‹‹  WEEK 12 — DAY 2  ›› 

Morning Nourishment

1 Cor. 1:30 "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom to us from God:
both righteousness and sanctification and redemption."

Gen. 8:15-16 "And God spoke to Noah, saying, Go forth from the ark, you and your wife
and your sons and your sons' wives with you."

18 "So Noah went forth, as well as his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him."

     Through faith and through baptism we all have been put into an organic union with the Triune God. It is through the resurrection of Christ that we are brought into the Triune God. Then we have an organic union with the Triune God. Now in the Triune God and with the Triune God we enjoy the divine life and the life-giving Spirit. Therefore, after we have been baptized, we have the divine life and the life-giving Spirit to make the figure of baptism real and living to us in our experience. (Life-study of 1 Peter, p. 225)

Today's Reading

     The effectiveness of Christ's death is in the Spirit of resurrection. Christ died to take away our sin (John 1:29), and He died for our sins, bearing our sins away (1 Cor. 15:3; 1 Pet. 2:24). Christ's death now keeps us free from sin (Rom. 6:7). But the effectiveness of this death is in Christ's resurrection. The reality and effectiveness of the death of Christ are in the life-giving Spirit in resurrection. When the life-giving Spirit comes into us with resurrection life, this Spirit makes the death of Christ effective in our experience. Immediately and spontaneously, we are free from sin, and we enjoy the redemption accomplished by Christ on the cross. (Life-study of 1 Peter, p. 226)

     The eight persons in the ark signify us, the New Testament believers. I would like to say a word to the young people. When I was a young Christian, I exercised my mentality very much about the statements in the Bible that say that we are in Christ. I tried to figure out how we could be in Christ. I could neither see the reality of this nor understand its significance. One day, as I was considering what Noah's ark passed through, the Lord showed me that the eight persons in the ark were a picture showing us how it is that we are in Christ. Those eight persons were in the ark when the ark passed through the flood. Thus, they also passed through the flood in the ark, but they themselves did not touch the flood. It was the ark that withstood the flood waters. This answers the questions of how Christ's crucifixion can be ours and how we were crucified in Christ. When the ark came out of the flood, the eight people in it also came out. When the ark rested upon the mountaintop, the eight persons also were resurrected and rested on the mountaintop in the ark. Ephesians 2:6 says that we were raised up together with Christ. Before we were born, we were resurrected. When Christ was resurrected out from the death waters, we were in Him. Therefore, in the church we are resurrected people.

     If we look at the picture of the type, we shall see that the church is another community; it is not the old society. The old community and society have been buried. When we were baptized, we buried the old community and society. The flood came and buried Noah's old society, and only eight persons were resurrected. Now the living of those eight persons on the new line must be a type of the church life. We are the church people, and the church people are a resurrected people. We are another community, another society. The church life is a new community.

     After the flood, the eight persons saved through the ark began to have a new living. Before the flood, they saw many evil and ungodly things. But they were saved, separated, resurrected, and ushered into a new living. That new living was a type of the church life. In addition to all the other seeds sown in the book of Genesis, the seed of the church life is also sown there. Every part of the living of the eight people was a prefigure of a part of the church life. (Life-study of Genesis, pp. 425-426)

Further Reading: Truth Lessons—Level Two, vol. 1, lsn. 3; Truth Lessons—Level Two, vol. 2, lsn. 17