KNOWING LIFE AND THE CHURCH
Message Six
Living in the Resurrection Life of Christ under the Unique Headship of Christ and Growing Up into the Head, Christ, in All Things for the Reality and Building Up of the Body of Christ
Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 1:9; Col. 1:18; 2:19; Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 4:15-16
I. The church as the Body of Christ is an organism absolutely in the resurrection life of Christ—Col. 1:18; John 11:25; Acts 2:24; Rev. 1:18; 2:8; Phil. 3:10:
A. The principle of resurrection is that the natural life is killed and that the divine life rises up in its place—2 Cor. 1:9.
B. In our natural life and in the old creation, we are not the Body; we are the Body in the new creation germinated by Christ's resurrection—Eph. 1:19-23.
C. To be in resurrection means that our natural life is crucified and that the God- created and redeemed part of our being is uplifted to be one with Christ in resurrection—Rom. 6:4, 6; 8:2, 11; Gal. 2:20.
D. When we live not by our natural life but by the divine life within us, we are in resurrection, and the issue of this is the Body of Christ—Rom. 6:6; 8:11; 12:4-5:
1. The leadership among God's people must be Christ Himself as the resurrection life that buds, blossoms, and bears almonds—Num. 17:8.
2. Everything we say, everything we do, and everything we are in the church life as an expression of the Body of Christ must be in resurrection.
II. Christ is the unique Head of the Body, the church, corporately and of all the believers individually; He is the Head directly of every one of us—Col. 1:18; 1 Cor. 11:3:
A. The Head is a matter of authority; for Christ to be the Head is for Him to have all the authority in the Body—Col. 1:18; Matt. 28:18:
1. To be under the headship of Christ is to be absolutely under His authority—Eph. 4:15.
2. The authority to direct the Body and all its members rests with the Head.
B. Whether we are under the authority of the Head determines whether we know the life of the Body—1 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 4:15-16; Col. 1:18; 3:4:
1. The Body can have only one Head and can submit only to one Head—1:18.
2. Christ is the unique Head, and we must submit to Him, honoring and testifying to the unique headship of Christ—Eph. 1:22-23; Matt. 23:8-12.
3. The members of the Body are fitted together and are able to live the Body life through holding the Head; our relationship with the Head determines our relationship to the other members—Eph. 4:15-16; 1 Cor. 12:18, 27.
III. The reality of the Body of Christ is a group of God's redeemed who have been made the God-men by God and who live not by themselves but by another life, which is the processed and consummated Triune God—Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:10:
A. The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but who do not live by their own life but by the life of the processed and consummated Triune God, whose attributes are expressed through their virtues—1:19-21a.
B. The reality of the Body of Christ is a living by all the God-men, united, mingled, and constituted together with God by mingling humanity with divinity and mingling divinity with humanity—John 14:20.
C. The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ through the power of His resurrection—Phil. 3:10.
D. Because the Body of Christ is in the mingled spirit, to be in the reality of the Body of Christ is to be in the mingled spirit and to live in the mingled spirit—Rom. 8:4; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 6:17; 12:12-13, 27:
1. To live, act, and move in the mingled spirit is to live, act, and move in the Body and to be in the reality of the Body—Rom. 8:4; 12:4-5.
2. To be in the mingled spirit is to be in the Body of Christ actually and practically—1 Cor. 6:17; 12:12-13, 27.
IV. We need to grow up into the Head, Christ, in all things—Eph. 4:15:
A. To grow up into Christ is to have Christ increase in us in all things until we attain to a full-grown man—vv. 15, 13.
B. The word Head in Ephesians 4:15 indicates that our growth in life by the increase of Christ in us should be the growth of the members in the Body under the Head.
C. We need to grow up into Christ in all things, that is, in every single thing, whether big or small—v. 15:
1. There are still many things in which we have not grown up into Christ; in these things we are not in Christ but are outside of Christ.
2. When we all grow up into Christ in all things, we will all be one in Christ.
D. To grow in life is to grow with the growth of God; the growth of the Body depends on the growth of God, the increase of God, within us—Col. 2:19.
V. The growth of the Body is the building up of the Body—Eph. 4:16:
A. The growth of the Body of Christ is the increase of Christ in the church, which results in the building up of the Body by the Body itself—3:17a:
1. When Christ enters into the saints and lives within them, the Christ within the saints becomes the church—Col. 3:10-11.
2. The Body of Christ grows by the growth of Christ within us and is built up this way—1:18; 2:19; Eph. 4:15-16.
B. The Body builds itself up in love—v. 16:
1. The love in which the Body builds itself up is not our own love but the love of God in Christ, which becomes the love of Christ in us, by which we love Christ and the fellow members of His Body—1 John 4:7-8, 11, 16, 19.
2. Love is the inner substance of God; when we enter into God's inner substance, we enjoy God as love and enjoy His presence in the sweetness of the divine love, and thereby love others as Christ did—Eph. 5:25.
3. We need to be brought into love as the inner substance of God for the building up of the Body of Christ—4:12, 16.