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Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 3:12; Eph. 4:13-16; Col. 2:19; 1 Pet. 2:4-5; Heb. 11:10, 16, 40; 12:22-24
The building of God is a divine mingling of God Himself with man. From the entire Scriptures we can realize that after God’s creation, God’s intention is to work Himself into humanity and to work humanity into divinity. After God’s creation, what God has always been doing is to build Himself with man and to build man with Himself.
If we pay our full attention to the record of the Gospel of John, we will realize that this Gospel is a matter not only of life but also of building. Life is for the building, and the building is of the divine life. Therefore, in this Gospel the divine issue is that we abide in the Lord and the Lord abides in us; we become the abode of the Lord, and the Lord becomes an abode for us. The Lord and we, we and the Lord, become the mutual abode of God and man. In the Scriptures we have such a sentence: “Abide in Me and I in you” (15:4). This is a short sentence, a small word, yet its meaning is very profound. Such a word could never be spoken in the Old Testament. This word could be spoken only after the Lord was incarnated as a man, crucified on the cross, resurrected, and transfigured into the Spirit. By His incarnation Christ brought God into man, and by His death and resurrection He brought man into God. In other words, by His incarnation He worked God into man, and by His death and resurrection He worked man into God.
In John 14:20 the Lord said, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” That day was the day of resurrection. After that day, the disciples could abide in the Lord, and He could abide in them. Christ could come to them with the Father to make an abode with them. This is the eventual issue of Christ being life to us. The issue, the result, of the Lord coming to be life to us is that we become the abode of the Lord, and the Lord becomes the abode for us. This means that the Lord and we, we and the Lord, are built together as a divine building to be the mutual abode of God and man. We and God, God and we, mutually abide in one another. This is the building of God. It is something mysterious yet very real and wonderful.
The central thought of all the Epistles is the divine building, the building of God with man. What the apostle Paul did was simply a work of building. Paul uses the word building many times. Regrettably, certain English translations use the words edify or edification instead of build or building, so many people understand this word improperly. What the apostle Paul did was simply to build people with gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Cor. 3:12).
Gold, silver, and precious stones are not two items or four but three, because they correspond to the three of the Triune God. Gold signifies the divine nature; this is related to God the Father as the source and nature. Silver, the second item of the precious materials, is related to the work and person of the second of the Triune God. It signifies the redeeming work of God the Son. Because we were fallen people, we needed the redemption of Christ. The third item, the precious stones, signifies the transforming work of the Holy Spirit, the third of the Triune God. By the redemption of the Son of God we have received the nature of God. From this time on we are in the process of transformation by the Holy Spirit through all our environment and circumstances to be transformed from pieces of clay into precious stones. This is the work of the transforming Holy Spirit.
Here, therefore, we have God the Father as the source, the nature, signified by gold; we have God the Son with His work and person as silver; and we have God the Spirit, doing the work of transforming us from clay into precious stones. These are the three aspects of the work of the three persons of the Triune God.
With a building there is always the need of material. With what kind of material do we build up the believers? It is with none other than God the Father as the gold, God the Son as the silver, and God the Spirit as the precious stones. In other words, we build up the believers with the Triune God.
First Corinthians 3:12 says that silver is the second of the precious materials, but in Genesis 2:12 and Revelation 21:21 the second material is not silver but pearl or bdellium, a pearl-like substance. Pearl signifies regeneration. It is something produced; it is not created but generated. When a small grain of sand wounds an oyster and stays in the wound, a pearl is “regenerated” by the secretion from the oyster. In this way a grain of sand becomes a pearl. We are the grains of sand that wounded Christ and stayed in His wound. The divine life-juice of Christ continually secretes on us, causing us to become pearls.
With pearls there is no thought of redemption but only regeneration, which is the original thought of God. The original, eternal thought of God was not related to redemption. It was that we as created beings would be regenerated. In the process, however, sin came in, and we became fallen. Now we need to be not only regenerated but also redeemed. The Lord Jesus needed to die not only so that we may have His life but in order to redeem us from sins. Therefore, at the time the Epistles were written, there was the need of redemption. That is why in 1 Corinthians 3 there is silver instead of pearl. Eventually, we are not only redeemed but also regenerated through redemption; that is, we have the silver, but we eventually become pearl. After we are redeemed, God accomplishes His eternal thought by regenerating us in His redemption.
The material with which we build up the believers and the church is the Triune God — God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. God’s intention is to make Himself everything to us, to become our very nature to make us the embodiment of God Himself. The entire city of New Jerusalem is gold, signifying that it is full of God. Within the church, within the believers, there should be nothing but God Himself. God works Himself into each one of us as our everything. In this way we have the nature of God as the gold. We are regenerated in the redemption of Christ and transformed by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit to have the nature of God as the gold, the work and person of Christ as the pearl, and the work of the Holy Spirit as the precious stones. In this way we are built up with the Triune God — with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit.
Any teaching in the church that is not in this line and for this very purpose, regardless of how scriptural it is, is a wind of teaching blowing people away from Christ and His Body (Eph. 4:14). The proper teaching for the building up of the church brings people into the Triune God to build the Triune God into people. According to Ephesians 4:13-16, the proper way to build up the Body is to realize the Head, Christ, and to have the Body life, the church life. In this way all the members are built up with the Triune God to function in, through, and with the Triune God. Then the whole church becomes a mingling, a building, of the Triune God with the saved and redeemed persons.
We should read all the Epistles again. In principle, all the Epistles without exception speak of building the believers as the church with the Triune God as the material. To build the believers is not merely to bring them back to the Lord, to make them right with the Lord. This is not good enough. To build up the believers is to impart and minister Christ into the believers, to work Christ more and more into them.
This can be seen in Colossians 2:19. Such a verse could not have come from the human mind. It says, “Holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.” The Head is Christ, the second of the Triune God, the redeeming One; the joints are for the rich supply; and the sinews are for knitting together. We should pay our full attention to the phrase grows with the growth of God. When we hold Christ, the whole Body grows with the growth of God. Day by day continually God must grow within us. The element, the essence, of God must increase within us.
To build up the church and the believers is simply to impart, to minister, Christ to them. It is not merely to teach them to love others or to be humble. If this were all there is to Christianity, the Chinese people would not need it. The teachings of Confucius were better than this. Confucius taught two thousand five hundred years ago to love others and be humble. We do not need a Christianity that is a religion of teaching, teaching people to be good. The reality of Christianity is Christ Himself ministered to people and imparting Himself to people. The true Christian teaching is not to teach people to do this or not to do that; it is to minister Christ to people.
The Epistles of the New Testament are books that are full of the ministry of Christ; they minister Christ to people. When Christ is ministered to us, He is our love, humility, and patience toward others; He is our everything. It is not merely a matter of love; it is Christ as love. Likewise, it is not merely a matter of patience; it is Christ experienced by us becoming our patience. It is not a matter of good. Good is not of the tree of life; it is of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, the proper way to build up the believers and build up the church is not by teachings or by anything else but by the Triune God. Do our teachings minister Christ to others? Do our gifts minister Christ to others? This is a big problem.
The apostle Paul spoke much about the building of God with the Triune God as the building materials. The apostle Peter did the same thing. He told us that the Lord is the living stone and that we also are living stones being built up together in the Lord to be a spiritual house (1 Pet. 2:4-5). Similarly, the apostle John spoke about abiding in the Lord and the Lord abiding in us. The real meaning of abiding is the mingling, the building.
When we go to help a brother or sister, in what way will we help them? We must realize that to help the saints is to build, and in order to build there is the need of materials. The materials for the divine building are nothing other than the Triune God. Therefore, we must first experience the Triune God ourselves. We must experience God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. In this way we will have the materials in our own experience. Then when we go to visit and fellowship with the saints, we will know what to minister and with what we should minister. We will realize that the only way to minister to others is by the Triune God and with the Triune God. To build is to minister Christ as the Spirit to others so that they can be built with Christ. We must be very clear about this.
For nearly two thousand years there have been many teachings in Christianity. By the mercy and sovereignty of God, I have encountered many different kinds of Christianity. I was born in Christianity, raised in Christianity, and was taught in Christianity, and I became disgusted with Christianity. I saw one kind of Christianity that was a religion of heresy. I was in another kind of Christianity that was a religion of sound teaching. However, after so many years I was never built, because nothing of God was wrought into me. Rather, I was just given teachings, such as the seventy weeks in Daniel 9, that are composed of seven weeks, sixty-two weeks, and the last week, which is divided into two parts of forty-two months. We calculated the number of years, months, and days. This was the way I was taught. I also learned much about the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, which had a golden head, silver breast and arms, bronze abdomen and thighs, iron legs, feet of clay and iron, and ten toes. I learned that this represents Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire, and that the ten toes are ten kingdoms. I grew sick of all these teachings. There was nothing of God and Christ ministered to us.
The proper way to build up the Body of Christ, which was taken by the apostles, is to build the Body with Christ, by Christ, and in Christ, having Christ as everything. The way to build is to minister Christ into people. Then these people decrease, and the Lord Christ increases. He is enlarged to become everything, and we become nothing. This is to grow with the growth of God. I love the term the growth of God. How much has God grown within us; how much growth of God is there among us as the church? It is not a matter of teachings or gifts; it is a matter of God Himself.
I appreciate Hymns, #513, written by A. B. Simpson, the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Stanza 1 says, “Once His gift I wanted, / Now, the Giver own; / Once I sought for healing, / Now Himself alone.” The Healer is different from the healing. We may have healing, but we may not have the Healer. As long as we have the Healer, we have everything. Likewise, to have the gift is superficial, but to have the Giver is something deep and solid. As long as we have the Giver, we do not need to worry about the gift, just as when Rebecca came to Isaac, she inherited everything that he inherited. We need to realize that we build up the believers and the church not by anything other than the Triune God Himself.
The New Jerusalem is the ultimate conclusion of the entire Scriptures. In the Gospel of John we see the Lord Jesus as many items. He was recommended by John the Baptist as the Lamb of God and as the Bridegroom. He is also the light, the life, the way, and everything. The New Jerusalem is the all-inclusive embodiment of Christ as everything. In the New Jerusalem Christ is the Lamb, and He is the Bridegroom to marry the New Jerusalem as the bride. In the New Jerusalem Christ is also the light, the life, the way, and the truth, the reality. The New Jerusalem is the embodiment of all that Christ is.
If we read the Gospel of John again, we can find many items that Christ is. Then when we come to the New Jerusalem, we can find all these items there. Everything that the Lord is, is in the New Jerusalem. Every item of the Lord in the Gospel of John is in the New Jerusalem as the all-inclusive embodiment of what the Lord Jesus is. This means that all that the Lord is has been wrought and built into the redeemed people and mingled with them as one. The ultimate picture in the record of the entire Holy Scriptures is a building as the embodiment of all that Christ is. This is the building of God.
Hebrews 11:10, 16 and 12:22 speak of the New Jerusalem. The Old Testament saints, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, expected to share in the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, the city which has the foundations. This heavenly city with the foundations is not a physical place. It is a building, a living composition, of all the redeemed ones composed together in God, through Christ, and with the Holy Spirit.
Hebrews 11:40 says, “God has provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.” This is a wonderful verse! If the heavenly city were a physical place, objective and outside of the redeemed ones and only to be expected by the redeemed ones, the Holy Spirit would not have said in this verse that we, the New Testament saints, are a perfection to the Old Testament saints. Without the New Testament saints the Old Testament saints could never be perfected. The Old Testament saints can be compared to a body; without legs, arms, and hands it could not be a perfect body. The upper part of the body needs the lower part as a perfection. The saints of the Old Testament time are merely a part of the holy city. Without the New Testament saints the holy city could never be perfected. The Old Testament part needs the New Testament part as a perfection. By this verse we can realize that the holy city is not a physical place beside or outside of the redeemed ones. Rather, the redeemed ones are the composition of this holy city, and this holy city is the composition of all the redeemed ones.
Hebrews 12:22-23 says, “You have come forward to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem; and to myriads of angels, to the universal gathering; and to the church of the firstborn, who have been enrolled in the heavens; and to God, the Judge of all; and to the spirits of righteous men who have been made perfect.” The church of the firstborn is the composition of the New Testament saints, who have been enrolled in the heavens. They are not in heaven; they are simply enrolled in the heavens. The righteous men are the Old Testament saints. Verse 24 continues, “And to Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling, which speaks something better than that of Abel.”
These verses speak of coming forward to eight items. Some may argue that since the heavenly Jerusalem is the second item, the New Testament saints as the church are the fourth item, and the Old Testament saints, the righteous men, are the sixth item, the New Jerusalem must be something other than the saints. If we read these verses carefully, however, we can realize that these items are the “bricks” of the same building. For example, the Lord Jesus is the seventh item, and the blood of the Lord Jesus is the eighth; the blood is something of the Lord Jesus. In the same principle, the New Testament saints and the Old Testament saints are “bricks” of the holy city, New Jerusalem, which includes Mount Zion.
Therefore, the New Jerusalem is not a physical place but a personal composition of all the saints redeemed by God and built up together with God and in God as a dwelling place for the satisfaction and rest of God. This is proved by Revelation 21, which says that the New Jerusalem is a composition with the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel and the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (vv. 12, 14). It is a composition of all the redeemed ones built up together in God and with God to be the building of God. In this building God is the satisfaction to the redeemed ones, and they are the satisfaction to God. This building is the mutual rest and satisfaction for God and man.
