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Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:23
I. It is the intrinsic significance of the church.
II. It is the divine constitution of the Triune God with the believers in Christ — Eph. 4:4-6.
III. It is a mingling of divinity with humanity.
IV. It is an organism, both divine and human, to express Christ.
V. It is the fullness of the all-inclusive Christ, the One who fills all in all — 1:23:
А. Fullness is the issue of the riches of Christ — 3:8.
B. Fullness is the expression of the inner riches.
VI. Such an organic Body is:
А. Undivided and indivisible as Christ is — 1 Cor. 1:13a.
B. Not autonomous.
VII. This unique Body of Christ is expressed in many local churches — Rev. 1:11:
А. In the divine oneness as it is with the Triune God — John 17:11, 21, 23.
B. In the divine nature, element, essence, expression, function, and testimony.
C. Kept by the believers in the practical one accord — Acts 1:14; 2:46; 4:24; 5:12; 15:25; Rom. 15:6.
VIII. The divine oneness of the Body of Christ should be kept both in the local churches as the local expressions of the Body and in the universal source and substance.
IX. This genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is one crucial point of the Lord’s recovery in the consummating age.
X. All the problems of the church today are due to the ignorance concerning the Body of Christ.
I believe that in the past five chapters we have seen God’s economy. We have also seen that the way to carry out the Triune God’s economy is by His threefold dispensing plus Christ’s onefold transmitting. These two things work together. The threefold dispensing produces the many sons and transforms them into God’s heritage of worth. This transformation will go on and on through the Spirit’s continual sealing until one day the result will come out. That result will be the transfiguration of our vile body, which will bring all of us into God’s glory. This is the issue of the triune dispensing to produce the materials for the building up of the church, the Body of Christ.
Then the church came into existence through the transcending Christ’s transcending transmission, and this transmission took place on the day of Pentecost. In the history of the universe, such a marvelous thing took place. Suddenly in one day, the church as the Body of Christ came into being. Now the church, the Body of Christ, is here. Today we are enjoying Him in His Body, His church.
Before we speak further concerning the Body of Christ, I want to point out something crucial in the book of Ephesians. In each of the six chapters of Ephesians, the human spirit is mentioned. Our human spirit has been regenerated and indwelt by the compound, all-inclusive, consummated Spirit to make this spirit a mingled spirit.
In 1:17 the apostle Paul prayed that the Father would give us such a mingled spirit of wisdom to understand and of revelation to see. We need the revelation and the enlightenment to see the mystery of God’s economy. We also need to understand, to apprehend, what we see by the divine wisdom. The economy of God is a real mystery, yet it has been revealed to us. We can see His economy and it is made known to us so that we can receive it, understand it, apprehend it, and participate in it.
Ephesians 2:22 says that all the believers are being built together to be God’s habitation in spirit. God needs a dwelling place, not just in the heavens but on the earth, and this dwelling place must be organic in our spirit. This spirit is not the dweller; rather, it is the dwelling place. God mingled Himself with our spirit, and our spirit is His dwelling place. God is here dwelling in us. He is in our spirit, which is His resting place.
Ephesians 3:5 tells us that the economy of God, which is so mysterious, has been unveiled to the apostles and the prophets in their spirit. This revelation was given not in their mind but in their spirit. If we are going to understand, to realize, the reality of God’s mysterious economy, we must learn to discern our spirit from our soul (Heb. 4:12). We should not be bothered by our soul. We should not be troubled, complicated, and perplexed by our mind. Instead, we should always turn to our spirit where we can meet the divine Spirit. In our mingled spirit, we have the capacity to see the mystery of God’s economy, to understand it, to apprehend it, and to receive it and retain it as our portion.
Ephesians 4:23 says that we have to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. Our spirit can become the spirit of our mind. Actually, the fallen mind is a bad thing. There are a number of bad things within us, and the leading one is our mind. We have to hate our mind. When we exercise our mind too much, we get ourselves “hung on a tree” like Absalom (2 Sam. 18:9-10). But we have the best thing in us, that is, our spirit. This thing, our spirit, can even go into our mind. Our spirit can go into our mind, subdue it, take it over, and occupy it. It can then become the spirit of our mind. Then we have a wonderful mind, a mind that has the spirit within it. It is by this spirit of the mind that we are renewed every day into the image of our Creator (Col. 3:10). Day by day we are being renewed by the spirit who is taking over our mind. It is in this way that we are transformed and conformed to the image of our Creator.
Ephesians 5:18 tells us not to be drunk with wine, that is, not to be filled in our physical body with wine. Instead, we should be filled in our spirit. Our spirit needs to be filled with the processed Triune God, with the transcending Christ, with the consummated Spirit. Then we will be full of praise, singing and speaking one to another (vv. 19-20). The melodies, the songs, are not only good for singing but also good for speaking. As we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, as we are praising God, we will spontaneously be submissive to one another (v. 21). The wives will be submissive to the husbands, and the husbands will love the wives (vv. 22, 25). Then we will have the proper church life, full of submission and full of praising to the Triune God, with no quarreling, no murmuring, and no complaining.
Ephesians 6 tells us something further. On the one hand, the church life is a praising life and a submitting life; at the same time it is also a fighting life. While we are praising and submitting to one another, the enemy is here fighting, so we have to fight against him by prayer. Verse 18 says that whenever we pray, we should pray in our spirit, not in our mind. If we are going to walk, we need to use our feet. No one can walk by his nose. Even for someone to walk on his hands is awkward. To walk by our feet is the right way. In the same way, we should not pray merely by our mind. We must pray by our spirit and in our spirit.
Our spirit mingled with the Spirit is mentioned six times in the book of Ephesians. This indicates that to know God’s economy, to receive His dispensing, and to participate in Christ’s transmission, we must know, we must use, and we must exercise our spirit. We should not be persons in our mind but persons in our spirit.
We may be exercising our spirit to worship the Lord at His table, but afterward we may immediately turn to our mind. The wife may begin to think about how badly her husband treated her the previous evening. Then her emotion gets stirred up, and her will makes a decision to threaten him. This is the result of her not exercising her spirit. She should not think about her husband. Instead, she should praise the Lord in the spirit and pray in the spirit. If we do this, we will be victorious. When we exercise our mind in an independent way, we are defeated. When we turn back to our spirit, we become the victor.
We should not consider or talk about the things of the church life by our mind. If we exercise our mind to consider and speak of the church life, we will say that the elders are not that good. We will also say that the old saints and the young people are not good and that the children are naughty. Eventually, to our mind nothing is good in the church life. Even when we are praying, a negative thought may come into our mind that a certain brother is not so good. Quite often in our good prayer, we are stopped by just one thought. Right away we have to shout, “Praise the Lord! Jesus is Victor!” We need to chase away the enemy in our mind and continue to pray. Sometimes we may have to rise up from our knees and say, “Satan, get away! Praise the Lord! Lord, You are the Victor!”
If we have any problem concerning the church, we must exercise our spirit to pray. Then we will have the vision to see and the wisdom to understand. Then we will understand why there is the need of the onefold transmission to follow the threefold dispensing of the Divine Trinity. We will see that this transmission is by the One who transcended from Hades through the earth, through the air, and through the third heaven to become higher than the heavens.
There is the need of such a transmission, because there are layers of opposition. In Hades there is opposition. On this earth there is opposition. In the air there is opposition. There is opposition from the evil one, who would even go to the third heaven. Mainly all this opposition is against the church. If we would speak only about the threefold dispensing, the triune dispensing, everyone would think this is wonderful, but once we speak about the church, opposition rises up. This is because the church is God’s goal.
When I first came to this country, I was warmly welcomed. In 1964 I was invited to speak to a group of people in Dallas. I was there for a week of conference meetings. My host and hostess exhorted me to speak only on Christ and not touch the church. They said that if I touched the church, no one would come the next day. At the end of the week, I realized that the Lord was burdened for me to speak on the church, so I made a strong resolution to do it. Before I spoke, I asked the congregation to read Romans 12. By reading Romans 12 the host and the hostess realized that I would speak on the church, so they dropped their heads. That bothered the congregation. But there was a young man there by the name of Benson Phillips. Eventually, through that whole week, he was and still is the unique one caught by the Lord. So actually, I spent the whole week there just to catch him. After he came in, he took the lead among the saints in Texas, and now he has been sent to Russia.
Would you speak on the church? It is a battle to touch the church, to speak about the church. The church is the goal of God, and the church is the very target of the enemy. Throughout my over sixty years of ministry, I have been warned not to speak about the church. I was advised to just speak concerning the riches of Christ. The church is a bothering matter.
Look at today’s situation with the thousands of divisions among the Lord’s people. There is a “church market” full of division and confusion. In Anaheim there is a division called the Church of Taiwan in Anaheim. In my hometown of Chefoo in mainland China, there was a division called the Church of England in China. Logically, the Church of England should be in England, and the Church of Taiwan should be in Taiwan. What confusion this is! Today there are not only divisions but also confusion. People have argued and have been divided over whether to have wine or grape juice at the Lord’s table. They have also been divided over what kind of bread to use at the Lord’s table.
In the recent past, there was a different teaching among us which said that the local church should be autonomous. If we receive such a teaching, this means that we have not seen that the church is the Body of Christ. Can any part of our physical body be autonomous? If the various parts of our body were autonomous, this would mean that our body was cut into pieces. How could we make our blood circulation autonomous? The circulation of our blood is throughout our entire body. In the same way, no part of the Body of Christ can be autonomous.
But some may argue by saying, “Brother Lee, didn’t you say that the administration of the churches should be local and independent?” I may have said that many years ago, but if you asked me to repeat such a saying today, I would not do it. We may think that the local churches are independent, but in the Bible I cannot find the thought of independence. Who is independent from whom in the Body of Christ? Is the church in Anaheim independent from the church in Dallas? The word independence should not be brought in when we are speaking about the Body of Christ. We are not independent. Instead, we all are dependent on one another. The church in Anaheim depends on the church in Fullerton, and the church in Fullerton depends on the church in Anaheim. We are not independent. We are one Body. Are the churches in Taiwan independent from the churches in America? In the Body of Christ this cannot be.
The churches may be different in their business affairs, but even in this matter they should not claim that they are independent. What if the church in Anaheim made a decision to meet at two o’clock in the morning? The leading ones there may claim that the local church has its own jurisdiction and that no one can interfere with them. But the church in Santa Ana may ask, “Why have you brothers in Anaheim made such a decision to meet at two o’clock in the morning?” The brothers in Anaheim may say that those in Santa Ana should not interfere with them, that this is not their business, and that the church in Anaheim is independent and has its own jurisdiction. But to meet at two o’clock in the morning is peculiar and odd to the uttermost. In this matter the church in Anaheim needs the helpful advice from the church in Santa Ana. It is not wise to make a decision to meet at two o’clock in the morning. This illustration shows that we need the advice and help from the other churches even in business affairs and practical things.
There are many times when I am adjusted in my fellowship with the co-workers. The brothers may remind me of something that would change our consideration in certain matters. In this particular conference we brothers came together before the meetings to pray and fellowship about certain things. Some of the brothers asked me whether or not we needed to meet before the Lord’s table meeting, since this meeting would be a little earlier. We felt that there would be no need for us to come together before this meeting. This is the fellowship of the Body. I should not say to the brothers, “This conference is my conference. This is not your business. Don’t interfere with my jurisdiction.” That would be terrible. But this is actually the practice in some places — if not outwardly, at least inwardly.
If we claim to be independent, we damage ourselves. We should never forget that God has only one church. The church in Anaheim is just a small part of the church of God. We should not think that there is the church of God plus the church in Anaheim. When we speak of the church of God, we imply the local church. Through the years I have learned the following lesson. The more we honor the uniqueness of the church, the more blessings we will receive. The church in which you are meeting today may be in Spokane or in Anaheim, but we have to remember that these are just parts of the church. They are not independent. We are dependent upon one another. All the churches need the help of the other churches because we are one Body. We have to see the Body.
Because we are on this earth, we are limited by time and space, and we have many business affairs. The saints in Anaheim and the saints in San Francisco and Fresno cannot meet together often. This is impossible because of the inconvenience of distance. They need to have their own particular activities. The church in Fresno may decide to rent a small hall, whereas the church in Anaheim meets in a big hall. This is altogether according to the practical need. But this does not indicate any division, separation, or independence.
When all the churches come together for a conference, those who are coming from another city may not function in the conference. They may think, “This is not my home church.” As a result, they would not function. But certain brothers who live in the locality where the conference is held may function frequently because they think, “This is my home church.” Dear saints, this is wrong. The Lord has only one Body. The church of God is only one. In 1 Corinthians 10:32 Paul speaks of three categories of people on this earth: the Jews, God’s chosen people; the Greeks, the unbelieving Gentiles; and the church of God, a composition of the believers in Christ. The church is uniquely one on this earth. If I go to London, I should not consider that I am from the United States and that this is their church. I should not consider that I am a guest and they are the host, that they have their jurisdiction and that I have no concern in the church there. This is wrong. I should consider that I am a member of the church of God, which is universal and sometimes local. It is okay to say sometimes but not all times.
Two thousand years ago the communication and the means of travel were not as convenient as they are today. Even fifty years ago it took me forty-eight hours to travel by boat from my hometown, Chefoo, to Shanghai. Later, after World War II it took only forty-five minutes to travel this distance by plane. Today the world has become so small. I am so glad that the world situation is tending this way. This is for our experience of the genuine oneness of the Body of Christ. How can we keep ourselves independent and keep our so-called jurisdiction, saying, “This is my city. This is my country. This is my region”? In today’s world and in today’s recovery, we cannot and should not do this.
In 1963 I told the saints that the international trade and commerce would turn from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This is why I chose Los Angeles to be my place for the Lord’s ministry. Now we can see that there is much more traffic for commerce on the Pacific than on the Atlantic. The world has changed, so we should not keep ourselves in a backward state. If we are going to have the Lord’s blessing, we must be one in all the parts of the recovery.
The Lord Jesus prayed for this in John 17. He prayed to the Father, “That they may be one even as We are” (vv. 11, 21). We should keep the oneness. If we are narrow, independent, and insisting on our jurisdiction in our locality, we will not even be able to be in one accord with others in our locality. Universally, we should be one. Locally, we should be in one accord. Are you expecting to see the Lord’s blessing? You must learn the “two-layer lesson.” Locally, you must serve with the saints in one accord. Universally, all the churches should be one.
Today’s problems in the Lord’s recovery are all due to one thing — we have not seen the Body. If we have seen the Body, there is no problem. Then minor things, such as whether we use leavened or unleavened bread and wine or grape juice at the Lord’s table, will not matter. As long as we receive the threefold dispensing of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit, everything is okay. As long as we would stay under the transmission of the transcending Christ from the heavens, everything is okay.
Opinions are another source of division. In one Lord’s table meeting, I saw a situation that illustrates this. In this table meeting, the cup and the bread were covered with a cloth. After a short time one brother stood up to take off the cloth. His reason was that the elements should be seen in order to display the Lord’s death. But later, another brother came back to put the cloth back on the elements. His reason for doing this was to protect the bread and the wine from a fly in the meeting. Both of these brothers were bothered with each other. They were opinionated. Could that table have been blessed by the Lord? If the one brother was afraid to receive some sickness through the fly, the wise thing would have been not to say anything or do anything. When the cup came to him, he simply could have not taken it and passed it on to someone else. He should have had no opinion.
I would like to give another illustration to show how opinions can frustrate things. Three brothers were going to take a car from Anaheim to Los Angeles. Before they started, they began to argue about which was the best way to take. They argued with one another for a long time. By that time they would have already arrived in Los Angeles, regardless of what way they had taken. This shows how opinions can delay us.
For over sixty years I have been serving the church and ministering the word to the churches. It has been hard to find a brother who was not opinionated. Anyone who is opinionated does not see the Body. If you check with the brothers who have been working together with me for the past five years here in Anaheim, they can tell you that I never argue with them. If they ask me about their feeling to go somewhere, I will tell them to pray and that if they feel led of the Lord and can be spared, to go. These brothers can tell you that I am not opinionated. Many times the sisters are very opinionated. They may not express their opinions to others, but they will to their husbands. We need to reject our opinions, because they damage the Body of Christ.
We need to see the way Paul presents the Body of Christ in Ephesians 1. Paul says that God raised up Christ, seated Him in the heavens, subjected all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church. Right away in the following phrase he says, “Which is His Body” (v. 23a). The church is the Body. This indicates that the Body is the church’s intrinsic significance. The church without the Body means nothing. In Greek the word for church is ekklesia, the called-out ones coming together. But the significance of this gathering is the Body.
In the recovery today there are over twelve hundred churches around the globe, yet we all are one Body. If we consider ourselves as individual churches or as individual believers, we are through. We should consider ourselves as one Body. If the parts of our physical body would keep their own jurisdiction and be autonomous, our body would be finished. But thank the Lord that all the members of our physical body are submissive to one another so that our body can act and operate smoothly. Suppose that we wanted to go somewhere and that all the parts of our body agreed except our feet. If the feet could talk, they might say to the other members, “Don’t you know that we are tired? You have no love. You don’t sympathize with us. You want to go, but we will not go, because we do not have the strength to go.” What kind of physical body would this be? In practicality, there would be no body. This is to be “disbodied.” Today among the Christians concerning the Body of Christ, it is like this. They are “disbodied.”
At least I can testify for myself and for my senior brother, Brother Watchman Nee. We always behaved, acted, and took action in the recovery as one Body. This is why the Lord’s recovery could exist on this earth over these past approximately seventy years. We do not have any organization to keep anything, but the recovery is still here. The recovery is still existing and has been kept by the principle of the Body. While I was ministering the word, I often considered Brother Nee. I considered what he spoke; I did not like to speak anything that was contradicting with his ministry. If I had spoken in a contradicting way, where would the recovery be today? We must know the Body.
I would like to say again that the Body is the intrinsic significance of the church. If there were no Body, the church would have no meaning. The church makes no sense without the Body. But Hallelujah, there is the Body! Without the Body the church makes no sense, but with the Body there is the intrinsic significance of the church.
The transcending Christ is far above all. He is above Hades, above the earth, above the air, and even above the third heaven. This One is transmitting Himself to the church, which is the Body of Him who fills all in all.
What is the difference between the church and the Body? We need to see that the church of God is the frame and the Body of Christ is the organism. We can use an apple tree as an illustration. The tree is the frame, and the apples are the very organic essence of this tree. If you have only the tree, that does not mean much. The tree is for the apples. We do not eat the tree; we eat the apples. Apples come out of the tree. The church is the frame, like the apple tree, and the Body of Christ is the very organic essence of the church, just like the apples are the very organic essence of the apple tree. These two are one. The church is the frame for existing. The Body of Christ is the very organic contents for people’s satisfaction.
We have encountered much opposition due to one thing. We are here not just for the gospel to save souls. We are here to carry out God’s eternal economy, with the purpose of gaining a Body for His Son, Christ, and this Body has to be consolidated into the local churches. In this country there have been a number of spiritual giants, but no one would care for the church. They care only for saving souls, but where are those millions of souls today? Where is God’s economy? Where is the church for the Body? Where is the “apple tree,” and where are the “apples” today? As far as God’s economy is concerned, there is very little on this earth for the fulfilling of God’s intention according to His heart’s desire. But I have the full assurance that the recovery we are taking care of today, by His mercy and grace, is absolutely of the Lord. The strongest evidence of this is the Lord’s speaking. Through many years the Lord’s oracle on this earth has been and still is in the recovery.
The Body of Christ is the divine constitution of the Triune God with the believers in Christ. Ephesians 4:4-6 shows us the constitution of the three divine persons with all His chosen people. So we have the one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father mingled together.
The Body of Christ is a mingling of the Divine Trinity with all His chosen human beings. It is a mingling of divinity with humanity.
The Body of Christ is an organism. On the one hand, it is divine. On the other hand, it is human to express the divine and human Christ, who is both the complete God and the perfect man.
The Body of Christ is the fullness of the all-inclusive Christ, the One who fills all in all (1:23). In the book of Ephesians we have these two terms — the riches of Christ and the fullness of Christ. The fullness is the issue of the riches of Christ (3:8) and the expression of these inner riches. In 1962 I was invited to speak to a group of people in the Bay Area. My subject was the riches of Christ issuing in His fullness. They were surprised by this subject.
A number of Christians think that the fullness and the riches are the same thing. But the fullness is the issue and the expression of the riches. A tall, husky American brother has eaten many of the riches of America. All these American riches have been digested and assimilated by him, and he is now the fullness of America, the issue and expression of the riches of America.
We need to be the same with Christ. We should enjoy the riches of Christ until we become the fullness of Christ. When we are full of the riches, this fullness overflows. A cup may have water within it, but we cannot see the water. But if the cup is filled to the brim with water, it overflows with water. This overflow is the fullness, the expression, of the water. We need to be filled with Christ until we overflow with Him. This overflow is the fullness, and the fullness is the expression.
The organic Body is undivided, and it is also indivisible (1 Cor. 1:13a). It is not autonomous. This unique Body of Christ is expressed in many local churches (Rev. 1:11) in the divine oneness as it is with the Triune God (John 17:11, 21, 23) and in the divine nature, element, essence, expression, function, and testimony. There are many churches, yet they have one divine nature, one divine element, one divine essence, one divine expression, one divine function, and one divine testimony because they are one Body. This is why I say that our troubles are due to not seeing the Body. If we have seen the Body, there will be no problem. The principle and practice of the one Body are kept by the believers in the practical one accord (Acts 1:14; 2:46; 4:24; 5:12; 15:25; Rom. 15:6).
The divine oneness of the Body of Christ should be kept both in the local churches as the local expressions of the Body and in the universal source and substance. In every way we should keep the divine oneness of the Body of Christ.
The genuine oneness of the Body of Christ is one crucial point of the Lord’s recovery in this consummating age. The Lord is going to consummate His economy, so to keep the oneness is very crucial.
All the problems of the church today are due to the ignorance concerning the Body of Christ. Among us this ignorance should be absent, and the full knowledge should be present. We need a spirit of wisdom and revelation with the enlightening of the eyes of our heart to see and apprehend the Body of Christ.
