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Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 2:2, 5; 1 Cor. 3:2a, 6, 9b-10, 12a; Col. 2:19; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2a, 4-5; Eph. 2:21-22
The best way to take the Lord in is to eat Him (John 6:57). Eating brings in growth. All the babes grow up by eating. The more they eat, the more they grow. This is why we stress again and again that the church needs the eating. Teaching can never cause people to grow. You cannot have your children grow by teaching them. The best, simplest, and easiest way to help your children grow is to feed them. In this chapter, however, the basic point is not on growth but on transformation. If you have the growth, surely you have the issue of growth, which is transformation.
Transformation is not a kind of outward change or outward correction. Transformation, in the New Testament sense, is a metabolic change. Metabolism causes a change in life from within. Something new added into your being carries away the old element and replaces it. Then you have transformation. It is not an outward change, but an organic change, a change in life, a metabolic change, through the supply of a new element to replace the old element.
A person who puts makeup on his face has some outward change, but this is not transformation. This is like the work of a mortician. The face of a dead body is very pale, but its appearance is changed when a mortician covers it with makeup. Much of the work today in Christianity is like the work of a mortician. The morticians in a mortuary change the appearance of corpses. There is a change with these corpses, but not an organic change.
We should not be concerned about whether or not the young brothers have long or short hair. We should be concerned about their having an inward transformation. If we want someone to be transformed, we have to feed him with rich nourishment day by day. Then after a while, he will be shining and living because of the transformation from within. This is a kind of metabolic change with something organic, with something growing, with some new element replacing and discharging the old element. Transformation is a metabolic change from within.
Jesus is not a corrector. He is not a mortician, and we are not dead bodies. We are not in a mortuary but in a living home. We are living persons in the church, the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15). Jesus is not only a good Feeder but also the rich food. When we call upon Him, He comes into us. He is living, nourishing, and transforming. He supplies us and replaces the old element with Himself as the new element. Then we have an organic change from within.
Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” I like the term unveiled. I am concerned that we might still be veiled. In 2 Corinthians 3 to be veiled means to be covered by old religious concepts, thoughts, teaching, and knowledge. Simply put, to be veiled is to be covered by your own religion.
We have the concept from Christianity that when we come to a so-called church service, we have to come in a nice, polite, religious, and pious way. But the result of this is emptiness. Instead, suppose I come into the meeting saying, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Amen! Jesus! I love Jesus!” You may say that I am crazy, but what is wrong with this? We should care not for being pious but for being nourished with Christ. In Christianity we were taught to be quiet, but we gain nothing from this. Eventually, I found out that when I say, “Lord Jesus,” I get nourished within. We all need to care for being nourished with Christ, not for any religious forms. Coming to the meeting in a silent way is to come void of the Spirit.
I am doing something, by His mercy, to help His people be rescued from the falsehood of religion. Many are still under the veil of old religion. They are still under the covering of their old religious concept. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:15 concerning the Israelites, “Indeed unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart.” When they read the Old Testament, they were still under the covering, the veiling, of their old concept. But Paul says in verse 14 that “the veil is being done away with in Christ.” In Christ, the veil is removed. As long as we are in Christ, everything we do is right. If I shout in Christ, this is right.
The Jewish people were so much for keeping the Sabbath that they sent out some Sabbath-day policemen to arrest all the Sabbath-breakers. Matthew 12 tells us that Jesus went on the Sabbath through the grainfields. His disciples became hungry and began to pick ears of grain and eat them (v. 1). They ate in a “wild way” without cooking, without a dining table, and without dining utensils. But in the fields they were fully fed. Then the Sabbath-day policemen, the Pharisees, came to tell Jesus that His disciples were breaking the Sabbath (v. 2). Those Sabbath-day policemen thought that they were very scriptural. But the Lord Jesus said, “Have you not read...?” (vv. 3-4). We could paraphrase what the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisees in this way: “You are supposed to know the Bible and do everything according to the Bible. Have you not read in the Scriptures that David and his followers went into the house of God and ate something illegally? How about that?” God does not care for the keeping of certain regulations. God wants people to be satisfied.
You may come to a so-called church service nicely, quietly, and piously, but how do you feel within? Are you satisfied and filled up, or empty? When we come in a silent and dead way to the meetings, we have to admit that we are empty. We should forget about the religious regulations. Forget about “the Sabbath.” You have to take care of your hunger. Get yourself satisfied. It is better to eat something raw in a wild way than to go hungry. We should care only for the satisfaction of God’s people, not for religious forms and regulations.
It is somewhat easy for the young ones to say that they hate religion, because religion is a kind of bondage. I hope that all the older ones among us would forget about being religious. The most religious person was Saul of Tarsus. But on the way to Damascus, a light from the heavens shone upon him, and he fell down. He said, “Who are You, Lord?” At that time the Lord came into him, and there was no more religion with him. The veil was removed in Christ. I hope that all of us would have unveiled faces.
Some of the saints have many questions concerning certain doctrinal things. But if you were invited to a dinner and served chicken, would you ask about its bones or its tail? We do not care for the bones or the tail. We care for taking the rich meat of the chicken into us. You need to be simplified. There are many things that we cannot understand. I do not understand what air is, but I have been breathing it for many years. I have never graduated from breathing. To graduate from breathing is to die. Although I do not understand the air, I enjoy it every day by breathing it. Air is good for breathing. I know this, and I do know that I can breathe. God made me this way. In the same way, we need to breathe in Christ moment by moment by calling on His name.
We need to return to the simplicity toward Christ (2 Cor. 11:3). We need to pray, “O Lord, be merciful to us. Remove all the veils. Take away all the coverings. Lord, grant us a clear sky.” We do not realize how much we have been veiled by the so-called Christian religion, by the religious concept we received from Christianity. We are stumbled because we are under the covering of religion, the veil of our religious concept. We should not care for anything religious. We should care only for Jesus! We need to have all the veils taken away so that we can behold and reflect Jesus (3:18). As we are beholding and reflecting Jesus, the image of Jesus will be impressed upon us. Then we will not be regulated, corrected, or improved, but transformed from within with the element of Jesus. The living Jesus, who is full of organic energy, will transform us.
We were pieces of clay, but after being transformed by Jesus, we become stones. In Revelation 2:17 the Lord Jesus promised those who overcome that He would give them to eat of the hidden manna and then give them a white stone. This means that by eating Jesus, we will become transformed stones for the building of God.
This fits in with Peter’s thought in his first Epistle. He said that as newborn babes, we should long for the pure milk of the word that we may grow to become living stones (2:2-5). We all are pieces of clay, but by drinking Jesus, by eating Jesus, by taking Jesus in, we will have a metabolic, organic change. The clay will be changed into stone, and we will become white stones, acceptable and justified in the eyes of God.
We become stones not by outward regulation but by inward transformation with Jesus. Jesus is not only the One who transforms but also the transforming element. When He gets into us, His riches do a transforming work. Something is wrought into our tissues, and we become a part of Him. We become the living stones for God’s building.
The house of God, the church, cannot be built up with pieces of clay. A house built with clay cannot stand for long. When the storm comes, it will turn into mud and collapse. The church can be built up only with us as the living stones through transformation. Transformation comes only from the growth in life by feeding on Christ. This is why we all have to eat Jesus. Then we will grow and have some transformation to become living stones. When I consider a number of saints among us, I praise the Lord for His gracious work. I can see the real transformation in them.
This transformation keeps us in the divine oneness. Do you think that we could be one by ourselves? If we are one in a muddy way, there will be a split among us when a storm comes. But I thank and praise the Lord for the transformation I have seen in a number of the saints. Through transformation many local churches have been raised up and built up. It is difficult for there to be a split among us when we are daily experiencing the Lord’s transformation. The oneness among us is not something formed by certain teachings and doctrines or by a certain organization. The oneness among us is the issue of an inward transformation.
We grow by eating, drinking, and digesting Jesus. As we give Jesus the free course in our whole being, we have the growth, and by the growth, we have the transformation. Transformation is not a matter of outward correction. The main principle in being transformed is that we have to give Jesus the free course within us. We have to pray, “Have a free course in me, Lord, that I may have the best digestion.” As we eat and digest Jesus, we have the growth in life, and by this growth we have the transformation.
By transformation we are knit together, and this knitting together is the building. Eventually, we all become one building. Not only in one city are we one church, but also in all the cities we are one Body. Even though we may meet in many halls in one city, there is only one church in a city, and even though there are many local churches, there is only one Body. We are one, not by being organized but by being transformed. Doctrinal teachings do not work to unite us. The more teachings we get, the more divisions we will be in. But the more Jesus we eat, digest, and assimilate, the more transformation we have, and the issue is the spontaneous oneness. Anything without Jesus is wrong. Anything with Jesus is right.
We have to believe that the Lord’s coming is at hand. He is coming, and we have to be ready. We want to be the bride prepared for His coming. This can happen only by our being nourished and fed with Christ. We have to take Him in by calling upon His name. I have seen the blessing brought in through calling on the name of the Lord Jesus. Forget about being religious. The Lord is moving on in a new way. The Lord’s intention, however, is not just to have a group of “crazy” people for Christ. The Lord’s intention is to transform the crazy ones. Our being crazy for Christ affords the Lord a chance to transform us. The Lord is going to transform us, and this transformation is for the building.
Eventually, the Lord will have one corporate vessel, not many separate, individualistic vessels. All the individual vessels will be coordinated, knit together, and built up to become the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be the corporate, universal, eternal, and unique vessel in the whole universe to contain our God. Today every local church is a miniature, a smaller model, of the New Jerusalem. The Lord has no intention to have you as an independent vessel. He wants us to be built together to become a universally great corporate vessel. Transformation is the only way that this can happen.
We are crazy for Christ with a purpose. This purpose is to be transformed for the building. All the pious and religious people are through with the Lord’s transformation. When we are crazy from within the spirit, this affords Jesus a chance to transform us. By being transformed, we will be united, coordinated, and built up. The Lord desires a corporate vessel to contain Jesus. The ultimate consummation of this vessel will be the New Jerusalem.
