Scripture Reading: Phil. 3:8; Col. 1:24-29; 2:2; Eph. 3:4; 1 Thes. 5:17; Eph. 6:18
In this message I have the burden to speak a word concerning God's move in Christ to bring forth the Body.
Philippians 3:8 and Colossians 1:24 speak of two kinds of sufferings. In Philippians 3:8 Paul says, "Moreover I also count all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, on account of whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as refuse that I may gain Christ." The suffering here is for the gaining of Christ. In Colossians 1:24 Paul says, "I now rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for His Body, which is the church." The suffering here is for the Body. On the one hand, Paul suffered in order to gain Christ; on the other hand, he suffered for the building up of the Body of Christ.
In verse 25 Paul went on to say that he became a minister of the church according to the stewardship of God to complete the word of God. The Greek word translated "stewardship" here is oikonomia, which has been anglicized as the word "economy." Hence, we may also say that Paul became a minister according to the economy of God. In his ministry Paul was charged by God to do a wonderful work — to complete the word of God, that is, to complete the divine revelation in God's written word. The "word of God" in verse 25 is, according to Greek grammar, the mystery in verse 26, "the mystery which has been hidden from the ages and from the generations but now has been manifested to His saints; to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (vv. 26-27). Paul announced Christ, admonishing and teaching in all wisdom, in order to present every man full-grown in Christ, and for this he labored, struggling according to the operation of the One who operated in him in power (vv. 28-29).
The New Testament unveils to us the move of the processed and consummated Triune God. In the Old Testament we do not see God's move but only God's preparatory work for Him to move. God's move began in the four Gospels with Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. This was the beginning of God's move in Christ to bring forth His Body.
Christ, the incarnated God, entered into humanity to bring divinity into humanity, making these two entities one, joining them together to be one entity, the God-man. Now God and man are one in nature, in life, in essence, in element, and even in expression. How wonderful that there is such a One in the universe! This One passed through human living, entered into the all-inclusive death, and came out of death into resurrection. Through resurrection and in resurrection He became the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29) and the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), and He regenerated all His believers to be the sons of God and the members of Himself. As a result, the church has appeared on the scene.
Before this, God's move was just in one person, Christ. This means that God was moving only in Himself. Now, since Christ ascended and descended to bring forth the church, God's move has entered into a second stage — the stage of God's move in a corporate vessel. First, God moved in Christ singly as a personal vessel; now God is moving in the church as a corporate vessel. As such a vessel the church is the enlargement of Christ, the expansion of Christ. Now God's move is in a corporate way. This corporate way is just the Body of Christ, the church, the new man, the organism of the Triune God.
This stage of God's corporate move is revealed in Acts through Revelation. This is the deepest and the most profound, heavenly, divine, spiritual, and organic section of the Bible. This section concerns God's eternal economy regarding Christ as the mystery of God (Col. 2:2) and the church, the Body, as the mystery of Christ (Eph. 3:4, 6). Christ is the mystery of God, and the Body of Christ is the mystery of Christ. These two mysteries are the contents of the divine economy.
In this section of the Word we have a full revelation concerning the Christian life. The substance, essence, element, and expression of this part of the Word are simply the processed, consummated Triune God as the all-inclusive, compound, indwelling Spirit who indwells us in our spirit to be our life, our nature, our essence, and our everything, that we may be the same as the Triune God in life and nature to be His fullness as His full expression in a corporate way.
The processed Triune God as the consummated Spirit is in our spirit. Therefore, as Christians we should remain in our spirit. We should not go to visit our flesh, and we should not befriend our soul. Our spirit is our precious place. To worldly people it is a prison, but to us it is a palace. Here in our spirit we can enjoy the processed Triune God.
We need to learn to exercise our spirit. Exercising our spirit is like breathing. Even when we are resting we are still breathing. We may say that breathing signifies our exercising of our spirit. Just as we breathe without ceasing, we need to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17). Every time we pray we need to pray in our spirit (Eph. 6:18). This is spiritual breathing.
In our spiritual breathing by the exercise of our spirit, we enjoy, receive, and absorb the divine substance with the divine essence, the divine element, and the divine expression. This will cause us to be deified, that is, to be constituted with the processed Triune God to be made God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. In this sense we may speak of the deification of the believers, a process that will consummate in the New Jerusalem.
Do you know what the New Jerusalem is? The New Jerusalem is a composition of God's chosen, redeemed, regenerated, sanctified, transformed, and glorified people who have been deified. On God's side, the Triune God has been incarnated to be a man; on our side, we are being deified, constituted with the processed and consummated Triune God so that we may be made God in life and in nature to be His corporate expression for eternity. This is the highest truth, and this is the highest gospel.
