From the Gospel of John
John and his brother James were young Galilean fishermen. While they were mending their fishing nets on the sea shore, Jesus called them to follow Him (Matt. 4:21). They were mending the nets to restore them to their original and proper condition. In a spiritual sense, mending is also characteristic of John's ministry in the New Testament. In his Gospel, Epistles, and in the book of Revelation, he seeks to repair damage done to the spiritual net. The Gnostics with their philosophy and the Jews with their Old Testament traditions and customs damaged the spiritual net and brought in much confusion to the young churches. For example, when some questioned the divinity of Christ, John sounded the trumpet strongly and clearly by declaring: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). To receive John's ministry is to be brought back to the beginning and to be restored to the proper condition, realization, and experience.
Throughout his Gospel, John uses many allegories to define and express spiritual reality. These simple word pictures vividly unveil spiritual truths too mysterious to be expressed by a multitude of words. A photograph of a person leaves a deeper and more accurate impression than thousands of descriptive words. Even a quick glance at a photograph is sufficient to register a definite and lasting impression. Our experience of knowing and enjoying God is too wonderful and mysterious to express in mere words, yet the allegory of "rivers of living water" (John 7:38), flowing from the inner being of a believer describes graphically our experience. How Christ could be our life (Col. 3:4) is likewise mysterious and difficult to explain, but Jesus made it very simple and clear when He said, "I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever;" and "he who eats Me shall also live because of Me" (John 6:51, 57). These figures in John are particularly helpful in restoring us to our proper condition before God.
In John 1 are also some marvelous word-pictures. These are the Lamb (1:29), the dove (1:32), and the stone (1:42). The Lamb is for redemption; the dove is for life-imparting, transforming, and building; and the stone is for building material for God's house. First, we are redeemed by the Lamb; then we are regenerated and transformed by the dove. By these experiences we become a stone, and as a stone, we are built into God's house. The dove is not only for regenerating, but also for transforming us and uniting us to be the house of God.
The basic substance of the house of God is not divinity, but humanity. Humanity is the dwelling place, and divinity is the dweller. This humanity, though, is not a natural or merely created humanity; it is a regenerated, transformed, and uplifted humanity. Such a humanity is the very temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16). All these items are very rich and deep. In them man's need is fully met, and by them God's eternal purpose is fully accomplished.
Why do we need the redemption of the Lamb? We need God's redemption because we are fallen away from God's purpose and into sin. Our sinful nature and our sinful acts bring us under the condemnation of God's righteous law. We can neither fulfill nor escape the demands of the law. So we need to be redeemed from the demands of the law by the offering of the One who did fulfill the law. Only the Lord Jesus could say that He came to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17).
Redemption clears up our negative condition before God. Because we have broken God's law, God's righteousness requires Him to condemn us to death. But hallelujah! "Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse on our behalf (Gal. 3:13). We were sin, and He was righteousness, but "He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we, might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). How pitiful was our condition before we experienced the Lamb of God! As to sin, we were full; as to the divine life, we were empty.
The taking away of our sins required the shedding of righteous blood. Therefore the Word, God Himself, became flesh (John 1:14), in order that He might be the spotless Lamb of God. As the Word of God, He had no blood to shed, but as the Lamb, He had the blood to offer up for our redemption. The full salvation of the Lord completely reverses our situation. Now our sins are taken away (John 1:19)! Now the divine life of Jesus Christ is imparted into us to be our very life! (Col. 3:4).
Redemption, however, is not the goal. Redemption is wonderful and absolutely essential to solve our negative condition. But, it only cleanses the vessel. Once cleansed, we need something within us as our content; once redeemed by the Lamb, we need the life imparted by the dove. For example, a soft drink bottle is washed so that it can be filled with soft drink. Unless it receives the soft drink, its washing is meaningless. How tragic that most teaching in fundamental Christianity only stresses redemption - the cleansing of the vessel! It does not go on to stress the filling of the vessel - the experience of Christ as life.
John not only revealed Christ as the Lamb of God, but he also revealed the Holy Spirit as the dove. The dove signifies the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), and as the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). The Spirit comes to anoint man with the very essence of God and to join God Himself to man. The Lamb separates man from sin; the dove joins God to man and man to God. A dove is not large and wild like an eagle, but is small and gentle. The dove here is for life-giving, regenerating, anointing, transforming, uniting, and building. A dove has little power; rather it is full of life and insight. The most beautiful part of a dove is its eyes. In the Song of Songs, the Lord praises His seeker for her doves' eyes (1:15). A dove is lovely, small, and full of life.
Once redeemed, we need to experience Christ within us as our very life. This experience is greatly lacking among Christians. Many messages are on redemption and good behavior; few are on life. Message after message stresses man's sinfulness and his need for redemption. But hardly one message tells people that after they are redeemed they need to experience Christ as their life every day. At best they are given some ethical instructions on how to behave and how to be nice Christians. But, that is not Christ! They know the Lamb, but they do not know the dove. We need redemption, but we also need life. We need the present, daily experience of "Christ our life" (Col. 3:4).
The eternal life given to us (John 10:28) is not a place with heavenly mansions and streets of gold. NO! Eternal life is not heaven someday, but a wonderful person - Christ. "And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life: he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life" (1 John 5:11-12). To have and experience eternal life is to know and experience Christ Himself right now. We need not wait until some future time. Christ is our life NOW! Satan has distracted and cheated Christians from the present, living experience of "Christ our life" (Col. 3:4) to a future experience after death.
In order to show us the purpose of life, John presents another picture, a stone. The Spirit as the dove imparts life into us for a purpose. Life is not just to give us joy and peace and victory. Life's purpose is to transform our nature of clay into stone for God's building. Before we were saved we were only clay with no trace of stone. But, once we are regenerated, the Lord Jesus as the living stone comes into our spirit. This is a wonderful deposit of stone within us as the building material for God's house. As our inner man (our spirit) is strengthened (Eph. 3:16-17), the life-giving Spirit spreads into our soul, transforming our mind, emotion, and will. This spreading of the Spirit into our being makes us the living stones for God's house (1 Pet. 2:5).
When Peter was brought to the Lord, immediately the Lord changed his name from Simon to Cephas which means "a stone." This indicates that Peter was naturally a man made of clay. But by coming to the Lord and experiencing His regenerating and transforming life, he was changed from clay to stone. Clay is not good building material. A few drops of water on a bit of clay can cause a lot of problems. It quickly becomes mud. How could the Lord build His church with such unstable clay? He must transform us from clay to stone. Torrents of water upon a stone only purify and polish it. The stone is solid and is good building material. In Matthew 16, the Lord Jesus once more referred to the stone saying: "You are a stone (Gk.) and upon this rock I will build my church." Stones signify a work of transformation to produce material for God's building (1 Cor. 3:12). Though Peter was clay, he was transformed into a stone.
In Genesis 2, the precious stones are found near the flow of the river. Where the river of the divine life flows, the stones, for building God's house are produced. This is why we must pay any price to maintain the flow of life within us. Otherwise, we remain clay and are useless for God's building.
In Genesis 28 there is another stone. Jacob used a stone for his pillow. He then set up that very stone, anointed it with oil, and called it Bethel, the house of God. What a marvelous dream Jacob had! He saw that the stone was God's house. When we experience Christ as our stone of rest, that very stone becomes the pillar for God's house. But we must take the initiative to stand up that pillow to be the pillar. We must take the initiative to be in the church life. All our experiences of Christ are not for our private enjoyment, but are for the building up of the church.
The Lord's word to Nathanael was the fulfillment of Jacob's dream. Christ, as the Son of Man with His humanity, is the ladder which is set up on the earth and leads to heaven, keeping heaven open to earth and joining earth to heaven for the house of God. Jacob poured oil (the symbol of the Holy Spirit) upon the stone (the symbol of a transformed man) that it might be the house of God.
In God's building, Christ is the foundation stone (1 Cor. 3-11); Christ is the corner stone (Acts 4-11); and Christ is the top stone (Zech. 4:7). From the foundation of the building to the very top of the building, Christ as the stone is everything.
We need many experiences of Christ as the stone for God's building. We must praise Him that He is not only the Lamb for our redemption and the dove to give us life; He is also the stone for God's building. We have sung many songs of praise to the worthy Lamb, but few to Christ as the worthy Stone. Hallelujah to the Stone! Worthy is the Stone! We must not be content just to enjoy Christ as the redeeming Lamb and to enjoy the Spirit as the life-imparting dove, but we must press on to enjoy Christ as the stone for God's building. As we experience Christ as the stone, He works His very life-element and nature into our being, constituting us as the living stones (1 Pet. 2:5). We should not be just born-again Christians, enjoying some measure of life; we must be stones for God's building. The building is the goal. Life is not the goal; it is the process by which God obtains the building. Life produces the building and maintains the building, but life is not the goal. The building of the house of God is the goal.
God's eternal purpose is to have a house built up with regenerated and transformed persons who are joined to God in the Son of Man by the Holy Spirit. All who have been attracted to the Lamb of God with the dove will be transformed into stones for the house of God. We must see the vision that all we need is to be regenerated, transformed, and built together as the very house that God desires. The ultimate result will be that God is mingled with man so that God and man become a mutual habitation. "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you" (John 14:20). Man will become His dwelling, and He will become man's dwelling this is the New Jerusalem. "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them" (Rev. 21:3).
In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus said, "I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." Only the builded church can stand against the gates of Hades. No individual, regardless of how spiritual he may be, can withstand the attack of Satan. But the builded church will end the age and cause Satan to be cast into the lake of fire. Satan fears the builded church. He greatly resists the building up of the church. A person may be saved and not stir up much opposition from Satan. But once he sees that he must be built up with others in a practical way and consecrates himself to be a stone in God's building, he will stir up the wrath of the Devil. Regardless of the cost, let us pay the price to be stones for God's building.
Lord, we praise you that you are the redeeming Lamb with the life-imparting dove. Transform us into living stones so useful for your building. Build us and fitly frame us with other living stones to be your eternal habitation.
This work was originally published without copyright by The Stream Publishers.
