What is the church? The church is the enlargement of Christ, the God-man, the One who is God mingled with man. When the church is in a normal condition, we can see God and man mingled together. On the day of Pentecost, those in the church were uneducated, insignificant men, but we can see that they were mingled with the almighty God. When Peter and the eleven apostles stood up to speak, although it was Peter’s voice, God was speaking. God was not merely among them; even more, He was mingled with them. They were inseparable from God. This is the church, the enlargement of Christ, the enlargement of the mingling of God with man and man with God.
Formerly, this mingling could be seen in only one person, but now it can be seen in millions of people. Formerly, this mingling involved only the Head, but now it has been enlarged to become the Body. With respect to time, this enlargement is extending; with respect to space, this enlargement is spreading. For two thousand years this enlargement has been ongoing throughout the earth; it keeps extending and spreading over the whole earth. This is glorious. This enlargement is the church. A genuine church not only preserves its nature and keeps its ground, but it has God within. The nature of the church is God mingled with man and man mingled with God.
The church is a group of people whose mind, emotion, and will may be quite strong and active; however, God is mingled with them, and they are mingled with God. Although Peter was a fisherman, he was a very strong and capable man. However, Acts shows that this man was mingled with God and that God was mingled with him. If there is a group of people who are mingled with God and allow God to work on them, then that is the church; this is how the church is produced. The moment we are saved, we become the church in fact, but the proper condition of the church has yet to be manifested. When Peter recognized that the Son of Man was the Christ, the Son of the living God, the Lord said to him, “Upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). This means that He would build the church upon the Christ who is both the Son of Man and the Son of God. This is to build upon the One who is the mingling of God with man and man with God.
Concerning Matthew 16, the Roman Catholic Church says that the rock refers to Peter, but most fundamental believers say that the rock refers to Christ. It is not wrong to say that the rock refers to Christ, but this is still inadequate. We must further ask, who is this Christ? What is the significance of Christ? The Christ in Matthew 16 is the Son of Man who is also the Son of God; He is the Son of God who is also the Son of Man. The Lord desires to build the church upon the Christ who is God yet man and man yet God. The Lord Jesus uses this as the base and material for building the church.
The Lord not only desires to build the church upon the mingling of God and man; He also desires to build this mingling into the church. How much of the element of Christ as the rock is in us? How much ground does the One who is God yet man and man yet God have in us? If there is not a sufficient amount of the element of the mingling of God and man in us, there cannot be much of the element of the church in us; only that which is built upon this element can be considered the church. The church is nothing less and nothing more than the building of the element of Christ, the mingling of God with man and man with God, into us and out of us. Theoretically speaking, our gathering as three to five hundred believers in the Lord’s name is the church, because the Lord is among us. Nevertheless, the amount of the element of the church in this gathering depends upon how much we have allowed Christ to build in us. The amount of the element of the church that we possess depends upon how much we allow the One who is both God yet man and man yet God to mingle and build in us.
A brother said that he had seen a corporate, not individualistic, vision of the Body and that after seeing this vision he felt to no longer act individualistically but rather to work with the brothers and sisters in coordination. Although these words sounded quite impressive and moving, his later actions proved that it was not the reality. Seeing the church is not the same as having the church. Rather, we must allow the element of God with man and man with God to be mingled in us and built up from us; only then will we have the reality of the church. The church is built upon the mingling of God with man and man with God. The church proceeds out of this mingling. The extent to which we are the church in reality depends upon how much this mingling has been built up in us. We may understand doctrinally that the church is a corporate entity, not individual entities, and that serving the Lord should be a Body matter, not an individual matter. However, in reality, we may still not live in the light of the church or in the mingling of God and man.
When we by the Lord’s mercy allow the mingling of God with man and man with God to work and build in us, we will have the reality of the church. With resoluteness we should receive, consider, concentrate, desire, and turn our whole being toward the mingling of God and man within us. Then we will have more than a doctrinal understanding or seeing, and within us will be a genuine building work. The extent of this building work determines how much the church is expressed. We will not need to profess that we have seen the Body and that we should not be individualistic; we will spontaneously live in the reality of the Body and not act independently. When the mingling of God with man and man with God is built up within us in a considerable way, many problems in the church will spontaneously disappear.
God mingles Himself with man in order to be man’s life. We have experienced God as the Spirit entering our spirit to be our life and nature, but this is not enough. In many of us this is only an occasional occurrence because we have not fully allowed God to be our life and nature. We have not allowed God to mingle with us sufficiently. The mingling of God and man does not mean that our person has been fully annulled. Even though Paul did say, “I am crucified with Christ,” he went on to say, “and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh...” (Gal. 2:20). “I” is still here; it has not been annulled.
Peter’s Epistles show that he was not annulled. In reading his Epistles we can immediately recognize that they were written by Peter. The same is true with Paul’s and John’s Epistles; we can immediately recognize who wrote a certain Epistle. Peter, Paul, and John were not annulled; their particular characteristics were retained. In the New Jerusalem their characteristics will not be annulled; their names will still be there (Rev. 21:14). Salvation would not be very meaningful if our characteristics were annulled.
God’s salvation is to mingle Himself with our person. We have a will that has surrendered to His will, an emotion that is occupied by Him and gained by Him, and a mind that is being renewed, ruled, controlled, and occupied by Him. Once we were strong only in ourselves, but now we have been mingled with God. Every apostle had a strong character and was very capable. Yet they all had one characteristic in common—they were mingled with God. We should never think that our personality has been annulled because we are mingled with God.
In God’s eyes it is beautiful for Peter to have the element of God within him. However, it would not be beautiful if Peter was annulled and only the element of God remained. On the twelve foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (v. 14). This shows that the particular characteristics of the twelve apostles remain. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every precious stone (v. 19); although the light that shines forth from them is the same expression of God, their colors are different. These different colors are their personalities, and these personalities reflect the mingling of God with man. This is the principle.