GENERAL SUBJECT

LIVING IN THE REALITY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Message One
The Kingdom of God— the Realm of the Divine Life and of the Divine Species

Scripture Reading: John 3:5-6; 18:36; 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4

I.　The kingdom of God is the realm of the divine life—John 3:3, 5, 15-16; 18:36; 1:12-13:

A.　The New Testament regards the life of God as the life, that is, as the only life that is truly life and that can rightly be considered as life—Eph. 4:18.

B.　The Lord Jesus came that we might have life, and for this He laid down His soul-life to release the divine life from within Him, and in His resurrection He imparted the divine life into God's chosen and redeemed people—Matt. 16:24-26; Luke 9:24-25.

C.　The kingdom of God is an organism constituted with God's life as the realm for His ruling, in which He reigns by His life and expresses Himself as the Divine Trinity in the divine life—John 3:5; 15:1-8, 26.

D.　The kingdom of God is God in Christ as the totality of life with all its activities— 11:25; 10:10b; 14:6.

E.　The unique way to enter into the kingdom of God is to receive God as life and gain God Himself; this is regeneration—3:5, 16; 1 John 5:11-12:

1.　The kingdom of God is a divine realm to be entered into, a realm that requires the divine life; hence, for us to see or enter into the kingdom of God, God requires regeneration—John 3:3, 5.

2.　Because through regeneration we receive the divine life, the life of God, regeneration is the unique entrance into the kingdom of God—vv. 3, 5, 15.

3.　We have been born into the kingdom of God, and now the divine life in our spirit knows the kingdom of God—vv. 5-6.

F.　The sense of life is the feeling, the consciousness, of the divine life within us— Rom. 8:6; Eph. 4:18-19:

1.　The source of the sense of life is the divine life, the law of life, the Holy Spirit, Christ abiding in us, and God operating in us—Rom. 8:2, 10-11; Phil. 2:13.

2.　The sense of life involves both the feeling of death and the feeling of life and peace—Rom. 8:6; Isa. 26:3.

3.　The sense of life makes us know whether we are living in the natural life or in the divine life and whether we are living in the flesh or in the spirit—Rom. 8:6.

4.　In living a grafted life, we should live according to the principle of life, not according to the principle of right and wrong—Gen. 2:9, 16-17; 2 Cor. 11:2-3.

5.　If we would follow the sense of life, we need to live in a calm, steady, and unhurried way, living an ordinary life in the divine dispensing—John 14:27; 16:33; 1 Thes. 5:23; 2 Thes. 3:16; Isa. 30:15; 32:17.

6.　The sense of life guides us, governs us, controls us, and directs us—Luke 1:79; Rom. 3:17; Prov. 21:1.

G.　The believers receive the divine life by believing into the Son, in whom the divine life is and who Himself is life, and by being born of God, they are born of the Spirit—John 3:6.

H.　The believers have life not in themselves apart from God but in the organic union with the Lord; that is, they have life only in Christ—15:4-5; Rom. 8:2.

I.　The divine life in the believers is the life of the Body of Christ, and thus it is not an individual life but a corporate life, Christ as the life of the Body experienced and enjoyed in the Body—1 Cor. 12:26-27; Col. 3:4.

J.　For eternity the believers will experience and enjoy the life of God—Rev. 22:2.

K.　To grow in the divine life is the increase of the element of God, the increase of the stature of Christ, and the expanding of the Holy Spirit—Eph. 4:15-16.

L.　The growth in the divine life is the decrease of the human element, the breaking of the natural life, and the subduing of every part of the soul—1 Pet. 2:2; 2 Pet. 3:18; Col. 2:19.

II.　The kingdom of God is not only the realm of the divine life and of the divine dominion but also the realm of the divine species, in which are all the divine things—John 3:3, 5; 18:36:

A.　In John 3 the kingdom of God refers more to the species of God than to the reign of God.

B.　God became man to enter into the human species, and man becomes God in life and nature but not in the Godhead to enter into the divine species—1:1, 12-14; 2 Pet. 1:4.

C.　In order to enter into the divine realm, the realm of the divine species, we need to be born of God to have the divine life and the divine nature—John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5-6; 2 Pet. 1:4:

1.　God created man not according to man's kind but in His image and according to His likeness to be God's kind, God's species—Gen. 1:26.

2.　The believers, who are born of God by regeneration to be His children in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, are more in God's kind than Adam was—John 1:12-13:

a.　Adam had only the outward appearance of God without the inward reality—vv. 12-14.

b.　We, the believers in Christ and the children of God, have the reality of the divine life, and we are being transformed and conformed to the Lord's image in our entire being—2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2; 8:29.

c.　Our second birth, regeneration, caused us to enter into the kingdom of God to become the species of God—John 3:3, 5-6.

d.　All the children of God are in the divine realm of the divine species— 1:12-13; 3:3, 5.

e.　The believers are God-men in the divine species, that is, in the kingdom of God—1 John 3:1a; John 1:12-13; 3:3, 5.

D.　In the Gospel of John we see many aspects of the believers' living in the kingdom of God as the realm of the divine species:

1.　"Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace"—1:16.

2.　"The water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life"—4:14b.

3.　"He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me"—6:57b.

4.　"As the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love"—15:9.

5.　"These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full"—v. 11.

6.　"He who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be manifested that they are wrought in God"—3:21.

7.　"An hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness"—4:23-24.

8.　"If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you"—15:7.

9.　"In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you"—14:20.

10.　"Love one another even as I have loved you"—15:12b.