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The crucial part of our fellowship in the previous chapter still remains here as a burden. In this chapter we want to complete our fellowship on the reality of the Body of Christ.
I thank the Lord that in the last days He has unveiled to us the highest peak of His revelation in His holy Word concerning God’s eternal economy. The blending conference is to bring us to reach this highest peak. To do this I still have a burden which is very, very crucial.
Although in this point what I am going to fellowship with you, doctrinally speaking, is quite common, it has not been practiced among us very much. This point is the Triune God’s indwelling within us. Romans 8 says that the indwelling Spirit ministers life into our mortal being (v. 11). There the word indwells is strongly stressed. Actually, the Lord’s word while He was on earth referred to this already. In John 14:17-20 the Lord told us that by the Spirit of reality coming into us the Lord would live. Where would He live? He would live in us. And who is He? He is not just Jesus Christ but the Spirit of reality. So no doubt, this means that when the Spirit of reality comes, the Lord Himself would dwell in us in order to live in us. He said, “Because I live, you also shall live” (v. 19b). He lives and we live.
If you read this portion of the Word carefully, you can see that this is not a kind of individual living. This is a corporate living that we live with the Lord since He lives within us. We live together a corporate living. John 14:20 says, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” These three in s indicate a strong fact, which is very, very glorious. The eternal God, after His creation and after passing through the necessary processes, eventually became the Spirit of reality. As such a Spirit, He lives in us that we may live together with Him. So this living is a mingling. These three in s—I am in My Father, you in Me, and I in you—indicate not only a corporate living but also a mingling.
For us to reach the high peak of God’s economy, that is, the reality of the Body of Christ, we must first see this divine indwelling within us. We may know this already, but we have not paid sufficient attention to it. In other words, I do not believe that anyone among us, including me, is constantly and instantly living with the indwelling Lord.
The apostle Paul tells us in the Epistles that Christ as the Spirit indwells us, and he goes on to tell us that He not only indwells us but also makes His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:17). To make a home is much more than to dwell. The Lord is not just dwelling within us. He is building His home in us. This means that this Indweller is dwelling in us in a very positive sense. While He dwells in us, He builds Himself as the very element into our being to build up a kind of wonderful constitution for Him to dwell in.
Many of us are familiar with Ephesians 3:17. I myself have put out many messages on Christ making His home in our hearts. But I do not believe that anyone among us, including me, has ever paid adequate attention to the fact that day after day the indwelling Christ is building, constituting, a structure in us for Him to dwell in as His home. I never was so impressed about this matter until the recent winter training on 1 and 2 Samuel.
The light on 2 Samuel 7:12-14 came to me while I was speaking. I did not have this light even when I wrote the outlines for the training. I would ask you to read the Life-study messages on this portion of the Word. David wanted to build a house, a temple, for God, but God stopped David. Instead, He told David that He would build Himself into David to be his seed, and this seed eventually would be born to be the Son of God. This reveals God building Himself into a human being to be a human seed. Eventually, this human seed would be born into divinity to be the firstborn Son of God, and this is confirmed by David’s second Psalm: “You are My Son; / Today I have begotten You” (v. 7). God said this to David’s seed. Then in Acts 13 Paul told us that this birth was Christ’s resurrection (v. 33). Christ was begotten to be the firstborn Son of God with humanity uplifted to the divine standard in and by His resurrection.
In the life-study on Samuel, I pointed out two verses. One is Ephesians 3:17. Christ is now making His home in us. He is building Himself into our being to be a kind of structure for Him to dwell in. Another verse is John 14:23. The Lord said, “If anyone loves Me...We [My Father and I] will come to him and make an abode with him.” To make an abode is to build a house, which is the Father’s house. John 14:2 says that in the Father’s house there are many abodes. The Lord makes an abode with us in this age, the age of the church, for God to build up a house for Himself and for us as well.
Now we need to consider what this house is. I believe that since the history of the church began, no one has ever touched this matter thoroughly. Today the Lord has shown this to us. What is the age of the church? This is the age of God’s divine building. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:9 that we are God’s farm to grow Christ. To grow Christ is to produce some element for God to build up His building in this age. So the following words of verse 9 say, “You are...God’s building.”
While Paul spoke this, he was doing the building. He said that he had laid the unique foundation, that is, Jesus Christ (vv. 10-11). Now we, including Paul, are building upon this foundation. But we must be careful about what kind of material we build with. There are two categories of material. One category is wood, grass, and stubble. These are the earthen things. The second category is gold, silver, and precious stones (v. 12). Gold, silver, and precious stones are found in the earth, but they are the earthen things that have been transformed to be the very material with the divine element with which we build the church, that is, the Body of Christ.
Many of you are co-workers, and you do not know what a heavy burden I have for you all. Since the Lord has opened my eyes, I cannot deny that I have seen something. But I am very concerned about whether you have seen this or not. Are you building the so-called church you are in with wood, grass, and stubble? Paul says that if you do this, you mar the temple of God (v. 17—see footnote 1, Recovery Version). Mar is the opposite of beautify. To mar is to defile, ruin, or corrupt. To try to build up the church with wood, grass, and stubble is to mar the church.
Without your work, the church as the temple of God would remain just as it is. But after you come, you add some work into the church where you are, and this work is of wood, grass, and stubble. This means that the intrinsic element of your work is the natural man and the flesh, with something of the evil nature inside. In the outward element, you may help people to preach the gospel and do other things, but what you have done is full of the flesh, the natural man, and the earthly things. This kind of work is to mar God’s building today.
The Lord dwells in us to build Himself into our being and to build us into His being. He builds the redeemed, uplifted man in Christ’s resurrection into divinity. Christ builds this man into Himself. In John 15 the Lord said, “Abide in Me and I in you” (v. 4). This implies building. If we abide in Christ, we build ourselves into Christ, or we may say we are built into Christ. While Christ abides in us, He is building Himself into our being. Eventually, this is a mutual abiding, mutual dwelling, and mutual building.
The New Testament stresses this to the uttermost. The Spirit as the pneumatic Christ, the processed and consummated Triune God, is building Himself into us and building us into Him. Ephesians 4 tells us clearly that there is one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one God and Father of all (vv. 4-6). The redeemed ones who were born of the Spirit to be the children of the Father are the very Body of Christ, and the Spirit, the Lord, and the Father are built within them. All three of the Divine Trinity have been built into the redeemed and regenerated believers. We must see this.
We need to live a life with Christ who lives in us, to have a mutual abiding, a mutual building, a mutual living. Paul says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Yet Paul goes on to say, “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God” (Gal. 2:20). Paul lived by the faith of Christ. The faith of Christ is nothing less than Christ Himself. Christ is the Author and the Finisher of our faith (Heb. 12:2). For Paul to live by the faith of Christ meant that he lived by Christ. Christ lived in him, and he lived by Christ. He did this by the bountiful supply, not of the Spirit of God but of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, who became incarnated, passed through human living, died on the cross, and was resurrected. Such a One today is the bountiful Spirit. It is by this bountiful Spirit with His bountiful supply that Paul lived Christ and magnified Christ (Phil. 1:19-21a). He also said that he was pursuing after Christ, desiring to be conformed to His death by realizing the power of His resurrection (3:10).
How could we live with Christ? Not by ourselves but by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ and by being conformed to His death through the power of His resurrection. I can live a life that is seemingly a human life, but not by my natural life. My natural life is left on the cross, and my daily life is being conformed to the image of Christ’s death. Christ’s death is a mold, and my living is a piece of dough put into the mold to be conformed to the image of the mold. Day by day I am dying to live. I am dying by the cross to live in the power of resurrection.
Paul says that such a person has his being in this marvelous Spirit and does everything according to such a Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4). David was a man according to God’s heart, but that is far away from what we have. We are God-men who are doing things and having our being not only according to God’s heart but also according to the Spirit who has been processed and consummated through death and resurrection. We need to check whether or not we are doing everything in the Spirit and having our being according to such a Spirit.
The reality of the Body of Christ is the aggregate, the totality, of such a living by a group of God-men. This kind of a living, which is the reality of the Body of Christ, will close this age, the age of the church, and will bring Christ back to take, possess, and rule over this earth with these God-men in the kingdom age. They were perfected, completed, and consummated in the church age. So in the next age, the kingdom age, they will reign with Christ for a thousand years (Rev. 20:4-6).
The many believers who were not perfected and matured in the church age will be perfected and matured in the kingdom age by God’s disciplinary dealing. God has a way. Not one believer can participate in the New Jerusalem without being perfected and matured. So in the thousand years of the kingdom age, God will exercise His sovereignty to discipline these dear ones, to deal with them in many ways, in order that He could perfect them to make them mature. At the end of the thousand years they will be ready to join the ones who were matured earlier in participating in the New Jerusalem.
Today in the church age, the God-men who were perfected and matured are Zion, the overcomers, the vital groups within the churches. But in the new heaven and new earth there will be no more Zion, only Jerusalem, because all the unqualified saints will have been qualified to be Zion. In other words, the entire New Jerusalem will become Zion. What is Zion? Zion is the very spot where God is, that is, the Holy of Holies. In Revelation 21 there is a sign signifying that the New Jerusalem will be the Holy of Holies. Its dimensions are the dimensions of a cube, twelve thousand stadia long, twelve thousand stadia wide, and twelve thousand stadia high (v. 16). That is the Holy of Holies, because the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament in both the tabernacle and the temple was a cube, equal in length, breadth, and height (Exo. 26:2-8; 1 Kings 6:20).
By that time all the God-redeemed people will be transformed, not only to be the same as God in life and nature but also to be the same in God’s appearance. Revelation 4 tells us that God looks like jasper (v. 3). Then Revelation 21 says that the entire New Jerusalem has the appearance of jasper (v. 11). Thus, God’s redeemed people have become absolutely the very God in life, in nature, and in appearance but not in His Godhead.
We all have to endeavor to reach this high peak. If you think it is too hard to reach this high peak and that the price to pay is too high, be prepared. In the next age the price will be higher. Sooner or later, you have to be made God, either in the church age or in the coming kingdom age. All of God’s redeemed people will eventually become gods as the very God in life, in nature, and in appearance but not in the Godhead. The New Jerusalem is the God-men who have been transformed, glorified, and mingled with the processed and consummated Triune God. The holy city will be a mingling to be God’s increase and expression for eternity. We will enjoy and participate in this divine mingling for eternity.
We surely need to be desperate to pray at any cost and to pay the cost just as the apostle Paul did. We should not have the attitude that we are safe in the Lord because we have sacrificed our future and do not love the world. That is not adequate. You must know the intrinsic scene of all the spiritual things. God’s intention is to make Himself man that man may become Him. Then He and man will be united and mingled together to live a corporate life. Eventually, this holy city, Jerusalem, is the aggregate of all the visions and revelations. It is a constitution of the Triune God with the tripartite man. This constitution, the New Jerusalem, will be a pair of lovers in eternity. This pair of lovers are men and God as well. They have become a kind of mutual abode in divinity and humanity. In this humanity, the glory of God will be expressed, manifested, to the uttermost, full of brightness, full of splendor, and full of glory.
What shall we do in the light of this revelation? There is no other way to reach this high peak except by praying. It is more than evident that Jerusalem is here as a big realm of Christians, but where is Zion, the overcomers? In the book of Revelation what the Lord wants and what the Lord will build up is Zion, the overcomers. The overcomers are the very Zion, where God is. This is the intrinsic reality of the spiritual revelation in the holy Word of God. We have to realize what the Lord’s recovery is. The Lord’s recovery is to build up Zion. Paul’s writings unveil this to the uttermost, but not many saw this in the past.
I do ask you to reverently consider this matter. Paul said that all run in the race, but only one receives the prize. Then he said that we should run in such a way to receive the reward (1 Cor. 9:24). At the end of Paul’s life he said that he had fought the good fight, finished the course, and kept the faith. He testified that there was a crown of righteousness prepared for him (2 Tim. 4:7-8). I hope that when we end this life, we could say that we have done the same thing. Otherwise, we will be a dropout in the school of the church life. But the Lord will still pick us up in the school of the kingdom age. If we are not perfected in this age, the Lord will spend one thousand years to perfect us. The Lord would even use the second death, which is the fire of the lake of fire, to discipline us (Rev. 2:11). I am thankful to the Lord for the spreading of His recovery, but on the other hand, in these few years my heart is very heavy not only concerning you but also concerning myself.
