LABORING ON THE ALL-INCLUSIVE CHRIST TYPIFIED BY THE GOOD LAND FOR THE BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST, FOR THE REALITY AND THE MANIFESTATION OF THE KINGDOM, AND FOR THE BRIDE TO MAKE HERSELF READY FOR THE LORD'S COMING
Message Ten
Governing Principles That We Need to See and Experience in Order to Possess Christ as the Good Land
Scripture Reading: Col. 2:6; 1 Cor. 6:17; 12:12-13; Acts 9:3-5; Exo. 13:21-22; Col. 4:2
I. "As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him"—Col. 2:6:
A. As we have received Christ, we should walk in Him; to walk in Him is to live, to act, to behave, and to have our being in Christ so that we may enjoy His riches, just as the children of Israel lived in the good land, enjoying all its rich produce.
B. The good land today is Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit (Gal. 3:14), who dwells in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:16) to be our enjoyment.
C. To walk according to the spirit and by the Spirit (v. 4; Gal. 5:16) is the central and crucial point in the New Testament.
II. To walk in Christ, that is, to walk according to the spirit and by the Spirit as the reality of the good land, we must see that the key of the spiritual fellowship of the regenerated tripartite believers with the consummated Triune God is 1 Corinthians 6:17—"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit":
A. We worship God the Spirit with our spirit—John 4:24.
B. We were regenerated of God as the Spirit to be a spirit—3:6.
C. The Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God—Rom. 8:16.
D. We become a dwelling place of God in our spirit, and the Spirit is the Indweller—Eph. 2:22.
E. The Lord Jesus as the pneumatic Christ and as the life-giving Spirit is in our spirit—2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:10.
F. If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells us—v. 11.
G. If by the Spirit we put to death the practices of the body, we will live—v. 13b.
H. We set our mind on the spirit for life and peace—v. 6.
I. They who are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and its lusts (by the Spirit)—Gal. 5:24.
J. When we walk by the Spirit, we will by no means fulfill the lust of the flesh—v. 16.
K. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit—v. 25.
L. We walk (have our being) in and according to the spirit (the mingled spirit) for the fulfilling of the righteousness of the law—Rom. 8:4.
M. By the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, we live Christ and magnify Him— Phil. 1:19b-21a.
N. We pray at every time in spirit—Eph. 6:18.
O. We are sanctified in the Spirit—Rom. 15:16.
P. We are renewed by the Spirit in our spirit—Titus 3:5; Eph. 4:23.
Q. We are transformed by the Lord Spirit into the glorious image of Christ—2 Cor. 3:18.
R. The Spirit as the consummated Triune God and the bride as the transformed tripartite man eventually become a spiritual couple, a mingling of divinity with humanity (Rev. 22:17a), to be the consummated New Jerusalem for His eternal enlargement and expression with the divine glory manifested in the glorified humanity (21:10-11).
III. We need to see that the One in whom we need to walk is the Christ in His full ministry of three stages:
A. The central revelation of God is the progressive revelation of God in the Bible—the "bachelor" God, the incarnated God, the redeeming God, the compounded God, the intensified God, the indwelling God, and the incorporated God; the incorporated God is the Body-Christ that ultimately consummates in the "married" God, the ultimately incorporated God, the New Jerusalem.
B. The Lord's recovery is the recovery of Christ in His full ministry of three stages—incarnation, inclusion, and intensification; the Lord's recovery is God becoming the flesh, the flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit to build up the church that becomes the Body of Christ and that consummates the New Jerusalem:
1. God becoming the flesh is the "bachelor" God becoming the incarnated God and the redeeming God—John 1:1, 14, 29.
2. The flesh becoming the life-giving Spirit, and the life-giving Spirit becoming the sevenfold intensified Spirit is the compounded God becoming the intensified God to be the indwelling God—1 Cor. 15:45b; Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6.
3. The built-up church that becomes the Body of Christ and that consummates the New Jerusalem is the incorporated God, the Body-Christ, that consummates the New Jerusalem, the ultimate union, mingling, and incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the processed and consummated tripartite church—John 17:21; Eph. 4:4-6, 16; Col. 2:19; Rev. 19:7-9; 21:2, 9-10.
IV. The Lord's present recovery is the recovery of the Body-Christ ("the Christ") in the church life; the Body-Christ is the incorporated God; thus, to walk in Christ is to walk in Him as the Body-Christ, who is the incorporated God—1 Cor. 12:12-13; Acts 9:4-5, 15; Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:1-6, 15-16; John 14:23; 17:21:
A. First Corinthians 12:12 says, "Even as the body is one and has many members, yet all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is the Christ"; "the Christ" in this verse is not the individual Christ but the corporate Christ, Christ incorporated with all His members.
B. This is the corporate "Me" that the apostle Paul saw in his vanquishing conversion to Christ; he saw that the Lord Jesus and His believers are one great person—the wonderful "Me"—Acts 9:3-5.
C. We need to see that the Christ in whom we need to walk today is not only the individual Christ but also the wonderful "Me," the Body-Christ, who is the incorporated God.
D. To receive and to walk in Christ is to receive and to walk in the Body-Christ, because Christ today is a corporate Body; Christ is no longer only the individual Christ but also the corporate Christ, the Head with the Body; it makes a great difference in our Christian life for us to walk in the corporate Christ.
E. The Lord's recovery is the recovery of "Christification," a recovery purely and wholly of the person of Christ to gain the reality of the Body-Christ in the church life—1 Thes. 5:23; Phil. 1:19-21a; 3:8-14; 2 Cor. 2:10; Col. 3:10-11.
F. Today the Lord is building the Body-Christ in the church life; in the Body-Christ, Christ is wrought into all His members, and all His members are wrought into Him by the growth in life and transformation in life for the expression of Christ—2:19; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Cor. 12:12-13:
1. In the Body-Christ we enjoy Christ as everything—vv. 3b, 13.
2. In the Body-Christ there is the function of all the members—vv. 14-22.
3. In the Body-Christ there is the blending together of the members in the oneness of the Triune God—vv. 23-27; John 17:21; Eph. 4:1-6.
V. In order to possess and walk in the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land, we need to see that the presence of the Lord means everything to us in both our life in the Lord and our work in the Lord; in Exodus 33:12-17 Moses bargained with God for His presence to go with him and with God's people; God responded by saying, "My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest"—v. 14:
A. The Lord lives in us, and He will go wherever we go, but is His presence going with us? Many times the Lord may help us, but He may not be happy with us; we need to be governed by the direct, firsthand presence of the Lord.
B. The presence, the smile of the Lord, is the governing principle for us to enter into and possess Christ as the reality of the good land; God's presence is the way, the "map," that shows His people the way they should take.
C. According to the picture in Exodus, the presence of the Lord went before them "by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them on the way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might go by day and by night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night departed from before the people"—13:21-22:
1. In typology the cloud signifies the Spirit (1 Cor. 10:1-2), and the fire, for enlightening, signifies the Word of God (Psa. 119:105; Jer. 23:29); hence, the instant, living leading from the presence of God comes through either the Spirit or the Word.
2. The two pillars symbolize God Himself, for He is both the Spirit and the Word (John 4:24; 1:1); furthermore, the Word is also the Spirit (6:63; Eph. 6:17).
3. Thus, God, the Word, and the Spirit are one to lead and guide us continually, whether by day or by night; in the Christian life there is no difference between day and night, for the light from the pillar of fire causes the night to become day.
D. Exodus also shows us that Christ as the Angel of God was the One who was leading the people; when the Angel of God moved, the pillar moved also, showing that the Angel and the pillar were one; Christ and the leading Spirit cannot be separated (14:19; John 14:17- 20; 16:13; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rev. 5:6); furthermore, whenever those who follow the Lord face opposition, the guiding light spontaneously becomes the protecting light; however, to the opposers the protecting light becomes darkness (Exo. 14:20).
VI. In order to possess and walk in the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land, we need to live and serve in the reality of the priesthood by having much and thorough prayer in our life and service—1 Pet. 2:5, 9; Col. 4:2:
A. Whether the church is living and fresh and enriched depends on this one thing—that we are being filled continuously with the Spirit; in order to be filled continuously with the Spirit, we need to be those who are willing, empty, and praying—v. 2; Phil. 2:13; Matt. 5:3, 8; Luke 1:53; Eph. 5:18.
B. The wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and skill for the noble work of building up the church must be God Himself as the Spirit to us; only the Spirit of God can build His own dwelling place through us—Exo. 31:1-3; Zech. 4:6.
C. If all the saints in all the churches persevere in prayer, the recovery will be greatly enriched and uplifted; furthermore, the saints will enjoy the Lord, His presence, and His instant and constant anointing; all day long they will enjoy the smile of the Lord's face, and the living person of Christ will become their experience and enjoyment.