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Scripture Reading: Eph. 2:19; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; 1 Pet. 4:17; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; Eph. 2:21-22; 1 Cor. 1:2; 10:32; Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 14:33b; Eph. 1:22; Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rom. 16:1; Rev. 1:4a, 11
Prayer: Lord, how we thank You for all that You are. We thank You that You are the Lord. You are the sovereign One. Lord, we thank You for the cleansing of Your precious blood, and we thank You that we are gathered into Your name again. We believe that You are with us. Your word is here. Your Spirit is here. Thank You for all the provisions You have given us. We humble ourselves before You. Lord, we admit that we are nothing and can do nothing. We trust in Your blessing under the cleansing of Your precious blood. Lord, cleanse us again and anoint us. We desire to enjoy You as the anointing ointment. Lord, be with us in our speaking. We desire to be one spirit with You for Your speaking. Be in our speaking, speaking what You want to speak. Lord, defeat the enemy. Rescue us. We hide ourselves in You, taking You as our refuge. Lord, we hide ourselves under the cleansing, prevailing blood from all the enemy’s attacks. Lord, hide us, cover us, bless us, visit us, and give a word to each one of us. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
In earlier messages on the apostles’ teaching, we have covered four main points concerning God’s New Testament economy: the incarnation of the Triune God; the all-inclusive death of the incarnated Triune God, Jesus Christ; the resurrection of Christ; and the ascension of Christ. After the ascension of Christ, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place for the baptizing of all the believers into one Body, which is composed of many wonderful items. First, this wonderful Body is the Body of Christ. Second, it is the bride of Christ. Third, it is the universal new man. All three of these items relate to Christ. Now we will consider the church as it relates to God.
The fourth item related to the Body is that it is the household of God, the family of God (Eph. 2:19; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; 1 Pet. 4:17). The household of God is the family of God. We are the household of God, God’s family. We believers are now a divine family. Before we were saved, we were a human family, born of Adam, but now we are members of the divine family. We have a great Father, and we are His children. He considers all His children His household, His folks. We, as God’s children, constitute His family.
In Greek, the same word is used to denote both house and household. In the English language also, the two words are treated as nearly the same. The Chinese language is similar in that the word for home also refers to a family. God’s house and God’s household are one entity, not two separate entities. We may think of a home as being a house with a family living in it. With God, the family is the home, and the home is the family.
God’s dwelling place is His children, and His children not only have been born by a natural birth but also have been reborn by the divine birth. We are born of God; we are not adopted by God. We are children born directly of God into His family. This family is a living entity and is God’s home. God does not live in a home that is separate from His family. He lives in His children, taking them as His home yet still considering them His children. Therefore, we are both God’s family and God’s home. This is the one Body.
We were constituted to be God’s home two thousand years ago, either at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 or at the house of Cornelius in Acts 10. This was accomplished under the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the baptizing of all the believers into one Body, which is the household of God. We are now such a household. Though we are of different colors and races, we are folks of the same family. If this were not true, we could not call each other brother and sister. We all have been born of the one Father in a great delivery (John 16:19-22; 20:17; 1 Pet. 1:3). Paul was born in the same delivery as you and I; thus, we all are of the same family.
A household refers to life. Without life there could be no family. In the book of Numbers the numbering of the children of Israel was by their families, by their fathers’ households (1:2; 26:2), indicating that it was according to life. In the church life our first concern is with life. The life we are concerned with is not our forefather Adam’s life but God’s life, the divine life. We have been born of the divine life and are today in a divine family.
The Greek word for temple refers to the inner temple, not the outer temple. The temple of God is where God as the Spirit dwells and where we as His people worship Him. The temple is the place where we can render our worship to God. We must worship God in His temple. Today He is the Spirit who dwells in our spirit (John 4:24).
The temple is also the one Body, the church. First Corinthians 3:16 refers to a local church as God’s temple. The very next verse (v. 17) refers to the universal church as God’s temple. How many temples are there? In the state of California there are more than fifty local churches. Each one of these local churches is an expression of God’s one temple. In each of these expressions we are being fitted together and are growing into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21).
Whether universal or local, all these temples are God’s habitation, God’s dwelling place. Since a habitation is a dwelling place, God can dwell in His temple and rest there. A home is a place of rest. The place where God dwells and rests is our spirit (v. 22). How marvelous our spirit is! The great God can rest in our spirit.
The source of these aspects of the Body is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, who is the consummation of the processed Triune God. In eternity past our God was triune, but He was not yet processed. He began to be processed by being incarnated. He continued His process by being crucified on the cross. He was processed further by being resurrected from death and Hades. He completed His process in His ascension. Now He is the processed Triune God. As the processed Triune God, He poured Himself out as the Holy Spirit to baptize all His chosen ones, the believers in Christ, into one Body. This one Body is first the Body of Christ, then the bride of Christ, then the universal new man, then God’s household or God’s family, and then God’s temple, which is God’s habitation.
Within the tabernacle there were the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The Ark was within the Holy of Holies. All the marvelous, divine things were wrapped up with the Ark, and today the Ark is within our spirit. The Ark within our spirit is Christ, who is the embodiment of the processed Triune God. Our spirit is the place where He dwells, rests, and does His secret things. Many secret things are done by God in our spirit.
The church is the called-out assembly. We may say also that it is the called-out congregation. In ancient Greek society a mayor of a certain large city would call out the people to make them a congregation so that he might speak something to them. The New Testament uses the Greek word ekklesia, meaning “a called-out assembly,” to signify what the church is.
As God’s chosen people, we were scattered among the unbelievers. One day God called each of us out. Before that time we were not thinking about God. We might have been thinking about our future or many things other than God. God called us out of all those things. In the teaching of the New Testament, God’s calling is a great thing. We are the called saints. In 1 Corinthians 1:2 Paul says that he wrote his letter to “the church of God which is in Corinth...the called saints.” The called saints are the church of God. That the church is “of God” (v. 2; 10:32) denotes the divine essence of the church. As the called ones, we have been gathered to be a congregation, an assembly. The church consists of the called-out and gathered ones. Many who have not yet been called cannot understand why we meet so often. They have not yet realized that to meet together is to be gathered as the called-out assembly.
The church, the called-out assembly, is not only of God but also of Christ. That the church is “of Christ” (Rom. 16:16) denotes the church’s element in life. The church is also “of the saints” (1 Cor. 14:33b), denoting the human components of the church. Based on these designations of the church, it is accurate to say that God or Christ is the Owner, the Possessor, of the church; but to say that the saints are the owners of the church is not an adequate interpretation.
The expression the church of God denotes the essence of the church. God, the divine person, is the very intrinsic essence of the church. Every entity has an essence; it has not only a nature but an essence as well. The church’s essence is God. At our regeneration God was born into our being. According to our realization, we might feel that we were born of God only a short time ago. However, in the eyes of God, we were born of Him two thousand years ago (1 Pet. 1:3). When we were regenerated, the essence of God was born into us.
Our natural essence is not lovable. We may think that we are quite wonderful, but our natural essence is not lovely at all. We need another essence, God’s essence, to be born into us. God’s essence thus becomes the essence of the church. When we speak of the church, we must realize in a deeper way that the church is of God essentially. God’s very intrinsic essence is the church’s essence. In Revelation the church is likened to a pure, golden lampstand (1:12). Gold symbolizes God’s divine essence. Since the church has God’s essence, it is pure, golden. God is the church’s essence, and Christ is the church’s element in life. The church is a matter of life, and life is the element of the church.
The church is also of the saints, denoting that the church is composed of human beings. God could never have a church composed of angels, because the angels are not qualified. The angels are God’s servants. They are not of the same family as God, but we are. God needs human beings to constitute the church. God’s divine essence and Christ’s element in life need human beings. Therefore, the church must be of God as the essence, of Christ as the element in life, and of the saints as the human components. Hallelujah for such a church, for such a marvelous called-out assembly!
The church has two aspects. First, since it is uniquely one in the whole universe, the church is universal, comprising all the believers in Christ in all times and in all places (Eph. 1:22). The universal church comprises all God’s redeemed saints in the New Testament age. The Old Testament saints, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Moses, David, and Isaiah, were not members of the New Testament church. The New Testament church began at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. John the Baptist was not in the New Testament church. The Lord Jesus said, “I say to you, Among those born of women there is no one greater than John, yet he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (Luke 7:28). This shows that John was not a member of the New Testament church.
At His coming back, the Lord Jesus will close the church age, and many Jews will repent. Zechariah 12 gives us the details of their salvation. The Jews will be saved, but they will not be in the New Testament church. We are the most blessed people because we are in the most blessed age, the age of the church. This church has a universal aspect, and it includes Peter, John, Paul, and all the believers through the centuries. It includes us, and it includes those who will follow us in the future.
The church also has a local aspect. In each locality on the earth, there should be only one local church. The local church comprises only those believers in Christ who live in a particular locality (Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rom. 16:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:4a, 11). The last point that the Bible teaches us concerning the church involves the local churches. Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, depicts seven churches in Asia — the church in Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamos, the church in Thyatira, the church in Sardis, the church in Philadelphia, and the church in Laodicea. These were seven churches in seven cities. The local churches are the many expressions of the one universal church. In the universal existence all the churches are one, but in the local expressions the one universal church is expressed through and in many local churches. These are the two aspects of the church.
The church is the Body, constituted by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to be the Body of Christ, the bride of Christ, the new man, the household, or family, of God, the temple of God, and the church, the called-out assembly. We must see all these items in the proper interpretation of the teaching of the apostles. Once we clearly see that which is the teaching of the apostles, we can see that which is not the teaching of the apostles.
