In Ephesians 1 Paul says, “The church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all” (vv. 22-23), and in chapter 2 he speaks of building (v. 20). From this we can see that God has been doing the building work after our salvation (vv. 19-22). In chapter 3 Paul bowed his knees and prayed that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith (v. 17) and that we would be filled unto all the fullness of God (v. 19). We have been saved, yet we may not be filled; without the filling there is no Body of Christ. In experience, if people are saved but not filled, they do not have the building. Christ is in them, but He has not made His home in them. They have not touched much of the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ. The fullness of the Godhead in Christ has not been built and constituted into them; hence, they remain the same, still living out themselves.
The Body of Christ is the issue of the believers being built up with Christ, being mingled with God, and being constituted with Christ. If a person is saved but does not have this building, mingling, and constitution, there is no Body of Christ; even though he is in the Body, the Body is not seen in him. Hence, Ephesians 4 has a twofold building—the building up by the ministry of the gifts and the building up by the Body itself.
Someone may ask, “Since the church is the Body of Christ, can people touch the Body of Christ in the various localities?” This is a crucial question. When people meet in Taipei, they may contact many Christians, but will they touch the Body of Christ? Whether they can touch the Body of Christ depends on whether Christ is built up in Taipei, whether God and man are mingled in Taipei, whether God is able to come out of man, and whether man’s move is the move of God mingling with man. If this is not the situation, even though there may be believers, the Body of Christ is not present. Without these matters, our coordination is the coordination of “corpses,” within which there is no life, only death.
We may have a very good coordination that is void of life. What we have may be doctrines, regulations, organization, and a coordination by arrangement rather than by our living in Christ. Perhaps our submission is merely the submission of man and not the submission of Christ lived out from us; our submission to authority may be merely human effort, which comes from education, teaching, training, and cultivation but not from Christ growing within us. If our submission is of the element of man and does not come out of the mingling of Christ within, then it is not of the Body of Christ.
There is a kind of coordination in submission that has passed through God’s working and dealing and has been built by and mingled with God. Such a coordination through Christ is living, full of vitality, and fresh, and it causes people to smell the flavor of God. Once people touch this coordination, they feel that they have touched Christ and that they worship God, sensing that God is present. The church as the Body of Christ is the fullness of the One who fills all in all, the issue of God mingling with man and of Christ building in man. Therefore, it is not enough for us to be saved and have the life of Christ; we must also live out Christ, allowing Christ to move through us and fill us up so that there may be a living expression. Only this is the Body of Christ, the expression of God’s image in the universe, and only this can reign for God on earth.
The function of the church is of two aspects. One aspect is that it is the Body of Christ, and the other aspect is that it is the house of God, or we may say, the dwelling place of God, the temple of God. These three—the house of God, the dwelling place of God, and the temple of God—are one. The significance of the church as the house, the dwelling place, and the temple of God is in God being mingled with man. This means that God has found a people on earth that He can be mingled with. This is the great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16); this is also the mingling of God and man. When a person lives in a house, it could be said that he is “mingled” with the house, but because the house is “dead,” it cannot be truly mingled with a living person. However, our God is living and we are living; God is Spirit and we have a spirit. Therefore, God and we can be thoroughly mingled. The fact that we are the dwelling place of God, the temple of God, and the house of God means that God dwells in us and causes us to be mingled with Him as one so that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19).
The church as the Body of Christ refers to our relationship to Christ. Our body is not only our expression; it is also the house of our person. Second Corinthians 5:1-4 tells us that our body is our dwelling place, our earthly tabernacle. Our body is our dwelling place; although it is temporary, we can be mingled with our body. Thus, our body becomes our expression. Whatever we do is by the body and through the body. Today Christ also needs to gain a means by which He can move and act on earth. Without the Body, all of Christ’s work on earth would cease, and He could not gain an expression. Therefore, how much the Lord can be expressed and how much He can move and work on earth today altogether depend upon His Body.
All of God’s children need to see that the Lord’s expression of Himself and His work on earth do not depend upon our zeal and diligence but on whether we have the expression of the Body of Christ among us. If Christ is built up in us and God is mingled with us, there will be a practical result, which is the expression of the Body of Christ. Today all of God’s work depends upon His Body. Hence, all of the churches should pay attention to whether we have the expression of the Body of Christ. Wherever there is the building of God and the mingling of God, there is the Body of Christ, there is the expression of God, and there is the work of Christ. Therefore, the Body of Christ is a strict obligation to us.