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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 3:16, 18; 4:16; Matt. 16:13-18; John 1:51; 2:16-22; 2, 14:23; Rom. 12:3-5; 1 Cor. 1:10-13; 3:9-15; Gal. 6:14-15; Eph. 3:17; 4:4-6, 11-16; Rev. 3:12-13; 4:3a; 21:2, 10-23; 22:1-5
I. In the metabolism in the divine life and in the joining and knitting in the building up.
II. Transformation:
А. Transformation being not an outward change or correction but the metabolic function of the life of God in the believers.
B. By the believers turning to the Lord and thereby removing the various kinds of veils of their old concepts — 2 Cor. 3:16.
C. Even more, by the believers, with an unveiled face, beholding the Lord and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord — v. 18.
D. Thus they are being transformed into the same image as the Lord from one level of glory to another level of glory for the Lord’s expression.
E. Even as from the Lord Spirit, that is, Christ as the life-giving Spirit.
F. This requiring the believers’ outer man to be decaying (to be consumed) that their inner man may be renewed day by day — 4:16.
III. Building up:
А. Building up is the God-men’s being joined and knit together with other God-men in the divine life by their growth in the divine life.
B. Brought forth through the joining and knitting by the transforming Spirit — Eph. 4:15-16.
C. The building up of the Body of Christ in the New Testament is this kind of building up by being joined and knit together in the divine life, and its purpose is to consummate the building of the holy city, the New Jerusalem.
We all know that the Lord Jesus as the eternal God is from eternity to eternity, yet with Him there is an aspect of three stages. The first of the three stages is from eternity past to the time of creation. He created the heavens, the earth, and man. The entire universe was created by Him. In His creation He made man the center. In eternity past He was merely the only begotten Son of God, who is the same as God and is the second in the Divine Trinity. At the time of creation He came out of eternity and entered into time.
Although He had come out of eternity, He had not yet come with His divinity into humanity. He came out of eternity to enter into time, but He did not come with His divinity to enter into humanity. In His creation He created man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26) that He might attain His purpose. However, man fell, and Jehovah came to judge the fallen man. In His judgment He spoke a prophecy with a promise, that is, that the seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head (3:15). At that time Adam and Eve could not do anything, even though they hated the serpent. Suddenly, they heard that the seed of the woman would come and would bruise the head of the serpent, so they were very excited. However, while the bruising of the serpent’s head by the seed of the woman was to deal with Satan, man still had the problem of sin before God. For this reason God killed a sacrifice and made coats with the skin of the sacrifice for Adam and Eve to put on (v. 21). Before they put on the skin, both of them were naked (v. 7), without any covering before God. After God provided them with the coats of skin, they were redeemed and covered. Furthermore, God would come personally to become the seed of the woman to destroy Satan.
Hence, four thousand years after that prophecy with a promise was spoken, God came personally. After four thousand years, that is, two thousand years ago, He came not only from eternity into time but also with divinity into humanity. Now He is not only in time but also in humanity. He as God in eternity was incarnated. John 1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...The Word became flesh” (vv. 1, 14). At that time the God-created man was fallen and had become flesh already. Genesis 6:3 says, “Jehovah said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he indeed is flesh.” Since man had become flesh and God would have nothing to do with the flesh, the Holy Spirit would no longer have any contact with man.
This God is the Word becoming flesh but having only its form, without its reality. Romans 8:3 says that He had “the likeness of the flesh of sin.” He had only the likeness, like the bronze serpent that was lifted up on the pole having only the serpent’s form but without the serpent’s poison (Num. 21:4-9; John 3:14). This was the eternal God entering into the flesh. He was in the flesh for thirty-three and a half years. This is His second stage. The first stage is in eternity, and the second stage is in the flesh until He was on the cross, saying, “It is finished!” (19:30). On the cross He flowed forth blood and water (v. 34). Blood is for the accomplishment of God’s redemption in the judicial aspect; water is for the fulfillment of God’s salvation in the organic aspect.
The Lord Jesus was on the earth for thirty-three and a half years to accomplish the judicial aspect of God’s salvation, fulfilling all that God had required according to His righteousness. What He did in His living of thirty-three and a half years was to accomplish the judicial aspect of God’s salvation. He did nothing according to His own will; everything He did was in subjection to the Father (5:19, 30; 8:28) through the end when He went to die on the cross. At that time He knew that it would be a great suffering, so in Gethsemane He prayed and conferred with God, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39). This is altogether on the judicial side. Eventually, He went to the cross, and there He cried out with a loud voice, saying, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (27:46). We must remember that in John 8:29 the Lord said, “He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone.” The Father was always with the Son and had not left the Son to be by Himself alone. However, for a short period of time on the cross He asked God why He forsook Him. God forsook Christ on the cross because He took the place of sinners (1 Pet. 3:18) — He bore our sins (2:24; Isa. 53:6) and was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Christ accomplished all of this in the flesh. This is the second stage.
At the very moment that the Lord Jesus died on the cross, blood flowed forth, and with the blood, water also flowed forth. Now both are flowing on. Blood is for the judicial aspect of God’s salvation, whereas water is for the organic aspect of God’s salvation. When the Holy Spirit moved us, we repented, confessed our sins, and received forgiveness. This forgiveness is based on the judicial aspect, signified by the redeeming blood. However, we still need the organic aspect of God’s salvation, signified by the water that flowed forth with the blood, that we may attain the eternal purpose of God in us. Blood is for redemption; water is for life dispensing. Through His resurrection from the dead the Lord became the life-giving Spirit, and as such, He dispenses His life into the redeemed ones for the fulfillment of the organic aspect of God’s salvation. This is the third stage.
Hymn #450 in the Chinese hymnal says, “Spirit begets spirit, spirit worships the Spirit, / So that the Spirit fills me; / The Spirit also has become the word with life abundant, / Flowing out as rivers of living water.” Spirit begets spirit means that God is Spirit and we have to be born of Him in our spirit so that we may be regenerated. Furthermore, since God is Spirit, we must worship Him with our spirit. In this way we will be filled with the Spirit. Moreover, the Spirit becomes the word with abundant life flowing forth rivers of living water. This is the conclusion of the entire Bible — a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:1).
God’s salvation in its judicial aspect required only thirty-three and a half years for its accomplishment, but the organic aspect is endless. The judicial aspect is very simple, consisting of only five items: forgiveness of sins, washing away of sins, justification, reconciliation to God, and positional sanctification. However, the organic aspect comprises eight items — regeneration, shepherding, dispositional sanctification, renewing, transformation, building up, conformation, and glorification — which need to be defined with twenty-two Epistles from Romans to Revelation. The Lord Jesus needs eternity to accomplish His organic work, and the apostles needed twenty-two books to define it.
In the preceding chapters we saw God’s organic salvation in regeneration, shepherding, dispositional sanctification, and renewing. In this chapter we will go on to see transformation and building up.
Transformation is not an outward change or correction but the metabolic function of the life of God in the believers. Transformation is not to make some corrections from without; it is the function of metabolism from within and is manifested without. This is expressed in a line of the new hymn for this conference: “Manifesting the metabolism in life.”
Suppose a person is undernourished and appears thin and sickly. He cannot improve by merely applying some powder to his face. Rather, he needs to be supplemented with nutrition; then his physical condition will improve, and his facial color will spontaneously become rosy. Luke 15 tells us that when the prodigal son returned home, he had a robe put on him for his covering, yet he still appeared thin and sickly. Merely to have the robe was not sufficient; he still needed to eat the fattened calf for several days. When metabolism began to work in him, he would naturally become strong, and his facial color would improve. Thus, the beauty that comes by applying powder is not genuine beauty; only that which is expressed outwardly through the inward metabolism is genuine health and real beauty.
If the believers are willing to grow in the divine life, the element of the divine life will increase in them and bring forth a metabolic change. Thus, their inward disposition will be transformed, and their outward image will also be transformed to be the same as the image of the Lord. This is not moral cultivation by examining oneself and mending one’s ways as taught by Confucianism in China. That is man’s own moral cultivation. When we are transformed into the image of the Lord by beholding Him, this is not the result of our self-cultivation, but it is the Lord Spirit, the life-giving Spirit who the Lord Christ became in His resurrection, who moves within us to bring forth a metabolic change through the increase of the element of the divine life in us (2 Cor. 3:18). This is altogether a transformation brought forth by the moving and working of the Lord Spirit and the divine life within us.
If we desire to have this kind of transformation, we must first remove the various kinds of veils of our old concepts by turning to the Lord (v. 16) and by beholding Him with an unveiled face and reflecting His glory like a mirror (v. 18). The problem with the Jews was that they had a thick veil on their heart. If we are veiled, we cannot be transformed. However, whenever our heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Then we can behold the Lord with an unveiled face like a mirror. Consequently, what is expressed through us as a mirror is the glorious image of the Lord. In this way we are being transformed into the same image as the Lord from one level of glory to another level of glory for His expression.
It is from the Lord Spirit, that is, from Christ as the life-giving Spirit, that the believers are being transformed into the same image as the Lord. This Spirit contains the bountiful supply to be our new element. Paul says that he lived Christ and magnified Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19-21a). If we live by our natural life, we cannot be transformed and we cannot magnify Christ. The bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is an element in us. When this bountiful supply comes into us, it begins the inner process of metabolism and issues in an outward manifestation. People will see that what is manifested through us is not ourselves but Christ. We must enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and allow Him to work in us. This is transformation.
Suppose you and another brother live together. Every day that brother has morning revival, prays, reads the Bible, and meditates on the Lord’s word. After a period of time you will surely notice some transformation in him. I am usually awake early in the morning at four or five o’clock, and I just muse on the Lord’s word. Then the Holy Spirit comes, and the light comes. When I touch Christ as the Spirit, His element comes into me, and it issues in a metabolic function in me. This is similar to the metabolism in our body. After we eat some proper food and receive some proper elements into us, the elements of the food become our elements through digestion and assimilation so that we look radiant and energetic. If you touch the Lord day by day and allow His element to come into you, metabolism will spontaneously transpire in you so that you may be transformed and eventually be like the Lord.
When we have problems in our daily life, we do not have to seek advice from others, because we have a spirit in us and the Lord as the Spirit dwelling in our spirit is very near to us. We can ask Him about everything, without any need to use the telephone or the fax machine, for He can talk with us right within us. You can talk with Him and confer with Him in everything. The Lord’s Word says, “In nothing be anxious, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). Hence, if you have some problem, you just need to tell Him. He is right within you, and He is with you face to face. The Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — is in us not to trouble us but to be our Paraclete, Comforter, and Supporter. I always pray, “O Lord, now I am going to take a walk. Support me, sustain me, and strengthen me.” This is to drink the Lord. In this way I have no anxiety. When anxiety comes, you should say, “O Lord, this anxiety is Yours, not mine; I give it to You because You bear it for me.” Thus, you receive the Lord’s element into you, and metabolism will work constantly in you. Consequently, what is expressed through you outwardly is Christ. This is to live Christ. Those who do not know this secret consider that to live Christ is a difficult thing. Actually, you just need to practice speaking with the Lord constantly; then spontaneously, you will live Christ.
Eventually, transformation requires the believers’ outer man to be decaying (consumed) that their inner man may be renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). This does not require us to do it ourselves; instead, the Lord is working in our environment to consume our outer man. When the outer man is being consumed, or decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day. God always gives us the most suitable spouse for our marriage. When a young person begins to choose a spouse, he puts forth much effort and follows many principles. After a great deal of consideration, eventually he chooses someone. Although the people around him do not agree with his choice, little do they know that it is God’s arrangement. After the two are married, they begin to deal with each other even from the very first night. One cannot sleep without the windows open, whereas the other catches a cold whenever the windows are open. When the discussion yields no solution, the two begin to quarrel. This is the mutual consuming between husband and wife. The more the husband is consumed by the wife, the more spiritual he becomes. The same is true in the church life. When several people serve in coordination, there is always someone who has a tough personality that is unbearable. Even so, you should not lose your temper, so you have to endure, sometimes even to the point of becoming ill. The Lord arranges this kind of situation that our outer man may be decaying so that our inner man may be renewed. In this way we are transformed.
Following transformation, we want to see the building up in the organic aspect of God’s salvation.
The transformation of the believers in the divine life causes them to be joined and knit together with other believers as fellow members of Christ because of their growth in the divine life. This joining and knitting together becomes the building of the God-men with other God-men in the divine life.
This building in the divine life is the building of the jasper wall of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, which is not the result of piling a piece of jasper upon another piece of jasper, but the issue of the joining of all the jasper stones by the transforming Spirit. This building is also the building referred to in Ephesians 4:15-16 as the issue of the believers’ growing into the Head, Christ, in all things, that is, “all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”
The building up of the Body of Christ mentioned in the New Testament is the building up by being joined and knit together in the divine life. This kind of building, which is first carried out in the Body of Christ, will consummate the building of the holy city, the New Jerusalem. This kind of building is a testimony and a great manifestation of the function of the divine life, that is, the manifestation of the glorious jasper-like image of God (Rev. 4:3a).
Concerning God’s building on earth today, the New Testament contains sufficient revelation, teaching, instruction, and warning. Now let us mention them briefly.
First, in Matthew 16 after the Lord led the disciples to know Him as the Christ, the Son of the living God, He immediately told them that upon this foundation of our knowledge of Him, He would build His church for resisting the gates of Hades (vv. 13-18).
Second, in John 1:51 the Lord said in an implied way that for God’s wandering people on earth, there is the need for a builded house of God on earth to serve as the base for His heavenly ladder on earth to bring heaven to earth and join earth to heaven. In chapter 2 He declared that this house of God is built by Him in resurrection with His resurrection life and power (vv. 16-22). Then in 14:23 He told His close disciples that He and His Father would go to His lovers to make an abode with them (cf. v. 2).
Third, in Romans 12 the apostle exhorts us that we should think so as to be sober-minded concerning ourselves, as God has apportioned to each a measure of faith, that we may be coordinated with all the members as one Body, that is, the building of God (vv. 3-5).
Fourth, in 1 Corinthians 1 the apostle condemns sectarianism and urges us to keep the oneness in the one Christ (vv. 10-13). In chapter 3 he says that we are God’s cultivated land, God’s building. We need to grow Christ as wheat and be transformed into gold, silver, and precious stones, the element of the Divine Trinity, and thereby build the church of God on the foundation that has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. On the contrary, if we participate in God’s building by the flesh (wood), according to man’s will (grass), and according to the worldly people’s practices (stubble), our work will be consumed by the Lord, and we will suffer loss (vv. 9-15).
Fifth, Galatians shows that all our living and work must pass through death and resurrection in Christ to be freed from the old creation and become the new creation for God’s building on earth (6:14-15).
Sixth, Ephesians, a book specifically on the church as the Body of Christ, stresses particularly the building up of the Body. Ephesians 3:17-19 says that Christ desires to make His home, to build His dwelling place, in our hearts that we may be filled with God unto the fullness of God for God’s expression.
Furthermore, chapter 4 reveals to us that the Body of Christ is an organism constituted and built with the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — and His redeemed people, with the Father as the source, the Lord as the element, and the Spirit as the essence to be its intrinsic factors and the God-chosen, regenerated, and transformed believers to be its outward frame. No doubt, this is the building as the issue of the coordination of the God-chosen and transformed believers with the processed Triune God (vv. 4-6).
Chapter 4 goes on to show that we need to be perfected until we become full-grown in Christ and are one in the faith, not being blown away or carried about by the winds of different teachings. It is only in this way that the Body of Christ can be built up (vv. 11-14). The same chapter also charges us to grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things, so that out from Him “all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love” (vv. 15-16).
Seventh, in Revelation 3:12 the Lord promised His overcomer that He would make him a pillar in the temple of His God for him to be one with God, with the New Jerusalem, and with the Lord in His new name.
Ultimately, in Revelation 21 and 22 the hidden and mysterious God presents to the apostle John the New Jerusalem in its entirety as the consummation of all the revelations, visions, types, and prophecies in the Holy Scriptures, including both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The holy city, which was hidden from the ages in God, who created all things and mankind, and which was seen by John, is the dwelling place (tabernacle) of the Triune God in eternity. It is constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God as the city itself — the nature of the Father as gold being its base, the pearls produced by the Son in the secretion of His resurrection life through His death and resurrection being its gates, and the precious stones, jasper in particular, transformed by the transforming Spirit being its wall and foundations — and His redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, renewed, and transformed elect. In the city there is a throne as the center for the ruling of God’s eternal kingdom; there are God and the Lamb as the temple in the city to be the place for His elect to worship and serve Him and to be their dwelling place; there are God and the Lamb as the light of the city; there is the river of water of life (the Spirit) flowing out of the throne, the center, to water the entire city and quench its thirst; and there is Christ as the tree of life growing in the river of water of life and producing new fruit in abundance as the supply to the entire city for its satisfaction and joy. Such a wonderful and unsearchable holy city becomes the mutual abode of God and His elect in eternity as God’s enlargement and expression for eternity.
Question: What is the difference between dispositional sanctification and transformation?
Answer: Dispositional sanctification is a change in disposition, a change in our peculiar disposition. Everyone has a peculiar and strange disposition, and there is no exception to this. After we have been sanctified, our former peculiar and strange disposition is changed and becomes proper, matching God’s nature. On the other hand, transformation is the outward manifestation as the issue of the metabolism in life within us. Dispositional sanctification changes our strange disposition, whereas transformation swallows up all the weaknesses in us by metabolism, resulting in an outward manifestation.
Question: When do we reach the maturity in life? At the Lord’s coming back or today?
Answer: Maturity is a daily matter, but no one dares to determine the degree of maturity. Paul says, “I am conscious of nothing against myself; but I am not justified in this, but He who examines me is the Lord. So then do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes” (1 Cor. 4:4-5). If you feel that you have matured much a month after you read this message, it shows that you are not mature. The immature ones always feel that they are mature. On the contrary, the mature ones are humble and feel that they are not mature and are still lacking very much.
Question: We have been regenerated in life and changed in our disposition with God’s life and nature. Why do we still need to be transformed in our mind for our whole life?
Answer: God does not use our natural life; He uses only His own life. God has generated us in life, but our disposition is strange, so He sanctifies us with His holy nature. Furthermore, He also transforms us metabolically from within so that we have the outward expression of the divine image. This is the work of the organic aspect of God’s salvation. God carries out this organic work by His life, by His nature, and by the expression of His image. Eventually, the consummation of God’s work is for us to be conformed and glorified. However, all these things must be carried out through transformation by the renewing of the mind. For example, the Bible clearly shows that the Triune God is eternally coexisting and coinhering, yet many in Christianity insist that there are three separate Gods. Another example is concerning 1 Corinthians 15:45, which says clearly that the last Adam became the life-giving Spirit, yet many in Christianity say that Christ and the Holy Spirit are two. This shows that unless our mind is turned, renewed, and transformed, we cannot accurately understand the Bible. The transformation of our mind takes a lifetime.
