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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:26a, 27; 28:16-19; Exo. 25:8-9; 40:1, 34-35; 1 Kings 7:51; 8:10-11; Ezra 1:3, 5; John 1:14; 2:19-20; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:19-22; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Rev. 21:2-3
In this chapter we want to see the matter of the recovery of God’s expression. In church history there was the time of the Reformation. Today even some of the denominations use this term reformation in their name, such as the Dutch Reformed Church. Some people have called the Reformation a kind of restoration. In our messages, however, for the Lord’s move today, we like to use the word recovery. Recovery implies that something was there originally, yet it was lost. So there is the need to recover the lost thing. This is the real meaning of the word recovery in the spiritual sense. If we know the Bible, we can see that the Lord’s recovery is not only in the New Testament, not only today, but that it was also in the Old Testament.
These two Testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament, actually reveal the same thing. The Old Testament reveals the model of the real thing that will be covered in the New Testament. Augustine said that the New Testament is concealed in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is manifested in the New Testament. When I was a young man, I heard this word, and I have been keeping it as a proverb to help me study and understand the holy Word. It reminds me all the time that whatever is in the Old Testament will be in the New Testament, and whatever is in the New Testament was already in the Old Testament.
For example, the book of Exodus in the Old Testament mentions the tabernacle. In the New Testament the Gospel of John begins with the tabernacle (1:14), and the last book of the Bible, Revelation, ends with the tabernacle (21:3). John’s Gospel says that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and this Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (vv. 1, 14). His dwelling among man was a kind of tabernacling. A tabernacle was dwelling among the human race. At the very end of the Bible, which is also the very end of John’s writings, there is the New Jerusalem, which is the consummation of the tabernacle revealed in the entire Bible.
By this example you can see that the crucial things in the Old Testament are also in the New Testament. So the two Testaments reveal to us the same thing. The only difference is that in the Old Testament it is a model, and in the New Testament it is a reality. Sometimes in architecture, people make a blueprint and then a model of the blueprint. Eventually, the real building is constructed. The real building in design and in detail is absolutely according to the model. In the Old Testament we have the model, and in the New Testament we have the real thing.
When I was about twenty years of age, I learned about this matter of recovery by reading the Bible and studying other Christian writings, especially among the Brethren. They talked about the return from the captivity. They pointed out that the children of Israel were carried away into captivity to Babylon. Then after seventy years the Lord commanded them to return to Jerusalem. That return was a genuine recovery.
When some Christians talk about the Lord’s recovery, they are referring to the recovery of some doctrines. For example, they say that the doctrine of justification by faith was lost, but then it was recovered through Martin Luther. Some also have pointed out that certain practices have been recovered. Over three hundred years ago in northern Europe some of the saints saw the matter of baptism by immersion. The Baptists consider that they have recovered not only the truth concerning baptism but also a practice. To baptize people by immersion into water is a kind of practice.
The Presbyterians consider that they have recovered the presbytery. Presbytery actually means the eldership, referring to the type of church government. The Presbyterians are not Episcopalian or Congregational in their church government. They administrate the church by the presbytery, the eldership. All these groups consider that they have recovered some truths and eventually some practice. Nearly every Protestant denomination today is a result of the recovery either of a doctrine or of a practice.
These are recoveries, but these recoveries are not so central. The central thing in the Bible is not baptism by immersion; it is not the presbytery. It is not any doctrine or practice. The central thing in God’s revelation is that God wants to be expressed. The Triune God desires to express Himself in humanity. God is invisible, yet He wants and desires to be expressed. The invisible God desires to be seen through an instrument, through humanity, the very man created by Him. Man and the entire universe were created for this purpose. God created the heavens and the earth, the lifeless things, the vegetable life and the animal life, and eventually the human life. This means that all the other things are for man. The heavens are for the earth, and the earth is for man.
Man was made by God with a definite purpose. God is a purposeful and thoughtful God. According to His purpose, He made a plan to create the universe and to create man in the universe to express Him. Genesis 1:26 and 27 occupy a strong place in the Bible, telling us that when God was going to make man, it seemed that the Triune God held a conference. Verse 26 says, “Let Us make man.” The Bible does not record a kind of conference among the Godhead before the creation of the heavens and the earth or the vegetable and animal life, but before God made man, there was a kind of conference among the Godhead. The decision was made to create man in Their own image and according to Their own likeness.
We all have to respect ourselves because we are made according to God’s kind. In Genesis 1 the vegetables bring forth according to their kind, and the animals bring forth according to their kind. But mankind is according to God’s kind. Our image and our likeness are of God. Do not think this means that we are God. No. It is like a photograph. If you take a photograph of me, you may say that that picture is me, and you also may say that that picture is not me. Both are right. That photograph is not the real person. Every human being is a photograph of God. God took only one photograph, but through the generations there has been a marvelous reproduction. There have been millions of copies made. We all are pictures of God.
A photograph, though, is just a picture. It has no content and no life. So in the second chapter of the Bible, after man was created in the image of God, God brought him to the tree of life. This is a strong indication that the man created by God did not have the divine life of God. So God brought him to the tree of life, indicating that God wanted him to take the tree of life in order to receive the divine life of God into himself. At the beginning of the Bible there is a man made not only by God but also according to God. God made a duplicate of Himself. But this is only in the outward appearance, without the inward content. At the beginning of the Bible there is such an expression of God. Man was made for God’s expression. We should not express ourselves. We should express God because we were made in God’s image and according to God’s likeness.
The central line in the entire Bible is God’s expression. In Genesis there is the record of nine great men who are landmarks in human history: Adam, Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Adam was first, and he became fallen. Abel came back to God by taking God’s way of redemption and salvation. Following him was Enosh, who realized that fallen man is weak, fragile, and good for nothing. So he had no trust in himself, but he called on the name of Jehovah. To call on the name of Jehovah means that you put your trust in Him. You realize that you are fallen and sinful and weak and poisoned and corrupted and fragile in doing anything for God. So what should you do? You have to forget about yourself, and call upon the name of Jehovah. This is not just to call on the name of God. Jehovah is Jesus in the Old Testament. So Enosh became a landmark in human history because he began to call upon the name of the Lord. For me to call upon the name of the Lord indicates that I realize I am nothing, I can do nothing, and I am good for nothing. Because I have no trust in myself, I trust in the Lord. I call upon His name.
The fourth landmark in human history was Enoch, who walked with God. This indicates a little improvement. This is not just to call upon the name of the Lord but to walk with Him. The fifth landmark in Genesis is Noah. Noah not only walked with God, but he also worked with God and worked for God. He built the ark with God and for God.
Abraham, the sixth landmark, was called out of the idolatrous land. His son Isaac and his grandson Jacob continued after him. With Jacob something happened as a further development of God’s expression. When he was escaping from his brother, he slept in the wilderness using a stone for a pillow (ch. 28). During the night he had a dream in which he saw a ladder reaching to heaven with the angels ascending and descending on it. Jacob called that place the gate of heaven and the house of God, Bethel. That was God’s dwelling place. The next morning he anointed his stone pillow with oil and called the name of that place Bethel, the house of God. This is very meaningful. God gave this wanderer a dream, showing him that God desired to have Bethel, a house on this earth. Humanly speaking, nothing can express you so much as your house. When you look at people’s dwelling places, right away you can realize what kind of people they are. God wants a dwelling place on this earth to express Himself.
The ninth landmark in Genesis was Joseph who ruled on the earth for God’s expression. Eventually, all Jacob’s descendants fell into Egypt. After four hundred years God brought the children of Israel out of Egypt to Mount Sinai where He revealed the tabernacle to them. God wanted them to be His dwelling place so that He might be expressed among them and through them. Later, that tabernacle was enlarged into a temple. The tabernacle was a traveling house of God, but the temple became a settled house upon this earth. This covers the entire Old Testament. First of all, God had nine men from Adam to Joseph who expressed Him in a limited way. Then in the second book of the Bible, Exodus, God got a collective people who became His expression in a full way.
In the New Testament the first person is Jesus Christ. He was God becoming a man, and He became a tabernacle (John 1:14). When He was on this earth, He was tabernacling among men. He was God’s dwelling place. The model of the tabernacle was in Exodus, and the genuine tabernacle, Jesus Christ, is in the Gospel of John. One day this tabernacle told the Jews that if they destroyed Him, He would raise up the temple within three days. Of course, they did destroy Him by crucifying Him on the cross, and He did raise Himself up in an enlarged way. In the raised-up temple, the church, we all are there. This is God’s expression.
Ephesians, on the one hand, tells us that we are builded together into a temple of God to express God and, on the other hand, that the church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (2:21-22; 1:23). What is the fullness? The fullness is just the expression. If a glass has water in it but is not overflowing, there is not the fullness. It is not until the water flows over the brim of the glass that there is the overflowing, the fullness. This fullness is the expression of the water. We are all vessels to contain God (Rom. 9:21, 23). If we have only a little bit of God and no overflowing, there is no fullness. If there is no fullness, there is no expression. The church should be a vessel that is full of God and even overflowing with God. When the church overflows God, that is the fullness. That fullness is the very expression of God. On the one hand, the church is the dwelling place of God, and on the other hand, the church should be the fullness of God. Just to be the dwelling place of God is not adequate. We must be the fullness of God. Then the church can express God. When we overflow God, we have the fullness of the One who fills all in all. Then we become the full expression of the all-inclusive and wonderful God.
Paul, in 1 Timothy 3:15-16, tells us that the house of God is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and base of the truth and which also is the manifestation of this all-inclusive God in human flesh. When we come together with the fullness of God, an outsider would realize that this is the manifestation of God in the flesh. Although we are flesh, we overflow God. Among us is the manifestation of the invisible God, and this manifestation is the expression of God.
This expression, which is the church today, will consummate to the uttermost in the New Jerusalem, which will be the eternal tabernacle. All God’s redeemed people will be one corporate entity, the New Jerusalem, to express God for eternity.
God’s enemy, Satan, hates this expression. In the Old Testament not too long after God had reached His goal to have such an expression, the completion of the building up of the temple, the enemy of God came in to ruin God’s people from within. When the temple was completed, the glory of God came down and overshadowed the temple and filled the temple. That glory was the expression of God. God is invisible and hidden. Once He is expressed, that is glory. The temple signifies the aggregate, the collection, of all God’s children as His dwelling place. God was manifested in glory in His dwelling place, but the children of Israel were corrupted by Satan in their morality and behavior. They became ruined and so sinful that God had no ground to dwell there. So God left the temple. Then the Babylonian army came to destroy the temple and to bring all the utensils into captivity. Even most of the people were carried into captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, put the utensils into the temple of his idols. This means that the expression of God was destroyed. So there was the need of the recovery.
The same thing happened in the New Testament. As we mentioned previously, the things in the Old Testament are a model, and the real things are in the New Testament. In the New Testament you have first of all an individual, Jesus Christ, who was God becoming a man to tabernacle among men. He was one individual as God’s expression, the tabernacle. Through His death and resurrection He was increased. He was the one grain that fell into the ground and died and brought forth much fruit (John 12:24). So on the day of Pentecost, the church was there as the enlarged tabernacle. Now God’s expression was not by one individual but by a corporate Body. After a short time, even while John and Peter and Paul were still living, the church was ruined from within. The glory of God left the church. Satan destroyed the church and brought the church into captivity, to Babylon again. At the very end of the New Testament you have Babylon the Great. In the eyes of God, Christendom is Babylon, to which the church has been carried away. The church became a captive. So there is the need of the recovery.
God created man in His own image with the intention that man might express Him by the way of life. A photograph of a person cannot express a person fully, because it does not have life. It does not have the faculty to think or to speak or to do something. A photograph needs life. It needs a person to get into that photograph to enliven it. In the Bible there is such a divine thought that God wants to be man’s food and man’s drink to enable man to partake of God as life. Right after the creation of man, God brought man to the tree of life, indicating that man should eat of the tree of life. That same tree of life is at the very end of the Bible. In Revelation 22:1 the river flows out of the throne of God. On the two sides of the river, the tree of life grows. So the tree of life is something coming out of the Triune God to be our life and life supply.
In Exodus the children of Israel ate the meat of the lamb that had redeemed them. They struck the blood for redemption, and then they ate the meat. They also ate the unleavened bread. Both the meat of the lamb and the unleavened bread are types of Christ. This means that the children of Israel ate Christ. By eating Christ, Christ entered into them. In the wilderness they ate manna every day. Manna is also a type of Christ. They also drank the living water out of the cleft rock. The living water was just the overflow of Christ. So they ate Christ and they drank Christ, and Christ got into them.
Furthermore, the children of Israel offered offerings. The meal offering and the peace offering were food for God and food for the serving ones (Lev. 2:1-3). The peace offering was food for all the clean ones (ch. 7). These items: the lamb, the manna, the living water, and all the offerings clearly tell us that God wants His people to eat Him, to receive Him into them to become their life and life supply. So in the New Testament when the Lord Jesus came, He indicated that He was food for us to eat. He was the heavenly manna. He was the bread of life (John 6:35). He was the living bread (v. 51). In John 6:57 the Lord Jesus said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.”
In the next chapter, John 7, the Lord Jesus cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink” (v. 37). All these verses indicate that Christ is our life and our life supply. Then in the very last book of the New Testament, Revelation, the Lord Jesus promised that the overcomers would eat of the tree of life (2:7) and of the hidden manna (v. 17). By these verses you can see that God wants to get into us. It is by this that God becomes our life, and we become enlivened people instead of lifeless pictures. Christ within us is not only our Savior and Master and Lord but also our life. The Lord came that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). Hallelujah! I have His life abundantly! I am full of Christ; I am full of life.
This wonderful indwelling life unites us. Because we have the Lord Jesus within us as our life, something leaps within us when we meet one another. Although we may not understand another brother’s language, something leaps within us because of the life. We have life within us, and this life unites us.
In the degradation of Christianity this life matter has been lost. As long as the life matter is lost, the expression of God is gone. The Lord’s recovery is just to recover the expression of God. It is not to recover baptism by immersion or other kinds of truths or practices. Those are too small. Those are not so central. The central recovery of the Lord is to recover the divine life within us so that God may have His expression among His people. This is the main item, the central thing, that needs to be recovered. We are here in the Lord’s recovery, in the church life, not for the recovery of certain doctrines or practices. We are here for the recovery of the divine expression of the Triune God. We are here for the central recovery of the divine life, which we are possessing and enjoying and living by day and night. When we have this central recovery, we have all we need.
We do not need any regulations. This central recovery regulates and governs us every day. In the church we do not have regulations as to what the members should wear, but surely the life within would not allow you to wear certain things. The recovery of the divine life within us for God’s expression governs us. Sometimes you may be tempted to dress in a certain way, but the divine life is within you regulating. We do not have a regulation saying that all the sisters in the church life should have their skirts a certain length. But sometimes sisters have burned their short skirts. Why would they do this? The living God who is their life within them required this.
A few days ago I went to the department store to buy a tie. I picked up the ties and looked at them. In the churches in the Lord’s recovery we do not have a regulation that says not to wear fancy ties. I just simply do not have the permission to wear such a fancy tie. Who regulates me? The Lord Jesus! It is not Jesus outside of me and not even Jesus on the throne but the very Jesus who is within me. It is the living Jesus who is my life day by day. The life within me regulates. Do you like to eat bitter things? If you put something bitter in my mouth, I would spit it out. But if you put something sweet in my mouth, I would swallow it. Within us there is the taste of life. Life works, life serves, life regulates. This is the regulation today in the church life. It is not in letters.
Everyone who has Christ within surely wants to be buried under the water. He wants to get rid of himself. It is not that there is a kind of doctrine and practice concerning immersion. Rather, the life within causes us to want to be buried. Among all the saints in the churches in the Lord’s recovery there is no regulation at all. We only have the divine life within recovered to the uttermost. Also we have the holy Word in our hand for the development of the inner life and for the light of our pathway. We do not have any regulations; we only have the recovery of the divine life within us for the expression of God.
