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Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:2-4, 8-11, 16-19; 1:23
I. The consummation of the believers’ enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ — Eph. 3:2-4, 8-11:
А. God’s economy of the mystery:
1. Hidden in Himself throughout the ages — v. 9.
2. According to His eternal purpose — v. 11.
B. To announce, to minister, to dispense, the unsearchable riches of Christ — what Christ is and has and what He has accomplished and attained:
1. To God’s chosen people — the believers — v. 8.
2. For the producing and constituting of the church as the Body of Christ — v. 10a.
3. To make known the multifarious wisdom of God — v. 10b.
C. Through the stewardship of the apostles to carry out God’s hidden economy concerning the church as the mystery of Christ — vv. 2-4.
II. The consummation of the believers’ experience of the unlimited Christ making His home in their hearts — vv. 16-19:
А. God the Father’s strengthening — v. 16:
1. According to the riches of His glory.
2. With power.
3. Through God the Spirit.
4. Into the believers’ inner man.
B. God the Son’s, Christ’s, making His home in the believers’ hearts through faith — v. 17a:
1. That the believers, being rooted and grounded in love — v. 17b.
2. May be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the dimensions — the breadth, length, height, and depth — are — v. 18.
3. And to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ — v. 19a.
4. That they may be filled unto, consummate in, all the fullness of God — v. 19b:
а. As the Body of Christ, who fills all in all — 1:23.
b. For the ultimate corporate expression of the consummated Triune God.
Prayer: Lord, thank You for Your mercy that we could still be here with You. We need Your presence. Lord, You know that Your presence means everything to us. We want to meet with You, stay with You, and dwell with You in Your presence. Grant us Your rich presence. Lord, we also need You to have mercy upon us to take away all our veils. We do not want to have anything veiling us. We want to have an unveiled face, beholding and reflecting You. Lord, give us mercy that we could see what You see and apprehend what You apprehend. Lord, reveal Yourself to us. Reveal all the secrets hidden in Your Word to us. We need this unveiling. Lord, have mercy upon us in our speaking. Oh, how much we need You in our speaking! Lord, speak in our speaking and be one spirit with us in our speaking. Lord Jesus, today is the darkest age. Vindicate Your way. Vindicate Your recovery. Vindicate Your ministry. Vindicate Your own speaking. Vindicate Your living word. Amen. Lord, defeat the enemy. We accuse him before You. We touch Your throne of authority and ask You to put Your enemy in the corner. Shame him! Glorify Yourself and bless everyone. Bless everyone who is here with You. We pray in Your mighty name. Amen.
I am very concerned for all of us. My concern is that we may read these chapters and yet understand them by our natural concept. We may agree with all the fellowship here. We may say, “What Brother Lee says is right.” But it is right only according to our natural concept. We need to realize that tradition frustrates and damages us. The saints who have gone to Moscow for the spread of the Lord’s recovery have seen that religious tradition still remains there. Some refused to be baptized after they believed in the Lord because they had been baptized when they were infants. Even though religion was cut off by Lenin more than seventy years ago, the Russian Orthodox tradition still remains among them.
Actually, we all have traditions that veil us from the pure divine revelation in the holy Word. You understand a certain verse in the Bible in your way, and I may understand the same verse in my way. This is because you have your tradition veiling you, and I have my tradition veiling me. Thus, I have a burden to pray, “Lord, take away all the traditions. We want to see Your Word in a pure way. We want to apprehend what You have for us according to Your realization.”
Thus far, we have seen from Ephesians 1 that the church is the issue of the divine impartation and the divine transmission. In Ephesians 2 this issue is called the new man. The church is the new man created by Christ. Genesis 1 shows that the old creation with the old man was created by God directly. But the new creation was created by Christ by His being crucified on the cross. While Christ was being crucified on the cross, He was not merely dying there. He was creating the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers in Himself into one new man.
In Adam we are the old creation; we are the old man; we are antique. In Adam we are all about six thousand years old. God has no intention of keeping any antiques. God does not love antiques, but God loves the newness and the freshness. As a result, God charged His anointed One, the very Christ, to bring all the old creation to the cross. In Christ all of God’s chosen people, who had become old, were brought to the cross. Satan thought that he could get rid of Christ by putting Him on the cross. But being put on the cross afforded Christ the opportunity and environment to create the new man that God wanted. He created the new man by putting the old man on the cross. Paul says that our old man has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6). While He was being crucified, our old man was also being crucified. Our oldness was cleared up by Christ’s crucifixion.
Furthermore, while He was clearing up the oldness, He Himself was there as the creating element. This element is never old, but ever new. He was putting this element into the new man that He was creating. He crucified the old man on the cross in Himself as the element. We know according to the New Testament revelation that this new element could never be applied to us without His resurrection. His crucifixion cleared up all the oldness. Then in His resurrection His new element, the divine element, was applied to us.
While Christ was busy creating the new man, God was also busy making us dead ones alive with the resurrected Christ as life. Christ’s creating and God’s enlivening were in coordination. While Christ was creating the two, Jews and Gentiles, into the new man, God was enlivening. He was raising us up from the dead and uplifting us to the third heaven to be above all. Then He subjected all things under the feet of this newly created man. Furthermore, this man is one with the Head, Christ. He is Head over all things for the entire new man.
The new man includes Christ as the Head and the church as the Body. The church today is not only the Body but also the entire new man. Our physical body is not merely the part under our neck. Our physical body includes our head also. It includes everything from our hair down to our feet. The new man is Christ and the church. These two are one man. Whatever the Head is and has is for the Body. The Body can never be separated from the Head. Actually, a man’s body is his entire physical being. The new man includes Christ as the Head and the church as the Body.
Thus far, we have seen the intrinsic view of the Body of Christ in the first two chapters of Ephesians. Under the revelation that we have picked up from these chapters, we all should be clear that the church as the Body of Christ has nothing to do with our natural life, our old man, our flesh, and our self. The real situation in all the churches, however, does not yet match this revelation.
We need to be people who exhibit Christ according to Hymns, #864 — “Let us exhibit Christ.” But when the brothers come together to talk about church affairs, they may talk in a way that is full of the natural life and the natural concept. The natural life and the natural concept have nothing to do with the Body of Christ. When many of the saints come to the meetings, they like to share something; they like to prophesy. But my question to these saints is, “Do you speak outside of Christ or in Christ?” I have no intention of quenching the functioning of the saints. I am happy to hear and to see the saints sharing in the meetings. But I still have a question as to whether or not our sharing in the meetings is in ourselves or absolutely in Christ. Perhaps our sharing is seventy-five percent in ourselves and only twenty-five percent in Christ.
Sometimes in a conference the responsible brothers will ask the saints to share for no longer than one minute. This gives time for many to share. Instead of taking this fellowship, however, someone will stand up and share for three minutes. Then the elders are bothered and do not know what to do. If they stop this one publicly, that does not seem polite. To be an elder in the church is not an easy thing. They always say to one another, “What shall we do? What shall we do?” Then some of them may ask me what to do. My response also is, “What shall we do?” Many times we have no way to act because the expression of the flesh among the saints is too strong.
When a brother is sharing too long in a meeting, one of the elders may stand up to politely ask him to shorten his sharing and give time to others. Instead of listening to this elder, however, the brother will continue to share longer. Is this brother’s speaking in Christ? Is his doing something created by Christ? Actually, this is altogether in the antique Adam. I have seen many things like this in the church life over the past sixty years.
In the summer of 1948 we had a conference in Shanghai for Brother Nee to resume his ministry. He had been away from his ministry for six years. One evening an older sister, who was bold, eloquent, and very outspoken, offered a prayer in the meeting. She offered a prayer that was very spiritual in wording, but her offering was fully in the flesh. This older sister was Brother Nee’s mother. We did not do anything in the meeting. After the meetings, those of us who were caring for the conference would go to another room for refreshments and further fellowship. When we came together after that particular meeting, Brother Nee asked me to write a note to that older sister. I surely knew who that older sister was. I asked him to dictate the letter, and I would write what he wanted to say. He said something very strong. He told her that her prayer in the meeting was altogether in the flesh, and he asked her not to do this anymore in any meeting. He and I and an elderly sister signed this note. We all had the peace that we did the proper thing.
The next evening we were waiting to have dinner together; afterward, we would go to the meeting hall, which was across the street. All of a sudden, we heard someone knocking on the door. The sister who was serving the dinner went to open the door. That older sister, to whom we wrote the note, was at the door. She said to the sister, “To wash people’s feet is love, but the water was too hot! It burns.” Then she went away. This shows that to be a good elder in the church is not easy.
It is difficult to be an elder because we members in the church often act, behave, speak, and even “prophesy” in the meetings in the old man. We are too much in ourselves. Whatever is done out from our natural life, our old man, and our self is not the Body. That is Adam. My burden in sharing these messages is to bring us some light from the Lord so that we can see what the real church life is.
What is the real church life? The real church life is the acting, the working, the behaving, the prophesying, the speaking, and the serving in the new man. The new man created by God includes the crucifixion of the old man on the cross. When the elders say that each saint should speak for no longer than one minute, we should function for no longer than one minute. When an elder stands and asks us to shorten our sharing, we should not speak anymore. We may think that this is a strong centralization of control. Actually, this is not control; this is Christ. The church is not a theater for all of us to act and to demonstrate something in the old man.
I hope that we have seen what is covered in Ephesians 2. The old man was crucified by our dear Lord. When the Lord was crucified on the cross, the old man was cleared up. Henceforth, we should have the desire not to do anything out of the old man. The Lord has crucified the old man on the cross, and His divine element has been applied to us in His resurrection. At the same time, God the Father has also worked with Him to enliven all of us, to raise us up, and to uplift us to be seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Christ’s creating and God’s enlivening have produced the new man.
The church life should be in the reality of this new man. The church life is a matter of Christ being dispensed into our being and being mingled with us to make us a new man, who is the mingling of the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ with us in our resurrected, uplifted humanity. This is the church life — nothing is of the flesh, of the old man, of the self, or of the natural life. Everything that comes out of us has to be out of Christ mingled with our resurrected, uplifted humanity. This is the way to save the church from quarreling, from arguing, from fighting, and even from division.
The church is a human entity comprising all nationalities and all kinds of people. How can we be one? If you act according to yourself, and I act according to myself, we cannot be one. It would then be impossible to practice the church life. But in the new man, the cross is here, the resurrected Christ is here, the ultimate consummated Spirit is here, and we are also here, not in the old man but in the uplifted, resurrected humanity. This is what Ephesians reveals to us as the church life. How I thank God! I am so grateful to the Lord for Ephesians. I love this book. In my old Bibles the section where Ephesians is, is very worn because of being handled so much. We all need to see the intrinsic view of the Body of Christ in this wonderful book.
Now we need to see the intrinsic view of the Body of Christ in Ephesians 3. Chapter 3 is a rich, high chapter. I say this because this chapter covers two main, crucial, vital, yet sweet items. First, it reveals that the Body of Christ is the consummation of the believers’ enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ. Second, it shows that the Body of Christ is the consummation of the believers’ experience of the unlimited Christ making His home in their hearts.
Ephesians 3:8 says that Paul announced, ministered, dispensed, the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. The unsearchable riches of Christ are now being ministered to us. We may ask, “What are the unsearchable riches of Christ?” First, these riches are what Christ is. He is God, He is man, and He is the Son. He is also the Father. Isaiah 9:6 says that Christ as the child born to us and the Son given to us is the mighty God and the eternal Father. He is also the Spirit. First Corinthians 15:45b says that the last Adam, Christ, became a life-giving Spirit. Christ is also love, life, light, righteousness, holiness, power, strength, might, patience, and humility. He is the reality of all the divine attributes and human virtues. He is even our time. He was our yesterday, He is our today, and He will be our tomorrow. Christ is everything to us. He is our air, our food, our drink, our sunshine, and our clothing.
Christ also has a particular name. He is the eternal “I Am” (John 8:58; Exo. 3:14). Whatever we need, He is. Do we need wisdom? The Lord would tell us, “I am.” I have told my grandchildren that they need to trust in the Lord Jesus for their schoolwork and that He is their real wisdom. Do we need patience? He is patience.
Christ’s riches are not only who He is but also what He has. Christ has what He is. Whatever He is, He has. He is power, and He has power. Someone may think that he is a wise man, but where is his wisdom? He does not have what he claims he is. But Christ has whatever He is. He is light, and He has light. He is love, and He has love. He is life, and He has life. He is power, and He has power. What He has is what He is, and what He is, is what He has.
Furthermore, Christ’s riches are what He has accomplished, achieved, and completed. How much He has achieved! He created the universe, He accomplished redemption, He completed resurrection, and now He is in the heavens. He has also attained to and obtained certain things. He attained to the heavens and to God’s eternal goal, and He obtained God’s glory and honor, the headship, the lordship, the kingship, the kingdom with its throne, etc. What He is, what He has, what He has accomplished, what He has attained, and what He has obtained are all included in His unsearchable riches.
We should be those who announce the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel. In his first Epistle Peter says that when we New Testament priests preach the gospel, we are telling out Christ’s virtues. To preach the gospel is to announce His virtues. These virtues are the real gospel. Christ has a lot of virtues, such as mercy, kindness, grace, love, and forgiveness. Do we have this virtue of forgiveness? If certain saints are offended, it seems that they will remember this offense for eternity. What husband has really forgiven his wife? What wife has really forgiven her husband? A wife may tell her husband that she forgives him, but when she speaks to her mother, she tells her mother that she could never forget what he did. The only One who can really forgive is God. To forgive is to forget. If we have not forgotten, that means we have not forgiven. Christ not only forgives our sins but also forgets our sins. This is a great virtue as a part of Christ’s riches.
We need to preach Christ by telling out His virtues. Some of the trainees in our training did not know what to say when they went out to visit people. If we do not know what to say to people, that means we do not know Christ. If we know Christ adequately, we will have many things to talk about. We can say, “Dear friends, Jesus Christ is the Savior. He has many virtues. One of His main virtues is His forgiveness.” Then we can go on to speak about His forgiveness. Paul says that he was assigned by God, appointed by God, to announce the unsearchable riches of Christ to the Gentiles (Eph. 3:8). The Jews despised the Gentiles, but God assigned Paul to announce the unsearchable riches of Christ to them. This assignment was his apostleship and his stewardship. This was Paul’s business, his job, to carry out God’s eternal economy. Paul wrote down some of what he announced in fourteen Epistles in the New Testament. The New Testament has only twenty-seven books. Out of the twenty-seven books, fourteen were written by Paul. What an announcement these fourteen Epistles are! They are full of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
As we receive the riches of Christ, we are enriched and we become rich. When the riches of Christ are expressed, they become His fullness. The church is the fullness of Christ, the expression of Christ. Through the enjoyment of Christ’s riches, we become His fullness to express Him. The church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of Christ, is the issue of the enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Ephesians 3 says that the unsearchable and unlimited Christ desires to make His home in our hearts. Paul prayed for all of us that the Father of all the families would strengthen us with power through His Spirit into our inner man (vv. 14-16). We have a wonderful inner man — our regenerated spirit, which has God’s life as its life. The problem is that we do not like to stay there. Instead, we like to stay in our mind. A brother may remain in his mind from morning to evening, thinking about how someone has not treated him so well in the past few days. The second place we like to stay is in our emotions. The sisters remain in their emotions when they go shopping, buying things according to their likes and dislikes. We also like to remain in our will. These are the three “apartments” of our “building,” our being — the mind apartment, the emotion apartment, and the will apartment.
But we have a better place in which to remain. That place is our inner man — our regenerated spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit. The human spirit and the divine Spirit are mingled together. We have such a wonderful mingled spirit within us, but we do not like to stay there. Therefore, Paul prayed that the Father God would strengthen all of us through His Spirit with power into our inner man.
In the meetings most of us are in our inner man. But when we return home, something may offend us, and we will lose our temper in our emotion and exchange words with our spouse in our mind. While we are quarreling, we are in our emotion and in our mind. If Paul were there, he might remind us of his prayer for the Father to strengthen us into our inner man. We must turn back to our inner man. We must turn back to our spirit from our mind and from our emotion.
At times I might have wanted to exchange words with my wife, but I can testify that I did not succeed. When I began to exchange words, the One within me said, “Be quiet! Go to pray. Stop!” Suddenly, I stopped and went to my room. I was stopped from exchanging words with my wife. The Lord stops us many times in this way. For a husband to argue with his wife is for him to run away from his inner man to his mind and his emotion. This is why we need the apostle’s prayer for us to be strengthened into our inner man. Then Christ has the opportunity to get Himself settled, to make His home, in our hearts.
When I travel to another locality, I need to get myself settled. I need a place to put my clothes, my shoes, my pencil box, my Bibles, my reference books, my outlines, etc. I need a place to make my home. After Christ comes into our spirit, He wants to make His home in all the inner parts of our heart. Has Christ had any chance to make His home within us? Probably we have to confess that we have not given Him that much of an opportunity. But there is the possibility that Christ will have a chance to make His home in our heart. Our heart comprises the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience. Through regeneration Christ came into our spirit. After this we should allow Him to spread into every part of our heart. When Christ gets the opportunity, He will spread Himself into our mind, into our emotion, into our will, and into our conscience to get Himself fully settled in our entire inward being.
When Christ makes His home in our heart, we will be rooted and grounded in love (v. 17b). By that time we will realize that our Christ is really loving. He is altogether love to us. We will be rooted in love for our growth and grounded in love for our building up. When we are rooted and grounded in His love, we will know how to be one with all the other saints. Then together we will have the ability and the strength to apprehend four things in the universe — the breadth, length, height, and depth (v. 18). No one can tell how broad the breadth is, how long the length is, how high the height is, or how deep the depth is. These four items are unlimited. These four universal dimensions are the dimensions of Christ. The dimensions of the universe are Christ. Christ is the breadth, Christ is the length, Christ is the height, and Christ is the depth. The very Christ whom we enjoy is marvelous, unlimited, all-extensive, and immeasurable. When we apprehend the dimensions of Christ, we will go on to know His great love, which is knowledge-surpassing. His love surpasses the knowledge in our mind, yet we can know it by experiencing it. Day by day in our experience, we can enjoy His love.
Christ makes His home in our heart, we are rooted and grounded in His love, and then we can apprehend with all the saints how broad, how long, how high, and how deep Christ is. Eventually, we can even experience a great love that is knowledge-surpassing. The result, the issue, the coming out, of all of this is all the fullness of the processed, consummated Triune God (v. 19). The fullness of God is the Body of Christ as the expression of the Triune God to the fullest, to the uttermost. All the fullness of God is the ultimate consummation of the corporate expression of the Triune God, and this ultimate, consummated, corporate expression is the Body of Christ.
We need to realize two items in Ephesians 3. First, the unsearchable riches of Christ should be our enjoyment. Second, Christ as the unlimited and unsearchable One should be settled in us, taking our heart as His home. Then we not only have His riches, including His divine attributes and human virtues, but we also have Himself as the all-extensive, unlimited person making His home in us. This is the church life. If the church life were like this, we could not have any division among us. If the churches were like this, all the criticism would be stopped, all the opinions would be over, and all the disputes would be gone. This kind of church life annuls everything negative. This is the goal to which we have to attain and the destination at which we have to arrive. This is why I am burdened to speak about the intrinsic view of the Body of Christ.
I have been in the church life in the Lord’s recovery for about sixty years, and I have seen turmoil after turmoil among us. These turmoils take place because we are still in the old man, in the flesh, in the natural man, and in the self. When we are in the old man, there is friction among us. Divorce between husband and wife is the result of an accumulation of friction between them over a period of time. When we first come into the church life, this can be considered as the church “honeymoon” time. During this time everything is wonderful. Later, however, the honeymoon is over. A brother may eventually feel that he does not like anyone in the church. Actually, he does not like anyone except himself. He only loves himself. This is a life in the old man, in the flesh, in the natural man, and in the self. This is a life that has never been crossed out by the crucifixion of Christ and a life that has never been brought into resurrection and uplifted to the heavens. If we live such a life, how can we have a proper church life?
The proper church life comes only from the issue of our enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ. The proper church life is also the issue of Christ personally making His home in our heart to occupy every corner of our inner being. We need to have a church life that is the issue of the enjoyment of Christ’s riches and the issue of the unlimited Christ personally making His home in our entire inward being. Then we can have a tranquil church life. Eventually, we will see this fully in the New Jerusalem. We will not quarrel in the New Jerusalem. This is because the New Jerusalem is the ultimate issue of our enjoyment of Christ and of Christ making His home in our hearts. The Body of Christ is the consummation of the believers’ enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ and the consummation of the experience of the unlimited Christ making His home in our hearts.
