The Contents

The contents of the New Testament are the very contents of the life of the Lord Jesus. This is the gospel. The gospel of God is the very content of the New Testament. This gospel presents to us the life of the God-man who lived fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy. Thus we can say that the content of the New Testament is simple a Person, the wonderful Lord Jesus Christ, who is the very embodiment of the Triune God mingled with man.

This life as the contents of the New Testament is a life of the Lord as the sower. Mark 4 tell us that the sower went forth to sow. He sowed the word of God as the seed of the Kingdom into the soil of man’s heart. This seed is just the very contents of the New Testament. We need to be impressed that the Lord Jesus simple went forth to sow Himself as the seed of the Kingdom into man.

However in order for this to happen the soil of man’s heart needed to be healed. We are all sick and in need of the Lord healing. So we can say that the result of the Lord’s living was that we, through His death and resurrection can we healed. Without the healing of the sick condition of man’s heart there is no way for the seed to be properly sown and grow. This seed growing in our heart affords us a way to live the same kind of life that we see in the Lord Jesus. A life that is fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy.  By having the seed of the God-man Jesus sown into our heart we are able to live such a life by our maintaining a proper condition in our heart for the seed to develop. This development requires us to deal with our hearts making sure that we don’t allow the weeds to develop in our “soil” which rob us from living such a life that is according to and for God’s New Testament economy. Hallelujah we have a wonderful seed in us and we need to give it all the room to grow and develop in us for the Kingdom of God.

Finally the life of the Lord Jesus, a life fully according and for God’s economy, as the contents of the New Testament is a life according to the Spirit. We need to see that the life that is fully according to a for God’s economy of a life full of the Spirit. We need to see that we have received the Spirit both essentially and economically. We need to allow the Spirit to fully soak and saturate or living. The Spirit is all-inclusive. It has the wonderful suffering life of the Jesus with the powerful resurrected life of Christ along with the bountiful supply to meet our every need. In order to counter the degradation of the church for the fulfillment of god’s eternal purpose this Spirit has been intensified. In Revelation 1:4-5 John speaks of the divine Trinity as from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ. Our Triune God is now the sevenfold intensified One for the accomplishing of His economy. We need to drink this One as the Spirit to be saved from our thinking. To live a life that if fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy to sow the word of God as the gospel into the hearts of men for the dispensing of God into man in order for God and man to be mingled together as one entity consummating in the New Jerusalem.

The Kingdom

A life that is fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy is a life of sowing the seed of life, the Kingdom of God, into people. The seed of life being sown into us and developing is the Kingdom of God. This Kingdom is the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus. In Matthew 16:28 the Lord told his disciples that some of them would see the Kingdom of God coming in power before they tasted death. Following this the Gospel of Matthew records the Lord taking Peter, James and John with Him to a high mountain and His being transfigured before their eyes. We need to link these two portions of the word together to see that the Kingdom of God coming in power is the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus. Thus we can see that the development of the Kingdom of God requires the seed of life to grow and blossom in us for the manifestation of the Kingdom of God (2 Peter 1:5-11).

The growth of this seed in us required the Lord’s going to the cross for us to heal the soil of our hearts for this seed to be able to take root and grow. But we also need to be on alert for the weeds. Weeds are anything that replaces Christ. The weeds in a garden steal to rich nutrients found in the soil that the seed need to grow. The weeds also absorb the moisture and sun needed for the growth of the seed. Our receiving the life supply is frustrate when we allow the weeds to creep into the soil of our heart. Thus the seed of life goes not have adequate growth in us.

This seed has been sown into us as the Spirit. The Spirit within us is both essential and economical. We need to see the accomplished fact of our received both aspects of the Spirit. For the growth of the seed in us and the development of this Kingdom of God we need the Spirit essentially for our life and economically for our move.

The Kingdom of God is the shining of the Lord Jesus upon us. In 2 Corinthians 3 we see the New Testament ministry of the Spirit is shining from glory to glory. We need to receive the Lord Spirit’s shining upon us for the growth and development of the Kingdom of God.

The Gospel

The gospel is the Triune God working Himself into a group of people to be their life and everything. We need to be emptied of our old concept of the gospel. According the Ephesians 1:13 the gospel is the word of the truth and in Colossians 1:5 Pauls speaks of the word of the truth of the gospel. Thus we can say from these two verses that the gospel is the entire New Testament revelation of the divine economy, the eternal purpose of God.

This gospel had a beginning according to Mark 1:1. This beginning of the gospel was the termination of everything before it and the germinating of a new realm, the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the sowing of the God-man seed into the human soil. This was the proclamation of the gospel of God, which is the gospel of the kingdom. This gospel began with the incarnation of the Triune God in the man Jesus, who lived not His natural human life but the divine life for the expression of the Father. This gospel has its continuation with the disciples as our representatives. The disciples as the human soil were picked up by the Lord Jesus and taken with Him. In this process they were healed in the Lord’s death and resurrection (Gal 2:20). They became the good earth for the seed of life to be sown and develop. This development is the continuation of the Lord’s life on earth through the disciples and results in the kingdom of God. We need to be careful not to replace Christ with anything in order that He as the seed would have the full way to grow in our hearts. May our vision never be blurred from seeing the all-inclusiveness of Christ in God’s economy.

Healing

There are two categories of healing recorded in the Gospel of Mark. The first is regarding healing in a general sense and results in being enlivened. This category portrays the healing of the complete person and is a picture of our experience when we were saved. The second category is healing of specific organs. It is important that we realize that even though we have experienced the general healing of our person we still need the specific healing by the Lord’s direct touch of our hearing, speaking and seeing organs as recorded in Mark chapter 7 and 8. With out this second category of healing we could never have direct personal intimate fellowship with God. Without the ability to hear, speak and see how can a person have quality interactions with another person.

These two categories of healing our not meant for our benefit alone. They are part of the Lord fulfilling God’s commission to Him. As the Christ of God, Jesus was anointed and appointed for fulfill God’s eternal purpose and to accomplish God’s economy. In order to fulfill God’s economy we the sick ones, who had been chosen by God, needed the healing. However the result of this healing is that we are brought under the dispensing of God. Christ being dispensed into us as life is the real healing and this dispensing needs to accomplish a general healing of our entire person and the specific healing of our hearing, speaking and seeing organs for the fulfillment of God’s economy.

God wants us to hear Christ, speak Christ and see only Christ (Mark 9:7-8). If we would hear, speak and see only Christ, He would have a continuation on the earth today in the church His Body. For this to be worked out the Lord Jesus Christ had go to the cross to died and resurrect. According to Mark 10:32-34 the Lord did not go to Jerusalem alone but He led the way with His disciples following Him into His death and resurrection. This may be hard for our natural mind to understand but according to Galatians 2:20 we have been crucified with Christ. We need God’s view to become our view. And according to 1 Corinthians 1:30 God has placed us in Christ. Now that we are in Christ we have been positioned to receive God as our life and everything. Now Christ can be our life and living and His history becomes our history. This is for the continuation of Christ on the earth today in His Body. How are we continuing? By sowing the seed of life into people through our preaching, teaching, healing, cast out of demons and cleansing. Praise the Lord.