Read and pray: “He who overcomes, to him I will give to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat with My Father on His throne.” (Rev. 3:21)
Offering prayers and pouring out the answers
In chapter eight, Christ is again portrayed as another Angel, offering the prayers of the saints to God (vv. 3-5). In His administration He needs our prayers. Our prayer is the response to His heavenly ministry.
As we pray, He administers. As He administers, we pray. These prayers He offers to God and then pours out God’s answers to them upon the earth. This is the meaning of verse 5: “And the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar and cast it to the earth; and there were thunders and voices and lightnings and an earthquake.”
The pouring out of God’s answers to our prayers equals His universal administration. This Administrator is qualified in every way; nevertheless, He needs our prayers. We may say that Christ administers the entire universe through our prayers.
Taking possession of the earth
In chapter ten, another strong Angel is seen “coming down out of heaven, clothed with a cloud, and the rainbow was upon His head, and His face was like the sun, and His feet like pillars of fire… And He placed His right foot on the sea and the left on the land” (vv. 1-2).
Here Christ, as the other Angel, has left the throne in the heavens and is on His way back to the earth. The fact that He is clothed with a cloud indicates that at this stage His coming is secret. He returns secretly to the earth in order to take full possession of it. One foot on the sea and the other on the land symbolizes His possession. The earth belongs to the Lord. It is entirely His inheritance. He will come with power to take possession of it.
Judging Babylon
In 18:1 we are told: “After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with His glory.” He is no longer clothed with a cloud. He is in the open space and very near the earth. He comes to exercise His authority over Christendom, the great Babylon. After fully judging this perverse religion, He will destroy Satan and establish the millennial kingdom on the earth.
SOVEREIGN IN THE KINGDOM
AND FOR ALL ETERNITY
In that kingdom He will reign, with all the overcomers as co-kings (Rev. 3:21; 20:4, 6). He will be the chief Administrator of the kingdom. After those thousand years there will be the New Jerusalem, having as its center the throne of God and of the Lamb (22:1, 3).
In it the redeeming Lamb will be the Sovereign for all eternity, and He will also be the Administrator for all eternity. This universal administration is a great part of the heavenly ministry of Christ.
FULFILLMENT THROUGH THE
CORRESPONDING MINISTRIES ON THE EARTH
Without the completing ministry of Paul, Christ has no way to carry out His heavenly ministry. The two correspond to one another. One is in the heavens, the other among the saints on the earth. Today we are under these two ministries. Even at this very moment Christ is ministering in the heavens, and the completing ministry of Paul is being carried out here among us.
The completing ministry carries out the divine economy in the preparation of a Body for Christ. The Head needs a Body. Think of what you could accomplish if you had only a head without a body. You could do nothing! Without the church, His Body, Christ also can do nothing. The completing ministry therefore exists to produce the Body so that the Head may carry out the divine administration on the earth.
The completing ministry of Paul, as we shall see in the coming messages, focuses on Christ as the center of the divine economy and the circumference of God’s purpose. This Christ needs to live in us, and we need to live in Him. He is the all-inclusive Christ. Then we have the wonderful church life!
God passed through a process in order to become the life-giving Spirit and enter into our spirit. These two spirits become one when we are regenerated. From that point on, this all-inclusive Spirit spreads from our spirit into our soul, that it may be saturated with the Triune God.
This spreading of God within us is called transformation and growth in life. Through this growth, we are consolidated to become a Body. This Body is not built up through teaching, organization, or formalities, but through the transformation of our soul. Thus we grow together, not only as a Body, but also as the universal new man.
Christ has His Body, and God has a new man. Therefore Christ can act, and God can carry out His eternal purpose. This is the way the completing ministry of Paul carries out the heavenly ministry of Christ. After the series on the completing ministry of Paul, we will proceed with the mending ministry of John. With these three ministries the Bible is consummated, and the new heavens and the new earth, with the New Jerusalem, come into view.
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Hymn: Supplements – “Spiritual Warfare”
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