The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 21, No. 9

The Mending Ministry of John (1)

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the first eight messages given during the spring 2017 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Mending Ministry of John." When the Lord called John, he was mending nets (Matt. 4:21). This was an indication that the emphasis in John's ministry would be to mend what was torn, damaged, and broken and to restore what was lost for the fulfillment of God's original intention. The ministry of the apostle John was a mending ministry, a ministry of mending and restoring what had been damaged following Paul's completing ministry; John mended the broken spiritual net, perfecting it and making it stronger. There are two main aspects of John's mending ministry. The first is the aspect of ministering the life that swallows death, restores, supplies, heals, harmonizes, encourages, and uplifts. We see this mending ministry of life mainly in John's Gospel and his Epistles. John's ministry of life with light, love, and reality is completed in Revelation, where he presents Christ as the center of the divine administration and as the One who carries out God's eternal economy. If we are to know and experience the mending ministry of John, we need to know both the Christ who is on the throne and the Christ who is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. We need to live by the indwelling Christ under the authority of the enthroned Christ in the heavens; then we also will participate in this same ministry of life. In the Gospel of John, there are two major lines. The first is that of God as the eternal Word being processed through incarnation to become a man, a God-man, and living a life that expresses the divine life in humanity, dying for our redemption, and resurrecting with a body yet also becoming the holy breath, the life-giving Spirit. The issue of this process is that God in Christ has become breath so that He can enter into us to be our life. The second major line in the Gospel of John concerns the believers entering into the processed and consummated Triune God as a marvelous realm in which all that God is in Christ is available to them at any moment. The Lord's eternal intention is to bring us into a realm where we will be together in the new heaven and new earth with all the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified sons of God. We all will have the breath within us, and we all will be in this divine realm. To the Lord we will be the tabernacle, and to us He will be the temple (Rev. 21:3, 22). To us He will be the Husband, and to Him we will be the wife. This is our eternal destiny. The Announcements section of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.