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Matthew 28:19 says, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Although you might have read this verse many times, perhaps you have never realized that it is related to the building up of the church. In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church.” But how does the Lord build up His church? The answer is in Matthew 28:19. The way to build up the church is to baptize the believers into the name of the Triune God. The Lord had a purpose in charging His disciples to disciple the nations and to baptize them into the Triune God. This purpose was not that people might escape hell and go to heaven; it was that they might be built into the church.
We need to take the divine Word as a whole. If we are careful, thoughtful, and logical readers, when we read in Matthew 16:18 that the Lord Jesus will build His church, we should immediately ask about the way the Lord builds His church. In order to build something we must have both the material and the way. The material for the building of the church is mentioned in Matthew 16:18. Here the Lord told Peter that he was a stone and that He would build His church upon Himself as the rock. However, the way to build the church is not found in this verse. Throughout the years, many great Christian teachers have spoken about the builded church in Matthew 16:18, but I doubt that even one of them has spoken about the way to build the church. Once again I say that the way is in Matthew 28:19.
Only after the Lord had passed through crucifixion and resurrection, accomplishing full redemption, did He reveal His way to build up the church. His death was the termination of the old creation, and His resurrection was the germination of the new creation. By His all-inclusive death on the cross, Christ has terminated everything of the old creation, including ourselves, our flesh, and our natural life. Do not care for your feelings about your strong self or your corrupted flesh. Care for the fact that the Lord has terminated all the old creation. Hallelujah, we have been terminated! But if there were only death without resurrection, the situation would be hopeless. Praise the Lord that following termination we have germination! Today I am happy and living because I have been germinated. The Lord’s charge to His disciples in Matthew 28:19 is based upon these glorious facts.
Many years ago, I was invited to speak at a mission called “Go Ye Mission.” As I was considering the title of that mission, I wondered whether those dear ones realized what these words actually meant. Their concept of the Lord’s words, “Go ye,” was to go to the mission field to rescue fallen sinners so that they may be saved and go to heaven. The Lord Jesus, however, did not command His disciples in this way. Rather, He charged them to disciple the nations by baptizing them, not only into water but into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The baptism spoken of here is not a matter of sprinkling a few drops of water on someone’s head. This baptism is the putting of believers into the person of the Triune God.
A name always denotes a person. When I call a brother by name, I get the person. Hence, to baptize people into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit means to immerse them into the divine person. Matthew 28:19 does not mention three names; it speaks of baptizing people into “the name.” This name is the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, denoting the person of the Triune God. To baptize people into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is to baptize them into the divine person of the Triune God.
The water used in baptism is a sign, not only of the death of Christ but also of Christ Himself. Romans 6:3 says, “Are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” Most Christian teachers emphasize the baptismal water as signifying the death of Christ. They do not stress that the water also signifies the person of Christ. When we immerse people into water, we put them into the death of Christ and simultaneously into the person of Christ. Galatians 3:27 says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” If we put this verse together with Matthew 28:19, we see that to be baptized into Christ is to be baptized into the name, the person, of the Triune God.
Because Christ today is the pneuma, it is easy to baptize people into Him. Nothing is easier than getting into the air. We are in the air all the time, and the air is also within us. Physical air is a symbol of the divine pneuma. Christ today is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). Now Christ the Lord is that pneuma, the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). Because Christ is the very pneuma, Spirit, air, we can easily be immersed into Him. We all have been put into the divine person of the Triune God. The reality, the substance, the essence, of the divine person of the Triune God is the Spirit. God is Spirit (John 4:24). The divine pneuma is the very essence and substance of the Triune God. When people are baptized into the name of the Triune God, they are put into the person of the Triune God, which is the essence, the substance, of the Divine Being. We are not immersed into the substance of the Triune God so that we may go to heaven or merely so that we may be holy or spiritual. It is so that we may be the church. The Lord Jesus builds up His church by putting us into the Triune God. I can testify that I am undoubtedly in the Triune God. Do you have the confidence that you are in the Triune God? Do you have the boldness to declare this? As long as we are in the Triune God, we are the church.
Being put into the Triune God is not a small matter. It implies that we are prepared and positioned to let God come into us. The more the Triune God gets into us, the more He transforms us.
The best illustration of transformation is petrified wood. The water flows through the wood to carry away the essence of the wood and to replace it with the element of minerals from the water. In this way the wood is petrified, transformed. Hallelujah, we all have been put into the Triune God! Now the Triune God as the living water is flowing in, through, and out of us. As He flows through us, He carries away our “wooden” substance and brings in His golden essence. In this way we are transformed.
This transformation is for the building. Recently, some brothers and sisters have asked me how they can be built up. To be built does not mean to love one another in a natural way—that is to be one not in the Spirit but in the flesh and in the natural life. This is absolutely wrong. The way to be built is to be transformed. Our natural element must be carried away. Although I may never embrace a certain brother or love him according to the natural, religious concept, he and I may be fully built together by having our natural element carried away and replaced by God’s golden essence. As this golden essence, the building factor, permeates both of us, we are built together.
The Lord Jesus builds the church first by baptizing us into the Triune God. By being immersed in the Triune God, we are positioned to drink of Him. First Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” Then as we daily drink of the Spirit as the divine water, He flows within us, and this flow of the divine life carries away our natural life, our “wooden” nature, and replaces it with God’s golden essence.
Never think that hugging one another and loving one another in an outward way is a sign of the building. No, that is not the building. The building is the oneness in the golden nature. The more we are transformed, the more we shall be built up. If we have not been transformed, even our love is a kind of “honey.” Shallow, superficial Christians think that this type of love is oneness. No, this is not oneness. Oneness means that the pure golden essence of the Triune God is wrought into our being to replace our “wooden” element. This is the way the Lord builds us into the church. May we all see it! Forget what you have gleaned from your background and what you have understood according to your natural concept. We need to see the heavenly light.
In John 17 the Lord prayed that the believers would be one. John 17:21-23 says, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” It is difficult to recite or remember these verses because the concept here absolutely transcends our natural understanding. According to the Lord’s word in these verses, we are to be one even as the Father and the Son are one. Here the Lord prayed in this way: “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.” Oneness means that we, the believers, are all in the “Us.” This “Us” is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Real oneness is the oneness in the Triune God.
John 17:22 says, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them.” The glory which the Father has given the Son is the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (5:26) to express the Father in His fullness (1:18; 14:9; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:3). The Son has given this glory to His believers so that they also may have the sonship with the Father’s life and divine nature (John 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:4) to express the Father in the Son in His fullness (John 1:16). This concept is far beyond our natural thought. It is easy to grasp the idea of loving one another. However, it is difficult to define glory. Glory is the sonship with the life and nature of God to express the Father in His fullness. True oneness is in this glory. This oneness is deep and profound. In it there is no ground or room for the self or the natural life. During the past nineteen centuries, the Lord has been desiring to have this oneness among the believers.
John 17:23 says, “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one.” I doubt that anyone today understands what it means to be perfected into one. If I asked the leading brothers in this area if they are truly one, they would have to admit, because much of their being has not yet been transformed, that they are only one to a certain degree. But they are on the way of being perfected into one. To be perfected is to be “petrified,” transformed, that is, to have your natural essence carried away and replaced by the divine essence. This is the way to be perfected into one. This oneness cannot be found even between most husbands and wives. But the Lord Jesus prayed for it, and we are in the process of attaining it.
The extent of the reality of the church life we possess depends upon the degree to which we have been perfected into one. Often we sing the words We are one. But how much are we actually one? It all depends on how much we have been transformed by the Triune God and even with the Triune God. It is not a shallow or insignificant thing to claim to be the church. The church is not merely the divine person or merely human beings. The church is the Divine Being wrought into human beings. This is deep. When some Christian teachers hear of this, they may oppose it and say that it is some kind of mysticism. But this is not mysticism or philosophy; it is the truth in the depths of the holy Word.
My intention in this chapter is to point out that the Lord builds His church by baptizing people into the person of the Triune God. In the Gospel of John we see how we are put into the Triune God. John 14 reveals that the Lord Jesus is one with the Father and that He is also the indwelling Spirit, in whom we all have been baptized and in whom we all can be perfected into one. We have seen that in John 17 the Lord prayed that all His believers would be perfected into one. This oneness is the church. The Lord’s perfecting us into one is His building up of the church.
The Lord builds the church first by immersing us into the Triune God and second by perfecting us into one through the process of transformation. Again I say that transformation is the flowing into our being of the divine essence and the replacing of our natural element. The way to build the church is not to try to get close to one another. This is organization, the equivalent of putting wooden boards together to make a table. Organization is a matter of putting people together, but, according to the Bible, building is a matter of our being transformed into the image of the Triune God. We all must be transformed into His image. The degree to which we can be built up with the brothers depends upon the degree of our transformation. By our natural life we cannot be built into one. If we would have genuine building, we must be transformed by the divine person and even with the divine person. The issue of this transformation is oneness, and the enlargement of this oneness is the church. The church is the oneness among those who have been transformed from the natural being into the divine image. Although we remain human, we have been transformed into the divine image, for the divine image has been wrought into us. As a result, we are the church. Consider again the illustration of petrified wood. Because the mineral essence has been wrought into the wood to replace the wooden essence, the wood eventually becomes a stone. This kind of transformation is for the building of the church.
More than forty years ago, I did a great deal of admonishing. For example, I saw that one elder was very bold and that another elder was very timid. Due to this, they were not one. Therefore, I visited the bold one and looked for the opportunity to say a word. When the right opportunity came, I said, “Brother, in the church life we are a group of brothers. Some like you are rather bold, and others, like Brother So-and-so, are timid. But we all must be one. Brother, I hope that from now on you will not be so bold and that Brother So-and-so will not be so timid.” The brother nodded his head in agreement and said, “Brother Lee, I am always bold. I was born this way. What can I do about it? I will look to the Lord that by His grace He will help me not to be so bold anymore.” I replied, “That’s fine, brother. I will pray for you.” I conducted myself like a good pastor. After a few days, I visited the other brother and waited for the opportunity to speak a word to him. At the proper time, I said, “Brother, it is wonderful in the church life to be humble, slow, and patient. But it is quite another thing to be timid.” Then the brother said, “Brother Lee, I was born a timid person.” To this I responded, “Since you realize that you are timid, you must pray to the Lord that you may become strong and bold.” Upon hearing this, the brother said, “Yes, I will pray that I may be strong and bold.” Again, I behaved like a good pastor. However, the following week the bold brother was still bold, and the timid brother was even more timid. My way did not work. Later, I tried another way, telling the bold brother to be bold and the timid brother to be timid. Eventually, they were transformed and said, “Brother Lee, you told us to be bold and you told us to be timid. But something within has changed us.” Through experiences like this I learned that I was pastoring a church, not building up the church.
In the seminary the ministerial students study psychology. Although I never went to a seminary, in the past I did practice a certain amount of psychology. The word I ministered was the word of psychology. Although psychology may enable you to pastor a church, it will not help you to build up the church. The way to build up a church is to put people into the person of the Triune God and to help them drink of the one Spirit that the flow of the divine life within them may carry away their natural essence and replace it with the divine essence. However, the more we pastor people in a psychological way, the more difficulties we shall have. Psychological pastoring merely feeds the natural life and nourishes it. I hope that we all shall see that the building of the church is the working of the divine person into our being. This produces oneness. In these days we are being perfected into one.
According to Ephesians 4:3, this oneness is the oneness of the Spirit. The Spirit is the reality of the person of the Triune God. The name denotes the person, and the reality of the person of the Divine Being is the Spirit. Hence, the oneness of the Spirit denotes the oneness of this divine person wrought into us.
This oneness is called the oneness of the Spirit, and this Spirit is the Spirit in the Body. Thus, Ephesians 4:4 says, “One Body and one Spirit.” This means that the Spirit is not only for the Body but in the Body. In one Spirit we all have been baptized into one Body (1 Cor. 12:13). The Spirit is in the Body, not just in individual members. The seven “ones” in Ephesians 4 are not mere doctrine. “One Body and one Spirit” means that this one Spirit is wrought into our being and constituted into our being so that we may be constituted into one Body. The Body is the constitution of the one Spirit. When we say, “One Body and one Spirit,” we mean that the Body is the constitution of the one Spirit, that the one Spirit has been wrought into the being of the one Body. Eventually, because the Body is the constitution of the one Spirit, we can say that the one Body is one with the Spirit.
To build the Body is to have the Spirit wrought into us and constituted into our being to saturate and permeate every fiber of our being to make us one with the Spirit. The church is the very constitution of the divine Spirit. The one Body and the one Spirit are not two separate entities. No, the one Body is one with the Spirit, and the one Spirit is one with the Body. This is the reason that there must not be any division in the church. Is the Spirit two or one? The Spirit certainly is one. Therefore, we can have only one Body.
But look at how many so-called “bodies” there are in today’s Christianity. In the city of Anaheim alone there are more than fifty “bodies.” Many Christians refuse to eliminate these divisions or to forsake their denominational names. The name Presbyterian must be eliminated, and the name Baptist needs to be forsaken. Many treasure names like Baptist and Presbyterian. Some Southern Baptists would say, “First the Lord Jesus and second the Baptist Church.” They care not for the Body but for their denomination. They are unwilling to renounce their denominational names. Rather, they would bear these names to be many divided denominations. Nevertheless, there will be no denominational designations, such as Baptist and Presbyterian, in the New Jerusalem. If not today, then at least in eternity, all the denominational names, which denote divisions, will be eliminated.
Ephesians 4:4 also says, “Even as also you were called in one hope of your calling.” This one hope of our calling is for the one Body. Only those who truly live in the Body with the one Spirit have this genuine hope. Those in denominations, being on the wrong ground, do not hold this one hope in a genuine way. The Body, the church, has this genuine hope, but the denominations have some other hopes. I am certain that one day the denominational friends will see the names they treasure being cast away. But what is our hope in the one Body and in the one Spirit? The hope of our calling is to be in glory, to be in the divine inheritance in the New Jerusalem. This is the ultimate consummation of the church. Today’s church life is the Body, and tomorrow’s glory with the divine inheritance in the New Jerusalem is the hope of this Body. The coming New Jerusalem, where every denominational name will be renounced, is the hope of the Body. We are hoping for the New Jerusalem. But those who love the denominations may be disappointed to see the termination of their denominations. All their denominational names will be abolished then.
Ephesians 4:5 says, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” The way to get into the one Lord is by faith. We were born in Adam, not in Christ. The way to get into Christ is to believe into Him. In many instances the Greek words translated “believe in” should be rendered “believe into,” according to the meaning of the Greek preposition. For example, in John 12:44 the Lord Jesus said, “He who believes into Me does not believe into Me, but into Him who sent Me.” Hence, we were in Adam, but we have believed into Christ. Praise the Lord that faith has brought us into Christ! When we have faith, we have the second birth. We had our first birth by being born of our parents, and we have our second birth by the faith through which we believe into the Lord. To have the one faith is to be in the one Lord.
Ephesians 4:5 also speaks of “one baptism.” According to the New Testament, baptism has two aspects. The first aspect is termination, and the second aspect is germination. We have been baptized both into the death of Christ and into Christ Himself (Rom. 6:3). Being baptized into Christ’s death is termination, and being baptized into Christ is germination. By the one baptism our history, our biography, in Adam has been terminated. Baptism ended our history in Adam and simultaneously ushered us into a new life. Therefore, by the one faith and the one baptism we are brought out of Adam and transferred into Christ. Now I can proclaim, “Hallelujah, I am no longer in Adam—I am wholly in Christ our Lord.” Where are you? You must answer, “I am in Christ.” Because Christ is not divided, we who are in Christ are one. Because we are one in Him, the church is one. The church is not divided, because the church is in Christ, and Christ cannot be divided.
Ephesians 4:6 says, “One God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.” The Father is not only above us and through us but also in us. We cannot systematize this. While the Father is above us, He is through us, and while He is above us and through us, He is in us. Simultaneously, He is above us, through us, and in us. Here we have oneness. I lack the adequate utterance to speak of all these mysteries. The oneness we have in the Father is the church. The church is the oneness in the Father, who is above us, through us, and in us. The reality of the church is the divine person being wrought into us until we are wholly saturated and permeated with His divine essence. Here we have the unique oneness. This oneness is the church. When you miss this oneness, you are no longer the church. The church is not a group of Christians meeting in the air. The church is the oneness of the divine person wrought into the believers.
In Ephesians 3:8 Paul says, “To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Paul preached the unsearchable riches of Christ so that the church might come into existence. The church comes out of the riches of Christ. Along with the term the unsearchable riches of Christ the book of Ephesians mentions “the fullness of the One who fills all in all” (1:23). Few Christians know the difference between the riches of Christ and the fullness of Christ. The riches of Christ are all the items of what Christ is—life, light, holiness, righteousness, and many other items. These are the riches of Christ that we are constantly enjoying. The fullness of Christ is the church, the Body, the issue of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ. The riches of Christ are somewhat objective, but we ourselves are the fullness of Christ. In our natural man we are not the fullness of Christ, but when we enjoy the riches of the transforming Christ, we become the fullness of Christ.
Consider, for example, a husky American man. This man is the fullness of the riches of America, for he is the issue of the enjoyment of American beef, chickens, eggs, corn, milk, apples, and many other foodstuffs. If he had never enjoyed all these riches, he would not be a strong, husky American. This American is not the riches of America but the fullness of America. Likewise, as the Body of Christ today, the church is the fullness of Christ. This fullness comes out of our enjoyment of the riches of Christ.
After mentioning the riches of Christ in Ephesians 3:8, Paul prayed to the Father, saying, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith” (3:16-17). Christ’s making His home in our heart is His spreading into our being through our enjoyment of Him. Eating Jesus is the way to experience this. As an American man consumes so many chickens, eggs, apples, and grapefruit, he becomes the composition of all these riches. However, there is still the need of digestion. These riches must be assimilated into his being. We need to enjoy the riches of Christ and to assimilate all He is into our very being so that we may not only be transformed into the constituent of the church but also be built into one Body. This is what it means to be the church. The church is uniquely one. If we would see what the church is, we need grace. Once we have seen this vision, we could never be cheated by any wind of teaching (4:14).
