? From the Scriptures, we know that they were not His followers. Did they know who the Lord Jesus was? Certainly not! At the very least, they did not know that the person standing in front of them was Christ, or maybe some people only knew what His name was and knew or had heard something about things He had done. Regarding the Lord Jesus in the stories they were merely curious, but you certainly could not say that they followed Him, much less understood Him. When the Lord Jesus saw these five thousand people, they were hungry and only wanted to eat their fill, so it was in this context that the Lord Jesus satisfied their desire. When He satisfied their desire, what was in His heart? What was His attitude toward these people that only wanted to eat their fill? The Lord Jesus’ thoughts and His attitude here involved God’s disposition and essence. Facing these five thousand people with empty stomachs who only wanted to eat a full meal, facing these people full of curiosity and hope for Him, the Lord Jesus only wanted to use this miracle to bestow grace upon them. However, He did not get His hopes up that they would become His followers, for He knew that they just wanted to join the fun and to eat their fill. So, making use of what was at hand, He used five loaves of bread and two fish to feed five thousand people, broadening the horizons of these people who enjoyed seeing exciting things and witnessing miracles, and letting them see with their own eyes the things that God incarnate could accomplish. Although the Lord Jesus used facts to satisfy their curiosity, He already knew in His heart that these five thousand people just wanted to eat their fill of loaves, so He did not preach to them or say anything at all—He just let them see this miracle as it happened. He absolutely would not treat these people in the same way as He treated His disciples who truly followed Him, but in God’s heart, all created beings are under His sovereignty, and He would allow all created beings in His sight to enjoy the grace of God when it was necessary. Even though these people did not know who He was and did not understand Him or have any particular impression of Him or gratitude toward Him even after they had eaten the loaves and fish, this was not something that God took issue with—He gave these people a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the grace of God. Some people say that God is principled in what He does, that He does not watch over or protect nonbelievers, and that, in particular, He does not allow them to enjoy His grace. Is that actually the case? In God’s eyes, He will manage and care for everything that lives and every creature He has made, and in manifold ways He will treat them, make arrangements for them, and exercise sovereignty over them. These are the thoughts and attitude of God toward all things.

Although the five thousand people who ate the loaves of bread and the fish did not plan to follow the Lord Jesus, He did not take issue with them; once they had eaten their fill, do you know what the Lord Jesus did? Did He preach to them at all? Where did He go after doing this? The Scriptures do not record that the Lord Jesus said anything to them, just that He left quietly when He had performed His miracle. So did He make any requirements of these people? Was there any hatred? No, there were none of these. He simply did not wish to pay even more heed to these people who could never follow Him, and at this time His heart was in pain. Because He had seen the depravity of mankind and felt mankind’s rejection of Him, and because He was saddened and pained by human obtuseness and ignorance when He saw or was with these people, all He wanted was to leave them as quickly as possible. The Lord made no demands of these people in His heart. He did not want to pay them any mind, still less expend His energy on them, and He knew they could not follow Him. But despite all this, His attitude toward them was still very clear. He just wanted to treat them kindly, to bestow grace upon them, and this was God’s attitude toward every created being under His sovereignty—to treat every created being kindly, to provide for them and nourish them. For the very reason that the Lord Jesus was God incarnate, He very naturally revealed God’s own essence and treated these people kindly. He treated them with a heart of benevolence and magnanimity, and with such a heart He showed them kindness. No matter how these people saw the Lord Jesus, and no matter what kind of outcome there would be, He treated every created being based on His identity as the Creator. Everything that He revealed was, without exception, God’s disposition, and what He has and is. The Lord Jesus quietly did this thing, and then quietly left—what aspect of God’s disposition is this? Could you say that this is God’s lovingkindness? Could you say that this is God’s selflessness? Is this something that a regular person is capable of? Definitely not! In essence, who were these five thousand people that the Lord Jesus fed with five loaves and two fish? Could you say that they were people who were compatible with Him? Could you say that they were all hostile to God? It can be said with certainty that they absolutely were not compatible with the Lord, and their essence was absolutely hostile to God. But how did God treat them? He used a method to defuse people’s hostility toward God—this method is called “kindness.” That is, although the Lord Jesus saw these people as sinners, they were nevertheless created beings in His eyes, so He still treated these sinners kindly. This is God’s forbearance, and this forbearance is determined by God’s own identity and essence. So, this is something of which no created human being is capable—only God can do this.

When you are truly able to appreciate God’s thoughts and attitude toward mankind, when you can truly understand God’s affections and concern for each created being, you will be able to understand the Creator’s heart’s blood that He poured out and the love He spent on every single member of His created mankind. When this happens, you will use two words to describe God’s love. What are those two words? Some people say “selfless,” and some people say “universal love.” Of these two, “universal love” is the term least suited to describe God’s love. This is a term that people use to describe a person’s broad mind and sentiments. I loathe this word, because it refers to dispensing charity at random, indiscriminately, with no consideration for principle. It is an expression of the emotional excess of fools and muddleheaded people. When this word is used to describe God’s love, there is inevitably a blasphemous connotation. I have here two words that more aptly describe God’s love. What are they? The first one is “immense.” Is this word not very evocative? The second is “vast.” There is practical significance in My use of these two words to describe God’s love. Taken literally, “immense” describes a thing’s volume or capacity, but regardless of how big that thing is, it is something that people can touch and see. This is because it exists—it is not an abstract object, but something that can give people relatively accurate and practical ideas. Whether you look at it from a two- or a three-dimensional perspective, you do not need to imagine its existence, because it is a thing that actually exists in a real way. Even though using the word “immense” to describe God’s love can feel like an attempt at quantifying His love, it also gives the feeling that His love is unquantifiable. I say that God’s love can be quantified because His love is not empty, nor is it a thing of legend. Rather, it is something shared by all things under God’s sovereignty, something that is enjoyed by all creatures to varying degrees and from different perspectives. Although people cannot see or touch it, this love nourishes all things and causes them to thrive, and their thriving brings out every bit of God’s love, and counts and bears witness to the love of God that they enjoy in each passing moment. I say that God’s love is unquantifiable because the mystery of God providing for and nourishing all things is something that is difficult for humans to fathom, as are God’s thoughts for all things, and particularly those for mankind. That is to say, how much the heart’s blood the Creator has poured out for mankind, no one can know; how deep the love that the Creator has for mankind, whom He created with His own hands, how weighty this affection, none can comprehend and none can understand. Describing God’s love as immense is to help people appreciate and understand its breadth and practical existence. It is also so that people can more deeply comprehend the practical meaning of the word “Creator,” and so that people can gain a deeper understanding of the true meaning of the appellation, “created being.” What does the word “vast” usually describe? It is generally used to describe the ocean or the universe, for example: “the vast universe,” or “the vast ocean.” The expansiveness and quiet depth of the universe are beyond human reach; people are filled with imaginings and reverence regarding it; its mystery and profundity are for people to gaze upon, but beyond their reach. When you think of the ocean, you think of its breadth—it looks limitless, and you can feel its mysteriousness and its great capacity to hold things. This is why I have used the word “vast” to describe God’s love. The aim is to help people to feel how precious God’s love is and the beauty of its profundity, to feel that the power of God’s love is infinite and wide-ranging, and to feel the divine quality of His love, and God’s dignity and intolerance of offense revealed through His love. Now do you think My use of the word “vast” is suitable for describing God’s love? Can God’s love measure up to these two words, “immense” and “vast”? Absolutely! In human language, these two words alone are somewhat apt, and are relatively close to describing God’s love. Do you not think them apt? If I had you describe God’s love, would you use these two words? Most likely you would not, because your understanding and appreciation of God’s love is limited to the scope of a two-dimensional perspective, and has not ascended to the height of three-dimensional space. So if I had you describe God’s love, you would feel that you lack the words or perhaps you would even be rendered speechless. The two words that I have talked about today may be difficult for you to understand, or maybe you simply do not agree. This only shows that your appreciation and understanding of God’s love is superficial and limited to a narrow scope. I have said before that God is selfless, and you just remember the word, “selfless.” Could it be that God’s love can only be described as selfless? Is this not too narrow a scope? You should ponder this issue more, so that you may gain something from it.

The above is what we saw of God’s disposition and His essence from the first miracle. Even though this is a story that people have been reading for several thousand years, and it has a simple plot and allows people to see a simple phenomenon, in this simple plot we can see something more valuable, which is God’s disposition and what He has and is. These things that He has and is represent God Himself and are an expression of God’s own thoughts. When God expresses His thoughts, He is expressing the voice of His heart. He hopes that there will be people who can understand Him, know Him, and comprehend His intentions, and He hopes that people will be able to hear the voice of His heart and actively cooperate to satisfy His intentions. These things that the Lord Jesus did were a voiceless expression of God.

Next, let us look at the following passage: The Resurrection of Lazarus Glorifies God.

What impressions do you have after reading this passage? The significance of this miracle that the Lord Jesus performed was much greater than the previous one, because no miracle is more astounding than bringing a dead man back from the grave. In that age, it was extremely significant that the Lord Jesus did something like this. Because God had become flesh, people could only see His physical appearance, His practical side, and His insignificant aspect. Even if some people saw and understood something of His character or some special abilities that He appeared to possess, no one knew where the Lord Jesus came from, who He truly was in His essence, and what other things He was actually capable of doing. All of this was unknown to man. So many people wanted to verify this and know the truth of the matter. Could God do something to prove His own identity? For God, this was a breeze—it was a piece of cake. He could do something anywhere, anytime to prove His identity and essence, but God did things with a plan, and in steps. He did not do things indiscriminately, but rather looked for the right time and the right opportunity to do something of the greatest significance for man to see, thereby proving His authority and identity. So then, could the resurrection of Lazarus prove the Lord Jesus’ identity? Let us look at the following passage of the Scriptures: “And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth….” When the Lord Jesus did this, He said just one sentence: “Lazarus, come forth.” Lazarus then came out from his tomb—this was accomplished because of just one sentence uttered by the Lord. During this time, the Lord Jesus did not set up an altar, and He did not carry out any other actions. He just said one sentence. Should this be called a miracle or a command? Or was it some sort of sorcery? On the surface, it seems it could be called a miracle, and if you look at it from a modern perspective, of course you could still call it a miracle. However, it certainly could not be considered sorcery of the kind that is supposed to call a soul back from the dead, and it absolutely was not black magic of any sort. It is correct to say that this miracle was the most normal, tiny demonstration of the Creator’s authority. This is the authority and power of God. God has the authority to have a person die, to have their spirit leave their body and return to Hades, or wherever else it should go. The timing of a person’s death, and the place they will go after death—these are determined by God. He can do these things anytime and anywhere, unconstrained by people, events, things, space, or geography. If He wants to do it, He can do it, because all things and living beings are under His sovereignty, and all things are born, live, and perish by His word and His authority. He can resurrect a dead man, and this is something He can do anytime, anywhere. This is the authority that only the Creator possesses.

The Lord Jesus carried out the act of bringing Lazarus back from the dead, and His goal was to give proof for man and for Satan to see, and to let man and Satan know that everything about man, man’s life and death are determined by God, and that even though God had become flesh, He remained in command of the material world which can be seen as well as the spiritual realm which man cannot see. This was so that man and Satan would know that everything about man is not under the command of Satan. This was a revelation and demonstration of God’s authority, and it was also a way for God to send a message to all things, that mankind’s life and death are in God’s hands. The Lord Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus was one of the ways in which the Creator teaches and instructs mankind. It was a concrete action in which He used His power and authority to instruct and provide for mankind. It was a way, without using words, for the Creator to allow mankind to see the fact that He is in command of all things. It was a way for Him to tell mankind through practical actions that there is no salvation other than through Him. The teaching given to mankind in this silent way lasts forever and is indelible; it brings an enduring impact and edification to human hearts. The resurrection of Lazarus glorified God—this has a deep impact on every single one of God’s followers. It firmly fixes every person who deeply understands this event in the understanding, the vision that only God can command man’s life and death. Although God has this type of authority, and although He sent a message about His sovereignty over mankind’s life and death through the resurrection of Lazarus, this was not His primary work. God never does something without meaning. Every single thing He does has great value and is a classic in a storehouse of treasures. He absolutely would not make “having a person come out of their tomb” the primary or the sole goal or item of His work. God does not do anything that is without meaning. The resurrection of Lazarus as a singular event is adequate to demonstrate God’s authority and to prove the identity of the Lord Jesus. This is why the Lord Jesus did not repeat this type of miracle. God does things according to His own principles. In human language, it could be said that God occupies His mind only with serious matters. That is, when God does things, He does not stray from the purpose of His work. He knows what work He wants to carry out in this stage, what He wants to accomplish, and He will work strictly according to His plan. If a corrupt person had that kind of ability, he would just be thinking of ways to reveal his ability so that others would know how formidable he was, so they would bow down to him, so he could control them and devour them. This is the evil that comes from Satan—this is called corruption. God does not have such a disposition, and He does not have such an essence. His purpose in doing things is not to show Himself off, but to provide man with more revelation and guidance, and this is why people see very few examples in the Bible of this type of occurrence. This is not to say that the Lord Jesus’ powers were limited, or that He was incapable of such things. It is simply that God did not want to do it, because the Lord Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus had very practical significance, and also because the primary work of God becoming flesh was not to perform miracles, was not to bring people back from the dead, but was the work of redemption for man. So, much of the work that the Lord Jesus completed was teaching people, providing for them, and helping them, and events such as resurrecting Lazarus were merely a small portion of the ministry that the Lord Jesus carried out. Even more, you could say that “showing off” is not a part of God’s essence, and so the fact that the Lord Jesus did not perform more miracles was not because He was intentionally exercising restraint, nor due to environmental limitations, and much less was it because He lacked the power.

When the Lord Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, He used only one sentence: “Lazarus, come forth.” He said nothing aside from this. So, what does this one sentence represent? It represents that God can accomplish anything by speaking, including resurrecting a dead man. When God created all things, when He created the world, He did so with words—words of command, words that carry authority, and in this way all things were created, and thus, it was accomplished. Like the words God spoke when He created the heavens and earth and all things, this sentence spoken by the Lord Jesus bore God’s own authority and the power of the Creator; through the words from God’s mouth, all things were established and accomplished. Likewise, Lazarus walked out of his tomb because of the words from the Lord Jesus’ mouth. This was the authority that came from God, demonstrated and realized in His incarnate flesh. This type of authority and power belonged to the Creator, and to the Son of man in whom the Creator was realized. This is the understanding taught to man by God bringing Lazarus back from the dead. Now, we will finish our discussion of this topic here. Next, let us read some more from the Scriptures.

10. The Pharisees’ Judgment on Jesus

Mark 3:21–22 And when His friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him: for they said, He is beside himself. And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He has Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casts he out devils.

11. Jesus’ Rebuke to the Pharisees

Matthew 12:31–32 Why I say to you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this life, neither in the world to come.

Matthew 23:13–15 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore you shall receive the greater damnation. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

The content of the two passages above is different. Let us first take a look at the first passage: The Pharisees’ Judgment on Jesus.

In the Bible, the Pharisees’ appraisal of Jesus Himself and the things that He did was: “… they said, He is beside himself. … He has Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casts he out devils” (Mark 3:21–22). The scribes’ and Pharisees’ judgment of the Lord Jesus was not them imitating other people’s words, and neither was it baseless conjecture—it was the conclusion that they drew about the Lord Jesus from what they saw and heard of His actions. Although their conclusion was ostensibly made in the name of upholding justice and appeared to people as if it were well-founded, the arrogance and overbearingness with which they judged the Lord Jesus was difficult for even them to contain. The frenzied energy of their hatred for the Lord Jesus exposed their own ambitions and their evil satanic countenances, as well as their malicious nature with which they resisted God. These things that they said in their judgment of the Lord Jesus were driven by their ambitions, jealousy, and the ugly and malicious nature of their hostility toward God and the truth. They did not investigate the source of the Lord Jesus’ actions, nor did they investigate the essence of what He said or did. Rather, they blindly, impatiently, madly, deliberately, and maliciously attacked and discredited what He had done. They went so far as to unscrupulously discredit His Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit. This is what they meant when they said, “He is beside himself,” “Beelzebub,” and “the prince of the devils.” That is to say, they said that the Spirit of God was Beelzebub and the prince of the devils. They characterized as madness the work of the flesh in which God’s Spirit had clothed Himself. They not only blasphemed God’s Spirit as Beelzebub and the prince of the devils, but also condemned God’s work and condemned and blasphemed the Lord Jesus Christ. The essence of their resistance to and blasphemy of God was entirely the same as the essence of the resistance to and blasphemy against God of Satan and evil demons. They did not just represent corrupt humans, but more so they were the embodiment of Satan. They were a channel for Satan among mankind, and they were the accomplices and servants of Satan. The essence of their blasphemy and their denigration of the Lord Jesus Christ was their struggle with God for status, their contending with God, and their unending testing of God. The essence of their resistance to God and their attitude of hostility toward Him, as well as their words and their thoughts, directly blasphemed and angered God’s Spirit. Thus, God reached a reasonable conclusion regarding what they said and did, and God determined their deeds to be the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This sin is unforgivable in both this life and the world to come, as is borne out in the following passage of the Scriptures: “The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men,” and “whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this life, neither in the world to come.” Today, let us talk about the true meaning of these words from God: “it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this life, neither in the world to come.” That is, let us demystify how God fulfills the words: “it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this life, neither in the world to come.”

Everything that we have talked about is related to God’s disposition and His attitude toward people, events, and things. Naturally, the two passages above are no exception. Did you notice anything in these two passages of the Scriptures? Some people say they see God’s anger in them. Some people say they see the side of God’s disposition that does not tolerate man’s offense, and that if people do something that is blasphemous to God, then they will not receive His forgiveness. Despite the fact that people see and perceive God’s anger and intolerance of man’s offense in these two passages, they still do not truly understand His attitude. Implicit in these two passages are God’s true attitude and His approach toward those who blaspheme and anger Him. His attitude and approach demonstrate the true meaning of the following passage: “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this life, neither in the world to come.” When people blaspheme God, that is, when they anger Him, He issues a verdict, and this verdict is an outcome issued by Him. It is described in this way in the Scriptures: “Why I say to you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven to men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven to men” (Matthew 12:31), and “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13). However, is it recorded in the Bible what the outcome was for those scribes and Pharisees, as well as for those people who said the Lord Jesus was beside Himself after He said these things? Is it recorded that they suffered any punishment? No—this can be said for certain. By “no” is here meant not that there was no such recording, but that in fact there was no outcome that could be seen with human eyes. This “no” illustrates an issue; it illustrates God’s attitude and principles for handling certain things. God does not turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to people who blaspheme or resist Him, or even those who slander Him, to people who intentionally attack, slander, and revile Him, but rather He has a clear attitude toward them. He hates these people, and He condemns them in His heart. He even openly declares what their outcome will be, so that people know that He has a clear attitude toward those who blaspheme Him, and so that they know how He will determine their outcome. However, after God said these things, people could rarely see the truth of how God would handle those people, and it was hard for them to understand the principles behind the outcome and verdict that God issued to them. That is to say, people usually cannot see the particular attitude and methods God has for handling them. This has to do with God’s principles for doing things. God uses the occurrence of facts to deal with the evil deeds of some people. That is, He does not announce their sin and does not determine their outcome, but rather directly uses the occurrence of facts to dole out their punishment or due retribution. When these facts happen, it is people’s flesh that suffers punishment, and people can see this with their own eyes. When dealing with some people’s evil deeds, God just curses them with words and His anger also comes upon them, but the punishment they receive may be something that isn’t visible to human eyes. Nonetheless, the nature of this type of outcome may be even more serious than that of the outcomes of being punished or struck down which people can see. This is because under the circumstances that God has determined not to save this type of person, to no longer show them mercy or forbearance, and to provide them with no more opportunities, the attitude that He takes toward them is one of putting them aside. What is the meaning here of “putting aside”? The basic meaning of this term is to put something to one side for the time being, to ignore and no longer pay attention to it. But here, when God puts someone aside, there are two different explanations of its meaning: The first explanation is that He has given that person’s life and everything about that person over to Satan to deal with. God is no longer responsible for and no longer manages that person. Whether that person be deranged, insane, or crazy, whether they be dead or alive, or if they descend into hell for their punishment, none of this has anything to do with God. This means that such a created being has no relation to the Creator. The second explanation is that God has determined that He Himself will do something with this person, with His own hands. It is possible that He will utilize this person’s service, or that He will use them as a foil. It is possible that He will have a special way of dealing with this type of person, a special way of treating them, just like with Paul, for example. This is the principle and attitude in God’s heart by which He has determined to deal with this kind of person. So, when people resist God and slander and blaspheme Him, if they provoke His disposition, or if they reach God’s limit, then the consequences do not bear thinking about. The most severe consequence is that God hands their lives and everything about them over to Satan once and for all. They will not be forgiven for all of eternity. This means that this person has become food in Satan’s mouth, a toy in its hand, and from then on God has nothing more to do with them. Can you imagine what misery it was when Satan tempted Job? Even under the condition that Satan was not permitted to harm Job’s life, Job still suffered greatly. And is it not even more difficult to imagine the ravages which would be inflicted by Satan upon someone who has been completely handed over to Satan, who is completely within Satan’s grasp, who has completely lost God’s care and mercy, who is no longer under the Creator’s sovereignty, who has been stripped of the right to worship Him and the right to be a created being under God’s sovereignty, and whose relationship with the Creator has been completely severed? Satan’s grievous harm to Job was something that could be seen with human eyes, but if God hands over a person’s life to Satan, the consequences are beyond the human imagination. For example, some people may be reborn as an ox, or a donkey, while some may be occupied and possessed by unclean spirits or evil spirits, and so on. Such are the outcomes and endings for some of the people who are handed over to Satan by God. From the outside, it looks like those people who ridiculed, slandered, condemned, and blasphemed the Lord Jesus did not suffer any consequences. However, the truth is that God has an attitude for dealing with everything. He may not use clear language to tell people the outcome of every type of person. Sometimes He does not speak directly, but rather acts directly. That He does not speak about it does not mean that there is no outcome; it is possible that the outcome is even more serious. From the outside, it seems that God does not speak to some people to reveal His attitude, but in fact, in His heart, God has long since had no desire to pay them any attention or see them again. Because of the things they have done and their behavior, because of their nature essence, God only wants them to disappear from His sight, wants to hand them over directly to Satan, to give their spirit, soul, and body to Satan, and to allow Satan to do whatever it wants with them. It is clear to what extent God hates them, to what extent He loathes them. If a person angers God to the point that God does not even want to see them again and completely gives up on them, to the point where He does not even want to deal with them Himself—if it gets to the point where He will hand them over to Satan, allowing Satan to do as it wills, allowing Satan to control, consume, and treat them in whatever way it pleases—then this person is utterly finished. Their right to be a human has been permanently revoked, and their right to be a created being has come to an end. Is this not the most severe kind of punishment?

All of the above is a complete explanation of the words: “it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this life, neither in the world to come,” and it also serves as a simple commentary on these passages from the Scriptures. I believe you all have an understanding of it now.

Now let us read the following passages from the Scriptures.

12. Jesus’ Words to His Disciples After His Resurrection

John 20:26–29 And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the middle, and said, Peace be to you. Then said He to Thomas, Reach here your finger, and behold My hands; and reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said to Him, My Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

John 21:16–17 He said to him again the second time, Simon, son of John, love you Me? He said to Him, Yes, Lord; You know that I love You. He said to him, Feed My sheep. He said to him the third time, Simon, son of John, love you Me? Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, Love you Me? And he said to Him, Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You. Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep.

What these passages recount are certain things that the Lord Jesus did and said to His disciples after His resurrection. First, let us consider, are there any differences in the Lord Jesus before and after the resurrection? Was He still the same Lord Jesus of days past? The Scriptures contain the following line describing the Lord Jesus after the resurrection: “Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the middle, and said, Peace be to you.” It is very clear that the Lord Jesus at that time no longer inhabited a fleshly body, but that He was now in a spiritual body. This was because He had transcended the limitations of the flesh; even though the door was closed, He could still come among the people and allow them to see Him. This is the greatest difference between the Lord Jesus after the resurrection and the Lord Jesus living in the flesh before the resurrection. Even though there was no difference between the appearance of the spiritual body of that moment and the appearance of the Lord Jesus as it was before, the Lord Jesus in that moment had become one that felt like a stranger to the people, because He had become a spiritual body after rising from the dead, and compared to His previous flesh, this spiritual body was more puzzling and confusing to people. It also created more distance between the Lord Jesus and the people, and people felt in their hearts that the Lord Jesus in that moment had become more mysterious. These understandings and feelings on the part of the people suddenly brought them back to an age of believing in a God that could not be seen or touched. So, the first thing that the Lord Jesus did after His resurrection was to allow everyone to see Him, to confirm that He exists, and to confirm the fact of His resurrection. At the same time, this action restored His relationship with the people back to the way it was when He was working in the flesh, when He was the Christ whom they could see and touch. One outcome of this is that the people had no doubt whatsoever that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead after being nailed to the cross, and they also had no doubt about the Lord Jesus’ work to redeem mankind. Another outcome is that the fact of the Lord Jesus appearing to people after His resurrection and allowing people to see and touch Him firmly secured them in the Age of Grace, ensuring that, from this time on, people would not return to the previous age—that is, the Age of Law—because the Lord Jesus had “disappeared” or “left without a word,” but would instead continue to move forward, following the Lord Jesus’ teachings and the work He had done. Thus, a new phase in the work in the Age of Grace was formally opened, and from that moment on, the human beings who had been living under the law formally emerged from the law, entered into a new epoch, and had a new beginning. These are the multifaceted meanings of the Lord Jesus’ appearance to man after the resurrection.

Since the Lord Jesus was now a spiritual body, how could people touch Him and see Him? This question touches upon the significance of the Lord Jesus’ appearance to people. Did you notice anything in the passages of the Scriptures that we just read? Generally, spiritual bodies cannot be seen or touched, and after the resurrection the work that the Lord Jesus had taken on had already been completed. So in theory, He had absolutely no need to return among the people in His original image to meet with them, but the appearance of the Lord Jesus’ spiritual body to people like Thomas made the significance of His appearance more concrete, and caused it to penetrate more deeply into the people’s hearts. When He came to Thomas, He let Thomas the doubter touch His hand, and told him: “Reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing.” These words and actions were not things that the Lord Jesus wanted to say and do only after He had risen; in fact, they were things that He wanted to say and do before He had been nailed to the cross, because Thomas’ doubts had not begun only then, but had been with him the entire time he had been following the Lord Jesus. It is evident that, before He had been nailed to the cross, the Lord Jesus already had an understanding of people such as Thomas. So what can we see from this? He was still the same Lord Jesus after His resurrection. His essence had not changed, but He was the Lord Jesus who had risen from the dead and returned from the spiritual realm with His original image, with His original disposition, and with His understanding of people from His time in the flesh. So He went to Thomas first and let Thomas feel His side, not only to let Thomas see His spiritual body after the resurrection, but to let Thomas touch and feel the existence of His spiritual body, and completely let go of his doubts. Before the Lord Jesus was nailed to the cross, Thomas always doubted that He was Christ, and was incapable of belief. His belief in God was established only on the basis of what he could see with his own eyes, what he could touch with his own hands. The Lord Jesus had a good understanding of the belief of this type of person. They only believed in God in heaven, and did not believe at all in the One sent by God, or the incarnate Christ, nor would they accept Him. In order for Thomas to acknowledge and believe in the existence of the Lord Jesus and that He truly was God incarnate, He allowed Thomas to reach out his hand and feel His side. Was Thomas’ doubting any different before and after the Lord Jesus’ resurrection? He was always doubting, and apart from the Lord Jesus’ spiritual body personally appearing to him and allowing him to personally touch the nail marks on His body, there was no one that could resolve his doubts and make him let go of them. So the Lord Jesus allowed Thomas to feel His side and let him really feel the existence of the nail marks, and from that point Thomas’ doubt disappeared, and he truly knew that the Lord Jesus had risen, and he acknowledged and believed that the Lord Jesus was the true Christ and God incarnate. Although at this time Thomas no longer doubted, he had lost forever the chance to meet with Christ. He had lost forever the chance to be together with Him, to follow Him, to know Him. He had lost the chance for Christ to perfect him. The Lord Jesus’ appearance and His words provided a conclusion and a verdict on the belief of those who were full of doubts. He used His practical words and actions to tell the doubters, to tell those who only believed in God in heaven but did not believe in Christ: God did not approve of their belief, nor did He approve of them following Him while doubting Him. The day when they fully believed in God and Christ could only be the day that God completed His great work. Of course, that day was also the day that a verdict was made upon their doubt. Their attitude toward Christ determined their fate, and their stubborn doubt meant that their belief bore them no fruit, and their intransigence meant that their hopes were in vain. Because their belief in God in heaven was fed on illusions, and their doubt toward Christ was actually their true attitude toward God, even though they touched the nail marks on the Lord Jesus’ body, their belief was still to no avail and their outcome could only be described as drawing water with a bamboo basket—all in vain. What the Lord Jesus said to Thomas was also very clearly telling every person: The risen Lord Jesus is the Lord Jesus, who spent thirty-three and a half years living among people. Although He had been nailed to the cross and passed through the valley of the shadow of death, and though He had experienced resurrection, He had undergone no change in any aspect. Although He now had nail marks on His body, and although He had risen and walked out from the grave, His disposition, His understanding of people, and His intentions toward them had not changed in the slightest. Also, He was telling people that He had come down from the cross, triumphed over sin, overcome hardships, and triumphed over death. His nail marks were the evidence of His victory over Satan, evidence of His being a sin offering to successfully redeem all of mankind. He was telling people that He had already taken on mankind’s sins and that He had completed His work of redemption. When He returned to see His disciples, He told them this message by means of His appearance: “I am still alive, I still exist; today I am truly standing in front of you so that you can see and touch Me. I will always be with you.” The Lord Jesus also wanted to use the case of Thomas as a warning for future people: Although you believe in the Lord Jesus and can neither see nor touch Him, you can receive blessings because of your true belief, and you can see the Lord Jesus because of your true belief, and this kind of person is blessed.

These words recorded in the Bible that the Lord Jesus spoke when He appeared to Thomas are of great help to all people in the Age of Grace. His appearance to Thomas and the words He spoke to him have had a profound impact on the generations that came after; they hold everlasting significance. Thomas represents a type of person who believes in God yet doubts God. They are of a suspicious nature, have sinister hearts, are treacherous, and do not believe in the things that God can accomplish. They do not believe in God’s almightiness and His sovereignty, and neither do they believe in God’s incarnation. However, the Lord Jesus’ resurrection dealt them a head-on blow, while also providing them with an opportunity to discover their own doubt, to recognize their own doubt, and to acknowledge their own treachery, thus coming to truly believe in the existence and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. What happened with Thomas is a warning and a caution for later generations, so more people can warn themselves that they must not be doubters like Thomas, and that if they doubt like Thomas, they will sink into the darkness. If you follow God, but just like Thomas, always want to feel the Lord’s side and feel His nail marks to confirm, to verify, or to speculate on whether or not God exists, then God will forsake you. So, the Lord Jesus requires people not to be like Thomas, only believing what they can see with their own eyes, but to be pure, honest people, harboring no doubts toward God, and simply believing in and following Him. People like this are blessed. This is a very small requirement the Lord Jesus makes of people, and it is a warning for His followers.

The above is the Lord Jesus’ attitude toward those who are full of doubts. So what words did He say and what deeds did He perform for those who are able to honestly believe in and follow Him? This is what we are going to look at next in a dialogue between the Lord Jesus and Peter.

In this conversation, the Lord Jesus repeatedly asked Peter one thing: “Simon, son of John, love you Me?” This is a higher standard which the Lord Jesus required of people like Peter after His resurrection, people who truly believe in Christ and strive to love the Lord. This question was a sort of inquiry and a kind of interrogation, but even more, it was a requirement and an expectation of people like Peter. The Lord Jesus used this method of questioning so that people would reflect on and examine themselves and ask: What are the Lord Jesus’ requirements for people? Do I love the Lord? Am I a person who loves God? How should I love God? Even though the Lord Jesus only asked this question of Peter, the truth is that in His heart, by asking Peter these questions, He wanted to use this opportunity to ask this same type of question of more people who seek to love God. It is only that Peter was blessed to act as the representative of this type of person, to receive this questioning from the Lord Jesus’ own mouth.

Compared to the following words, which the Lord Jesus said to Thomas after His resurrection: “Reach here your hand, and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing,” His thrice repeated questioning of Peter: “Simon, son of John, love you Me?” allows people to better feel the sternness of the Lord Jesus’ attitude, and the urgency He felt during His questioning. As for Thomas, with his deceitful and suspicious nature, the Lord Jesus allowed him to reach out his hand and touch the nail marks in His body, which led him to believe that the Lord Jesus was the Son of man risen from the dead, and to acknowledge the Lord Jesus’ identity as Christ. And although the Lord Jesus did not sternly rebuke Thomas or verbally express any clear judgment of him, He nonetheless used practical actions to let Thomas know that He understood him, while also displaying His attitude and determination toward that type of person. The Lord Jesus’ requirements and expectations of that type of person cannot be seen from what He said, because people like Thomas simply do not have a single shred of true belief. The Lord Jesus’ requirements for them only go so far, but the attitude He revealed toward people like Peter is entirely different. He did not require that Peter reach out his hand and touch His nail marks, nor did He say to Peter: “Be not faithless, but believing.” Instead, He repeatedly asked Peter the same question. The question was thought-provoking and worthy of reflection, a question that cannot help but cause every follower of Christ to feel remorse and fright, but also to feel the Lord Jesus’ anxious, sorrowful mood. Amid their pain and grief, what people appreciate even more are the Lord Jesus Christ’s concern and His care, and what they come to realize are His earnest teaching and strict requirements of pure, honest people. The Lord Jesus’ question allows people to feel that the Lord’s expectations of people revealed in these simple words are not merely to believe in and follow Him, but to achieve having love, loving your Lord and your God. This kind of love is being considerate and submissive. It is humans being able to live for God, to die for God, to dedicate everything to God, and to expend themselves and give everything for God. This kind of love is also giving God comfort, allowing Him to enjoy testimony and to be at rest. It is man’s repayment to God, man’s responsibility, obligation, and duty, and it is a way that people must follow for their entire lives. These three questions were a requirement and an exhortation that the Lord Jesus made of Peter and all people who would be made perfect. It was these three questions that led and motivated Peter to follow his path in life to the end, and it was these questions at the Lord Jesus’ parting that led Peter to start on his path of being made perfect, that led him to—because of his love for the Lord—be considerate of the Lord’s heart, submit to the Lord, offer comfort to the Lord, and offer up his whole life and his entire being.

During the Age of Grace, God’s work was primarily for two types of people. The first was the type of person who believed in and followed Him, who could keep His commandments and bear the cross, and who could hold to the way of the Age of Grace. This type of person would receive God’s blessing and enjoy God’s grace. The second type of person was those like Peter, whom God perfects. So, after the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He first did these two most meaningful things. One was done with Thomas, the other with Peter. What do these two things represent? Do they represent God’s true intentions of saving man? Do they represent God’s sincerity toward man? The work He did with Thomas was to warn people not to be doubters, but to simply believe. The work He did with Peter was to strengthen the faith of people like Peter, and at the same time He made clear His requirements of this type of person and showed what goals they should be pursuing.

After the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared to the people He thought necessary, spoke with them, and made requirements of them, leaving behind His intentions for and expectations of people. That is to say, as God incarnate—whether He was in the flesh, or whether He was in His spiritual body after being nailed to the cross and rising from the dead—His concern for mankind and requirements of people never changed. He was concerned about these disciples before He was up on the cross, and in His heart He was clear about the state of every single person and understood every person’s deficiencies. After He had risen from the dead and become a spiritual body, His understanding of every person was, of course, the same as it had been when He was in the flesh. He knew that people were not entirely certain of His identity as Christ, but during His time in the flesh He did not make strict demands of people. He waited until He had risen from the dead to appear to them, and thus made them absolutely certain that the Lord Jesus had come from God and that He was God incarnate. He used His appearance and the fact of His rising from the dead as the greatest vision and motivation for man’s lifelong pursuit. His resurrection from death not only strengthened all those who followed Him, but it also thoroughly implemented His work of the Age of Grace among mankind. Subsequently, the gospel of the Lord Jesus’ saving grace in the Age of Grace was gradually spread to every corner of mankind. Would you say that the Lord Jesus’ appearance after His resurrection had any significance? If you were Thomas or Peter at that time, and you encountered this one thing in your life that was so meaningful, what kind of impact would it have had on you? Would you have seen this as the best and the greatest vision of your life of believing in God? Would you have seen this as a force driving you as you followed God, strived to satisfy Him, and sought to love God in your whole life? Would you have expended a lifetime of effort to propagate this greatest of visions? Would you have accepted propagating the Lord Jesus’ saving grace as a commission from God? Even though you have not experienced this, the two examples of Thomas and Peter are already enough for modern people to gain a clear understanding of God and His intentions. It could be said that after God had become flesh, after He personally experienced the life among people and personally experienced the human life, and after He saw the depravity of mankind and the situation of human life at that time, God in the flesh felt more deeply how helpless, lamentable, and pitiful mankind is. God living in the flesh gained more empathy for the human condition because of His humanity, because of His fleshly instincts. This led Him to feel greater concern for His followers. These are probably things that you cannot understand, but I can describe this worry and care felt by God in the flesh for every one of His followers using just two words: “intense concern.” Even though this term comes from human language, and even though it is very human, it nonetheless truly expresses and describes God’s feelings for His followers. As for God’s intense concern for humans, over the course of your experiences you will gradually feel this and get a taste of it. However, this can only be achieved by gradually understanding God’s disposition on the basis of pursuing a change in your own disposition. The Lord Jesus’ appearance caused the intense concern for His followers that He held in His humanity to actualize and be passed over to His spiritual body, or you could say, to His divinity. His appearance allowed people to once more experience and feel God’s concern and care while also powerfully proving that God is the One who ushers in an age, who launches an age, and who also ends an age. Through His appearance, He strengthened the belief of all people and proved to the world the fact that He is God Himself. This gave His followers eternal confirmation, and through His appearance He also launched a phase of His work in the new age.

13. Jesus Eats Bread and Explains the Scriptures After His Resurrection

Luke 24:30–32 And it came to pass, as He sat at meat with them, He took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures?

14. The Disciples Give Jesus Broiled Fish to Eat

Luke 24:36–43 And as they thus spoke, Jesus Himself stood in the middle of them, and said to them, Peace be to you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And He said to them, Why are you troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself: handle Me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see Me have. And when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, He said to them, Have you here any meat? And they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them.

Next, we will take a look at the passages of the Scriptures above. The first passage is a recounting of the Lord Jesus eating bread and explaining the Scriptures after His resurrection, and the second passage is a recounting of the Lord Jesus eating a broiled fish. How do these two passages help you to know God’s disposition? Can you imagine the kind of picture you get from these descriptions of the Lord Jesus eating bread and then a broiled fish? Can you imagine, if the Lord Jesus were standing in front of you eating bread, how you might feel? Or if He were eating at the same table with you, eating fish and bread with people, what kind of feeling you would have in that moment? If you would feel very close to the Lord, that He is very intimate with you, then this feeling is right. This is exactly the result that the Lord Jesus wanted to bring about by eating bread and fish in front of the gathered people after His resurrection. If the Lord Jesus had only spoken with people after His resurrection, if they could not feel His flesh and bones, but instead felt Him to be an unreachable spirit, how would they have felt? Would they not have been disappointed? Feeling disappointed, would the people not have felt abandoned? Would they not have felt a distance between themselves and the Lord Jesus Christ? What kind of negative impact would this distance have created on people’s relationship with God? People would certainly have felt afraid, that they dared not come close to Him, and thus they would have had an attitude of keeping Him at a respectful distance. From then on, they would have severed their intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and returned to a relationship between man and God in heaven as it was before the Age of Grace. The spiritual body that people could not touch or feel would have brought about the eradication of their intimacy with God, and it would also have caused that intimate relationship, established during the Lord Jesus Christ’s time in the flesh, with no distance between Him and humans, to cease to exist. The only things that were stirred in people by the spiritual body were feelings of fear, avoidance, and a wordless gaze. They would not have dared to get close or to engage in dialogue with Him, let alone follow, trust, or look to Him. God did not wish to see people harboring this type of feeling toward Him. He did not want to see people avoiding Him or removing themselves from Him; He only wanted people to understand Him, come close to Him, and be His family. If your own family, your children, saw you but did not recognize you, and did not dare to come close to you but always avoided you, if you could not gain their understanding for everything you had done for them, how would that make you feel? Would it not be painful? Would you not be heartbroken? That is precisely what God feels when people avoid Him. So, after His resurrection, the Lord Jesus still appeared to people in His form of flesh and bones, and ate and drank with them. God sees people as family, and God also wants people to see Him as the One dearest to them; only in this way can God truly gain people, and only in this way can people truly love and worship God. Now can you understand My purpose in extracting these two passages of the Scriptures in which the Lord Jesus eats bread and explains the Scriptures after His resurrection, and in which the disciples give Him a broiled fish to eat?

It can be said that painstaking thought had been put into the series of things that the Lord Jesus said and did after His resurrection. These things were full of the deep affection that God held toward people, and also full of the cherishment and meticulous care He had for the intimate relationship He had established with people during His time in the flesh. Even more, they were full of the nostalgia and the longing He felt for His life of eating and living together with His followers during His time in the flesh. So, God did not want people to feel a distance between God and man, nor did He want people to distance themselves from God. Even more, He did not want people to feel that the Lord Jesus after His resurrection was no longer the Lord who had been so intimate with them, that He was no longer together with people because He had returned to the spiritual realm, returned to the Father whom people could never see or reach. He did not want people to feel that any difference in status had arisen between Him and them. When God sees that people want to follow Him yet keep Him at a respectful distance, His heart is in pain because that means that their hearts are very far from Him and that it will be very difficult for Him to gain their hearts. So if He had appeared to people in a spiritual body that they could not see or touch, this would have once again distanced man from God, and it would have led people to mistakenly see Christ after His resurrection as having become lofty, of a different kind than humans, and someone who could no longer share a table and eat with people because humans are sinful, filthy, and thus can never draw close to God. In order to dispel these misunderstandings of people, the Lord Jesus did a number of things that He used to do in the flesh, as recorded in the Scriptures: “He took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave to them.” He also explained the Scriptures to them, as He used to do in the past. All of these things that the Lord Jesus did made every person who saw Him feel that the Lord had not changed, that He was still the same Lord Jesus. Even though He had been nailed to the cross and had experienced death, He had risen, and had not left man. He had returned to be among humans, and nothing about Him had changed. The Son of man standing in front of people was still the same Lord Jesus. His demeanor and His way of conversing with people felt so familiar. He was still so full of lovingkindness, grace, and tolerance—He was still the same Lord Jesus who loved others as He loved Himself, who could forgive man seventy times seven. As He always had before, He ate with people, discussed the Scriptures with them, and even more importantly, just as before, He was made of flesh and blood and could be touched and seen. The Son of man as He was allowed people to feel intimacy, to feel at ease, and to feel the joy of regaining something that had been lost. At the same time, with their minds at ease and full of faith, they boldly began to rely on and look to this Son of man who could forgive man for his sins. They also began to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus without any reservations, to pray to receive His grace and His blessing, to receive peace and joy from Him, and to receive care and protection from Him, and they began to heal the sick and cast out demons in the name of the Lord Jesus.

During the time that the Lord Jesus worked in the flesh, most of His followers could not fully verify His identity and the things that He said. When He went to the cross, the attitude of His followers was one of observing. From the time when He was nailed to the cross until He was put into the grave, people’s attitude toward Him was disappointment. During this time, people had already begun to move in their hearts from doubting the things the Lord Jesus had said during His time in the flesh to denying them altogether. When He walked out from the grave and appeared to people one by one, the majority of those who saw Him with their own eyes or heard the news of His resurrection gradually shifted their attitude from denial to skepticism. Only when the Lord Jesus had Thomas put his hand into His side, and when He broke bread and ate it in front of the crowd after His resurrection and then proceeded to eat a broiled fish in front of them, did they truly accept the fact that the Lord Jesus was the incarnate Christ. You could say that this spiritual body with flesh and bones standing before those people made every one of them feel as if they were awakening from a dream: The Son of man standing in front of them was the One who had existed since time immemorial. He had form and image; He had flesh and bones, and He had already lived and eaten alongside people for a long time…. At this time, His existence made people feel that it was so real and so wonderful; it also made them feel so joyful and happy, while at the same time filling them with deep emotion. His reappearance allowed people to truly see His humility, and to feel His closeness, and His constant concern toward and attachment to them. This brief reunion made the people who saw the Lord Jesus feel as if a lifetime had passed. Their lost, confused, fearful and uneasy, anxious, yearning, and numb hearts found comfort. They were no longer doubtful or disappointed, because they felt that now there was hope and something to rely on. The Son of man then standing before them would be their rear guard for all time; He would be their strong tower, their refuge for all eternity.

Although the Lord Jesus rose from the dead, His heart and His work had not left man. By appearing to people, He told them that no matter what form He existed in, He would accompany people, walk with them, and be with them at all times and in all places. He told them that at all times and in all places He would provide for people and shepherd them, allow them to see and touch Him, and ensure they never again felt helpless. The Lord Jesus also wanted people to know that they do not live alone in this world. Man has God’s care and His presence. God is the One on whom man can always rely, and He is family to every one of His followers. With God to lean on, man will no longer be lonely or helpless, and those who accept Him as their sin offering will no longer be bound in sin. In human eyes, these portions of His work that the Lord Jesus carried out after His resurrection were very small things, but the way I see it, every single thing He did was so meaningful, so valuable, so important and weighty.

Although the Lord Jesus’ time of working in the flesh was full of hardships and suffering, He completely and perfectly accomplished His work of that time in the flesh to redeem mankind through His appearance in His spiritual body with flesh and bones. He began His ministry by becoming flesh, and He concluded His ministry by appearing to man in His incarnate form. He ushered in and began the Age of Grace through His identity as Christ. Through His identity as Christ, He carried out work in the Age of Grace and He strengthened and led all of His followers in the Age of Grace. God’s work can truly be said to have a beginning and an end, to proceed in steps and according to a plan, and to be full of His wisdom, His almightiness, His wondrous deeds, and His love and mercy. Of course, the main thread running through all of God’s work is His care for man; what runs throughout is His concern for man, which He finds so hard to let go of. In these verses of the Bible, in every single thing that the Lord Jesus did after His resurrection, God’s unchanging hopes and concern for mankind were revealed, as were His meticulous care for and protection of mankind. None of this has ever changed, all the way to the present day—can you see it? When you see this, do your hearts not unconsciously draw closer to God? If you lived in that age and the Lord Jesus appeared to you after His resurrection, with form and image, so that you could see Him, and if He sat in front of you, ate bread and fish and explained the Scriptures to you and chatted with you, then how would you feel? Would you feel happy? Would you feel guilty? The previous misunderstandings and avoidance of God, the resistance to God, and doubts about Him—would they not all just disappear? Would the relationship between God and man not become more normal?

By interpreting these few passages from the Bible, do you find any flaws in God’s disposition? Do you find any adulteration of God’s love? Do you see any deceit or wickedness in God’s almightiness or wisdom? Certainly not! Now can you say with certainty that God is holy? Can you say with certainty that each of God’s emotions is a revelation of His essence and disposition? I hope that after you have read these words, the understanding you gain from them will help you and bring you benefits in your pursuit of a change in disposition and a fear of God, and that the results these words achieve in you will increase day by day, so that in the process of this pursuit you will be brought closer and closer to God, closer and closer to the standard that God requires. You will no longer be averse to pursuing the truth and will no longer feel that the pursuit of the truth and of a change in disposition is a troublesome or a superfluous thing. Rather, motivated by the expression of God’s true disposition and the holy essence of God, you will long for the light, long for justice, resolve to pursue the truth, to pursue the satisfaction of God’s intentions, and you will become a person gained by God, become a real person.

Today we have talked about certain things that God did in the Age of Grace when He was incarnated for the first time. From these things, we have seen the disposition that He expressed and revealed in the flesh, as well as every aspect of what He has and is. All these aspects of what He has and is seem very humanized, but the reality is that the essence of all that He revealed and expressed is inseparable from His own disposition. Every method and every aspect of God incarnate expressing His disposition in humanity is inextricably linked with His own essence. So, it is very important that God comes to mankind using the way of incarnation. Also important is the work that He does in the flesh, but even more important to every person living in the flesh, to every person living in corruption, are the disposition that He reveals and the intentions that He expresses. Is this something that you are able to comprehend? After understanding God’s disposition and what He has and is, have you made any conclusions as to how you should treat God? Finally, regarding this question, I would like to give you three pieces of counsel: First, do not test God. No matter how much you understand about God, no matter how much you know about His disposition, absolutely do not test Him. Second, do not try to vie for status with God. No matter what type of status God gives you or what kind of work He gets you to shoulder, no matter what kind of duty He raises you up to perform, and no matter how much you have expended yourself and sacrificed for God, absolutely do not try to vie for status with Him. Third, do not contend with God. No matter whether you understand or whether you can submit to what God does with you, what He arranges for you, and the things He brings to you, absolutely do not contend with God. If you can manage to follow all three pieces of counsel, then you will be relatively safe, and you will not be prone to angering God. This is where we will end today’s fellowship.

November 23, 2013

Footnotes:

a. The “band-tightening spell” is a spell used by the monk Tang Sanzang in the Chinese novel Journey to the West. He uses this spell to control Sun Wukong by tightening a metal band around the latter’s head, giving him acute headaches, and thus bringing him under control. It has become a metaphor to describe something that binds a person.