1. In the universe there is a marvelous matter, God’s speaking — Heb. 1:2:
2. In the age of the New Testament God does not speak to His people in many portions and in many ways or through the prophets.
3. In the New Testament age God only speaks in one person, the Son.

1. The first stage, the stage of incarnation, is for Christ to bring God into man, to express God in humanity, and to accomplish His judicial redemption.
2. The second stage, the stage of inclusion, is for Christ to be begotten as God’s firstborn Son, to become the life-giving Spirit, and to regenerate the believers for His Body.
3. The third stage, the stage of intensification, is for Christ to intensify His organic salvation, to produce the overcomers, and to consummate the New Jerusalem.

1. The apostles’ teaching is the constitution of the Christian faith — Jude 3; 1 Tim. 1:19; 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7.
2. The apostles’ teaching, as the church’s constitution, should be universally taught everywhere in every church in the same way — 1 Cor. 4:17; 7:17:
3. The teaching of the apostles is for God’s economy, and the teaching is the healthy words of the Lord Jesus — 1 Tim. 1:3-4; 6:3.
4. All teachings must be restricted by the limit and sphere of the apostles’ teaching.
5. Christianity has many ways because of the many teachings outside the limit of the apostles’ teaching.
6. All the problems, divisions, and confusion among Christians today are due to one thing — not caring only for the unique revelation of the apostles’ teaching.

1. No other belief besides the unique faith was allowed by the apostles — Gal. 1:7-9.
2. Teachings that went beyond the teaching of Christ were not allowed by the apostles — 2 John 9-11.
3. The different teachings, including those from the Old Testament dispensation that were different from God’s economy, were not allowed by the apostles — 1 Tim. 1:3-4.
4. All teachings that were different from the unique revelation of God’s New Testament economy were considered by the apostles to be winds of teaching — Eph. 4:14.
5. God’s holy writing should not be twisted by anyone in any way but rather unfolded rightly and straightly without any distortion — 2 Pet. 3:16; 2 Tim. 2:15.

1. The deciding factor in determining the right ministry, which is the ministry of God’s New Testament economy, is the teaching of the apostles:
   1. A person’s work is in the New Testament ministry if he teaches the teaching of the apostles.
   2. The unique ministry is the ministry ordained by God according to the apostles’ teaching.

Message two

The New Testament ministry — the unique ministry according to the apostles’ teaching

1. The ministry of the New Testament, which is the ministry of the new covenant, is uniquely one universally—Acts 1:17, 25; 2 Cor. 4:1; 1 Tim. 1:12:
   1. The ministry of the Spirit and of righteousness, which is the ministry of the new covenant, is in contrast with the ministry of death and of condemnation, which is the ministry of the old covenant—2 Cor. 3:7-9.
   2. The work of the New Testament ministry is to accomplish God’s New Testament economy concerning the church in the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem—Eph. 3:9-10; 4:11-12.
2. The ministry of the New Testament is uniquely one, but there are many ministers who have a part in this one ministry—Acts 20:24; 21:19; 2 Tim. 4:5; Col. 4:17:
   1. The unique ministry of the New Testament comprises all the works (ministries) of all the apostles, the ministers of the new covenant—2 Cor. 3:6.
   2. The New Testament ministry is uniquely one and corporate, but because this ministry is the service of the Body of Christ and because the Body has many members, every member has its own personal ministry.
   3. Thus, according to the members, there are many personal ministries; however, according to the Body as a whole, there is just one ministry.
   4. Although the ministers are many, all these ministers have only one corporate ministry, which is the New Testament ministry.
3. All the works (the ministries) of the teachings other than the teaching of the apostles for the accomplishment of God’s New Testament economy are not counted in this unique ministry—Acts 2:42; 1 Tim. 1:3-4:
   1. The proper ministry is the ministry according to the apostles’ teaching, the teaching of God’s New Testament economy, for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem.
   2. God’s economy in faith is His household administration to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen people that He may have a house to express Himself, which house is the church, the Body of Christ.
   3. Any teaching other than the unique teaching of God’s economy is considered by the apostle as a different teaching—1 Tim. 1:3-4.
4. Divisions come out of different ministries with different teachings:
   1. The different teachings of the dissenting ones are winds used by God’s enemy to distract His people and carry them away from His economy—Eph. 4:14.
   2. The dividing teachings are organized and systematized by Satan to cause serious error and thus damage the practical oneness of the Body life.
   3. The different teachings are the major source of the church’s decline, degradation, and deterioration—1 Tim. 1:3-4, 6-7; 6:3-5, 20-21.
5. There are two secrets of discerning the genuine New Testament ministry:
   1. Today‘s “Judaizers” stir up questions to distract the believers from the precious person of the Lord Jesus, but the genuine ministry stirs up our love for the Lord Jesus as our Bridegroom so that we may enjoy Him to the uttermost as our Husband—2 Cor. 11:2-3.
   2. Today‘s “Judaizers” do not suffer for the Body of Christ, but the genuine ministry strengthens us to follow Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings for the sake of His Body—2 Cor. 11:23-33; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24.
6. The ministry of the new covenant is produced in the new covenant ministers by the experiences of the riches of Christ gained through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross—2 Cor. 1:8; 4:8-12:
   1. The ministers of the new covenant are the captives of Christ in the train of His triumph, scattering the fragrance of Christ from place to place for His triumphant glory—2 Cor. 2:14-15.
   2. The ministers of the new covenant are the ambassadors of Christ to accomplish God’s purpose by carrying out the ministry of reconciliation in two steps—2 Cor. 5:18-20:
      1. The first step is to reconcile sinners to God from sin.
      2. The second step is to reconcile the believers living in the natural life to God from the flesh.
7. The ministers of the new covenant carry out the unique ministry of the new covenant by an all-fitting life—2 Cor. 6:1:
   1. The function of the ministry of the new covenant is to impart life to others—2 Cor. 4:12.
   2. The function of the ministry of the new covenant is to supply grace to the saints—2 Cor. 1:15; 4:15; 6:1.
   3. The function of the ministry of the new covenant is to dispense the processed and consummated Triune God into the believers—2 Cor. 13:14.
   4. The function of the ministry of the new covenant is to write living letters of Christ with the life-giving Spirit as the essence—2 Cor. 3:1-6:
      1. The letters are composed of Christ as the content to convey and express Christ.
      2. The apostles inscribe Christ as the life-giving Spirit in the hearts of the saints to make them letters of Christ.
8. The unique goal of the ministry of the new covenant is to build up the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem:
   1. The unique ministry makes the believers the same as God in life, nature, and expression—2 Cor. 3:3, 6, 3:18; 5:21.
   2. The unique ministry incorporates the believers into Christ for the consummation of the universal divine-human incorporation:
      1. The believers are firmly attached unto Christ to experience the Spirit’s anointing, sealing, and pledging—2 Cor. 1:21-22.
      2. The believers are fully reconciled to God to become the New Jerusalem, the enlarged and consummate Holy of Holies—2 Cor. 5:20; Rev. 21:16.

Message three

God’s economy — the central line of the divine revelation

1. God’s economy is His household administration—1 Tim. 1:4:
   1. The Greek word for economy means “household law,” implying distribution; it denotes a household management, a household administration, a household government, and, derivatively, a dispensation, a plan, or an economy for administration (distribution); hence, it is also a household economy.
   2. God’s economy is His household economy, His household administration, which is to dispense Himself in Christ into His chosen people that He may have a house to express Himself, which house is the church, the Body of Christ.
2. We need to see a vision of God’s economy—Eph. 1:10:
   1. God’s economy is His plan to dispense Himself into His chosen, predestinated, and redeemed people as their life, their life supply, and their everything to produce, constitute, and build up the organic Body of Christ.
   2. God’s economy is to gain a group of people and work Himself into them as life and mingle Himself with them as one so that they may live Him as the members of the Body of Christ.
   3. God’s economy is to make His redeemed people God in life, in nature, and in appearance but not in the Godhead so that for eternity He might have a universal, corporate expression of Himself.
   4. God’s economy is to make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in His Godhead and to make Himself one with man and man one with Him, thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression, that all His divine attributes may be expressed in human virtues.
3. God’s economy is related to His good pleasure, will, counsel, and purpose—Eph. 1:5, 9, 11; 3:11; Rev. 4:11:
   1. God’s good pleasure is what God likes, what pleases Him.
   2. God’s will is God’s wish, God’s desire; it is what He wants to do.
   3. God’s counsel is His resolution consummated in the council of the Divine Trinity.
   4. God’s purpose is His intent beforehand.
   5. God’s will is according to His good pleasure; God’s purpose is based on His will with its counsel; and God’s economy is His planned administration to carry out His purpose.
4. God’s economy is in faith—1 Tim. 1:4:
   1. God’s economy is initiated and developed in the sphere and element of faith.
   2. God’s economy is not in the natural realm nor in the work of law but in the spiritual sphere of the new creation through regeneration by faith in Christ—Gal. 3:23-26:
      1. By faith we are born of God to be His sons, partaking of His life and nature to express Him.
      2. By faith we are put into Christ to become the members of His Body, sharing all that He is for His expression.
5. Galatians, the most basic book with respect to God’s economy, is unique in its revelation of God’s economy:
   1. God’s economy is God Himself in His Divine Trinity becoming the life-giving Spirit to be life and everything to us for our enjoyment, so that He and we may be one to express Him for eternity—3:14, 28.
   2. A basic item of God’s New Testament economy is that “I” be crucified in Christ’s death and that Christ live in us in His resurrection—2:20.
   3. God’s New Testament economy is for the processed Triune God to be wrought into us to become our life and our very being—1:16; 4:19.
   4. God’s intention in His economy is to put us into Him and to come into us and live in us—3:27; 2:20.
   5. God’s economy is the dispensing of Himself into His chosen people to make them His sons for His corporate expression—3:26; 4:6-7.
6. God’s economy is carried out by God’s dispensing:
   1. God’s dispensing is the imparting of Himself to us according to His plan and arrangement.
   2. God desires to dispense Himself into His chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people as their life, their life supply, and their everything, making Himself one with them.
   3. God’s dispensing is carried out through the Divine Trinity—Eph. 1:4-5, 7-10, 13:
      1. The divine nature is dispensed into the believers in Christ through God the Father’s choosing, and the divine life is dispensed through God the Father’s predestination.
      2. The divine element, of which the believers in Christ are made God’s excellent inheritance, is dispensed into the believers through God the Son’s redemption unto God’s economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ.
      3. The divine essence, in which the believers enjoy the processed Triune God, is dispensed into the believers through God the Spirit’s sealing and pledging.
7. God’s intention in His economy is to build Himself in Christ into His chosen people—Eph. 3:16-17a:
   1. The most crucial and mysterious matter revealed in the Bible is that God’s ultimate intention is to work Himself into His chosen people.
   2. The central work of God is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen people, making Himself one with them:
      1. Everything that Christ is and everything that Christ has accomplished are for this one thing.
      2. All the steps that God takes in our daily life are to fulfill His intention of building Himself in Christ into our being.
   3. God’s economy and goal according to His heart’s desire are to build Himself into our being and to build us into His being in order to mingle His divinity with our humanity into one entity—the Body of Christ, which consummates the New Jerusalem.
8. God’s economy is like a great wheel, having Christ as its center—Ezek. 1:15-21:
   1. The hub of this wheel signifies Christ as the center of God’s economy.
   2. The rim signifies Christ’s counterpart, the church, the Body of Christ.
   3. The believers as the many members of Christ are the spokes of the hub spreading to the rim, to the Body of Christ, which consummates the New Jerusalem.
   4. This great wheel is not only the economy of God but also the moving of the economy of God:
      1. From Genesis 1 until the present, the move of God’s economy has never stopped, and today this great wheel has reached us.
      2. In every age and in every generation, this wheel has been moving, and now we are a part of the move of the great wheel of God’s economy.

Message four

The Triune God — the three-one God for His divine dispensing to carry out His eternal economy

1. There are two basic divine titles for God in the Old Testament:
   1. Elohim (Gen. 1:1) is used in relation to God’s creation, and its plurality implies the Divine Trinity, thus denoting the unique yet triune God.
   2. Jehovah (Gen. 2:4) is used in God’s relationship with man, and it literally means “He that is who He is; therefore, the eternal I Am,” thus denoting the Triune God as the One who is not only eternally existing but also eternally being.
2. God is triune, three-one:
   1. God is only one—Psa. 86:10; Isa. 45:5; 1 Cor. 8:4.
   2. God has the aspect of three—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—Matt. 28:19.
3. The three of the Divine Trinity are eternally coexistent:
   1. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all God:
      1. The Father is God—1 Pet. 1:2; Eph. 1:17.
      2. The Son is God—Heb. 1:8; John 1:1; Rom. 9:5.
      3. The Spirit is God—Acts 5:3-4.
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all eternal:
      1. The Father is eternal—Isa. 9:6.
      2. The Son is eternal—Heb. 1:12; 7:3.
      3. The Spirit is eternal—Heb. 9:14.
   3. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit coexist simultaneously from eternity to eternity—John 14:16-17; Eph. 3:14-17; 2 Cor. 13:14.
4. The three of the Divine Trinity are eternally coinherent:
   1. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit mutually indwell one another—John 14:10-11, 26; 15:26.
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit coexist in Their coinherence, and are thus distinct but not separate—John 5:19, 43; 8:29; 16:32; Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 4:1, 18a; Matt. 12:28.
5. The essential Trinity refers to the essence of the Triune God for His existence:
   1. The Son is the embodiment of the Father (Col. 2:9), and the Spirit is the reality of the Son (John 14:16-18).
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are essentially one, as evidenced by the following:
      1. A Son is given to us, yet His name is called the eternal Father—Isa 9:6.
      2. The Son as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b.
      3. The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17) and the Lord Spirit (v. 18).
6. The economical Trinity refers to the plan of the Triune God for His move:
   1. The Father as the Originator makes the divine economy (Eph. 1:9-10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4b); the Son accomplishes the divine economy made by the Father (John 5:19; 8:28); and the Spirit applies to God’s elect what the Son has accomplished (16:13).
   2. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are economically three. Yet They are still one in harmony in the economical Trinity (John 10:30; 17:21, 23), as evidenced by the following:
      1. The Father spoke in heaven concerning the Son, the Son stood in the water on the earth, and the Spirit soared as the dove in the air—Matt. 3:16-17.
      2. The Father chose the believers before the foundation of the world, the Son redeemed them in time, and the Spirit sealed them after they believed in the Son—Eph. 1:4, 6-7, 13.
7. The Divine Trinity is for the dispensing of God into His chosen people:
   1. The Triune God’s eternal economy according to His heart’s desire is to make man the same as He is in life and nature but not in His Godhead, and thus to be enlarged and expanded in His expression.
   2. This is accomplished by creating man in His image and after His likeness (Gen. 1:26-27), becoming a man in His incarnation to partake of the human nature (Heb. 2:14a), living a human life to express His attributes through man’s virtues, dying an all-inclusive death, resurrecting to become the firstborn Son of God and the life-giving Spirit (Rom. 8:29; Acts 13:33; 1 Cor. 15:45), dispensing Himself into His chosen people to regenerate them with Himself as their life for producing many sons (1 Pet. 1:3), forming the churches with His many sons, and building up the Body of Christ with His brothers as the members to be the organism of the processed and consummated Triune God to consummate the New Jerusalem as His eternal enlargement and expression.
   3. To carry out His dispensing, God needs to be triune:
      1. The Father as the origin is the fountain—Jer. 2:13.
      2. The Son as the expression is the spring—John 4:14.
      3. The Spirit as the transmission is the flow—the river (Rev. 22:1)—the reaching and the application of the Triune God.
   4. Second Corinthians 13:14 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all,” showing that the Divine Trinity is not for the doctrinal understanding of systematic theology but for the dispensing of God Himself into His chosen people to accomplish His economy.
8. God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation and He passed through all the processes to be incorporated with man to be an enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation, consummating the New Jerusalem:
   1. God in His Divine Trinity is an incorporation—John 14:10-11:
      1. By coinhering mutually.
      2. By working together as one.
   2. The Triune God in eternity past held a council (Acts 2:23) to make a decision that the second among Them had to become a man and pass through the processes of human living, death, and resurrection so that all the redeemed and regenerated believers of God would be incorporated into God’s incorporation to be an enlarged incorporation.
   3. The processed and consummated Triune God and the redeemed and regenerated believers became an enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation in the resurrection of Christ (John 14:20), consummating the New Jerusalem as the corporate God—the enlargement, expansion, and expression of God.

Message five

The all-inclusive Christ — the centrality and universality of God’s New Testament economy

1. Christ has the preeminence, the first place, in all things—Col. 1:18:
   1. Christ has the preeminence in the Triune Godhead—the first, the Father, always exalts the Son, and the third, the Spirit, always testifies concerning the Son—Phil. 2:9; John 15:26:
      1. Christ has the first place in all things; for in Him all the fullness was pleased to dwell—Col. 1:18b-19.
      2. In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily—Col. 2:9; Phil. 3:21.
   2. In God’s old creation, Christ is the Firstborn of all creation—Col. 1:15b.
   3. In God’s new creation in resurrection, Christ is the Firstborn from the dead—Col. 1:18b.
   4. We can also see the preeminence of Christ in God’s exaltation:
      1. Christ has been exalted to the right hand of God in the third heaven—Acts 2:33a; Eph. 1:19-20.
      2. In God’s exaltation of Christ, He has been given to be Head over all things—Eph. 1:22b.
      3. God has also given Him the name which is above every name—Phil. 2:9b.
   5. Christ has the preeminence in the church, being the Head of the Body, the church—Col. 1:18a.
2. Christ is everything to the believers for their enjoyment:
   1. Christ is the God-allotted portion to the saints:
      1. The Father has qualified us for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light—Col. 1:12.
      2. The phrase theirs and ours in 1 Corinthians 1:2 indicates that Christ as the all-inclusive One belongs to all the believers.
   2. Christ is our life—Col. 3:4a:
      1. Christ lives in us—Gal. 2:20a; 2 Cor. 13:5.
      2. Christ should be our living—Phil. 1:21a.
      3. Christ should be magnified in our body—Phil. 1:20b.
      4. Christ should be formed in us—Gal. 4:19.
      5. We need to grow up into Christ, the Head, in all things with the growth of God—Eph. 4:15b; Col. 2:19b.
      6. We have to grow to such an extent that we can be presented to God full-grown in Christ—Col. 1:28b; Eph. 4:13b.
   3. Christ is in us as the hope of glory—Col. 1:27b:
      1. The hope of our calling (Eph. 1:18b; 4:4b) is the hope of glory, which is the transfiguration of our body and the manifestation of the sons of God—Rom. 8:19, 23-25.
      2. “He will change my body like unto His own, / Wholly making me the same as He”—Hymns, #948.
   4. Christ is our every necessity and our full enjoyment:
      1. Christ is our light—John 8:12.
      2. Christ is our spiritual food—John 6:51, 57b.
      3. Christ is our spiritual drink—1 Cor. 10:4.
      4. Christ is our breath—John 20:22.
      5. Christ is our clothing—Gal. 3:27.
      6. Christ is our dwelling place—John 15:7a.
      7. Christ is our enjoyment and rest—Col. 2:16-17; Matt. 11:28.
   5. Christ is our divine provision:
      1. Christ is God’s power—1 Cor. 1:24a.
      2. Christ is God’s wisdom—1 Cor. 1:24b; 30a.
      3. Christ is our righteousness.
      4. Christ is our sanctification.
      5. Christ is our redemption—1 Cor. 1:30b.
3. Christ is everything to the church:
   1. Christ is the Head of the Body—Col. 1:18.
   2. Christ is the Body of the Head—1 Cor. 12:12.
   3. Christ is the foundation of the church—1 Cor. 3:11.
   4. Christ is the living stone, the cornerstone, and the topstone of the house of God, the church—1 Pet. 2:4-8; Eph. 2:20; Zech. 4:7.
   5. Christ is all the members of the new man—Col. 3:10-11.
4. Christ is the centrality and universality of God’s New Testament economy—Col. 1:17.
5. Christ is the reality of every section of the God-ordained way:
   1. Christ is the reality in the fulfilling of the New Testament priesthood of the gospel—Rom. 15:16; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9.
   2. Christ is the reality in the feeding of the new believers—John 21:15.
   3. Christ is the reality of the perfecting of the saints in the vital groups—Eph. 4:12; Heb. 10:24-25.
   4. Christ is the reality in the building up of the church, the Body of Christ, by prophesying in the bigger meetings of the church—1 Cor. 14:3-5.

Message six

The full ministry of Christ in three stages — incarnation, inclusion, and intensification

1. The first stage of the full ministry of Christ is the stage of His incarnation, the stage of Christ in the flesh, from His human birth through His human living to His death:
   1. In His incarnation, Christ brought the infinite God into the finite man; He also united and mingled the Triune God with the tripartite man.
   2. In His human living, Christ expressed in His humanity the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues:
      1. Christ expressed the bountiful God in His human living, mainly expressing God in His rich attributes.
      2. Christ attracted and captivated people through His aromatic virtues:
         1. Not by living His human life in the flesh.
         2. But by living His divine life in resurrection.
   3. In His death, Christ accomplished His all-inclusive judicial redemption:
      1. He terminated all things of the old creation.
      2. He redeemed all the things created by God and fallen in sin—Heb. 2:9; Col. 1:20.
      3. He created (conceived) the new man with His divine element—Eph. 2:15.
      4. He released His divine life from the shell of His humanity—John 12:24.
      5. He laid a foundation for His organic salvation and set up the procedure to attain His ministry in the stage of His inclusion.
2. The second stage of the full ministry of Christ is the stage of His inclusion, the stage of Christ as the life-giving Spirit, from His resurrection to the degradation of the church:
   1. In His resurrection, Christ was begotten as God’s firstborn Son—Acts 13:33:
      1. From eternity past without beginning, Christ was God’s only begotten Son, possessing only divinity, without humanity, and not having passed through death into resurrection.
      2. In incarnation the only begotten Son of God became flesh to be a God-man, a man possessing both the divine nature and the human nature.
      3. Through death and resurrection Christ in the flesh as the seed of David was designated to be the firstborn Son of God—Rom. 1:3-4:
         1. In death His humanity was crucified.
         2. In resurrection His crucified humanity was made alive in the Spirit of His divinity (1 Pet. 3:18) and was uplifted into the sonship of the only begotten Son of God.
         3. Thus, He was begotten by God in His resurrection to be the firstborn Son of God.
   2. In His resurrection, Christ as the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit—1 Cor. 15:45b:
      1. Christ, the Son of God as the second of the Divine Trinity, after completing His ministry on the earth, became (was transfigured into) the life-giving Spirit in His resurrection.
      2. Christ’s becoming the life-giving Spirit was for the release of the divine life that was confined in the shell of His humanity and for the dispensing of this life into His believers, making them the many members which constitute His Body—John 12:24.
      3. This life-giving Spirit who is the pneumatic Christ is also called the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2), the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7), the Spirit of Christ (Rom 8:9), the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19), and the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).
   3. In His resurrection, Christ regenerated the believers for His Body—1 Pet. 1:3:
      1. The pneumatic Christ became the firstborn Son of God and the life-giving Spirit for the regenerating of the believers, making them the many sons of God born of God with Him in the one universal great delivery:
         1. For the composition of the house of God, even the household of God.
         2. For the constitution of the Body of Christ to be His fullness, His expression and expansion, to consummate the eternal expression and expansion of the processed and consummated Triune God.
      2. The Christ in resurrection gives Himself as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit without measure through His speaking of the words of God—John 3:34.
      3. All the believers in Christ are built up into a dwelling place of God in their spirit indwelt by Him as the Spirit (Eph. 2:22) through dispositional sanctification (Rom. 15:16), renewing (Titus 3:5), transformation (2 Cor. 3:18), and conformation (Rom. 8:29).
3. The third stage of the full ministry of Christ is the stage of His intensification, the stage of Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit, from the degradation of the church to the consummation of the New Jerusalem:
   1. The first thing which Christ is doing in the third stage of His ministry is to intensify His organic salvation:
      1. On the way of Christ’s ministry in the stage of His inclusion, which is to carry out His organic salvation for the producing of the church and the building up of His Body to consummate the New Jerusalem, the church became degraded, frustrating the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy.
      2. Hence, Christ became the sevenfold intensified Spirit (Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6; 3:1) to intensify His organic salvation sevenfold for the building up of His Body to consummate God’s eternal goal—the New Jerusalem.
   2. The second thing which Christ is doing in the third stage of His ministry is to produce the overcomers:
      1. Through the degradation of the church nearly all the believers in Christ became defeated in their old man by Satan, sin, the world, and their flesh.
      2. In His seven epistles to the degraded churches, Christ calls the defeated believers to be His overcomers by Himself as the sevenfold intensified Spirit for their experience of His organic salvation in His sevenfold intensification.
   3. The third thing which Christ is doing in the third stage of His ministry is to consummate the New Jerusalem:
      1. According to the entire revelation of the New Testament, the unique goal of the Christian work should be the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate goal of God’s eternal economy.
      2. The degradation of the church is mainly due to the fact that nearly all the Christian workers are distracted to take many things other than the New Jerusalem as their goal.
      3. Hence, to be overcomers answering the Lord’s call under the degradation of the church, we need to overcome all the things which replace the New Jerusalem as the goal and take the goal of God’s eternal economy, that is, the New Jerusalem, as our unique and ultimate goal.

Message seven

The all-inclusive Spirit — the life-giving, compound, sevenfold intensified Spirit

1. God being Spirit reveals that God’s divine substance is Spirit—John 4:24:
   1. The source of the all-inclusive Spirit is God, who is Spirit.
   2. The word Spirit in John 4:24 does not refer to God’s person but to God’s nature.
2. The all-inclusive Spirit is the third of the Triune God—Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14:
   1. The Spirit is the consummation and the totality of the Triune God.
   2. The Father as the source is embodied in the Son, and the Son as the embodiment of the Father is realized as the Spirit.
   3. Among the three of the Trinity, the Spirit is the most important in the sense of His being the realization, application, and reaching of the Triune God to us.
3. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of God with the element of divinity—Gen. 1:1-2; Matt. 12:28; Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 2:11-12:
   1. In the phrase the Spirit of God, God is in apposition to Spirit; thus, the Spirit of God means that God is the Spirit and the Spirit is God.
   2. In Genesis 1 the Spirit of God moved to brood over the face of the waters for the producing of life in God’s old creation.
   3. In 1 Corinthians we see that the moving Spirit of God who moves in us, that is, dwells in us, is also the revealing Spirit who reveals to us all the things of God.
4. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of Jehovah, the Spirit of the Lord, as the reaching of God in His relationship with man with the elements of the Divine Trinity—Exo. 3:6, 14-15; Judg. 3:10; Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:18; 2 Cor. 3:17:
   1. In Genesis 2 there is another title, Jehovah, because in this chapter God begins to have contact with the man created by Him.
   2. The Spirit of Jehovah is God’s reaching of man and His care for man as the great I AM.
5. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Holy Spirit, with the element of the holy, divine nature, of whom Jesus was begotten in Mary—Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20:
   1. Because the Lord Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit, He was brought forth as someone who was holy in nature just as God Himself is holy.
   2. The conception of the Lord Jesus is related to the beginning of God making Himself man and of God making man God that He might become man and man might become Him in life and nature but not in the Godhead, that the two could become one entity.
6. The all-inclusive Spirit is the life-giving Spirit with the impartation of the divine life—1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:6:
   1. The life-giving Spirit has the ability to give us life.
   2. The life-giving Spirit is now working in the being of the believers to give life to their whole being.
7. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of life with the riches of the divine life—Rom. 8:2:
   1. The Spirit of life is the pneumatic Christ in resurrection as the Spirit of the divine life to the believers.
   2. The Spirit of life is the reality of life, for this Spirit contains the element of the divine life.
8. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of reality, the Spirit of what God is, has, and does—John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13:
   1. Whatever the Triune God is, is ours; whatever He has, is ours; and whatever He has done, is ours by the Spirit of reality.
   2. The Spirit of reality is the linking between us and the Triune God, making us one with the Triune God in experience.
9. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, who is the reality of Jesus in His suffering humanity—Acts 16:7:
   1. Because Paul was suffering in Acts 16, the Spirit of Jesus was with him having not only the divine element of God but also the elements of humanity, human living, and crucifixion, the suffering of death.
   2. Such an all-inclusive Spirit was needed by Paul in his preaching ministry, a ministry with sufferings for the sake of the Body of Christ—Col. 1:24.
10. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of Christ with the element of resurrection—Rom. 8:9:
    1. The Spirit of Christ is Christ in His divinity, who conquered death and became life in resurrection with the resurrection power.
    2. The Spirit of Christ with the element of resurrection is the death-conquering and the life-dispensing Spirit.
11. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ with the bountiful supply of all the elements of humanity, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection—Phil. 1:19:
    1. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is the Spirit of the Jesus who lived a life of suffering on the earth and of the Christ who is now in resurrection.
    2. In his suffering Paul experienced both the Lord’s suffering in His humanity and the Lord’s resurrection.
12. The all-inclusive Spirit is the compound Spirit typified by the compound ointment—Exo. 30:22-31:
    1. The compound ointment is composed of a hin of olive oil blended and compounded with four elements—myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia—with their respective units and numbers.
    2. The compound ointment typifies man and God compounded together with the sweet and effective death of Christ and the flavor and power of Christ’s resurrection, the Triune God, and the power for responsibility.
    3. The compound ointment is for anointing everything and every person related to God’s worship to separate them from anything common, making them most holy for God’s service.
13. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Lord Spirit with the elements of ascension and lordship—2 Cor. 3:17-18:
    1. The Lord Spirit is the Lord who is the Spirit and the Spirit who is the Lord.
    2. The Lord Spirit is a compound title referring to the pneumatic Christ.
    3. The Lord Spirit is for our transformation.
14. The all-inclusive Spirit is the seven Spirits with the sevenfold intensification—Rev. 1:4; 4:5; 5:6:
    1. The seven Spirits actually are the one Spirit of God who is sevenfold for God’s move to carry out God’s administration, to execute God’s economy in the universe.
    2. Such an intensified Spirit is for us to be vitalized, to be overcomers in the degradation of the church.
    3. The seven Spirits as the eyes of Christ are observing us and transfusing us with all His riches.
15. The all-inclusive Spirit is the Spirit, the consummated Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God—John 7:39; Rev. 22:17:
    1. The Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God marries the bride as the consummation of the redeemed, regenerated, and transformed tripartite man.
    2. The Spirit as the consummated God and the transformed tripartite man will be married to be one heavenly, universal couple for eternity.

Message eight

The eternal life — the uncreated, indestructible, incorruptible life in which we are saved and in which we reign

1. In our physical body we have a biological life (Gk. bios), in our soul we have a psychological life (Gk. psuche), but when we were regenerated we received another life, the eternal life (Gk. zoe):
   1. The eternal life is the life that is not only everlasting but also eternal both in time and in nature—John 3:16, 36; 1 John 1:2.
   2. The eternal life is the uncreated life of God, the indestructible life, and the incorruptible life—Eph. 4:18; Heb. 7:16; 2 Tim. 1:10.
   3. The eternal life is the life that is in the Son of God and that is the Son of God—1 John 5:11-12; 1:2; John 1:4; 14:6.
   4. The eternal life is the life with which the believers are regenerated and which becomes the believers’ life, making the believers the children of God and the members of Christ—Col. 3:4a; John 1:12-13; Eph. 5:30.
   5. The eternal life is the life on which we should lay hold—1 Tim. 6:12.
2. The eternal life as a blessing from God to us is in three stages, and these three stages are in three ages:
   1. In the present age, the church age, we receive the eternal life as a free gift for us to enjoy and live by—John 3:15-16.
   2. In the coming age, the kingdom age, we inherit eternal life as a reward with an enjoyment of the eternal life that is fuller than the enjoyment in this age—Matt. 19:17; Luke 18:29-30; Rev. 2:7.
   3. In the eternal age in the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center, we will enjoy the ultimate consummation of the eternal life in its fullest blessing—Rev. 22:1-2, 14.
3. God gives His chosen people repentance unto eternal life and has appointed, ordained, them to receive this life—Acts 11:18; 13:48.
4. Christ’s righteous act of dying on the cross is unto justification of life to all men—Rom. 5:18:
   1. Life is the goal of God’s salvation; thus, justification is “of life.”
   2. Through justification we have come up to the standard of God’s righteousness and correspond with it, so that now He can impart His life to us.
5. The believers walk in the newness of this life—Rom. 6:4.
6. The life of the Triune God is dispensed into the tripartite man to save the believers subjectively in this life through regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and glorification—Rom. 5:10b:
   1. First, this life was the divine life in the Spirit—Rom. 8:2.
   2. Second, it became the life in our spirit through regeneration—Rom. 8:10.
   3. Then from our spirit it saturates our mind for the transformation of our soul, to which our mind belongs, and becomes the life in our soul—Rom. 8:6.
   4. Eventually, it will permeate our body and become the life in our body, ultimately issuing in the transfiguration of our body, that is, the redemption of our body—Rom. 8:11; Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:23.
7. The believers need to reign in life with grace over all things unto eternal life—Rom. 5:17, 21:
   1. God’s complete salvation is for us to reign in life by the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness:
      1. The gift of righteousness is for God’s judicial redemption; grace is for us to experience God’s organic salvation:
         1. The gift of righteousness is God’s judicial redemption applied to us in a practical way.
         2. Grace is God Himself as our all-sufficient supply for our organic salvation.
      2. Reigning in life is the full experience of the organic salvation of God.
   2. We have been regenerated with a divine, spiritual, heavenly, kingly, and royal life—Mark 4:26; 1 John 3:9.
   3. Reigning in life in Romans 5 is the key to everything in Romans 6—16:
      1. We need to see everything in Romans 6—16 in this light.
      2. If we reign in life, we are in all the matters presented in these chapters.
   4. In experience, to reign in life means to be under the ruling of the divine life:
      1. Christ is a pattern of reigning in life by being under the ruling of the divine life of the Father—Matt. 8:9.
      2. Paul is an example of one who, in his life and ministry, was under the ruling of the divine life—2 Cor. 2:12-14.
      3. There is the need for all the believers who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness to practice the restriction and limitation in the divine life.
   5. The issue of our reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life.
   6. Each item of the living of the Body life in Romans 12—13 requires us to be ruled by the divine life:
      1. We need to be captivated by the compassions of God—12:1a.
      2. We must present our bodies a living sacrifice—12:1b.
      3. We should not be fashioned according to this age but be transformed by the renewing of the mind—12:2.
      4. We should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, but think so as to be sober-minded, as God has apportioned to each a measure of faith—12:3.
      5. We should consider that we have many members in one body, and all the members do not have the same function—12:4.
   7. We need to live a life of the highest virtues for the Body life by reigning in life:
      1. We should love without hypocrisy and love one another warmly in brotherly love—12:9a, 10a.
      2. We should not be slothful in zeal but burning in spirit, serving the Lord—12:11.
      3. We should endure in tribulation—12:12b.
      4. We should rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep—12:15.
      5. If possible, as far as it depends on us, we should live in peace with all men—12:18.
   8. Reigning in life is “unto eternal life”—Rom. 5:21:
      1. Unto eternal life is a particular expression.
      2. John 4:14b says, “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life”:
         1. Into (unto in Rom. 5:21) speaks of destination and also means “to become” or “to be.”
         2. The eternal life eventually will be the New Jerusalem.
         3. Into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem.
      3. The New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine life, the totality of the life of God.
      4. The issue and goal of our reigning in life is the New Jerusalem, the universal incorporation of the union and mingling of divinity with humanity.

Message nine

God’s complete salvation — judicial redemption plus organic salvation

1. God’s complete salvation is of two aspects—the judicial aspect and the organic aspect:
   1. God’s judicial redemption is the judicial aspect of God’s complete salvation:
      1. It is according to the righteousness of God—Rom. 1:17a; 3:21-26; 9:30-31.
      2. It is through God’s fulfilling of all the requirements of His righteous law on sinners by Christ’s redemptive death on the cross—Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:12.
      3. It was accomplished in the physical realm of Christ’s earthly ministry by the Christ in the flesh.
      4. It results objectively in God’s:
         1. Forgiveness of the believers’ sins—Luke 24:47; Eph. 1:7.
         2. Washing away the believers’ sins—Heb. 1:3.
         3. Justifying the believers—Rom. 3:24-25.
         4. Reconciling the believers who were His enemies to Himself—Rom. 5:10a.
         5. Sanctifying the believers in their position unto Himself as His holy people—1 Cor. 1:2; Heb. 13:12; 10:29.
         6. Thereby qualifying and positioning the believers to enter into the grace of God for the accomplishment of the purpose of God’s salvation.
      5. God’s judicial redemption is the procedure of God’s complete salvation for the believers to participate in God’s organic salvation as the purpose of the complete salvation of God—Rom. 5:21.
   2. God’s organic salvation is the organic aspect of God’s complete salvation:
      1. It is through the life of God—Rom. 1:17b; Acts 11:18; Rom. 5:10b, 17b, 18b, 21b.
      2. As the purpose of God’s salvation, it accomplishes all that God wants to achieve in the believers in His economy through His divine life.
      3. It results subjectively in the believers’ regeneration, feeding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building up, conformation, and glorification.
      4. All of the items of God’s organic salvation are carried out not by the Christ in the flesh in His earthly ministry judicially and objectively but by the Christ as the life-giving Spirit in His heavenly ministry organically and subjectively.
2. God’s organic salvation:
   1. Regeneration is the propagation of the divine life:
      1. Regeneration is the center of God’s entire salvation and the commencement of God’s salvation in its organic aspect.
      2. It is to regenerate and re-create the redeemed believers in their spirit by the Spirit of God—John 3:6b.
      3. It is through the resurrection of Christ that He may impart His life into them as the authority for them to be the children of God, begotten of God as His species—1 Pet. 1:3; John 1:12-13.
      4. Through regeneration the believers have the eternal, divine life of God in addition to their natural, human life—John 3:15, 36.
   2. Feeding in shepherding is the nourishment of the divine life:
      1. Feeding is the continuation of regeneration through Christ’s shepherding His flock by nourishing and cherishing that His sheep may grow in the divine life unto maturity—Eph. 5:29; John 10:10-11, 14-16; 21:15-17; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 5:4; 2:25.
      2. Feeding nourishes His newborn babes (new believers) that they may grow and be saved gradually through the supply of the milk in the word of God—1 Pet. 2:2.
      3. Feeding supplies His growing believers with the solid word, which is the Spirit of life—Heb. 5:14; John 6:63.
      4. Feeding results in the believers’ maturity in the divine life unto transformation and conformation to the image of Christ—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; 8:29.
      5. Feeding is also by the believers through the mutual shepherding for the building up of the Body of Christ for the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy and the achievement of God’s eternal purpose—Eph. 4:11-16; John 21:15-17; 1 Pet. 5:2-3.
   3. Dispositional sanctification constitutes the believers with God’s divine nature:
      1. It is an inward sanctifying of the believers who are growing in the divine life by the working of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life, in their disposition—Rom. 15:16; 8:2.
      2. The believers are sanctified with the divine, holy nature of God for them to be holy unto God and thus fulfill God’s purpose in choosing us—2 Pet. 1:4; Eph. 1:4.
      3. Dispositional sanctification implies transformation—Rom. 6:19, 22.
      4. Sanctification will ultimately be manifested in the New Jerusalem as the holy city—Rev. 21:2, 10; 22:19.
   4. Renewing is the process of God’s new creation:
      1. The believers are spontaneously renewed in their spiritual life when they are sanctified by the Holy Spirit—2 Cor. 5:17.
      2. Renewing is the continuation of the washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5) and is based upon the ongoing process of sanctification, making the believers new.
      3. It is carried out:
         1. By the renewing Spirit mingling with the believers’ regenerated spirit indwelt by Christ as one spirit to spread into the believers’ mind to renew their entire being as a member of the new man—Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23.
         2. By the believers’ walking in the newness of life in resurrection—Rom. 6:4; Eph. 4:22-24; Phil. 1:19-21.
      4. It is through the consuming by the believers’ environmental sufferings—2 Cor. 4:16.
      5. The believers must be thoroughly and absolutely renewed that they may be practically the genuine new creation of God and for God—Gal. 6:15.
      6. Renewing causes the believers to be new as the New Jerusalem—Rev. 21:2.
   5. Transformation is the metabolic process in the divine life:
      1. This process transforms the believers’ entire being, beginning from the renewing of the mind, that they may fully participate in God’s divinity—Rom. 12:2b.
      2. It is not any kind of outward correction or adjustment but a kind of metabolism, by the addition of the element of the divine life of Christ into their being, to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ.
      3. It is accomplished by the Lord Spirit (the pneumatic Christ) transforming the believers into the image of the glory of Christ—2 Cor. 3:18.
      4. The believers should live and walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and walk according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4b), that the divine life of Christ may have the way to regulate them and transform them into the image of the Lord in glory.
   6. Building up is the joining and knitting together in the divine life:
      1. God’s building is brought forth through the joining and knitting together by the working of the transforming Spirit on the believers—Eph. 4:16.
      2. It is the issue of the believers’ growing into the Head, Christ, in all things—Eph. 4:15.
      3. This is the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the building of the holy city, New Jerusalem—Eph. 4:16; Rev. 3:12; 21:10-11.
   7. Conformation is the maturity in the divine life:
      1. Conformation is the consummation of the believers’ regeneration, feeding, sanctification, renewing, and transformation in the divine life—Rom. 8:29.
      2. Conformation is when the believers have matured in the divine life by the maturing Spirit in their spirit to be a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ—Col. 1:28; Eph. 4:13.
      3. Conformation is to be conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son—Phil. 3:10; 1:19-21a; 1 John 3:2.
   8. Glorification is the full manifestation of God’s complete salvation:
      1. In regeneration God seals the regenerated believers with His Spirit unto the day of redemption—Eph. 1:13; 4:30.
      2. The matured believers will be glorified from within through the lifelong saturation with the glory of God and from without through their being brought into God’s glory—Eph. 4:30; 2 Thes. 1:10; Rom. 8:23, 30; Heb. 2:10.
      3. The glorification of the matured believers is the top portion of their divine sonship in God’s organic salvation, which they received at the time of their regeneration—Gal. 4:5; Rom. 8:23.
      4. The redemption of the believers’ body is the transfiguration of their body at the Lord’s coming back—Phil. 3:20-21.
      5. Through glorification God realizes the fulfillment of His eternal purpose—the New Jerusalem—the crystallization of the union and mingling of the processed and consummated Triune God with His regenerated, transformed, conformed, and glorified tripartite elect.

Message ten

The Body of Christ — the organism of the Triune God

1. The vision of the Body of Christ:
   1. The goal of God’s eternal economy is to create, to constitute, and to produce a Body for Christ, who will gain this Body, which is a part of Himself, to be His counterpart, His bride, and consummately the New Jerusalem.
   2. The all-inclusive and the all-extensive Christ (the One who fills all in all) needs a Body as His counterpart for His expression—Eph. 1:23.
   3. The Body of Christ, as the organism of the Triune God in His move, is the accomplishment of God’s economy according to the good pleasure of His will—Eph. 1:5.
   4. The Body of Christ, a constitution of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated and transformed tripartite men, is the issue of the dispensing of the Triune God and of the transfusing of the ascended Christ and the consummation of the ministering of the riches of Christ.
2. The constitution of the Body of Christ:
   1. The Body of Christ is a divine and human constitution constituted with:
      1. The regenerated and transformed believers as its outward, visible frame—its members—Eph. 5:30.
      2. The processed and consummated Triune God as its inward, invisible content—Eph. 4:4-6:
         1. God the Father, who is over all, through all, and in all as its source.
         2. God the Son, who is the Lord, as its element.
         3. God the Spirit as its essence.
   2. The formation of the Body of Christ is through the baptism of the Spirit in the economical Trinity—1 Cor. 12:13.
   3. The growth of the Body of Christ is by the increase of the Triune God within all its members, who grow into the Head, Christ, in everything—Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15.
3. The reality of the Body of Christ:
   1. It is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but are living not by their life but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes are expressed through their virtues.
   2. It is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ through the power of the resurrection of Christ.
   3. It is also a mingling living, in the eternal union, of the regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite God-men with the Triune God in the resurrection of Christ.
4. The living of the Body of Christ:
   1. The members should take Christ as their Head, life, content, principal object, center, and goal—Eph. 5:23; Col. 3:4a, 11b; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 1:23; Phil. 3:14.
   2. The Body has the Spirit as its essence and reality and takes the Spirit as its secret and effectiveness—Eph. 4:4a; 1 John 5:6; Phil. 4:12b; Rom. 15:13.
   3. The members should take the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ as their regulation—Rom. 6:6; 8:13b; Gal. 5:24; Eph. 2:6a; Phil. 3:10a.
   4. The members should take life and the Body as the principle—1 John 5:11-12; Rom. 9:11b; Gal. 2:16a; Phil. 1:19-20a; Rom. 12:5; Eph. 1:23.
5. The building up of the Body of Christ:
   1. The Body is built up with Christ’s life as its element, the Spirit of reality as its essence, and the person of God as its source—Eph. 4:4-6.
   2. The Body is built up by the perfected saints who are perfected by the gifted members—Eph. 4:11-12.
   3. The Body is built up with the mature believers as its constituents through their growth in the life of Christ unto maturity—Eph. 4:15-16.
   4. The Body builds itself up in love—Eph. 4:16:
      1. The Body is joined together through every joint of the rich supply (the particular gifted members).
      2. The Body is knit together through the operation in the measure of each one part (all the saints).
6. The oneness of the Body of Christ:
   1. The oneness of the Body of Christ is according to the Lord’s aspiration expressed in His prayer to the Father in John 17:
      1. In the Father’s name by His divine life—vv. 6-13.
      2. Through sanctification by the reality of the word—vv. 14-21.
      3. In the divine glory for the expression of the processed and mingled Triune God—vv. 22-24.
   2. It is of the Spirit; hence, it is called the oneness of the Spirit, which oneness the believers should keep diligently in the uniting bond of peace—Eph. 4:3.
   3. In the whole universe there is only one, unique Body of Christ, with the Triune God as its contents—Eph. 4:4-6:
      1. The one Spirit is the essence of its contents.
      2. The one Lord is the element of its contents.
      3. God the Father is the source of its contents.
   4. This oneness is partly of the faith and partly of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at which all the believers need to arrive—Eph. 4:13.
7. The fellowship of the Body of Christ:
   1. The fellowship of the Body of Christ is the fellowship of the apostles—the divine fellowship between all the believers and the Triune God—Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3.
   2. It is the fellowship for the Lord’s unique recovery.
   3. It is the fellowship of the local churches:
      1. The local churches are many in different localities—Rev. 1:11.
      2. Locally the local churches are separated in existence, but universally they are not divided in essence.
      3. The local churches need to fellowship with all the genuine local churches throughout the earth.
      4. Every local church needs to receive all kinds of genuine believers in Christ—Rom. 14:1-6; 15:1-7.
      5. A believer should be kept away from the fellowship of a local church only because of three things:
         1. Being divisive—Rom. 16:17; Titus 3:10.
         2. Being heretical—2 John 7-11.
         3. Committing gross sins and living in them—1 Cor. 5:9-13.
8. The blending of the Body of Christ:
   1. God has blended the Body together—1 Cor. 12:24:
      1. There should be a blending of all the individual members of the Body of Christ.
      2. There should be a blending of all the churches in a certain district.
      3. There should be a blending of all the co-workers.
      4. There should be a blending of all the elders.
   2. The local churches, though necessary for practicality, are not the goal of God’s economy but the procedure to reach that goal, which is the unique Body of Christ.
   3. The Lord blended the seven churches in Asia by writing them one epistle composed of seven epistles to each of them respectively—Rev. 1—3.
   4. The apostle blended the churches in Colossae and Laodicea by writing one epistle to each of the two churches respectively and asking them to read the two epistles reciprocally—Col. 4:16.
   5. Such a blending is not social but the blending of the very Christ whom the individual members, the district churches, the co-workers, and the elders enjoy, experience, and partake of.
   6. Such a blending is for the building up of the universal Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem as the final goal of God’s economy according to His good pleasure—Eph. 1:23; Rev. 21:2; Eph. 1:9-10.
9. The consummation of the Body of Christ:
   1. The Body of Christ, an organic building of the God-men who are perfected in life as the representatives of a local church, as Zion within Jerusalem, will consummate the New Jerusalem in the millennium.
   2. This consummation will be the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God’s increase and expression for eternity.

Message eleven

The practical expression of the church — the Body of Christ expressed practically as many local churches

1. The church of God, as the universal Body of Christ, the universal house of God, and the kingdom of God (Eph. 1:22-23; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; Matt. 16:18-19), is expressed practically as many local churches (Rev. 1:4a, 11), and all the local churches, being the one Body of Christ separated by localities for their existence, express the same one Body, not respectively but corporately.
2. The ground of the church:
   1. The ground of the church (Christ—1 Cor. 3:11) denotes the site on which the foundation of the church is laid, which keeps, in practicality, the genuine oneness of the church both locally and universally, without any division or confusion.
   2. According to the divine revelation of the New Testament, the church ground is constituted of three crucial elements:
      1. The first element is the unique oneness of the universal Body of Christ, that is, the oneness of the one Spirit as the unique essence of the Body, with the one Lord as the unique element of the Body, and with the one Father as the unique source of the Body—Eph. 4:4-6.
      2. The second element is the unique ground of locality of a local church, that is, the very locality—a city, a town, or a village—as the boundary within which a local church is established and exists, with each one locality having only one church in order to preserve the oneness and prevent division—Deut. 12:5-18:
         1. Hence, we see the church in Jerusalem, the church in Antioch, the church in Cenchrea, the church in Corinth, and the seven churches in Asia in seven respective cities—Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rom. 16:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; Rev. 1:4a, 11.
         2. The church must not be divided by different persons, doctrines, and practices as different grounds into sects and denominations—1 Cor. 1:10-13.
      3. The third element is the reality of the Spirit of oneness by whom the oneness of the Body of Christ becomes real and living and through whom the ground of locality is applied in life and not in legality—Eph. 4:3-6.
   3. The church ground is therefore a spiritual fact and practical necessity, being the base of the genuine and proper fellowship of all the believers, the unique fellowship of the Body of Christ locally and universally—Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:1-3.
3. The practice of the church:
   1. The church of God is the called-out assembly composed of all His children, appearing in many localities on the earth as the local churches:
      1. The Body of Christ needs the local churches for its existence, expression, and practice.
      2. A local church is one that exists in a locality, its jurisdiction for its administration being within the boundary of the locality in which it exists.
      3. The unique church of God is expressed as many local churches throughout the whole earth, yet they still express the same one universal Body of Christ, not respectively but corporately—1 Cor. 12:27.
      4. The local churches are scattered in different places by geography, yet they are not divided by any doctrine or matter into sects or denominations—1 Cor. 1:10-13; 10:16-17.
      5. Among the local churches there is no head church, high church, or low church, but all the local churches are on the same level; there can be no absolute autonomy in any local church nor can there be a federation among a group of churches.
   2. All the local churches, composed with the believers to be the Body of Christ, are the golden lampstands, which are identical in nature, shape, and function to be the one expression of Christ—Rev. 1:11-12:
      1. Although the local churches are autonomous to a certain extent in business affairs, their testimony for Christ and fellowship of the Spirit should be not only local but also universal.
      2. Hence, the local churches in certain districts should be clustered as much as possible in a blending way for the spiritual benefits in the mutual building up of the Body of Christ, as the Lord Jesus clustered the seven neighboring churches in Asia—Rev. 1—3.
      3. Such a blending is not social but the blending of the very Christ whom the churches enjoy, experience, and partake of.
      4. Such clustering also stirs up the neighboring churches in mutual love, mutual care, mutual intercession, and mutual shepherding.
      5. Such blending is not an organization of any nature or a system in any way, nor is it a kind of unification in outward practices, but an organic building work.
   3. A local church is administered by a group of elders appointed by the gifted persons who have established the church and is ministered to by all the gifted saints for its building up as a living testimony of Christ—Acts 14:14a, 23; 13:1:
      1. The administration of a local church under the leadership of the elders should be carried out in an organic way, not by any worldly, organizational way—1 Tim. 3:1-5; 5:17.
      2. Among the churches there are the apostles who set up the churches, and in every church there are elders who manage the church and deacons who serve the church; although there is the order of these holy services, there should not be any hierarchy—religious organization or a system of rank—1 Cor. 9:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:1-13.
      3. A local church is built up directly by the functioning of all its members with the perfecting of the gifted persons, such as the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers (Eph. 4:11-12) through the following four things:
         1. Preaching the gospel to have sinners saved and regenerated to become the members of Christ.
         2. Feeding the new believers for their growth in life and in truth—John 21:15, 17; 1 Thes. 2:7.
         3. Perfecting the saints that they may mature and be built up—Eph. 4:12.
         4. Prophesying in the church meetings for the building up of the church—1 Cor. 14:1-5, 23-26, 31.
      4. The above-mentioned God-ordained way to build up the church is best practiced in the vital groups and the small groups day by day and from house to house—Acts 2:46; 5:42.
      5. The building up of a local church is for the building up of the entire Body of Christ.
   4. The following points are some crucial practices in the local churches under today‘s divisive and confusing degradation of Christianity:
      1. We should not participate in the Catholic heresy, the Protestant denominations, or any kind of free group of Christians.
      2. We should recognize and receive the individual believers in Christ who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, being redeemed by His blood and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who are not factious, not making divisions, not worshipping idols, nor living in sin, even if they are still related to any of the above-listed divisions—Rom. 14:1—15:13; Titus 3:10; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5:11.
      3. We should be one with all the believers who are in the Lord’s recovery throughout the world.
      4. We should not have any creed but only the unique Bible properly translated and interpreted by and according to the Bible itself.
      5. We should take the eternal economy of God as the central line to bear the unique testimony of Christ, not teaching any doctrine that is unrelated to the eternal economy of God and has nothing to do with the testimony of Christ—1 Tim. 1:3-4.
      6. We should practice the one accord by being in one spirit with one soul and by being attuned in the same mind and in the same opinion—Matt. 18:19; Acts 1:14; Phil. 1:27; 2:2.
      7. We should enjoy righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit as the reality of the kingdom of God—Rom. 14:17.

Message twelve

The New Jerusalem — the consummation of God’s eternal economy

1. The New Jerusalem is the conclusion of the entire divine revelation and the central and ultimate consummated significance of the entire divine revelation—Rev. 21:2, 9-10:
   1. The New Jerusalem is the conclusion and the total composition of the entire revelation of the Bible.
   2. All the revelations and visions of the Scriptures consummate in the New Jerusalem.
2. The New Jerusalem is not a physical city but an organic constitution constituted with the redeeming processed and consummated Triune God with the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite man as an organism of the consummated Triune God for His eternal enlargement and expression through the glorified tripartite man:
   1. The New Jerusalem is the composition of all the Old Testament and New Testament saints built together as God’s eternal building.
   2. The New Jerusalem is the mingling of all the redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite men with the processed and consummated Triune God.
   3. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate manifestation of the processed and consummated Triune God for His expression for eternity.
3. The New Jerusalem is a sign—the greatest and ultimate sign in the Scriptures (Rev. 1:1)—of the aggregate of God’s work of the new creation in all the dispensations within the old creation:
   1. God’s work in the dispensation of the patriarchs on the patriarchs.
   2. God’s work in the dispensation of the law on the children of Israel.
   3. God’s work in the dispensation of grace on the New Testament believers.
   4. God’s work in the dispensation of righteousness on the saved Israelites and on the rest of the New Testament believers not yet perfected.
4. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate goal of God’s economy:
   1. God has only one ultimate goal—the New Jerusalem, God’s enlargement, expansion, and expression.
   2. According to the entire revelation of the New Testament, the unique goal of the Christian work should be the New Jerusalem:
      1. The New Jerusalem was the highest point of the apostles’ living and work.
      2. We must take the goal of God’s eternal economy—the New Jerusalem—as our unique and ultimate goal.
5. The New Jerusalem is built according to the apostles’ teaching:
   1. The twelve foundations of the New Jerusalem bear the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, representing the apostles’ teaching—Rev. 21:14; Acts 2:42.
   2. The teaching of the apostles is the entire speaking of God in the New Testament concerning God’s New Testament economy, which is to gain a universal incorporation of the union and mingling of divinity with humanity.
   3. The New Jerusalem is built upon the apostles and prophets with their revelation received of Christ as the rock—Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:20; 3:4-5.
   4. We need to continue steadfastly in and closely follow the apostles’ teaching to build up the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem—2 Tim. 3:10, 14; 2:2; Titus 1:9.
6. The New Jerusalem is the embodiment of God’s complete salvation:
   1. God’s complete salvation is a composition of God’s righteousness as the base and God’s life as the consummation—Rom. 5:18; 8:10.
   2. The foundation of the New Jerusalem is the righteousness of God with God’s faithfulness, and the consummation is God’s life with God’s nature.
   3. The entire New Jerusalem is a matter of life built on the foundation of God’s righteousness.
7. The New Jerusalem is the Jerusalem above, the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of the believers—Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22:
   1. The Jerusalem above as the mother of the believers is the new covenant of grace symbolized by Sarah.
   2. The New Jerusalem is produced by the dispensing of the processed Triune God into the believers as grace to bring them forth as the many sons to compose the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:7), which is their mother.
   3. The Father (the source of grace), the grace, the mother, the sons, the city, and the new covenant will become one entity—the New Jerusalem.
8. The New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine sonship—Rev. 21:7:
   1. The New Jerusalem is a composition of all the sons of God, who have God’s life and nature and who inherit all that the processed Triune God is.
   2. In Revelation 21:7 we have the conclusion of the entire revelation in the New Testament concerning sonship:
      1. God predestinated us unto sonship—Eph. 1:5.
      2. We were sinners, but we have been made sons by God and are being conformed to the image of God’s firstborn Son—Rom. 8:29.
      3. God is leading many sons into glory—Heb. 2:10.
      4. Hence, the New Testament reveals that God’s intention is to produce sons and that the New Jerusalem is the totality of the divine sonship.
9. The New Jerusalem is the destination of the flowing Triune God—John 4:14b:
   1. John 4:14b says, “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life”:
      1. Into speaks of destination, indicating that eternal life is the destination of the flowing Triune God.
      2. The eternal life eventually will become the New Jerusalem, the totality of the divine life; hence, into eternal life means into the New Jerusalem.
   2. The New Jerusalem is the issue of God’s flowing in three stages: in the Father’s stage, in the Son’s stage, and in the Spirit’s stage:
      1. The Father is the fountain as the source, the Son is the spring, the Spirit is the flowing river, and this flowing issues in the eternal life, which is the New Jerusalem.
      2. The fountain emerges, the spring gushes, and the gushing is the flowing as a river into the New Jerusalem.
10. The New Jerusalem, which is both the tabernacle and the temple, is a mutual dwelling place for the redeeming God and His redeemed—Rev. 21:2-3, 22:
    1. The tabernacle is God’s redeemed, and the temple is the redeeming God:
       1. The tabernacle is built mostly with the humanity of God’s redeemed to be God’s dwelling place.
       2. The temple is built mostly with divinity to be the dwelling place of God’s redeemed.
    2. The New Jerusalem is the mingling of God with His redeemed, and this mingling is a mutual dwelling place.
    3. The processed Triune God and His redeemed will be one mingled entity for eternity.
11. The New Jerusalem is a universal couple—“a loving pair eternally”—the consummation of the divine romance—Rev. 22:17:
    1. According to its humanity the New Jerusalem is the human wife (with the divine life and nature) of the Lamb—Rev. 21:2, 9.
    2. According to its divinity the New Jerusalem is the divine Husband (the redeeming God in His consummated embodiment, Christ, with His human life and nature) of God’s redeemed elect.
    3. Revelation 22:17 indicates that Christ and the New Jerusalem as His wife will be a universal couple for eternity:
       1. The Spirit, who is the totality of the processed Triune God, becomes one with the believers, who are now fully matured to be the bride.
       2. The consummation of the processed Triune God and the consummation of God’s chosen, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed people will be a universal couple expressing the Triune God for eternity.
12. The New Jerusalem is the consummate incorporation of God and man—the processed and consummated Triune God incorporated into an incorporation with His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified elect:
    1. God’s intention is that all the believers in Christ would be incorporated into Himself as an incorporation to be an enlarged, divine and human incorporation.
    2. The Bible unveils to us that God’s economy is to have God and man incorporated into an incorporation, which is first the Body of Christ and then the New Jerusalem.
    3. The union, mingling, and incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated believers consummates as the New Jerusalem.