Acts (Program #4) – Introduction and the Preparation

In the gospel of John, we are told that in order to see the kingdom of God, we need to be born again. In other words, we need another life. The natural human life is just not capable of comprehending the kingdom of God. How about you? Do you really see the kingdom of God? Stay with us for an insightful unveiling of God’s kingdom on this life study of the Bible.

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John (Program #52) – Life in Resurrection (3)

The seeking ones among God’s people need to know the Lord as life, and they need to experience Christ as life, and they need to study the Bible in the way of life. It is for those seekers that we commend the life study of the Bible. Listen and enjoy Christ as life.

The Gospel of John is simply profound. It’s simple. The words, the vocabulary, the expressions appear so simple. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was God. The Word became flesh. But, it’s profound also. If you’ve had the opportunity to follow us through the heart of chapters 14 through 17, you perhaps have some sense of appreciation of the profound depths of the Gospel of John.

The Gospel of John is a Gospel of life and building. We need to really dwell on these two crucial words: life and building. Life is God Himself. Life is Christ. He said “I am the life”, “I came that you may have life”, and “life is the Spirit.” Eternal life is not merely an eternal state of existence in another realm. Eternal life is God dispensed into us. It cannot reasonably be denied that the Gospel of John is the Gospel of eternal life.

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John (Program #51) – Life in Resurrection (2)

We should treasure the way the Lord has ordained to be present with us now. May the Lord really open our eyes: that what is precious to God, that is the invisible, indwelling, pneumatic Christ, would also become precious to us.

In John 20 as in the Gospel of John as a whole, we see the Trinity both in His essence and in His economy. The Divine Trinity is a trinity of essence eternally that is the Father, Son, and Spirit coexist and co-inhere in the Godhead eternally. This is the Trinity in essence. But in order to have the fulfillment of God’s economy, the essential Trinity must function as the economical Trinity to pass through the process in order to, on the one hand, enter into God’s people, and on the other to bring God’s people, now redeemed and regenerated, into God. By the time we reach chapter 20, we have at least the initial completion of this process in which the very God who became a man and died for our redemption, in resurrection became the Spirit, so that, economically speaking, the Father, Son, and Spirit may indwell us.

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John (Program #48) – Life Processed for Multiplication (3)

I really like this marvelous term here. “Go tell my brothers.” In the Gospel of John, He was with these disciples a lot, but He never referred to them as brothers. He always called them either by name or referred to them as friends. But, after His resurrection for the first time, He calls them brothers.

In this Gospel, the presentation of the crucifixion is really more complete and more meaningful than you have it in the other three Gospels. First, the account here brings out the two aspects of the Lord’s death by mentioning two substances, which came out of the Lord’s side when the soldier pierced Him. When the soldier pierced Him, out came blood and water. The blood of Christ there is to answer to our need for the dealing with sin. The blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin. And, the water that came out is really meeting the need for our life. Water in the scripture is often a picture of life. There’s the water of life that’s in the book of Revelation. And, there’s the water that flowed out of the rock in the Old Testament. So, water really means life, the imparting of life.

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John (Program #46) – Life Processed for Multiplication (1)

The main thing is that these garments were left there in this orderly way as a testimony of His resurrection. This was not something like someone got in and stole His body as reported. No. He did this Himself. He resurrected.

The account of the crucifixion in the Gospel of John is different in the fact that it brings out these two aspects(redemption and imparting life). In the other Gospels it only mentions the redemptive aspect. But, in the Gospel of John, you do have the two aspects which are shown by the two substances that came out of His side. In verse 34 of chapter 19, it says, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.” When the soldier pierced His side, out came blood; that’s for the redemptive aspect. And water, that’s for the life aspect.

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John (Program #41) – The Work of the Spirit unto the Mingling of Divinity with Humanity (2)

You come into this chapter (John 17); it’s like stepping into a room where a Godly person is praying and you feel uneasy to interrupt Him. And, you certainly don’t want to come in to inject any thought of your own. So, there’s a holy atmosphere here, of the communication in the divine Trinity that only the Holy Spirit can make known to us.

I believe the prayer, in John 17, is very very significant, mainly because it comes at the end of a long message that the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples just before He went to the cross. Chapters 14, 15, and 16 give us the message that the Lord Jesus spoke on His way to be crucified. So, this of course is a very significant portion of the Word of God, particularly in the Gospel of John. And, after that long message, then He closes with this prayer. And, this prayer is so meaningful that unless you really pray it, or I should say, read it prayerfully, you will not know what its subject is.

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John (Program #34) – The Dispensing of the Triune God for the Producing of His Abode (2)

Most Christians think that the Father’s house is heaven, or a heavenly mansion. But, I hope that those who are listening would come to the Word again to see what the Bible says that the Father’s house is.

In the last message, we saw that there are two major sections to the Gospel of John. The first section is the eternal Word incarnated to bring God into man. And, this is a marvelous section. Especially we saw from Johns 3 through John 11 how when God as the Word becomes flesh to bring God into man. He is the very divine, eternal, uncreated life of God to meet the need of every man’s case.

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John (Program #24) – The Need of the Thirsty – Life’s Quenching (2)

Today the Lord does not expect a welcome in religion, but He surely appreciates His lovers, His seekers, those who enjoy Him, not in the temple but in their little house. That’s where He is.

The Gospel of John frequently uses the feasts as a background for the presentation of Christ, the Son of God as life to us. In chapter 6, the background was the feast of Passover, the first of the annual feasts. In chapter 7, the background is the feast of tabernacles: the last of the annual feasts, a time of celebration, and joy, and in a sense success in the harvest. The Lord uses this feast as a background to address the need of the thirsty, and to present life as the unique capacity to quench the thirst of human beings.

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Ezekiel (Program #20) – The Temple and Side Chambers

The gospel of John gives us the unforgettable picture of Jesus coming into the temple in Jerusalem. And in the display of the most righteous anger, the sight of God’s house being turned into a place of merchandise and commerce, He cleanses the temple – overturning the tables and chasing the peddlers away. Immediately following this comes a profound exchange between the Lord Jesus and the religionists. In John 2:18-21, “The Jews then answered and said to Him, What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then the Jews said, This temple was built in forty-six years, and You will raise it up in three days? But He spoke of the a temple of His body.” What makes this word so meaningful is that John clearly identifies Jesus as the real temple, the real house of God. This means even as we consider the temple in the Old Testament such as in Ezekiel’s great vision in chapters 40 to 48, we must realize that this is a type of the Lord Jesus Himself and of the church, the New Testament, the enlargement of God’s house.

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Jeremiah (Program #4) – The Intrinsic Content of Jeremiah

For all of the notable differences between the covenant of law that characterizes the Old Testament and the new covenant of grace in the New Testament, it is the consistency of the whole of the divine revelation that is most striking. Because all the elements of the New Testament are visible in seed form in the Old. Some of the most profound and significant of these seeds are found in the prophet Jeremiah. One very good example is 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, To hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which hold no water.” This same thought and even some of its language can be seen throughout the New Testament gospel of John and in the Epistles of Paul. The seeds planted in the Old Testament are developed in the New and consummate in the ultimate expression of God in His divine economy, the New Jerusalem.

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