THE VISION, PRACTICE, AND BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST
Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:8-11, 16-21; Col. 3:11; 1 Thes. 5:23; 2 Cor. 4:16; Heb. 4:12
I. The church life is Christ realized, experienced, and expressed by all the saints in a corporate way—Eph. 3:16-21:
A. God planned the church for the purpose of expressing Christ; thus, the church is the expression of Christ—vv. 9-11, 21.
B. The church life is nothing other than the all-inclusive Christ with His un-searchable riches experienced and enjoyed by us and expressed through us— vv.8,21.
C. If we would have such a church life, we need to be constituted with Christ until all that we are and have is simply Christ Himself, who is all and in all; this is the essence and the substance of the church life—Col. 1:12; 2:9-10, 16-17; 3:4, 10-11; 4:15-16.
II. In order to have a church life to express Christ according to God's eternal purpose, our soul must be subdued and saturated with Christ as the Spirit—1 Thes. 5:23; Eph. 3:17a; Gal. 4:19; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17:
A. On the one hand, the growth of the divine life is the expanding of the ground of the Holy Spirit within us; on the other hand, the growth of life means that every part of our soul is being subdued—1 Thes. 5:23:
1. The more our soul is subdued, the more life grows; and the more our soul decreases, the more life increases; this is a certain fact.
2. The part of a person's soul that is particularly strong and outstanding is the part by which that person lives; when he encounters things, he uses that part to deal with them—1 Cor. 2:14.
3. After we have received sufficient dealings of the cross, every part of our soul is subdued; our mind, emotion, and will are subdued and no longer stand out as before—cf. 2 Tim. 1:7.
4. Song of Songs reveals that after we have been attracted by the Lord's beauty to love Him, we must learn one unique lesson—the subduing of our will— 1:9-11:
a. The more our will is subdued, the more we will be transformed—4:1, 4; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2.
b. A person's will can be said to be his true self, the person himself, because the will represents the person—James 4:13-15; 1 Cor. 4:19; Acts 18:21.
c. In addition to God giving us eternal life in Christ, the return of our will to God is the greatest work of salvation—Phil. 2:12-13.
d. The most important and most complete union with God rests in the union of our will with God's will—Matt. 7:21; 12:50; Rom. 12:2; Col. 1:9; 4:12.
B. For the church as the expression of God, we must allow Christ as the life-giving Spirit to live in our inward parts and saturate them with Himself—Gal. 2:20; 4:19; Eph. 3:16-17a:
1. We need to be constituted with the divine reality in our inward parts, that is, in the parts of our soul—Psa. 51:6:
a. The divine reality is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit— becoming our constituent—John 14:6; 16:13; 1 John 5:6.
b. The Spirit of reality guides us into all the reality—what the Father has, what the Son has, and what the Spirit receives of the Son and of what the Father has—John 16:13.
c. As the Spirit of reality guides us into the divine reality by transmitting this reality into us, the divine reality—the processed and consummated Triune God—becomes the essence of our being—1 John 4:13-14; 5:6.
d. The divine reality should become our reality, life, and living, and this reality should be applied to our entire being in everything and in every way to become our reality in our daily walk—3 John 3; John 4:23-24.
2. "The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, / Searching all the innermost parts of the inner being"—Prov. 20:27:
a. Our spirit is God's lamp within us, and the light shining within our re-generated spirit is God Himself—John 3:6; 1 John 1:5.
b. When God's Spirit as the oil soaks (mingles with) our regenerated spirit as the "wick" (cf. Rom. 8:16) and "burns" together with our spirit (12:11), the divine light shines in our inward parts.
c. The Spirit wants to enlighten all our inward parts, shining on our thoughts, feelings, motives, and intentions.
d. If we are vessels open to the Lord, opening all the innermost parts of our being to Him, we will experience the shining of the divine light within us—2 Cor. 4:6-7.
III. In order to have the church life to express Christ according to God's eternal purpose, Christ needs to be released from the imprisonment of our soul through the breaking of the outer man for the release of the spirit— 1:9; 4:16; Heb. 4:12:
A. We have Christ in our spirit (1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:22), but there may be no room or ground for Him in our mind, emotion, and will:
1. If this is our situation, our spirit is not a residence for Christ but a prison to Him; Christ is imprisoned by our soul.
2. Christ is indwelling our spirit, but He may not be occupying all the inward parts of our soul; this is a very vital matter.
3. Christ is in us as the hope of glory (Col. 1:27), but our soul is too strong, natural, earthly, and human; therefore, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we imprison Christ by our soul.
4. The church life is Christ coming out of the saints for His corporate expression; however, if Christ remains imprisoned within us, we cannot have the church life—Eph. 3:16-17, 21.
B. We all need to experience the breaking of the outer man for the release of the spirit so that Christ may be expressed in a corporate way—Heb. 4:12:
1. Breaking removes what we originally have in our natural being, changing our original appearance and altering our original condition.
2. The extent to which we are broken is the extent to which we can cooperate with God—Phil. 2:12-13.
3. Whatever is broken by God will enter into death in order to pass through death; once it passes through death, it will enter into resurrection, and once it is resurrected, it can attain to God's goal—2 Cor. 1:8-9; Phil. 3:10-11.
4. The more breaking we receive, the more our spirit will be released; in what-ever matter we experience the breaking, our spirit will be released in that matter—2 Cor. 4:16; Heb. 4:12.
C. When our soul is subdued and broken, Christ will be expressed; in this expression of Christ we are one, and we will have the church life as the corporate expression of Christ—Eph. 3:21; 4:3-6; John 17:22.