Scripture Reading: Job 1:1; 10:13; 42:5-6
Ⅰ
The book of Job leaves us with a great question of two parts: what is the purpose of God in His creating of man, and what is the purpose of God in His dealing with His chosen people?—1:1; 10:12-13; 13:3-4.
Ⅱ
The great answer to this great question, the mystery hidden in God throughout the ages, is the eternal economy of God, which is God's eternal intention with His heart's desire to dispense Himself in His Divine Trinity into His chosen people to be their life and nature that they may become the same as He is for His expression— 1 Tim. 1:3-4; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:9, 19; Gen. 1:26; Isa. 43:7.
Ⅲ
God's economy is God becoming a man in the flesh through incarnation that man might become God (but not in the Godhead) in the Spirit through transformation for the building of God into man and man into God to gain a corporate God-man:
A
The most marvelous, excellent, mysterious, and all-inclusive transformations of the eternal and Triune God in His becoming a man are God's move in man for the accomplishment of His eternal economy—John 1:14, 29; 3:14; 12:24; Acts 13:33; 1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Acts 2:36; 5:31; Heb. 4:14; 9:15; 7:22; 8:2.
B
The transformation of the tripartite man is God's move to deify man, to constitute man with the processed and consummated Triune God, making man God in life and nature but not in the Godhead for the corporate expression of the Triune God—Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 4:3; 21:11; 22:17a.
Ⅳ
The primary purpose of suffering in this universe, particularly as it relates to the children of God, is that through it the very nature of God may be wrought into the nature of man so that man may gain God to the fullest extent—2 Cor. 1:8-9; 4:16:
A
Although the living God can perform many acts on man's behalf, the life and nature of the living God are not wrought into man; when the God of resurrection works, His life and nature are wrought into man—v. 16:
１
God is not working to make His might known in external acts but is working to impart and work Himself into man—Gal. 4:19.
２
God uses the environment in order to work His life and nature into us—2 Cor. 4:7-12; 1 Thes. 3:3; John 16:33.
３
In order to live in resurrection and be constituted with the God of resurrection, we must be conformed to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God through "all things"—Rom. 8:28-29; Heb. 12:10; Jer. 48:11.
４
As we pass through afflictions, there needs to be a continual renewing taking place in us day by day so that God can accomplish His heart's desire to make us the New Jerusalem—Ezek. 36:26; 2 Cor. 4:16; 5:17; Rev. 21:2.
５
The real Christian life is to have the God of resurrection added into us morning through evening and day by day—Col. 2:19; Rom. 8:10, 6, 11.
B
In all of God's dealing with Job, God's intention was to reduce Job to nothing, yet to maintain his existence (Job 2:6) so that He might have time to impart Himself into Job; God cares for only one thing—being worked into us.
Ⅴ
The move of the Triune God to deify man for the fulfillment of His economy to have His corporate expression is altogether in the mingled spirit, the divine Spirit mingled as one with our human spirit—1 Cor. 6:17; Rev. 1:10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10; cf. Job 12:10; 32:8:
A
We must set our mind on, pay attention to, take care of, our spirit, doing everything according to the Spirit by exercising our spirit—Gal. 5:16, 25; 6:18; Rom. 8:4; Mal. 2:15-16; 1 Tim. 4:7; 1 Thes. 5:17; Eph. 6:18; Jude 19-21.
B
The God whom we look at today is the consummated Spirit, and we can look at Him in our spirit—2 Cor. 2:10; 2 Tim. 4:22:
１
Seeing God transforms us, and seeing God equals gaining God—2 Cor. 3:16, 18; Matt. 5:8; Rev. 22:4.
２
The more we see God and love God, the more we deny ourselves and hate ourselves— Job 42:5-6; Isa. 6:5; Luke 14:26.
C
Only the processed and consummated Triune God living in us as the all-inclusive Spirit in our spirit can be an overcomer—1 John 5:4; John 3:6b; 2 Cor. 4:13; Rom. 8:2.
D
As long as we do everything according to the Spirit, we can experience Christ's incar-nation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension with the outpouring of the Spirit; this will cause us to be the church of God, the Body of Christ, the new man, and the organ-ism of the Triune God, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem—Phil. 1:19; Eph. 4:4.
E
God's purpose in dealing with His people is that He wants His people to gain Him, to partake of Him, to possess Him, and to enjoy Him more and more, rather than all other things, until their enjoyment reaches the fullest extent for them to become the New Jeru-salem—Phil. 3:8-9; Rev. 21:2.
F
This is the entire New Testament to be the great answer to Job and to the great question concerning God's purpose in His creating of man and in His dealing with His chosen people.
Ⅵ
In God's appearing to him, Job saw God, gaining God in his personal experience and abhorring himself—Job 38:1-3; 42:1-6:
A
In order to see God, we must exercise our spirit—Eph. 1:17-18; 3:16-17; 1 Cor. 2:9-16; 2 Cor. 4:13:
１
The more we look at Him in our spirit, the more we receive all His ingredients into our being as our inner supply—vv. 16-18.
２
In the midst of our afflictions, we must take heed to our spirit, taking the Lord as our dwelling place, our secret of sufficiency—2:13; 7:5-6; Mal. 2:15-16; Psa. 91:1; Phil. 4:11-13; Psa. 90:1-11; 31:20; Isa. 32:2.
B
In order to see God, we must deal with our heart—2 Cor. 3:16, 18; Matt. 5:8; 13:18-23:
１
We must be renewed in the spirit of our mind by being reconstituted with the holy word of God to be instructed, governed, ruled, and controlled by God's word—Eph. 4:23; Deut. 17:18-20.
２
We must be on fire with the Lord's love, having an emotion filled with Him as our zeal for His house—2 Cor. 5:14; 2 Tim. 1:6-7; John 2:17; Mark 12:30.
３
We must have our will subdued by Christ and transformed with Christ through sufferings so that it is submitted to the headship of Christ—Phil. 2:13; cf. S. S. 4:1, 4; 7:4a, 5.
４
We must maintain a good and pure conscience by the priceless, cleansing, and purify-ing blood of Christ—Acts 24:16; 1 Tim. 3:9; Heb. 9:14; 10:22.
Ⅶ
Transformation transfers us from one form, the form of the old man, to another form, the form of the new man; this is accomplished by the killing of Christ's death—2 Cor. 4:10-12, 16-18:
A
In 2 Corinthians 4:10 Paul says that we are always bearing about in our body the putting to death of Jesus; putting to death means killing; the death of Christ kills us— 1 Cor. 15:31, 36; John 12:24-26; 2 Cor. 1:8-9.
B
The death of Christ is in the compound Spirit; the Spirit is the application of the death of Christ and its effectiveness—Exo. 30:22-25; Rom. 8:13.
C
The Christian life is a life that is all the time under the killing by the compound Spirit; this daily killing is carried out by the indwelling Spirit with the environment as the killing weapon:
１
The work of the Spirit within us is to constitute a new being for us, whereas the work of the Spirit without is to tear down every aspect of our natural being through our environment.
２
What we are by nature means nothing; only what the Spirit constitutes within our being counts—cf. Jer. 48:11.
３
We should cooperate with the operating Spirit and accept the environment that God has arranged for us—Phil. 4:12; Eph. 3:1; 4:1; 6:20; 1 Cor. 7:24.
D
Under God's divine and sovereign arrangement, everything works for our good, for our transformation, through the killing of Christ's death—Rom. 8:28-29; cf. Psa. 31:15a:
１
We may complain to God, but our complaining may be the best prayer, the most pleasant prayer to God; while we are complaining, God is rejoicing, because He is causing all things to work together for good so that we may be conformed to the image of His firstborn Son—cf. Psa. 102, title.
２
We do not know the kind of prayer that God desires, and we are not clear about how to pray, according to the burden we feel, for our being conformed to the image of God's Son; hence, we groan and in our groaning the Spirit intercedes for us—Rom. 8:23, 26; cf. 2 Chron. 20:12; 1 Kings 8:48.
E
Tribulation is the sweet visitation and incarnation of grace with all the riches of Christ; grace mainly visits us in the form of tribulation—2 Cor. 12:7-10.
F
Through tribulations the killing effect of the cross of Christ on our natural being is applied to us by the Holy Spirit, making the way for the God of resurrection to add Himself into us—1:8-9; 4:16-18.
G
Tribulation produces endurance, which brings forth the quality of approvedness—an approved quality or attribute resulting from the enduring and experiencing of tribula-tion and testing—Rom. 5:3-4.
Ⅷ
God's purpose in dealing with those who love Him is that they may gain Him to the fullest extent, surpassing the loss of all that they have other than Him (Phil. 3:7-8), that He might be expressed through them for the fulfillment of His purpose in creating man (Gen. 1:26).