Keeping God’s Sabbaths in Lev. 26 means that the work of God was accomplished by God Himself that we might enjoy it, and there’s no need for us to do any work! The conclusion of the book of Leviticus is very surprising.
On one hand we have chapter 25 where we see the proclamation of the jubilee, and there is joy throughout the land, for all those who have lost their possession and their freedom are now returned to their inheritance and are liberated from slavery.
On the other hand, in ch. 26 we see three crucial things God wants His people to keep, and then there’s a list of warnings and chastisement that would come if His people don’t keep these things.
Yes, God wants us to enter the jubilee and be ecstatic about being released from the bondage of sin, Satan, and the world, but He also wants us not to be too much in our excitement but enjoy and know the Triune God, His work, and the result of His work.
In His person our God is everything to us. The good land that God promised His people was a type of the all-inclusive Christ as everything to God’s people.
God wants to be the life, life supply, and everything to man, and for this He went through a process to become available, accessible, and receivable.
In His Godhead God is holy, righteous, and glorious, and no one can approach Him, for He excludes anything and anyone that is not Himself. But in His economy God went through a process, and the New Testament clearly shows us that God became a man by putting on human nature, and then in His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit.
Hallelujah, now God in His economy is what the Bible calls, The Spirit, and this Spirit is the consummation of the processed Triune God to be our enjoyment and supply and everything!
As those who have been shown mercy by the Lord to hear and receive the gospel, we are believers in Christ, the spiritual people of God, and the consummated Spirit is our unique blessing.
Some believers may not agree with the fact that God has been processed, for they think that God will never change and He cannot be improved or perfected. And it is true, in His Godhead God cannot change, He’s immutable, and He dwells in unapproachable light.
But praise the Lord, God created man in His image and according to His likeness, and in His economy God became a man, lived a perfect human life on earth, died an all-inclusive death on the cross, obtained an eternal redemption, and resurrected on the third day.
And in His resurrection God in Christ became a life-giving Spirit to be received by all those who believe into Him.
In His economy God went through a process and was consummated to become the Spirit, and this Spirit is all-inclusive – in Him we have divinity, humanity, the perfect human living, crucifixion, Christ’s death, resurrection, the power of His resurrection, and ascension with its transcendency.
Hallelujah, such a Spirit now is mingled with our spirit to give life to us and supply us with whatever we need for us to live a life for the fulfilment of God’s purpose on earth today.
The Consummated Spirit as the Blessing of God’s New Testament Economy is the Divine and Mystical Realm
We can never speak enough of our wonderful Lord Jesus, the process He went through, and the achievements He obtained.
Christ came as the last Adam and through resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit (see 1 Cor. 15:45). Since then, the Spirit of Jesus Christ has both divine and human elements, including the reality of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ (Acts 16:7; Rom. 8:9).
The Spirit today is the consummation of the processed Triune God, and this wonderful all-inclusive Spirit contains all that God is and has passed through in His economy.
Having passed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the Triune God has been processed and consummated to become the Spirit as the blessing of the New Testament.
The blessing of Abraham was not just something physical, that is, the good land, but the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land, and this Christ today is the Spirit, even the consummated Spirit (Gal. 3:14).
The promise of the Spirit through faith is the fulfillment of the propose of the blessing to Abraham. The Spirit as the fulfilment of the promised good land to Abraham is a consummated Spirit, a Spirit that includes divinity, humanity, Christ’s human living, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension.
Hallelujah, after He passed through all the steps of the process, the Triune God is now the consummated Spirit as the blessing of God’s New Testament economy!
We can enjoy such a Spirit by exercising our spirit, and whenever we turn to the Lord and fellowship with Him, even when we call on His name from deep within, He applies to us all the riches of His being, all the elements that are compounded in Him.
He is so rich, He is so full, and He knows what our need is; as long as we turn to Him, enjoy Him, and abide in Him, all that He is becomes ours, and His divine dispensing is continual, applying to us the riches of His being.
The consummated Spirit, the compound Spirit, is the divine and mystical realm into which we as believers in Christ can enter today.
The Lord promised us that in that day we will be where He is, even in Him, and in His resurrection He became the Spirit to be a divine and mystical realm for us to enter in, live, dwell, have our being, and just enjoy all that He is (John 14:20).
God in Christ as the Spirit is not just flowing into us, but He is the very realm we live in, have our being, and exist in. On one hand the Spirit enters into us as our all-sufficient supply; on the other hand, He is another realm – a divine and mystical realm, and we have the right to enter in.
In this realm of the processed and consummated Triune God everything is ours to enjoy and experience.
The more we spend time in spirit, the more we become divine and mystical – not in a strange of weird way, but in the way of becoming more like Jesus, divinely-human, Jesusly human – yet mysterious, for our homeland is the divine and mystical realm!
Thank You Lord Jesus for becoming the consummated Spirit as the blessing of God’s New Testament economy for us to enjoy and partake of! Hallelujah, we can now receive and enjoy the blessing of Abraham – the promise of the Spirit – through faith. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to enjoy You, contact You, and receive You; we want to enter into this divine and mystical realm of the processed and consummated Triune God and live here! Lord Jesus, we love You! Keep us abiding in You. Keep us in You, in this wonderful realm of the consummated Spirit!
Keeping God’s Sabbaths by Knowing that the Work of God was done by God for us to Enjoy it
The second item we should keep, as per Lev. 26:2, is God’s Sabbaths; keeping God’s Sabbaths signifies that we should know that the work of God was done entirely by Himself so that we might enjoy it, and there’s no need for us to do any work!
This sounds so good and pleasant, but we all have been taught that we need to work, so we many times want to do this “for God” but actually in our own strength, power, and purpose.
It is a hard lesson for us to learn, for we have in ourselves this desire to do things for God. What God wants is not for us to work but to respect, enter into, and enjoy what God has done for us.
The truth is that although Christ has accomplished everything for us, we may not be in the enjoyment of this achievement; instead of enjoying Him and His work, we may keep on laboring and doing things, setting Christ’s achievement aside.
This is why the Lord encourages us to come to Him with all our toils and labors, and we will find rest for our souls. He has already done the work; God has accomplished all the work, and He wants us to remember this, respect this, enter into this accomplished work, and enjoy what God has done for us.
However, Christianity is full of working for God without first enjoying God’s accomplished work for us. If we would just stop ourselves and enjoy what God has done for us, what He has accomplished, and what He has achieved, we will be full of Christ, full of the Spirit, and we will keep God’s Sabbaths.
It is an insult to God to ignore what He has done for us and go ahead and do things for Him. God is insulted not by us not doing things for Him but by us doing things “in His name” and “for His glory” yet without enjoying and entering into the work that He has already accomplished.
Many times we ignore God’s work and seek to do something for ourselves and by ourselves under the cloak of “doing something for God” and “doing something in God’s name”.
Such a work may be good in appearance but actually is an insult to God, for it ignores what God has done for us that we may rest in Him and enjoy what He has done for us. What a warning this is to us!
Especially if we seek the Lord, love Him, and desire to be found in Him, we have a desire to do something for God; yet what God wants us to do is STOP our work and our desire to do things for Him, and just enjoy what He has done for us!
We need to learn to receive, regard, respect, and enjoy what God has done and not try to do something for ourselves (John 1:16; 20:22; 1 Cor. 3:21-23; 4:7). We should even deny our work and honor God’s work, resting in Him.
What God wants is for us to stop our doing, be replaced by Christ, and keep away from the taste of anything other than Christ (see Gal. 2:20; John 6:57; Isa. 55:1-2; 58).
We simply need to enjoy the unsearchably rich Christ by taking Him as our Sabbath rest; we should stop ourselves with our living, our doing, and our activity, and receive Christ as our life, person, and replacement.
When we stop ourselves and take Christ as our life and person, we will experience Christ as the power of resurrection to be transformed and to soar in the heavens far above every earthly frustration!
Lord, we want to keep God’s Sabbaths by entering into Your rest and enjoying all the work that You have already accomplished for us! Oh Lord, grant us to stop our working, our doing, our living, and our activity, and take You as our life, our person, and our replacement. We take You as our real Sabbath rest and we want to rest in You and enjoy Your accomplished work. Thank You, Lord, You have done everything! Hallelujah, all the work is done, and all we have to do is enjoy God, enter into His accomplished work, and be one with God! Praise the Lord for His work!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 528-529, 536 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 12, The Processed Triune God, His Work, and the Result of His Work.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Oh! Let us sing joyfully. Sing an unveiled mystery. / We enjoy the realm of the Spirit now, / The divine and mystical reality. / Oh! Enjoy! Sing! Rejoice! / This divine mystery! / We enjoy the realm of the Spirit now, / The divine and mystical reality. (Song on, The divine mystery)
# My Savior, Thou hast offered rest: / Oh, give it then to me; / The rest of ceasing from myself, / To find my all in Thee. / This cruel self, oh, how it strives / And works within my breast, / To come between Thee and my soul, / And keep me back from rest. (Hymn #414)
# Now rest, my heart, the work is done, / I’m saved through the Eternal Son; / Let all my pow’rs my soul employ, / To tell the world my peace and joy. (Hymns #562)
