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Scripture Reading: Matt. 13:3, 8, 23, 37-38
I. Christ, the Triune God embodied in humanity as the source of life, signified by the tree of life — Col. 2:9; John 1:14; Gen. 2:9; Rev. 2:7; 22:2.
II. Coming:
А. Through incarnation to become flesh — a man in “the likeness of the flesh” — John 1:14; Rom. 8:3b; 1 Tim. 3:16a.
B. As the Sower — the Distributor of the divine life — John 10:10b.
C. To sow — to impart, to dispense — Himself.
D. As the life seed of wheat, signifying the word — Matt. 13:3, 19-23; Mark 4:14; John 6:68.
III. Into the human heart as the growing earth — Matt. 13:19b.
IV. To grow Christ in the good earth of the human heart for His multiplication to be the constitution of the church to fulfill God’s eternal economy — vv. 8, 23; John 12:24; Eph. 3:8-10.
V. Christ as the divine life seed and the believers as the human growing earth becoming one to produce the organic element for the constitution of the church — 1:22.
VI. Making the church the Body of Christ with the Spirit, the Lord, and God the Father as its contents — v. 23; 4:4-6.
VII. The all-inclusive Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God becoming the church as His Body (1 Cor. 12:12) and every member of the new man (Col. 3:10-11).
VIII. To be the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God as His fullness, His corporate expression — Eph. 3:19-21.
IX. Consummating in the New Jerusalem, first in the millennial kingdom in a small scale (Rev. 2:7; 3:12) and last in the new heaven and new earth in the full scale (21:1-3, 9-21; 22:1-2).
The general subject of this book is the constitution and the building up of the Body of Christ. My burden can be expressed by the following four sentences:
(1) The grain of wheat fell into the ground and died to bring forth many grains — John 12:24.
(2) Though we are many grains, we are one bread, one Body, the Body of Christ — 1 Cor. 10:17.
(3) We are growing and being transformed into precious stones for God’s building — 3:6, 9, 12.
(4) The New Jerusalem will be God’s ultimate building, built with precious stones for God’s eternal expression — Rev. 21:9-21.
A few words have been particularly selected for use in this book. The first is the word constitution. We use this word not to denote the constitution of some sort of organization; rather, we use it to denote something that is constituted with particular constituents. The church as the Body of Christ is not a formation or an organization but a constitution that has been constituted with the Christ of life as its very constituent. My burden is to help the saints see that the Body of Christ is a constitution, constituted with the Triune God embodied in Christ as the life element.
But the church has not only been constituted with Christ as its element; it is also being built up by the transformation in life. Therefore, we intend to cover two things in this book: (1) the constitution of the Body of Christ and (2) transformation for the building up of the Body of Christ. I would like you all to be impressed with these two words, constitution and transformation.
In this chapter we want to see the constitution of the Body of Christ with the all-inclusive Christ as the life element. These words may seem quite common in English, but the expression life element is not so common. What is the life element with which the church has been constituted? We must see that the church as the Body of Christ has been constituted not with a simple Christ but with the all-inclusive Christ as the life element.
This all-inclusive Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9). We all know that God is invisible and very abstract and mysterious. It is difficult for anyone to tell us who God is, how God is, what God is, or where God is. Who can do this? I do not believe that anyone can do this. But such a God, the Triune God, has been embodied in the flesh in a visible man (John 1:14). Christ is this man. Who then is Christ? Christ is the very Triune God embodied in a man of flesh.
This Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God is the source of life, and as the source of life, He is signified by the tree of life (Gen. 2:9; Rev. 2:7; 22:2). To read the Bible is not so easy. The Bible is not a simple book. It has many plain words, but it also has many figures of speech. One of these figures is the tree of life. Have you ever heard of such a tree? We have heard of peach trees, apple trees, and hundreds of other trees, but we may have never heard of a life tree. Yet in the Bible there is such a thing as the life tree, the tree of life.
Have you noticed that in the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus told us that He is a tree (15:1, 5)? But He is not a pine tree, shooting into the sky so high that no one can touch Him. He is a vine tree, not shooting up but spreading out. In a sense He is great and He is vast, yet He is also very low. He is not shooting into the air but spreading out on the earth. Even a little one can touch Him. He is great and He is spreading, yet He is low. This is what He told us in John 15.
Then elsewhere in the Gospel of John, the Lord told us that He is life (11:25; 14:6). He is a tree and He is life, and if you put these two together, you have a life tree, a tree of life. Christ is the life tree.
According to Genesis 2, the trees in the garden of Eden were good for food (v. 9). The tree of life was no exception to this; it also was good for food. We eat from all sorts of trees for the purpose of nourishing ourselves. But do you realize that we need another kind of tree? We need the life tree, which is God embodied in Christ. A picture or a figure is always better than a thousand words. In this figure Christ presents Himself to us as a tree, not as a pine tree but as a vine tree, spreading Himself before us. This indicates that we should eat Him. The first crucial figure in the Bible is the tree of life, signifying God Himself as life. We can call Him the life tree, and we can also call Him the God tree. The tree of life is the tree of God. We must realize that this tree of life is God Himself. Without this tree we would never know that our God is the life tree, the God tree.
What is the second crucial figure in the Bible? Perhaps you would say the tabernacle, or perhaps the temple. But according to the crucial view, the first figure in the Bible is the life tree, and the second one relates to Christ’s coming. We do have such a Christ who is the embodiment of the Triune God as the source of life signified by the life tree. But what follows the tree of life is Christ’s coming.
Perhaps you may say, “But the coming of Christ is recorded in the first chapter of the New Testament, in Matthew 1, and the tree of life, the tree of God, is found in Genesis 2. What about the thirty-nine books in between?” Actually, the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament speak only of one person, Christ. This is why the Lord Jesus told His disciples that in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms He was mentioned (Luke 24:44). These are the three parts of the Old Testament. Each of the three sections speaks about Christ. Therefore, after the Bible tells us who Christ is by showing us the tree of life, it has thirty-nine books to present Christ to us. Christ is the subject of the Old Testament. Genesis 1 is about Christ. Genesis 2 is about Christ. Malachi 4 is also about Christ. Then after this presentation of Christ, Christ comes in Matthew 1. Hallelujah, Christ is here!
When I was young, I was taught that Jesus loves us and that He came down from heaven to earth. But I did not know how He came down to earth. Christ is God, and no one could approach Him. He is the invisible, mysterious God. Yet one day, four thousand years after He created the first man Adam, He came. After He created Adam, this Christ remained hidden for four thousand years. But during those four thousand years, He prophesied here and there, telling people that He would come. In Genesis 3:15 He told us He would come. In Isaiah 7:14 He said He would come through a virgin. In Isaiah 9:6 He said He would come as the Son, and yet He would be called the Father. Then four thousand years after He created Adam, He came.
The Bible tells us that Christ came through incarnation (John 1:14; Rom. 8:3b; 1 Tim. 3:16a). He came by entering into the womb of a virgin and by being begotten there (Matt. 1:18-20). The invisible God entered into a human virgin and was begotten there. Moreover, He stayed there in the womb for nine months. In this way He as God was mingled with man. Then after being in the womb nine months, He was born. He was born, on the one hand, as God and, on the other hand, as man. So He was a God-man with a human name, Jesus Christ. Yet people were to call Him Emmanuel, which means, God with us (v. 23). He is indeed a man, but He is also God. This was the greatest miracle in the whole universe, even more miraculous than the creation of the universe. God entered into man and stayed in a human womb for nine months, and then when He was born, He was both God and man. So in human history there was on the earth a particular One who is both God and man. There was no other one like Him.
We all know that Jesus Christ loves us and that He came to be our Savior. It is good that He is a Savior, but He is more than a Savior. He told us that He is the Sower (13:3, 37). A sower sows the seed of life. Therefore, as the Sower the Lord Jesus is the Distributor of the divine life. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10b). But by what way did He come that we might have life? It was by His coming and sowing Himself into us. He is the Sower, the Distributor of the divine life, and because He has sown Himself into us, we all have this life. What is it to be saved? Some may say that to be saved is to be forgiven of our sins. This answer is correct, but it is not adequate. To be saved is not merely this. To be saved is to get Jesus into us.
The Sower distributes the divine life into us by sowing, imparting, and dispensing. He did not merely sow, but He also imparted the divine life, to make sure that He got into you. And He did not merely impart, but He also dispenses the divine life in a fine way bit by bit. Since the day you were saved, Christ has been dispensing the divine life bit by bit every day. He cannot dispense too much into you at one time; otherwise, you would “burst.”
Christ sows, imparts, and dispenses Himself as the life seed of wheat. This life seed of wheat signifies the word (Matt. 13:3, 19-23; Mark 4:14; John 6:68). One day the Lord Jesus saw Peter fishing, and He spoke something to him: “Come after Me” (Matt. 4:19). Then Peter came, and he was caught. From that day on Jesus could never get out of Peter. By His word He imparts Himself into us as a seed. A seed is precious and tiny. But after it has been sown into the earth for two or three months, something comes up. This is the seed’s growing. So it is also with Christ: first He came; then He sowed Himself. He sowed Himself as the life seed.
Christ is the seed, and He sowed Himself into our heart (13:19b). The human heart is the growing earth. In farming, the seed is planted into the earth and is mingled with the element of the earth. The seed grows together with the earth. This produces the plant. This is very meaningful. Christ has sown Himself into us, and both He and we grow together. He as the life seed has a certain kind of element, and we as the growing earth also have a certain kind of element, and the two mingle together and grow together to be one plant. This is the Body of Christ constituted with the divine life mingled with humanity. Today there is so much talk about what the Body of Christ is. But mostly this is doctrinal talk. The real Body, the Body of Christ in reality, is a plant growing out of Christ as the life seed sown into the human heart as the growing earth.
Christ has sown Himself into our heart as the growing earth to grow Christ. When I was young, I was taught that I must learn the Bible doctrines and teachings, but no one ever told me that I must grow Christ. I would like to impress you all with this and encourage you to remember just one thing: Now that Christ is in you, you must grow Christ. What do you do every day? Growing Christ must be your main job.
Christ grows in the good earth (vv. 8, 23). What is the good earth? The good earth is a good heart that is pure, simple to God, and also absolute for Him. It is in this good heart as the good earth that Christ grows. If, on the one hand, you love Christ and, on the other hand, you love many things besides Him, your heart is not single, pure, and absolute. Such a heart is not a good heart, and such a heart cannot grow Christ. Perhaps you have stones in your heart, or thorns and thistles. All these things compete with Christ. They are in rivalry with Christ. Such a heart cannot grow Christ. All of us need to purify our heart, simplify our heart, and deal with our heart so that it would be absolute toward Him. Then our heart will be the good earth for growing Christ.
This growing of Christ is for Christ’s multiplication. The Lord Jesus told us that He was the one grain of wheat (John 12:24). If He had not fallen into the earth to die, He would have remained one grain. But He fell into the earth and died, and He brought forth many grains. These many grains are His multiplication. Two thousand years ago there was only one Jesus in Palestine, but today on this earth there are millions of “Jesuses.” Jesus has been multiplied.
His multiplication is for the constitution of the church in order to fulfill God’s eternal economy. God has a big project, which is called His eternal economy (Eph. 3:8-10). His eternal economy is just to sow Christ into many human beings through you and me. So today we all have to be sowers. Through us more grains will come out. This is the multiplication for the constitution of the Body of Christ, which is the church.
Christ as the divine life seed and the believers as the human growing earth become one to produce the organic element for the constitution of the church (1:22). The church is not merely a group of Christians added together to form an organization. It is not some religious entity within society. The church is Christ living in you, living in me, and living in the millions of other Christians. This living Body, this living entity, is the Body of Christ, which is the church. Hence, the church is a constitution, having Christ as its constituent.
By sowing Himself into the believers, Christ makes the church the Body of Christ with the Spirit as the essence of the Body, the Lord as the element of the Body, and God the Father as the source of the Body — the Triune God — as its contents (v. 23; 4:4-6). Christ today as the divine life seed is the Spirit, the Lord, and also God the Father. The Divine Trinity today is within us as our contents. My burden is to show you that the church is not anything outward. The church is certainly not a building. But neither is the church merely a group of Christians coming together. Actually, the reality of the church is Christ living in us as the Spirit, as the Lord, and as God the Father. Christ Himself is the contents of the church.
Because Christ Himself is the contents of the church, Christ becomes the Body (1 Cor. 12:12). What is the church? The church is Christ multiplied, enlarged. Therefore, Christ Himself is the church. Furthermore, the church as the Body of Christ is the new man, and Christ is every member of the new man (Col. 3:10-11). Christ is the Body, and Christ is every member of the new man.
Since Christ is both the Body and every member of the new man, the church is actually the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God. We human beings have bodies, living and organic bodies, which are organisms to express us. If I did not have a body, I would have to stand here as a ghost. My speaking then would scare you away. But I have a very good organism to express me, which is my body. When you see my body, you say, “Oh, that’s Brother Lee.” This is what an organism does. In the same way the church is an organism of the Triune God that manifests and expresses Him as His fullness, His corporate expression (Eph. 3:19-21).
This organism consummates in the New Jerusalem, first in the millennial kingdom in a small scale (Rev. 2:7; 3:12) and last in the new heaven and new earth in the full scale (21:1-3, 9-21; 22:1-2). Actually, this organism is what the entire Bible is about. The divine revelation of the Bible begins with God (Gen. 1:1) and consummates in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). The first item in the Bible is God, and the last item is the New Jerusalem. In between is Christ and the church. The Bible teaches us about God, whose consummation is in the New Jerusalem through Christ and the church. This is the Bible.
According to the items covered above, we can see that we Christians, as members of the Body of Christ, are very particular persons. However, many Christians do not walk according to the standard of God in the Bible for the believers. To most of the Christians, the Christian life is a matter of learning the Bible and improving their character and conduct to please God, to glorify Him, to save sinners through their preaching of the gospel of God, etc. But I must tell you, this is not up to the standard of God’s intention in His eternal redemption and complete salvation. A Christian should be one who mainly lives Christ (Phil. 1:20-21) for the constitution of the Body of Christ, which is enlarged and constituted with all His real believers, with Christ as their life element (Rom. 12:5).
The divine revelation of the entire Bible unveils to us that God in His eternal economy wants to have an organic Body for Christ. It was for this purpose that He created man in His own image and according to His own likeness (Gen. 1:26-27). It was for this purpose that He intended to be man’s life (2:9). It was for this purpose that He became incarnated to be a man and to join Himself with man as one. It was for this purpose that He accomplished His eternal redemption through crucifixion and carried out His complete salvation through resurrection. It was for this purpose that He poured Himself out as the all-inclusive and consummated Spirit for the constitution of the church as the Body of Christ. It was for this purpose that He has chosen, predestinated, called, redeemed, saved, and regenerated us with Himself as our life in Christ, that we may be the organic members of the Body of Christ. It was also for this purpose that He is sanctifying, renewing, and transforming us for the growth and building up of the Body of Christ. By all this we can have a clear view to see that God’s intention in His eternal economy is to have us grow Christ, live Christ, and magnify Christ so that we may be mature in Christ to have His full stature and to be built up through transformation in the full measure of His fullness (Eph. 4:11-16).
Paul the apostle, when he was Saul, was mistaken to keep the law of God as the main goal of his life. After he was saved and regenerated, the main goal of his life was corrected from keeping the law to living Christ. Paul saw that he was crucified with Christ, and it was no longer he who lived but Christ who lived in him (Gal. 2:20). So he endeavored to live Christ that Christ might be magnified in him (Phil. 1:20-21) for the building up of the Body of Christ (Col. 1:24) and the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy (Eph. 3:9-10).
Being a Christian depends mainly on living Christ for the constitution and building up of the Body of Christ. This is the reality of the Lord’s recovery in this age. Without Christ as the life element for the constitution of the Body of Christ and without the Body of Christ as the full expression of the all-inclusive Christ, the recovery today would become zero. Do not consider the church merely according to outward teachings and practices concerning the local churches, the universal church, local autonomy, or of this or that. The church in its reality is not in this realm. The church is altogether a matter of Christ whom we live and magnify. If we live ourselves, we are neither the universal church nor a local church. But if we live Christ, He is everything — the universal church and the local church. Why are there divisions today? It is simply because people talk about doctrines and practices concerning the church but neglect the living of Christ. If they lived Christ, no division would come into being.
This is the history of the Triune God. First, the Bible shows us that the Triune God is signified by the tree of life. Then He came in incarnation to be the one grain in the flesh, who died and resurrected to produce the many grains. Through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection God became the many grains, which are we. As the many grains, we are ground into flour to make one bread, and this bread is the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is the new man as the organism of the Triune God, which eventually consummates in the New Jerusalem. In the history of the Triune God there are these seven figures: the tree of life, the grain of wheat, the many grains, the one bread, the Body of Christ, the new man, and the New Jerusalem. Remember these seven figures, for they are the very extract of the entire Bible.
