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In this message we shall present a general view of the church as the Body of Christ, paying special attention to the formation of the Body by Christ, the embodiment of the processed Triune God. Then in the following two messages we shall cover the details regarding the Body.
Ephesians 1:22 and 23 reveal that the church is the Body of Christ. “He subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The church is not an organization but an organic Body constituted of all the believers, who have been regenerated and have God’s life, for the expression of the Head. The Body is the fullness of the Head, and the fullness is the expression of the Head. Christ, as the One who fills all in all, needs the Body to be His fullness. This Body is His church to be His expression.
The church is the Body of Christ, and Christ is the Head of the church (Col. 1:18). Hence, the church and Christ are one Body, the mysterious, universal great man, having the same life and nature. Christ is the life and content of the Body, and the Body is the organism and expression of Christ. As the Body, the church receives everything from Christ; everything of Christ, therefore, is expressed through the church. The two, Christ and the church, are mingled and joined as one, with Christ being the inward content and the church, the outward expression.
Because Christ and the church, the Head and the Body, are one, the formation of the Body is intimately related to Christ in His person as the embodiment of the processed Triune God. Of course, in the New Testament the revelation of Christ’s person is a great matter. Certain aspects of His person are revealed in the words of John the Baptist. First, John declared concerning the Lord, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The term “the Lamb of God” is significant and rather complicated. Because God loves the world, He wanted to do something to take away the corrupting sin from the world so that He could call His chosen people out of the world to be born of Him that He may have a household. All this is related to Christ’s person.
John also told us that the Lord Jesus is not only the Lamb of God but also the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11). This indicates that the Lord’s baptism is either for eternal life in the Holy Spirit, or for eternal perdition in fire. Those who truly repent and believe in the Lord will be baptized by Him in the Holy Spirit that they may have eternal life. Those who do not repent and believe in Him will be baptized in fire and thereby be cast into the lake of fire for eternal punishment.
In addition to speaking of Christ as the Lamb of God and as the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit and fire, John also referred to Him as the bridegroom. “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice” (John 3:29). The very One who is the Lamb of God and the Baptizer is also the Bridegroom. As the Bridegroom, Christ will have the bride, who is the totality of God’s people ultimately consummating in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2, 9).
The three aspects of Christ’s person as the Lamb, the Baptizer, and the Bridegroom reveal much concerning Him. However, what is revealed concerning Christ in the New Testament is far greater than this. We shall see much more concerning Christ’s person as we view Him in relation to the formation of the church as His Body. The formation of the church, the Body, is by Christ being the embodiment of the processed Triune God and becoming the life-giving Spirit to be breathed into God’s chosen people. What a great matter this is! The Christ who is the factor, the element, the essence, for the formation of the church as the Body of Christ is the embodiment of the processed Triune God.
The Bible reveals not only that God is triune but also that He has been processed. In the first chapter of Genesis there are indications that God is triune. This chapter speaks of God (v. 1) and also the Spirit of God (v. 2). Furthermore, the words “word” and “light,” the means for producing God’s creation, actually refer to Christ. Later in this chapter, in verse 26, the plural pronouns “us” and “our” are used in relation to the Godhead and refer to the divine Trinity.
The Triune God unveiled in the first chapter of Genesis began to be processed in the first chapter of Matthew. Verse 18 says, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way: His mother, Mary, having been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” In this verse the Greek word translated “birth” is better rendered “origin.” Although Christ was born of Mary (v. 16), He was a “child of the Holy Spirit.” The Greek preposition translated “of” in verse 18 literally means “out of.” Before Mary and Joseph came together, she was found to be with child, and this child was out of the Holy Spirit.
Verse 20 says, “While he thought on these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, fear not to take Mary your wife, for that which is begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.” The expression “begotten in her” is strong; it may also be translated “born in her.” This means that what took place in Mary of the Holy Spirit was not merely a conception but a birth. From the time the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary (Luke 1:35), someone was born into Mary. The One born in her was the very God. This is God’s incarnation, which was God’s birth in Mary. This was the beginning of the process through which the Triune God has passed.
At the end of nine months, a child was delivered from Mary. This child had two natures, two essences — the divine and the human. This is Jesus, the God-man, the One who is the complete God and also a perfect man.
The fact that the Lord Jesus is the God-man is indicated by the names given to Him in Matthew 1. First, He was called Jesus, the name given by God (Matt. 1:21). The name Jesus means Jehovah the Savior. By incarnation, Jehovah became a man, and this man is our Savior. Therefore, in the name of Jesus we see an indication of His two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. This is also indicated by the second name given to Him in Matthew 1, the name Emmanuel, “which being interpreted is, God with us” (v. 23). The name Emmanuel ends with the letters el. In Hebrew “el” means God. Hence, the name Emmanuel denotes the Lord’s divinity as well as His humanity. The Lord’s two names — Jesus and Emmanuel — indicate that He is unique, for He is not merely God nor merely man but the God-man. As the complete God and a perfect man, He is Jehovah becoming the Man-Savior. Furthermore, in our understanding, He is Emmanuel, God with us.
At the beginning of the Old Testament, the Triune God had not yet been processed. But at the beginning of the New Testament we have the first step of God’s process — incarnation. The Triune God, who created everything, entered into the womb of a human virgin and remained there for nine months. This certainly was a process.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” God here is the Triune God. This Triune God, as the Word, became flesh (v. 14). Christians often say that the Son of God became flesh, but they rarely say that the Triune God became flesh. However, the Bible does not say that the Son of God became flesh. Instead, the Bible says that God was manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:15-16). The God who became flesh, who was manifested in the flesh, was not a partial God but the whole God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — the Triune God. This very God was begotten of the Holy Spirit in the womb of a human virgin and came forth from the womb with the human essence, the human nature. Therefore, in this wonderful One we can see both the divine essence and the human essence, both divinity and humanity. Our Jesus is both the complete God and a perfect man. He is the God-man.
Eventually, after spending some time in Egypt, the Lord Jesus was brought to Galilee and grew up in Nazareth. Thus, He became a Nazarene. As a Nazarene, He lived in the home of a poor carpenter for thirty years, doing the work of carpentry. For the Triune God to remain in the womb of a human virgin for nine months was amazing, but for the God-man, as a Nazarene, to live in a poor carpenter’s home for thirty years and do the work of carpentry was even more amazing.
At the age of thirty, the Lord Jesus came forth to minister. When He was baptized by John, “the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and coming upon Him” (Matt. 3:16). Then, as the One who was begotten of the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin to be the God-man, He, with the Spirit upon Him, began to minister. In His ministry He called certain ones to follow Him, attracting them to Himself.
One day, the Lord Jesus brought three of His disciples to the top of a mountain. There on the mountaintop “He was transfigured before them, and His face shown as the sun, and His garments became white as the light. And behold, Moses and Elijah were seen by them, conversing with Him” (Matt. 17:2-3). While Peter was making the foolish suggestion that they build “three tabernacles here, one for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah” (v. 4), “a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son, in whom I delight; hear Him!”(v. 5). God was telling the disciples not to hear Moses and Elijah but to hear His Son.
After the Lord was transfigured, He spoke to His disciples about His death and resurrection (Matt. 17:22-23). Following this, He went to Jerusalem, where He was judged by the Jewish religion and the Roman government, and then He was crucified and buried. The disciples, of course, were deeply disappointed.
On the third day, the Lord Jesus was resurrected from among the dead. In the evening of the day of His resurrection, He appeared to the disciples in a very mysterious way, in a way that we cannot understand. It is difficult to say whether He appeared physically or spiritually, because He had a physical body that could be touched, yet He suddenly appeared in the room without coming through the door. At that time, “He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The wonderful One, who is the embodiment of the processed Triune God, had become, through death and resurrection, a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). He became the pneumatic Christ. As such a One, He breathed Himself into His disciples.
Referring to the type of the meal offering, we may say that the Lord mingled Himself as the all-inclusive oil with the disciples as the fine flour to make a cake. This was the initial stage of the formation of the Body of Christ, the stage in which the Lord made fallen sinners, the descendants of Adam, into members of His Body by breathing Himself into them as the life-giving Spirit, who is the totality of the processed Triune God. As a result, the processed Triune God as the all-inclusive Spirit was mingled with His chosen people to become one entity with them. This entity is the church, the Body of Christ.
For a period of forty days, the Lord Jesus appeared to the disciples and spoke to them concerning the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). During this time He trained them to experience and enjoy His invisible presence. After these forty days, He, in His humanity, ascended to the heavens. His ascension was clearly seen by His disciples (Acts 1:9). Seeing the Lord’s ascension edified them, perfecting them to be the church as a “loaf” constituted of the mingling of the oil with the fine flour.
The New Testament reveals that the ascended Christ “received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father” (Acts 2:33) and then poured out what He had received upon His disciples. The exalted Christ’s receiving of the promise of the Holy Spirit was actually the receiving of the Holy Spirit Himself. Christ was conceived of the Spirit essentially for His being in humanity, and later He was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry among men. After His resurrection and ascension, He still needed to receive the Spirit economically again that He might pour Himself out upon His Body. That outpouring was the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and it accomplished the second stage of the formation of the church as the Body of Christ.
First, as the embodiment of the processed Triune God becoming the life-giving Spirit, the Lord breathed the Spirit into His disciples essentially. Then He ascended to the heavens and passed through a process involving the Father with the Spirit, a process that involved the mystery of the Triune God. Having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, He poured out this Spirit upon His believers. Actually, what He poured out was Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God consummated into the all-inclusive compound Spirit as the totality of the processed Triune God. Now the embodiment of the processed Triune God becoming the life-giving Spirit is within the disciples, and the consummated, all-inclusive Spirit is upon them. This is a mingling of the processed Triune God with His chosen, called, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed tripartite people to become one entity — the Body of Christ.
Now we can see clearly how the Body of Christ was formed. First, in resurrection the processed Triune God has been wrought into His chosen people. Then, in Christ’s ascension, the all-inclusive, compound Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God descended upon His chosen people. As a result, within them they have the embodiment of the processed Triune God, and upon them they have the consummated Spirit. In this way they become the Body of Christ, an entity produced through the mingling of the processed Triune God with the transformed tripartite man. This is the church.
First Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” Here we see that as members of the Body we need to drink Christ as the one Spirit. By drinking Him as the Spirit we grow to be His increase, His enlargement, His reproduction, His continuation. Eventually, we shall arrive “at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). This means that we shall be the full expression of Him who fills all in all. We shall grow until we are “filled unto all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19) to express the processed Triune God in His embodiment. The ultimate consummation of this expression will be in the New Jerusalem. Therefore, the Body of Christ should increase, becoming the enlargement, the reproduction, and the continuation of Christ until the Body reaches the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, the full expression of the One who fills all in all.
We all need to see that the Body of Christ is the totality of the processed Triune God mingled with transformed, tripartite man. This mingling, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem, is completed in three stages. The first stage extends from God’s incarnation to Christ’s breathing Himself in resurrection as the processed Triune God into God’s chosen people to make them intrinsically the constituent for the formation of the Body. This was completed on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. After this, the Lord ascended to the heavens. In the heavens there was a transaction between the Father and the Son concerning the Spirit. This is the reason we are told clearly that the ascended Christ received of the Father the promise of the Spirit. Hence, in ascension the Son received of the Father the promised Spirit. Then the Lord poured Himself out as the consummated, all-inclusive, compound Spirit upon the believers. This was the completion of the second stage. Now a third stage is needed for the increase of the Body unto all the fullness of God, unto the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
Although the first two stages have been completed, the third stage is still going on. In this stage we who have believed into Christ to have an organic union with Him need to drink of Him as the one Spirit. After the Lord breathed Himself into God’s chosen people and poured out Himself as the Spirit upon them, He gave them to drink the one Spirit. From this we see that the first stage involves breathing; the second stage involves outpouring; and the third stage involves drinking. The drinking of the Spirit must take place continually until all God’s people are transformed and increased unto the measure of the stature of Christ. This increase will result in the fullness, not merely of Christ as the embodiment of the processed Triune God, but of the Triune God Himself. As the process of the third stage continues, God’s tripartite people experience Christ in His unlimited dimensions, that is, Christ in His breadth, length, height, and depth (Eph. 3:18). Furthermore, by their experience they will know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ (Eph. 3:19a). This third stage will consummate in the uttermost fullness of the Triune God for His eternal expression in the New Jerusalem.
