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The New Testament reveals to us that Christ took two major steps. The first step was His incarnation, and the second step was His resurrection. 

The Lord Jesus, who was God, the Creator of the universe, took a major step to become a man. The New Testament tells us that God as the Word became flesh (John 1:14). This means that God joined Himself to fallen humanity, yet He was without sin. God took a major step to become a man, and this man was wonderful. He was not a common man but a God-man, who lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years and passed through human living. At the end of His human life He went to the cross and died an all-inclusive death to take away all the negative things in the universe, thus clearing up the way for Him to dispense Himself into God’s chosen people. Through His death the divine life within this God-man was released. That released divine life produced many believers, produced the church, which is the Body of Christ. He took the step of incarnation to become a man in the flesh. Through death He took the second step of resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). As the resurrected God-man, He became the Spirit who gives life (2 Cor. 3:6, 17).

- "the Divine Economy" PP65-66

5 major points missed by most Christian theologies: 

1. the Spirit that gives life was not yet before the glorification, the resurrection of Jesus

2. the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. 

3. the compound Spirit typified by the anointing oil in Exodus 30

4. the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ Himself, and the indwelling Spirit in Romans 8, all refer to the compound Spirit that gives life

5. the sevenfold intensified Spirit of God, the Seven Spirits

the Christian life is altogether a matter of the Spirit. No Spirit, no Christian life. we cannot live a Christian life without the Spirit. what is the Christian life? the Christian life is the acting and moving of the compound Spirit, the processed Triune God. Everything that God is, God has, and God wants to do within His people, is impossible and will not happen without this Spirit. 

our need today is to live the real Christian life. our living the Christian life has something to do with the Lord's coming. if the Lord cannot gain His bride, He cannot return. if the Body of Christ does not have a certain reality, expressed and manifested on this earth, the Lord cannot come back. what is the reality of that bride, that Body of Christ? it is the corporate Christian life lived out by all of us, His believers. 

the significances of the ingredients of this compound anointting oil are:

1. flowing myrrh: signifies the precious death of Christ. every other human being's death is ugly and terrible. but the death of Christ is sweet, precious, and flowing. 

2. fragrant cinnamon: siginifies the sweetness and effetiveness of Christ's death. cinammon was prescribed to stimulate a weak heart. when we apply the Lord's death in the Spirit to our inner being, our heart is stimulated to make us happy and joyful in the Lord. there are many situations in our human life, we are unhappy and full of complainings and murmurings. but these are also the opportunities for us to apply the Lord's death, to allow the Lord to be fragrant cinnamon to us to stimulate our heart. 

3. fragrant calamus: signifies the precious resurrection of Christ

4. cassia: signifies the repelling power of Christ's resurrection

5. olive oil: signifies the Spirit of God

this compound Spirit typified for the compound ointment in Exodus 30, is, of course, for our life and Christian life. but what is our Christian life for ? our Christian life is not just for our own spirituality, or spiritual accomplishment, but for God's building. 

this ointment signifies the Triune God processed and consummated through Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection to become the all-inclusive compound Spirit to reach His chosen and redeemed people and to anoint them with Himself, making Himself one with them and making them one with Him. 

the ointment was used to anoint the tabernacle, the furniture, and the priests, which means that the Spirit was applied to the building, to the serving ones. all of these is to make the tabernacle with those who serve it holy like God, sanctified to be as God in His divine nature. all of these is for the fulfillment of the divine purpose. we must have this reality in the church life today. 

such an anointing, being the moving of the compound Spirit within us, applies t us and also adds all the elements of the processed and consummated Triune God into our inner being so that our inner man may grow in the divine life with the divine elements and we may be mingled with God as one. our real growth in life actually is the addition of God into our being. the more God is added into us, the more His divine elements is added into us, the more we grow in the divine life. 

John 7:39 But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

this means that before the Lord's glorification, which was His resurrection, the compound Spirit was not yet;; it was after Christ's resurrection that the compounding, or the blending, of such a Spirit was completed. 

it is not a small thing to enjoy the anointing, the bountiful supply of the Lord. this anointing and supply is for His Body, for His building. so we must be in the Body and be for the buiding.

Psalm 133:2 It is like the fine oil upon the head / That ran down upon the beard, / Upon Aaron’s beard, / That ran down upon the hem of his garments;

no matter how insignificant we are in the Body, even we are just the smallest member, as long as we are members of the Body, this rich compound ointment will flow and reach us. in order to be under the ointment, we must be one with the church; then we will spotaneously enjoy the application of the anointing oil with all its elements; how marvelous is the oneness produced by the application of this ointment. 

according to the background when the apostle Paul wrote the book of 2 Timothy, Paul wrote a word of both warning and encouragement, to show the believers how to live a proper Christian life, to follow the Lord, especially in a corrupted age. 

2 Timothy 4:7 I have fought the good fight; I have finished the course; I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4:8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, with which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will recompense me in that day, and not only me but also all those who have loved His appearing.

as revealed in 2 Timothy 4:7, a proper Christian life is threefold; it involves fighting the good fight, running and finishing the course, and keeping the faith. These three all are related to God's economy. here Paul first mentions "fighting the good fight" because throughout the whole period, the Christian life is a life of fighting this good fight. therefore, as a Christian, we need to have a spirit of fighting. as shown in the exodus of Israel people, Jehovah God refersed to them as the army of Jehovah. as Christinas, the purpose of our gaining Christ and experiencing Christ, is to prepare us to engage in this fight. 

1 Timothy 1:18 This charge I commit to you, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you might war the good warfare,

the word "charge" comes with aughthory and command.  the apostle Paul here is charging Timothy with the authority of the Lord to war the good warfare. God's economy charges us to fight, because God has an enemy in this universe. in order to defeat the enemy, we all need to be equipped to fight the good warfare. 

to war the good warfare is to war against the different teachings of the dissenters and to carry out God's economy. the different teachings will distract people and cause people to deviate from God's economy. therefore, we need to war against these different teaching so that we can be kept in the central line of God's economy. 

1 Timothy 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold on the eternal life, to which you were called and have confessed the good confession before many witnesses.

the eternal life is actually the processed and consummated Triune God being life to us, the divine life, the uncreated life of God. to fight the good fight of the faith in the Christian life, we need to lay hold on this divine life and not trust in our human life. without the eternal life we are nothing. 

Matthew 12:28 But if I, by the Spirit of God, cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

we are fighting the good fight against Satan and the kingdom of darkness. we should not only be able to preserve ourselves whole but should also challenge the devil. today, at the end of the age, the evil powers are more intense than befofe, because Satan knows that his end is coming soon.the strategy of the enemy is to corrupt and ruin man's mind. we should be God's soldiers, fighting the good fight, overthowing the devil's strongholds, and taking captive man's thought unto the obedience of Christ. 

when Moses sent out 12 spies to spy the good land. 10 spies came back with the evil reports because they were scared of the giants in the good land. but there were Caleb and Joshua who were encouraging Israel people not to be discrouraged or dismayed, but God has promised to give this good land to His people. today we are in the same situation. we should not be discouraged by the outward world situation right now. Rather, we need to be stregthened to stand firm for the kingdom of God, for the glory of God. 

we are fighting the good fight for the truth. what is truth? truth is not doctrine or teaching. truth is the Triune God with His word. the divine truth is absolute, and we must be absolute for the truth and uphold the absoluteness of the truth. we need to have the truth wrought into us and constituted into our being. 

Grace is God in His Trinity procressed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension to be eveything to us. After passing through such a long process, the Triune God has become everything to us. He is our redemption, salvation, life, and sanctification. Having been processed to become the all-clusive life-giving Spirit, the Triune God Himself is our grace.

- "Life Study of Galations" P96

we have been joined to the Lord, and this is our Christian life, not emphasizing on our behavior or conduct, but that we should live a grafted life. Christ has entered into us and now is living in us, who is the righteousness of God, who is becoming our righteousness also both objective and subjective. since we are now living a grafted life, we need to turn to the Lord and ask the Lord to show us the meaning of a grafte life. 

1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.

God desires that the divine life and the human life be joined together to become one life. the concept of the divine life and the human life being grafted into one is mysterious, beyond the natural concept, and foreign to human thought. since this is beyond our concept, we rather simply enjoy this fact, that we have been grafted into God to be one with God. 

Revelation 14:18 And another angel came out of the altar, he who has authority over fire, and he cried with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripened.

John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. 

in Revelation, it shows the wine of the earth; while in John 15, the Lord says that He is the vine and we are the branches. so as human beings, we only have two options. but the Lord has rescued us from the vine of the earth and grafted into Himself as the true vine. in order to be able to graft us later, at creation, God created man with a human life which resembles the divine life; therefore the divine life and the human life can be grated together and then grow together organically. 

God is the One who dwells in the unapproachable light, so there is no way for us to be grafted into God if He remains as the God dwelling in unapproachable light. thus, Christ became flesh to be the seed of David, the branch of David, the Shoot, so that we might be grafted together with Him; He became the same as we are so that He and we could be gfrated together. Isaiah 53 tells us that He was a man with sorrow and acquanted with grief. Hebrews 4 tells us that He is the High Priest who can be touched with our weaknesses, because He has been tempted in all respects like us, which causes Him able to sympathize with us in all our situations. 

Grafting requires cutting; two branches cannot be grafted together unless both are cut. so Christ was cut when he died on the cross, and we were cut when we repented and received the Lord. After Christ was cut on the cross, He was resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit. by becoming such a Spirit, Christ was ready for grafting. once we repent and receive the Lord, He as the life-giving Spirit enters into our spirit, bringing the divine life into us, and we are grafted together with Christ. 

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

after we have been grafted into Christ, we should no longer live by ourselves; rather we should allow the pneumatic Christ to live in us. 

it is easy for us to have the concept that this is an exchanged life, that the divine life of Christ replaced our human life. but it is not the divine concept of God. the divine word shows us that we are living a grafted life, the mingling of the human life with the divine life. the human life is still here, but enjoying the benefit of the divine life. the focus here is the dispensing and infusing of the Lord with all His unsearchable riches. in our life, Christ must be all and in all, be everything to us. but we are so full of so many other things. the Lord has to strip off all these things, like what He did to Job in the Old Testament. we have to go through this stripping process, to cause us to lean on the Lord only, not anytying we have or obtained in our life, to cause us to only rely and depend on the Lord, and only to be filled with Christ, not anything else. 

by being grafted into a better life, our human life is uplifted and transformed. 

in the grafted life the divine life works within us to 

1. discharge the negative elements. the divine life works in a gradual way to eliminate whatever is natural. the negative elements in our disposition is killed, and then instead of casting away our disposition, the Lord uplifts it and uses it. 

2. resurrect God's orignal creation. we were created for God's purpose. but Satan got into us and runined us. however, instead of giving up His creation, God will reclaim it. God intends to bring all the aspects of our being into resurrection. 

3. supply the riches of Christ to our inward parts. through such a supply we are renewed in our mind, emotion, and will. 

4. saturate our whole being. we are being saturated, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ. 

2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.

in living such a grafted life, it is not a matter of our effort or striving, or self improving, but a matter of beholding the Lord. in this beholding, we are  enjoying the benefits of the grafted life. through this grafte life, the Lord has the ground to transform us. the more we live this grafted life, the more the Lord will have ground in us, and the more we will be able to discern inward things.