THE VISION, PRACTICE, AND BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST
Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:16-21; 2:21-22; 4:12, 16
I. Ephesians 1:10 reveals that in the economy of the fullness of the times, God will head up all things in Christ through the church; this aspect of God's purpose for the church involves building—2:21-22; 4:16:
A. The building is in the divine life and under the headship of Christ to bring us all into proper order; in life we are built up under the headship of Christ, and through this God has the ground to make His multifarious wisdom known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies so that He may put His enemy to shame—1:10; 3:10-11.
B. The Head and the Body are a great corporate man, and within this man is the Triune God—2:15; 3:16-17a:
1. Christ is the Head, and by being life to us He saturates, transforms, and transfigures us to bring us into the proper order under His headship.
2. It is through this Body that the Head, Christ, will head up all things; this requires the building up of the church as the Body of Christ according to the revelation in the book of Ephesians—4:12, 16.
II. If we would participate in the work of the divine building, we need to know the economy of God and the central work of God and allow God in Christ to build Himself into us—3:9, 17a:
A. God's New Testament economy is for the processed and consummated Triune God to be wrought into us to become our life and our very being—1 Tim. 1:4; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-17a; Rom. 8:9-10, 6, 11:
1. The most crucial and mysterious matter revealed in the Bible is that God's ultimate intention is to work Himself into His chosen people—Gal. 4:19; Eph. 4:4-6.
2. God's eternal purpose is to work Himself into us as our life and our every-thing so that we may take Him as our person, live Him, and express Him; this is the desire of God's heart and the focal point of the Bible—1:9; 3:11; Phil. 1:20-21a.
3. God's economy and goal according to His heart's desire are to build Himself into man and to build man into Him—2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Eph. 3:17a.
B. God's central work, His unique work in the universe and throughout all the ages and generations, is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen people, making Himself one with them—Gal. 4:19; Eph. 3:17a.
C. God's intention in His economy is to build Himself in Christ into our being— 2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Eph. 3:17a; John 14:20:
1. God desires to work Himself in Christ into us; everything that Christ is and everything that Christ has accomplished are for this one thing—Phil. 2:13; Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:10-11.
2. We need God to build Himself in Christ into our humanity, working Himself in Christ into us as our life, our nature, and our person—Eph. 3:17a.
III. The building up of the church as the Body of Christ is through the inner experience of the indwelling Christ—vv. 16-17a; 4:12, 16; 2:21-22:
A. Ephesians is a book on the church, the Body of Christ, and this book speaks about the unsearchable riches of Christ and how this Christ as the Spirit is making His home in us—1:22-23; 3:8, 17a.
B. The key to the building up of the church is the inner experience of Christ as our life—v. 17a; Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:11-12.
C. Christ builds the church by building Himself into us, that is, by entering into our spirit and spreading Himself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will to occupy our entire being—2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:17a.
D. In Ephesians 3:16-21 Paul prayed concerning the believers' inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ:
1. Paul prayed that we would be strengthened into the inner man with the result that Christ could make His home in our hearts and thereby occupy, possess, permeate, and saturate our whole inner being with Himself— vv. 16-17a:
a. Since our heart is the totality of our inward parts, the center of our in-ward being, and our representative with regard to our inclination, affection, delight, and desire, when Christ makes His home in our hearts, He controls our entire inward being and supplies and strengthens every inward part with Himself.
b. The more Christ spreads within us, the more He settles down in us and makes His home in us, occupying every part of our inner being, possessing all these parts, and saturating them with Himself.
2. When Christ is able to make His home in our hearts, occupying all the in-ward parts of our being, we will be able to be built up with all the saints— 2:21-22; 4:12, 16:
a. In order for Christ's word in Matthew 16:18 concerning the building up of the church to be fulfilled, the church must enter into a state where many saints will allow Christ to make His home deep in their heart, possessing, occupying, and saturating their entire inner being.
b. The more Christ occupies our inner being, the more we will be able to be built up with others in the Body—Eph. 2:21-22; 4:12, 16.
3. Ephesians 3:17 speaks of being rooted and grounded in love:
a. That we are rooted indicates that we are plants, and our being grounded means that we are a building.
b. Together the two aspects, rooted and grounded, indicate that we need to grow and be built up.
4. According to verse 18, we are able to apprehend the dimensions of Christ— the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth—not by ourselves individually but "with all the saints," that is, corporately and jointly; this reveals that we need to be built together.
5. When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God; this fullness is the church, the Body of Christ, as the corporate expression of the Triune God—v. 19.
6. We should focus on this prayer to the extent that we do not know what to pray other than this.
E. Ephesians 3:16-21 shows Paul's spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith:
1. By revelation the mystery of Christ was made known to Paul (vv. 3-6); thus, his spirit and attitude—what he saw, what he said, and what he cared about in his heart—were related to the vision of the building up of the church as the Body of Christ through the inner experience of the indwelling Christ:
a. This matter filled Paul's entire being; hence, what he saw, what he spoke, and what he cared about were related to the building up of the church through Christ's being wrought into us.
b. Paul was obsessed with this vision, and it became his spirit and attitude; therefore, he had such a prayer as recorded in Ephesians 3:16-21.
2. We need to have this spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith when we serve God in the church.
3. If we have seen the vision of the building up of the church as the Body of Christ and of how Christ builds the church by building Himself into us, we will have this kind of spirit and attitude, and we will also have this kind of prayer and faith.