Ephesians 5:32 speaks of a great mystery. Christ with the church is the great mystery in this universe. In these messages our burden is the central thought of God. We have seen clearly from the revelation of the Scriptures that the central thought of God is Christ as the expression of God with His Body, which is the church. So the central thought of God is Christ and the church, or we may say Christ with the church. This is the center of the divine mind, the divine thought, which is clearly seen in the blueprint of the divine plan unveiled in the first two chapters of the Bible. In the picture in Revelation 21 and 22, the last two chapters of the Scriptures, we can also see that the eternal purpose, the ultimate intention, of God is to have Christ expressed through the Body. Hence, Christ and His Body, which is the church, are the great mystery as the central thought of God.
I was a young man when I was saved. Immediately after I was saved, I loved the Word of the Lord very much. Day by day I studied it with great diligence. Later I acquired a great number of books about the Scriptures. All those books told me the same thing, that is, that Christ is the subject and the center of all the Scriptures. At that time I was very happy to know this, and I stressed this very much. Christ is the subject, the center, and the contents of all the Scriptures! Later, however, I found out that this was short of something. In the Scriptures we are told clearly that Christ is the Head (Eph. 1:22; Col. 1:18). Just as a head needs a body, Christ as the Head needs the Body. We are also told that Christ is the Husband (Eph. 5:24-25), and a husband needs a wife. Christ is the divine Husband, the real man. None of us, including the brothers, is a man. We are all really females. Christ is the real man to gain a bride (John 3:29). As the real man, He needs a bride. Therefore, the Scriptures do not reveal to us the Head without the Body. It reveals to us the Head with the Body, Christ with the church. Moreover, it reveals to us a couple, not just the Husband alone, but the Husband with the wife.
If you would read your Bible carefully once more, you will realize that the center, the subject, and the contents of all the Scriptures is Christ with the church, the Head with the Body, the Husband with the wife. How can I come to speak with my head and leave my body in my apartment? You can never separate a body from the head nor the head from a body. One thing I appreciate about this country is that wives always go together with their husbands. It is not so in China. In China, the wives are separated from the husbands. If the husbands sit in the front, all the wives sit at the rear. That is not scriptural. If you read the Scriptures, you will see that where Christ is, there is the church; where the Head is, there is the Body; and where the Husband is, there is the bride.
Brothers and sisters, the central thought of God is that Christ must have a church as His Body, His Bride, His increase, and His counterpart to express God in a corporate way. In all the Scriptures, nothing is more important or vital than this. Nothing is more central than this. This is the very central thought of God. If you ask me what the Lord is seeking after today, I must tell you that the Lord is seeking nothing other than the church as the Body, the bride, and the increase to match Christ and to express Christ in a corporate way. This is the ultimate intention of God.
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