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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:23; 2:15-16, 18, 21-22; 3:2, 8-11, 16-17a, 19b; 4:3-4a, 11-16, 23-24
Ephesians is a book that is familiar to many of us. In the past years I have given many messages on the verses listed in the Scripture Reading. We may wonder why we are coming back to these verses again. It is because these verses are the most profound words of God expressed in great terms. Can you explain the fullness of Christ, the fullness of God, the stewardship of the grace of God, the economy of the mystery, or what it means for Christ to make His home in our hearts? These are all great terms with a profound meaning. We have to spend more time on these verses in order to see how the Lord is going to fulfill His prophecy regarding the building up of the church.
In these verses we are first told that the church is the Body of Christ and the new man in God’s new creation (1:22-23; 2:15). We all have to know these two big terms — the Body of Christ and the new man. Some would say that the Body of Christ is just an illustration or a symbol. But we need to see that Christ’s Body is a reality. Christ needs a Body just as we do. Our body is not a symbol but a reality.
Christ is a great person. He fills all in all. It is hard to say what all in all means. I have been considering these three words for years. To say that Christ fills all in all shows how vast He is. He is so great and so vast that He fills the whole universe. According to our human consideration, the distance from the earth to the moon is great, but that distance is just a little part of the solar system. Millions of solar systems are needed to form a galaxy, and countless galaxies constitute the universe. As the One who fills all in all, Christ fills the entire universe. Christ fills not only our little heart. Thank Him that He does fill our heart, but our heart is still so small. He fills all in all. All includes all the solar systems and all the galaxies.
This great, vast, and unlimited Christ, as such a person, needs a great Body to be His fullness for His complete expression. His small physical body was too limited. But after His resurrection and through His resurrection, He gained a mystical Body, and this mystical Body is universally vast. It is not a symbol; it is a Body! It is His Body, and this Body has many members. We are the members of this Body (Rom. 12:4-5). If the Body of Christ were just a symbol, then we would be the members of a symbol. That would mean nothing. The Body of Christ, however, is not a symbol. It is a living Body, and we are living members of this living Body.
The church is not only the Body of Christ but also a new person, the new man. As the Body, the church needs life. If there is no life in your body, it becomes a carcass, a corpse. The church as the Body is living because the church has life. As the new man the church needs not only the life but also a person. A man needs a person. The plants are living, but they need only life. They do not need a person, because they are not human beings. But the church is a great living being as the new man, so the church needs a person. The church as the Body of Christ has Christ as its life, and the church as the new man has Christ as its person. We all have to take Christ as our life and as our person. The church is not an organization but the living Body of Christ, having Christ as its life, and the new man, having Christ as its person.
A tree has life, but that life does not have any preferences, thoughts, and desires. The tree would never say, “Be merciful to me. Today’s weather is too cold. I need more clothing.” A real, living person, on the other hand, has a very sensitive personality. We have our preferences, thoughts, and desires. When someone is unhappy with us, we know it because we are living persons. The church as the new man has Christ as the most wonderful person.
Now we need to consider how Christ can become our life and our person. When I was young, I found out that Christ died on the cross for my sins. That was quite logical. He stood in my position and was put to death instead of me, so He died for me. Later, I came to know that Christ is my life. But I could never figure out how Christ could be my life. First, I asked, “Where is Christ?” I said to myself, “How could the One in the third heavens, far away from me, be my life?”
Ephesians 3:17 says, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts.” Your here is plural in number. Christ makes His home in all our hearts. Surely this means that Christ is a person. If He were not a person, how could He make His home in your heart? If you put a desk into your apartment, you do not say that the desk makes its home in that apartment. But suppose I go to settle in your apartment. You would say, “Brother Lee is making his home in my apartment.” This is because I am a living person. Likewise, Christ is a living person, so He can make His home in our hearts.
In order to know how Christ can make His home in our hearts, we have to know some other big terms, such as the stewardship of the grace of God, the economy of the mystery, and the eternal purpose of God, which God purposed in eternity in Christ (vv. 2, 9, 11). Before the foundation of the world, before creation, God in eternity past made a purpose; that is, He made a plan, to dispense Himself into a group of human beings so that they might have Him living within them not only as their life but also as their person that they might be fully one with Him to be His Body, His expression. After God’s plan, He started to create. Then in time God came into His creation by the way of incarnation. He was incarnated into the human race, into a young virgin. He came into His creation to become the life and person of a man of Nazareth, Jesus. From that time, on this earth and in this universe, there was one man who was one with God, having God as His life and as His person. That man named Jesus was the expression of God, the vessel that contained God. Now God is going to produce more men like that man. The high level of the gospel is that God has planned to dispense Himself into you and me so that He may be one with us and so that we may be one with Him, so that He may be our life and our person and we may be His Body and His expression. God can make His home in us, and we can have an abode in God.
God is, no doubt, dwelling in the heavens, but He is not so satisfied with that dwelling place. If you migrate to a locality and stay in a motel, that is just a temporary dwelling for you. You are not satisfied with it and are looking to get a home. The third heaven today to God is just like that motel. Temporarily He stays there, but He is expecting to get out of that and get into the New Jerusalem. Revelation 21 tells us that one day God will come down out of the heavens (v. 2). He will come out of that “motel.” There is a motel in the universe for God, but He would not dwell there for eternity. God desires to have a better dwelling place. The church is God’s better dwelling place. God desires to have an eternal habitation, the habitation of God in our spirit (Eph. 2:22). This is God’s plan.
Based upon this plan God has an economy. God’s economy is His household management, arrangement, administration, or service, to distribute, dispense, Himself into us. Through His divine dispensing of Himself into us, we are filled with the unsearchable riches of Christ in order that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (3:8, 19). The fullness of God implies that the riches of all that God is have become His expression. When the riches of God are in God Himself, they are His riches. But when the riches of God are expressed, they become His fullness (John 1:16). The fullness of Christ (Eph. 1:23), the embodiment of God, is the very fullness of the Triune God. The riches of Christ are all that Christ is to us, such as light, life, power, wisdom, holiness, and righteousness, what He has for us, and what He accomplished, attained, and obtained for us. These riches of Christ are unsearchable. We cannot measure how wide, how long, how high, and how deep the riches of Christ are. The fullness of Christ issues from the enjoyment of the riches of Christ. Through the enjoyment of Christ’s riches, we become His fullness to express Him.
Today the Spirit is the practical realization of all the riches of Christ, and this Spirit has come into our spirit (Rom. 8:16). We may use electricity as an illustration of this. With electricity there are many “riches.” It generates power, light, heat, and the ability to communicate through devices such as the telephone and television. All these items are the riches of electricity. But the riches of electricity are practically in the current of electricity. The current of electricity has been installed in our buildings, and with the installation there is the switch. When we need to apply electricity for what we need, we can turn on the switch and get it. In the same way, the heavenly electricity in the current of the Spirit has been installed in our spirit. When we exercise our spirit, we are turning on the switch to apply the heavenly electricity.
The riches of Christ today are realized in the Spirit, and the Spirit has been fully installed in our spirit. Whenever we say, “O Lord Jesus,” we turn on the switch to enjoy the riches of Christ (Rom. 10:12). When you shut your mouth and keep silent, the switch is off. To switch on is to open up your mouth and call on the name of the Lord. God has an economy to dispense Himself into us. The Spirit with all the riches of Christ has been installed in our spirit. The more we “switch on,” the better. To turn the switch on is to be strengthened into our inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:16-17). It is by this switching on that Christ as the life-giving Spirit is being dispensed into us again and again, more and more. Day by day, even hour after hour, He is being dispensed into our being.
The Bible tells us that this divine dispensing is carried out by our eating of Christ as our spiritual food (John 6:57). Eating is to take something as nourishment into your being. Then you digest and assimilate it to make its very ingredients, constituents, and elements yours. When you eat chicken, your stomach digests it, and it is assimilated into your blood to become your element. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life...He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (vv. 35, 57). What is it to eat Christ? To eat Christ is to take Christ into you, digest Him, assimilate Him, and make His element your very element. Eventually, whatever you eat becomes you. Even dietitians say that you are what you eat. If you eat chicken, the chicken eventually becomes you. In like manner, if you eat Christ, you become Christ. To eat Christ is to take Christ into you so that Christ can become your constituent, your element, and your “organic tissues.” Then Christ becomes you, and you are one with Christ.
We can take Christ in by realizing that today He is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). All the items of His riches are included in this all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, and He is in our spirit. When we switch on by touching our spirit, He will get into us and be assimilated by us to become us. This is to eat Jesus. By eating Jesus, all His riches become ours, and we are filled unto all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 4 tells us that the Lord as the Head of the Body gave many gifts, gifted persons, as the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers (v. 11). The thought in Christianity is that this verse refers to ministers, or preachers, to take care of the Christian work. But here the apostle Paul tells us that these gifted persons’ duty and ministry are to perfect the saints (v. 12). What is it to perfect the saints? Many years ago I thought that to perfect the saints was just to teach them or to train them, but this is not right. Now I can say definitely that to perfect the saints is to feed them, to give them something to eat that they may be nourished, that they may grow.
Ephesians 4:12 speaks of the perfecting of the saints. Then verse 13 says, “Until we all arrive at...a full-grown man.” A small boy becomes a full-grown man not by being taught and regulated but by eating nourishing food. The mother day by day prepares food to feed him until he becomes a full-grown man. Ephesians 4 does not say that we perfect the saints until they graduate from a seminary. It says that we perfect the saints until they all arrive at a full-grown man. Then the following verse, verse 14, says, “That we may be no longer little children...” How can you make a child grow? No doubt, you have to feed, to nourish, the child. Then verse 15 says, “Holding to truth...we may grow up into Him in all things.” In these verses we need to take note of the phrases full-grown man, no longer little children, and grow up into Him in all things. This shows that to perfect the saints is to nourish them that they may grow.
The little babes have all the necessary organs. They have eyes, ears, a nose, feet, and arms, but they do not have the adequate function, because they are short of growth. To perfect the saints does not mean that the saints do not have “ears,” so you come to make ears for them. In other words, to perfect the saints does not mean that you come to teach them. Instead, to perfect the saints is to feed them that they may grow. When little babes are fed, eventually they are able to function more and more in listening, speaking, and walking. They have all the organs, but they do not have the function, because they are short of growth. You cannot teach them to have the function. The only way for them to have the function is for them to grow up, so you need to feed them. This is not my concept. In 1 Corinthians 3 Paul said that he fed the saints, and God caused the growth (vv. 2, 6). By the growth our functions will come out.
In Christianity the Christians are put into the pews just to sit there, making them jobless. But even if they were given some responsibility, it would be hard for them to function because of their lack of growth in life. Once when I was staying in Manila, a brother in the church was sick in the hospital. Some of our brothers went to visit him, and they had a long prayer time. This brother’s relatives who were in Christianity were surprised. They said to each other, “Are all these people pastors and ministers? If not, how could they pray?” This shows that many in Christianity do not know how to pray. When people have legal problems, they go to a lawyer. If they are sick, they go to a doctor. If they have something to pray about, they go to a pastor. This is the real situation. This is because Christianity gives people only doctrinal teaching. Second Timothy 4:3 says, “The time will come when they will not tolerate the healthy teaching; but according to their own lusts they will heap up to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” These are ears that seek pleasant speaking for their own pleasure. Such speaking does not feed people. We need the healthy teaching and the speaking that feeds others so that they may grow in the divine life.
Today the Lord is going to recover the building up of His Body. In order to carry out this recovery, we have to reject all the dead teachings, regulations, and formalities. The Lord wants us to eat Him. By eating we will grow. We are an eating people. All the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers are feeders. They feed the saints to make them grow. By growth they will be perfected to function. This is why everyone is a functioning member in the church. Everyone can function because everyone eats. Now we know that by eating Jesus we grow, and by this growth we have the function and also grow up into Christ in everything.
Ephesians 4:16 goes on to say that when we grow up into Him, something comes out from Him. First, we grow into Him; then out of Him we all have something to share. Every joint has something to supply, and every part has something with which to operate. By all the parts and joints, the Body grows unto the building up of itself in love. This is the way the church is built up.
The Head, Christ, gives all the gifted persons, and the gifted persons do not do a common Christian work. They perfect the saints by feeding them. Then all the saints grow, and they will have the functions. When all these functions are put together, this is the building up of the Body. Today the Lord is going to recover this kind of building. If someone asks you who your pastor is, you have to say that among us everyone is a pastor. This is because everyone functions.
Ephesians 4 shows that the Lord Jesus does not build the church directly by Himself. Neither do the apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers build the church directly by themselves. It is the functioning members who build up the church directly. Christ gave the gifted persons, who do the perfecting work. Then the saints are perfected to grow and to gain the function. Then they use their function to build the church directly by themselves. This causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love. This is the Lord’s recovery. We believe that today is the time for the Lord to fully fulfill His prophecy to recover you and me, every member, as a functioning one for the building up of His Body.
