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The vision concerning the believers is very crucial, central, and dynamic in the Lord’s recovery. The believers are those who were fallen sinners and who have been saved by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8) through their God-given and God-allotted faith (2 Pet. 1:1), which has brought them into an organic union with the Triune God in Christ (1 Cor. 6:17). Such an organic union with the Triune God is to be in union with Christ in His death, His resurrection, and His ascension, since the Triune God has passed through Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. When we are in union with Christ, we are in union with the processed God.
These believers have been forgiven of their sins (Acts 10:43), which have been washed away by the redeeming blood of Christ (1 John 1:7). They have been justified by God in Christ (Acts 13:39; 1 Cor. 6:11), and they have been reconciled to God (Rom. 5:10), so they have been redeemed back to God (Rev. 5:9). Based upon this, they have been regenerated in their spirit by the Spirit of God (John 3:6) to be the children of God unto the divine sonship (1:12-13; Rom. 8:16) and to be the members of Christ (Eph. 5:30) unto His stature (4:13) to be His fullness (1:23).
These believers possess the divine life (1 John 5:11-13) and partake of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) in addition to their human life and human nature. They are joined in their spirit to the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17) who is the Spirit. Thus, they are one spirit with the Lord, and such a spirit is a mingled spirit. The believers should constantly live a life in union with the Triune God in such a mingled spirit.
The believers’ being one spirit with the Lord issues in four things. First, they should walk according to the mingled spirit by the law of the Spirit of life so that they might be freed from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:2). Second, due to their union with Christ in His death, resurrection, and ascension, Christ lives in them (Gal. 2:20), and Christ is to be formed in them (4:19) so that they may live Christ and magnify Christ (Phil. 1:20-21). Third, they should be transformed in their soul by the renewing of its parts (Rom. 12:2) — the mind, the emotion, and the will — into the image of Christ from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18) so that they may mature in the growth of life (1 Cor. 3:6-7). Finally, they should be built up in the Body of Christ by the growth in life unto the full measure of the stature of Christ (Eph. 4:13-16). These issues of the believers’ being one spirit with the Lord are brief yet all-inclusive.
During the Lord’s tarrying to come back, many of the believers died. Many of these died without maturity in life, and they died in the way of being defeated. After all the believers die, they go to Paradise (Luke 23:43), a pleasant section, a section of comfort, in Hades where the dead are kept (16:22-23, 25-26). Then the living believers will remain until the Lord’s coming back, which is His parousia, a Greek word meaning “presence” (see footnote 33 in Matthew 24, Recovery Version). At the Lord’s parousia the living believers will be raptured according to maturity. Those who mature first will be raptured first (Rev. 14:1-4). At the last rapture of the saints, all the dead ones will be resurrected and raptured with all the living saints to the air (1 Thes. 4:15-17). At this point, all the believers, dead or living, will appear before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged concerning their way of living after they have been regenerated (2 Cor. 5:10). The faithful ones will be rewarded (Matt. 25:21) to inherit the kingdom of God and of Christ in the millennium, for them to share Christ’s joy and kingship for one thousand years (vv. 21, 23; Rev. 20:6). The unfaithful believers will be assigned with a dispensational discipline (1 Cor. 3:15; Luke 12:47-48). This discipline will be a type of punishment during the millennium for them to become matured in life.
This coming kingdom is used by the Lord as an incentive to encourage the believers in this age to live Him in a victorious way, as a reward to the faithful ones, and as a way to cause immature believers to mature so that they will be fully perfected to enter into the new heaven and new earth, to participate in the eternal life in the New Jerusalem. This means that the millennium, the last one thousand years of the old creation, will be a dispensation for God to perfect His chosen, predestinated, called, and redeemed believers. Some Christian teachers think that the thousand years of the millennium as a dispensation is not for God’s perfecting of His redeemed people. They think that God’s perfection of His redeemed people will end with the present dispensation of grace. However, according to the vision we have seen, the coming one thousand years will still be a period of time in the old creation. As long as time is still in the old creation, there will be time for God to perfect His redeemed people. This means that God will use four dispensations — the dispensation before the law, the dispensation of the law, the dispensation of grace, and the dispensation of the kingdom — to perfect all His chosen and redeemed people.
He perfected some in the first dispensation before the law, such as Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. These patriarchs were fully perfected by God during the first dispensation. Now they are in Paradise waiting for the time to come when they will share the eternal blessing of the eternal life in the dispensation of the kingdom and consummately in the New Jerusalem. God also used the second dispensation, the dispensation of the law, to prepare people like Moses, Joshua, and Caleb. Hebrews 11 gives us a list of the names of some saints whom God perfected in the first two dispensations. Then God uses the third dispensation, the dispensation of grace, to perfect thousands of faithful believers, including Peter, James, John, Paul, Stephen, the other apostles, and all the faithful ones throughout the centuries until the present day. We must realize, though, that a good number of God’s chosen ones were not perfected in the first dispensation before the law. Many of God’s chosen ones were not perfected, yet they were chosen. Many were not perfected in the second dispensation of the law. Also, in the third dispensation, the dispensation of grace, a great many believers who were genuinely chosen by God never were matured in life before they died. They were not perfected. Surely God would not give up all these unperfected believers who had been chosen and predestinated by Him in eternity. Romans 11:29 tells us that “the gracious gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Therefore, God will use the last dispensation, the dispensation of the kingdom, to discipline these unfaithful ones in the preceding dispensations to cause them to grow in life unto maturity so that they might be fully perfected for the coming eternal blessing of eternal life in the New Jerusalem. After God’s continual perfecting work throughout the four dispensations, all of God’s chosen, predestinated, and redeemed ones will be fully perfected. Then the old creation will be over, and the new universe will come in, where all these fully perfected, God-chosen ones will be transferred into the new heaven and new earth to enjoy the New Jerusalem as their eternal blessing of the eternal life. This is a sketch of the vision the Lord has shown us in His recovery concerning the believers.
The church is a mystery (Eph. 3:4; 5:32). This mystery is in the Triune God — in the Father, in the Son, and in the Spirit. With the believers there is also a certain amount of mystery but not as much as with the church. The mystery of God in Colossians 2:2 is Christ; whereas the mystery of Christ in Ephesians 3:4 is the church. God is a mystery, and Christ, as the embodiment of God to express Him, is the mystery of God. Christ is also a mystery, and the church, as the Body of Christ to express Him, is the mystery of Christ. The divine mystery is much more with the church corporately than with the saints individually. The church is a corporate unit that is produced out of Christ who is the mystery of God. This all-inclusive Christ is a mystery of the mysterious God, and such a Christ as the mystery of God produces a unit, which is the church. By this we can realize that the church is the continuation of the mystery, which is Christ. Mystery surely produces mystery. Whatever you are, you bring forth. Christ, who is the mystery of God, brings forth the church, the mystery of Christ.
Our human mentality is altogether inadequate to see and to understand such a mystery. This is why the apostle Paul prayed that God would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation (1:17) that we may understand the church, which is the mystery of Christ.
The church is nothing more than a pure product out of Christ. This is typified by Eve in the book of Genesis. Eve was fully, completely, and purely produced out of Adam (2:21-24). Within Eve there was nothing else but Adam. Besides the adamic element, there was no other element in Eve. Whatever was in Eve and whatever Eve was, was Adam. Eve was a full reproduction of Adam. Adam and Eve are a type of Christ and the church (Eph. 5:30-32; Gen. 2:22-24). The church must also be one element — the element of Christ. Other than Christ’s element there should be no other element in the church. Such a vision will cause us to mourn over today’s situation. Within Christianity today there is very little of the element of Christ. Instead, innumerable elements other than Christ can be seen. In the Lord’s recovery, however, the church must be the pure element of Christ. Anything that is other than Christ is not the church.
After Christ terminated the entire old creation through His all-inclusive death, the church was produced in His resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:6). The church is an entity absolutely in resurrection; it is not natural, nor is it of the old creation. The church is a new creation created in Christ’s resurrection and by the resurrected Christ. We must see this vision. In addition to seeing that the church was produced in Christ’s resurrection, we must also see where the church is. The church today is in Christ in ascension. Ephesians 2:6 tells us that the church has been resurrected with Christ, and now the church is seated in the heavenlies with Christ. Therefore, the church is absolutely and purely of the element of Christ, absolutely in resurrection, and absolutely remaining in the heavenlies with Christ. The English language does not give us adequate adjective forms for the nouns Christ and resurrection. We must, therefore, invent some new vocabulary words to communicate such a vision of the church. We may say that today the church is “Christly,” “resurrectionly,” and heavenly. These three adjectives describe the fact conveyed in the Bible. The church is of Christ; the church is of resurrection; the church is of the heavens. The church is Christly, resurrectionly, and heavenly. With the church there is no element other than Christ. Such a vision will govern you to the uttermost and will rule out everything that is not Christly (of Christ), resurrectionly (of resurrection), or heavenly (of the heavens). With the believers there is still the flesh of sin, but with the church there is no flesh of sin because the church was born in resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3). The church is a matter in Christ, in resurrection, and in Christ’s ascension in the heavenlies.
The church, outwardly speaking, is a congregation called out of the world unto God for God’s purpose. The Greek word for church is ekklesia, which means “a called-out congregation,” a meeting, a gathering, or an assembly, called out for a purpose (Matt. 16:18; 18:17). It is much better to translate this word ekklesia into “assembly.” The Brethren teachers insisted on translating ekklesia in this way, so they were known as the Brethren assemblies. The church is God’s ekklesia, which is composed of all the believers as a congregation called out of the world by God for His purpose. This is why we must gather together. We must assemble and meet in order to have a congregation, a composition, for God to work and to move among us. This is the outward aspect of the church.
We must also see the inward essence of the church. Without the inward aspect the church is a mere organization. The church, however, should be an organism. We believers are not only composed together, but we are organically united together. As a result, we are not an organization but an organic composition, which is an organism. We are not merely together, but we are growing together. We do not grow together separately like the trees in a forest, but we grow together organically like the members of a person’s physical body. A particular member of a person’s body organically grows together with all the other members. In like manner, we, as members of the Body of Christ (Eph. 5:30), are growing with the growth of God (Col. 2:19).
It is essential that we go further to see the inward essence of the church and its function. First, the church is the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15; Eph. 2:19; 1 Pet. 2:5), God’s dwelling place, God’s temple, which is in Christ, in resurrection, and in the heavenlies. The church is also the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23a) because Christ Himself is God’s temple, God’s dwelling, God’s house (John 2:19-22). To be the Body of Christ is to be God’s dwelling, God’s house, God’s temple. Jesus told the Jews in John 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” In this verse the Lord was speaking of the temple of His body (v. 21). In resurrection this temple has been enlarged (1 Pet. 1:3; 1 Cor. 3:16-17). Now the house of God is in its expansion. God’s dwelling expanded is Christ with His Body (Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Cor. 3:16). This Body is in Christ, in resurrection, and in the heavenlies, so this Body is the composition, the constitution, of all the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8). Such a constitution, such a composition, becomes the fullness, the expression, of the One who fills all in all (1:23b). The church is also the new man, which is corporate and universal (2:15). There are many believers, but there is only one new man in the universe. All the believers are components of this one corporate and universal new man.
This one in function is Christ’s Body, and in love, in satisfaction, this one is Christ’s counterpart, His wife (5:25, 29, 32). His Body is for His expression. His wife is for His satisfaction. This church is also a warrior, fighting with Christ against God’s enemy to destroy him (6:10-17). According to the vision we have seen concerning the church, the last aspect of the church in this age is the lampstand, which is the very embodiment of the Triune God (Rev. 1:12-13, 20). The house, the Body, the fullness, the wife, and the warrior eventually are the very embodiment of the Triune God. The lampstand embodies the Triune God in His divine essence, in His divine shape, and for His divine expression.
When the church arrives at the state of being the very embodiment of the Triune God, the church will be ready for the marriage of the Lamb (19:7); this is the readiness of the bride for the Bridegroom to come to marry her (John 3:29). This wife will be a composition of all the faithful, overcoming, matured believers who will inherit the kingdom of God and Christ in the millennium to share Christ’s joy and feast with Him for a thousand years (Rev. 19:7-9). These ones will be the wife of Christ in the millennium and will not include the defeated ones, the unfaithful ones, since the unfaithful ones still will not be matured during the millennium. Their maturity will be built up during the millennium. After being dealt with by the Lord during the millennium, they will participate in the New Jerusalem for eternity. After the millennium, in the new heaven and the new earth, this church, who is the wife of the Lamb in the one thousand years of the millennium, will consummate in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be the consummation of the church, which includes all the Old Testament saints. This is a vision concerning the church in its essence and in its function.
In its practice the church exists in different localities on this earth during this age, so the universal church in its practicality becomes local. In its universal nature it is one, but in its local practice it is many. There is one universal church in essence, but there are many local churches in practice. In any locality there should only be one church (1:11). In its universal aspect (Matt. 16:18) the church is composed of all the believers in all places at all times (1 Cor. 12:13). In its local aspect (Matt. 18:17) the church is composed of the believers in one locality at one time (Phil. 1:1; Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rom. 16:1). Anything more than one church in one locality is not proper.
We must see the church in its essence, its function, and its practicality. This vision will govern us and rule out all other elements. Any natural, fleshly, or ambitious element will be ruled out by this vision. Under this vision we do not have the boldness to exercise anything of our natural man. In this respect, such a vision paralyzes us. Most Christians realize that the church is a constitution, a composition, of all the believers in Christ. By the Lord’s mercy, however, what we have seen in this chapter is a higher vision concerning the church. We have seen that Eve as the wife of Adam is a type of the church as the wife of Christ. Just as Eve was a pure product out of Adam, so the church must be a pure product out of Christ. Someone may ask how the church today could be such an Eve, a pure product out of Christ. This is why we all need to see the vision. When you see the vision, you are Eve. Without the vision it would be hard for you to be Eve. All things other than the pure element of Christ are ruled out by this vision. This is why we should not remain under the influence of the traditional teachings. We need the vision. When we see the vision that the church is in resurrection, in Christ, and in the heavenlies, it will rule out everything other than Christ, resurrection, and the heavenlies.
We all need to praise, thank, and worship the Lord for His mercy in showing us such a vision. It is absolutely the Lord’s mercy that He has opened up His Word to us in such a way. The light we have received from the Lord’s holy Word is nothing but His mercy.
