Search
Scripture Reading: S. S. 1:9-11, 15; 2:1-2
I. Transformed by the transforming Spirit in the church life — S. S. 1:9-10, 15; 2:1-2:
А. The lover of Christ is likened by Christ to a mare — 1:9:
1. Natural with a strong character.
2. Living in the satanic cosmos (Egypt).
3. Enslaved by Satan (among Pharaoh’s chariots).
B. Transformed into:
1. A lily — 2:1b-2:
а. Living a life trusting in God, not in her natural strength.
b. Looking unto God with a single eye (eyes of doves), implying that she must also be a dove looking to God by focusing her eyes on one single goal — 1:15b.
c. Living among the filthy and unbelieving people (thorns) — 2:2.
d. Considered by herself a lowly and small person living in the low place (valleys) — v. 1b.
2. A rose—considered by herself something common among the people (Sharon) — v. 1a.
C. Praised and enjoyed by Christ in her loveliness in — 1:10:
1. Her submission to God through the transformation of the Spirit with the divine nature of God (plaits of gold) as ornaments in her expression (cheeks).
2. Her obedience to God through the dispensing of the transforming Spirit with the divine life expressed as jewels in strings.
II. Perfected by the perfected saints in the church life — v. 11:
А. The perfected saints cooperate together with the transforming Spirit to perfect the lover of Christ in (Eph. 4:12):
1. Her submission to God with the divine life.
2. The constitution of her growth in the divine life with the all-inclusive redemption of Christ:
а. His all-terminating and life-releasing death.
b. His all-germinating and life-dispensing resurrection.
c. His all-transcending and all-attaining ascension.
B. For the building up of the Body of Christ in the maturity of the lovers of Christ for the accomplishment of the eternal economy of God.
In this chapter we come to a point that is greatly missed and neglected by today’s Christianity. This point is transformation. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Then 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that we are to be transformed into the image of the glory of Christ by the Lord Spirit. The One who transforms us is the Lord Spirit, the very God who is today the Spirit. The Lord Spirit is a compound divine title like the Father God.
When I came to the United States, my burden was with three main items. The first item was the all-inclusive Christ. The first conference of the Lord’s recovery in the United States was on the all-inclusive Christ, based upon three verses from Deuteronomy 8 (vv. 7-9). Eventually, I told people that this all-inclusive Christ is today the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). The second item with which I had a heavy burden to tell God’s elect was the truth concerning the human spirit. The third item was transformation.
I spoke on the all-inclusive Christ during the last seven days of 1962. The next day, January 1 of 1963, I was brought by a brother to Whittier to share with a group of seeking ones there. My burden was to share the truth and experience of transformation. Today I am still speaking on transformation. Stanza 6 of Hymns, #548 says, “Transformation is my need, / To be broken more indeed, / That the clay may change in form, / To the treasure to conform.” We were made as an earthen vessel, but this vessel should be transformed in its appearance. Transformation is not a kind of outward reformation or correction. Transformation is a metabolic change in the substantial form.
In the previous chapter we saw that in the universe today two worlds are going on. One is Satan’s cosmos, Satan’s satanic system, to systematize all the fallen people into his hands to form his kingdom. Even the United Nations is a great part of the cosmos of Satan. Satan built up his evil world by seducing man whom God created for God’s purpose. Adam accepted Satan, so Satan as sin came into Adam to be Adam’s nature. Romans 5 says that sin came in through one man (v. 12). Satan, sin, and the fallen man are now one. In the Bible the fallen man is called the flesh. Genesis 6 says that all men became flesh (v. 3). Satan, sin, and the flesh are the satanic trinity. They are three-in-one. These three coordinate together as one to build up Satan’s evil kingdom.
The first appearance of this kingdom was Babel, which was established by Nimrod. Nimrod was a Cushite, and Cush is today’s Ethiopia. God came in and scattered the rebellious ones at Babel, but He had not yet terminated the evil cosmos of Satan. Later, Egypt rose up to be a world power. The children of Abraham, God’s chosen people, went down to Egypt and stayed there for more than four hundred years. History tells us that they were also under the domination of Medo-Persia, Greece, and eventually Rome. Even today the whole world is under Romanism. While Satan is building up the world, his cosmos, by his satanic trinity (Satan, sin, and the fallen man), God is working in His Divine Trinity to build up another world. Satan’s world is altogether physical; God’s world is altogether private and spiritual. These two worlds are still going on.
Among the many people who became flesh are those chosen and predestinated by God before the foundation of the world. These people are God’s elect. God did not do anything to visit man in a direct way for the first four thousand years of man’s existence. It was two thousand years from Adam to Abraham and two thousand years from Abraham to Christ. Then God suddenly came to visit man by incarnation. God came to the fallen race, including His fallen elect, in a very personal and affectionate way. He left His throne in the heavens and laid aside the form of God, temporarily and secretly hiding His divinity, to become a humble man by the name of Jesus.
God visited His elect in His human living for thirty-three and a half years. The Creator, the Almighty God, was on this earth living in His human shell as a little man to visit many people. He visited Peter, John, His mother, His mother’s sister, His cousins, and His fleshly brothers. He was very personal and affectionate. They did not realize who He was or what He was doing in His visitation. One day He went to the cross to terminate the old creation including the fallen humanity, the flesh. Through His death the physical Jesus was finished. The physical Jesus was God becoming a man for thirty-three and a half years. The Jews thought that Jesus was finished, but after three days this finished Jesus came out in resurrection in a transformed form. The first one to be transformed was Jesus. He was transformed from the physical form to the spiritual form.
On the evening of the day of resurrection, He came to His disappointed disciples. Although the doors were shut where the disciples were, Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst. He also did this again eight days later (John 20:26). Did He appear to the disciples physically or spiritually? This is a mystery. He was able to come into an enclosed room, but He also told Thomas to touch His hands and His side. Is He physical or spiritual? We can only say that He is the wonderful One. But after His ascension He does not visit His seekers physically. We can testify that we were visited by Him spiritually.
Jesus was physical before the day of Pentecost, but the Christ who was preached beginning from Acts 2 became spiritual. The twenty-two Epistles from Romans through Revelation do not teach a physical Jesus; instead, they teach a spiritual Christ. This spiritual Christ is for producing His members by transforming sinners into spiritual men for the raising up of the churches. The churches are a bridge to bridge God’s transformed people from the physical side to the spiritual side.
Today the churches have a physical form and a spiritual reality. Ephesians 1 speaks of “the church, which is His Body” (vv. 22b-23a). The essence of the church is the Body of Christ. When a man dies, his corpse remains, but the essence of his person is gone. He is here in his corpse physically, but he is gone in his essence, his spirit. Likewise, the church has two sides: the physical side and the spiritual side. The physical side is the church as the house of God, and the spiritual side is the Body of Christ. First Timothy 3:15 speaks of the church as the house of God physically speaking, and Ephesians 1:22-23 reveals the church as the Body of Christ spiritually speaking. It is not the church that will consummate in the New Jerusalem. Instead, the Body of Christ, as a precursor of the holy city, will consummate in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is altogether not a physical city but a spiritual, organic constitution.
Before we were saved, we were merely physical beings in a physical world, but one day Jesus visited us privately in a spiritual way. We received Him, and He regenerated us privately, secretly, and spiritually with God’s divine life. From that day we became spiritual, but just partially, in our spirit. The rest of our entire being still remained untransformed in the physical world. Stanza 2 of Hymns, #750 says, “God hath us regenerated / In our spirit with His life; / But He must transform us further — / In our soul by His own life.” After regeneration God works to transform our untransformed part, our soul.
Transformation is the cross of Christ crucifying our entire being. This cross is particularly crucifying our untransformed parts. We all have our particular natural disposition and character. I am a quick person, and my quick temperament needs to be crucified. When I have to wait for my wife, the “quick me” is crucified. I have been crucified by Christ practically for about seventy years, but my quick temperament is still here.
Every man’s self is his center. Everyone is self-centered. When we are put in a prominent position or are noticed by others in the church life, we are happy. This is because we are so self-centered. When others do not give strong Amens to our sharing in the meetings, we are offended. We do not feel that the meetings are so good, because everyone else gets strong Amens but us. This illustration shows how much we need to be transformed.
To be transformed is a metabolic matter. When the food that we eat is metabolically digested and assimilated by us, we are transformed in a physical way. We are what we eat. This is an illustration of our spiritual transformation with the life of God as the element. Spiritual metabolism needs some element, and this element is God Himself through Christ in three steps: in Christ’s death, in Christ’s resurrection, and in Christ’s ascension. We have the divine life of God, but this life has not been worked into our being to make this life a part of our being.
The seeker’s transformation in Song of Songs can be seen in the description of her in 1:10-11: “Your cheeks are lovely with plaits of ornaments, / Your neck with strings of jewels. / We will make you plaits of gold / With studs of silver.” The perfected ones coordinate with the transforming Spirit to perfect the lover of Christ by adding God’s divine nature (plaits of gold) into her. Then silver studs are added to bind the gold plaits together. Silver refers to Christ with His all-inclusive redemption in His death, His resurrection, and His ascension. His death is the redeeming, all-terminating, and life-releasing death; His resurrection is the all-germinating and life-dispensing resurrection; and His ascension is the all-transcending and all-attaining ascension. In His ascension He transcended Hades, the earth, the air, and even the third heaven. His ascension transcends everything that would frustrate us from going to God. We have to receive the reality of Christ in all these aspects.
First, the seeker in Song of Songs was likened by the Lord to a horse in Egypt (v. 9), signifying the world; she is enslaved by Satan, signified by Pharaoh’s chariots. She is a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots for his worldly purpose. She is full of natural strength with a strong character, worldly, satanic, and for the world’s purpose. But then she is transformed to be a lily (2:1b-2). How can a horse be transformed into a lily? A horse is a strong animal, but a lily is just a little flower. God wants a lily rather than a horse. God does not want our natural strength. The lily does not have strength. The seeker being transformed into a lily signifies that she is now living a life trusting in God, not in her natural strength. She is also looking unto God with a single eye (eyes of doves), implying that she must also be a dove looking to God by focusing her eyes on one single goal (1:15b).
Her transformation is carried out by the transforming Spirit. The strings of jewels are a sign of the transforming Spirit. Thus, the seeker is perfected with the Triune God. Gold signifies God the Father in His golden nature, silver signifies Christ the Son in His all-inclusive redemption, and strings of jewels signify God the Spirit in His transformation. The perfected ones help the seeker to know God in His nature and to experience Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension. This is to beautify the seeker in her submission to God through the transformation of the Spirit with the divine nature of God (plaits of gold) as ornaments in her expression (cheeks). The perfected ones also coordinate with the Spirit to beautify the seeker through the dispensing of the transforming Spirit with the divine life expressed as jewels in strings. Transformation is the working of the Triune God’s attributes into the seeking believers to become their virtues.
The perfected ones who have experienced this kind of transformation know how to perfect others. We all need to learn how to perfect others with the attributes of the Triune God. We need to know what the person before us needs. We should not look merely at a person’s mistakes. Instead, we should realize that they are short of God’s golden nature and life. They are short of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. They are short of the Holy Spirit’s work. We have to add all these things to them. We should not condemn others; instead, we should minister the life supply to them. We need to impress them that in the proper church life we pay our attention fully to the Triune God: God the Father as the divine nature and life, God the Son as the divine element, and God the Spirit as the transforming One in His divine essence. This is to minister the Triune God to them.
Such transformation and perfecting can take place only in the proper church life. The Lord directs us to the proper church life for the purpose of producing the essence of the church to constitute the Body of Christ for the upcoming consummation of the New Jerusalem. The seeker did not know God’s economy and God’s purpose, God’s intention, but the Lord knows. In His private and spiritual contact with the seeker, God’s eternal purpose is implied. The Lord’s direction always implies God’s eternal purpose, that is, to accomplish the economy of God. The perfecting in the church life is for the building up of the Body of Christ in the maturity of the lovers of Christ for the accomplishment of the eternal economy of God.
