The organic building up of the Body of Christ, the increase of the Triune God in the believers for their growth in Christ, is through the members of the Body feeding on the milk and food of the holy Word as the embodiment of Christ as the living Word of God. In order for the Body of Christ to be built up organically, we need to feed on the milk and food of the holy Word. We cannot exercise and function physically unless we feed on something. Whenever we eat, we are strengthened. Likewise, whenever we take in the milk and food of the holy Word, we are strengthened to live Christ. The holy Word is the embodiment of Christ, and the embodiment of Christ is the living Word of God. In other words, the living Word is embodied in the written Word.
According to the Word of God, to be saved is to be reborn, which means that this is an organic matter (John 3:3, 5; 1 Cor. 4:15). People being saved organically is the beginning of the building up of the Body of Christ. After I was saved, I loved the Lord, and I tried to preach the gospel. At that time no one had perfected me to preach the gospel. Thus, I preached the gospel inorganically. I did not know what it was to impart the divine life into people. Inorganic preaching is preaching without the dispensing, the imparting, of life.
The Spirit and life are synonyms. Without the Spirit, there is no life. Life is in the Spirit, and the Spirit is life. God, who is the Spirit and life, is in our spirit. Now we must exercise our spirit. When we exercise our spirit, life comes out. When we go to visit sinners, we must pray much so that our spirit is stirred up. When our spirit is stirred up and exercised, we will be able to impart Christ into others. We need to tell the unbelievers that the very Savior, Jesus Christ, is the life-giving Spirit and that they can exercise their spirit to call on Him. We can call on the Lord, and we can ask them to repeat what we say. When they call on the Lord, they will touch the Spirit. This kind of preaching is the imparting of Christ as life into someone. We need to preach the gospel in this life-imparting, organic way to make people children of God and members of Christ.
These reborn people are newborn babes in Christ. As newborn babes, they need to long for the milk of the word (the good word of God—Heb. 6:5) that they may grow (1 Pet. 2:2). Then as mature ones they need to take the solid food of the word, the word of righteousness (Heb. 5:13-14). The book of Hebrews shows us two categories of God’s word: one is the good word of God, and the other is the word of righteousness. The good word of God is not that deep. It is the milk to nourish the babes. The word of righteousness is deep, and it is the solid food for the mature ones so that they may be full-grown.
After a new one gets saved, we need to go back to him continually to feed him. Peter said in 1 Peter 2:2 that the newborn babes should long for the milk of the word. A newborn babe cannot feed himself. There must be a nursing mother to feed him. After we baptize people, we immediately need to feed them with the good word of God in the Bible. We can tell them that God is love. This is a good word. We should not, however, tell them that God is just and that He will punish us if we are not faithful to Him. We should not tell the new ones that God is righteous and that as Christians we may be either rewarded or disciplined and punished for one thousand years. Sharing this with the new ones is like trying to feed the infants with hard German bread. We should not feed the new ones with solid food. We should always feed them with the milk of the word, the good word of God. We can tell them that God loves them and sympathizes with them. We can also tell them that whatever happens to them is under God’s control. This is to give the little infants some milk.
To feed the young ones we should use the good word of God until they grow up. Then they will be able to take solid food. To feed the believers either with milk or with solid food is organic. By this organic way we raise up the young ones, and to raise up the young ones is to build them up. When mothers feed their children, they are building up their children. The real building up of the children is their growth. The growth of a child is the increase of its human life. The church is of the divine life, so the building up of the church has to be organic.
To build up the church organically, we have to feed others with the organic Word, with Christ. Christ is surely organic because He is the life-giving Spirit. Christ is God, God is life, and God is organic. We should always feed the believers with organic matters, that is, with God, Christ, the Spirit, life, or the word of life from the Bible. The more we feed others, the more God increases in them. This increase of God within the believers is their growth, and the totality of the growth of the believers is the building up of the Body of Christ.
When the believers are being fed, they are growing. This means that God is increasing within them. New ones have God within them, but they do not have much of God. We need to visit them again and again to feed them. After two months of this kind of feeding, these new ones will have much more of God. God will have increased within them, and they will grow in life.
The organic building up is the growth in life, and this growth, in principle, always comes from nourishing. If a person does not eat, how can he grow? The New Testament shows us that we, the growing Christians, have two kinds of groceries, milk and solid food. Paul told the Hebrews that he could only minister the milk to them and not the solid food (5:12). Most Christians today only know something concerning the good word of God, the milk of the word. This is the word of life, the word of grace, and the word of mercy. Another category of the holy Word, the word of righteousness, is the word concerning God’s governmental dealings and concerning His dispensational reward and punishment.
We may like to receive the truth of John 3:16, but do we like the truth in Matthew 25? In this chapter we are told that the Lord’s slothful and evil slaves will be cast into outer darkness (vv. 26, 30). The word of God in Matthew 25 is the word of righteousness. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 that we must fear the Lord because one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged by Him according to our Christian work, life, and behavior (vv. 10-11). We will be judged by the Lord according to what we have been, what we have done, and how we have worked after our salvation. We have to give an account to our dear Lord. He will judge us. He will either reward us or punish us. He could say, “Well done, good and faithful slave...enter into the joy of your lord” (Matt. 25:21), or He could call us an “evil and slothful slave” (v. 26) and cast us out into the outer darkness (v. 30).
The book of Hebrews warns us with the type of the children of Israel. Approximately two million Israelites enjoyed the Passover and crossed the Red Sea to come out of Egypt. They were saved out of the Egyptian tyranny. In the wilderness they enjoyed the heavenly manna and the water out of the cleft rock. However, Paul tells us in Hebrews 3 that the Lord was disgusted with them and that their carcasses fell in the wilderness (v. 17). Only two of them, Joshua and Caleb, were exceptions. Paul warned us with this example of the children of Israel (1 Cor. 10:5-13). He said that we need to beware since we could fall down in the wilderness. This means that there is the possibility for us Christians to come short of entering into Christ as our good land. This is the word of righteousness.
The babes who can only take in the milk and not the solid food are inexperienced in the word of righteousness (Heb. 5:13). The word of righteousness is a word concerning God being just. God is not only loving, but He is also exercising His justice all the time. Therefore, we must have some holy fear toward Him. Every day we should come to His throne of grace to receive mercy and grace (Heb. 4:16), but the day will come when this throne of grace will become a throne of judgment (2 Cor. 5:10). We who have been receiving mercy and grace at the throne of grace for years will eventually be judged at the judgment seat of Christ. The Hebrews needed this word of righteousness.
For us to grow we need either the good word of God as milk to nourish us or the word of righteousness as solid food. We need the holy Word in order to grow in Christ. The two greatest items in this universe are the Triune God and the holy Bible. The Triune God, the holy person, is within us, and the holy Word is in our hand. We all have to grow by being nourished by the word of the Holy Bible, either the good word of God or the word of righteousness. By feeding on the milk and food of the holy Word, we grow and this growth is the very organic building up of the church.