We have covered three stages of the Spirit’s work in the believers for the divine dispensing: the first stage-from initial sanctification, enlightenment, and regeneration through continual sanctification; the second stage-from transformation through not grieving the Spirit; and the third stage-from the Spirit as the means for the believers to pray through the Spirit resting as glory upon the persecuted believers. The first stage is the initial stage, the second is the inner-life-working stage, and the third is for maintaining our fellowship with the Triune God. Now we come to the fourth and final stage of the Spirit’s work in us. In this stage the work of the Spirit mainly concerns the church with the believers’ gifts, functions, ministries, and work.
The Spirit works in the believers to vindicate the church as the manifestation of God in the flesh. First Timothy 3:16 says, “Confessedly, great is the mystery of godliness, who was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit....” According to this verse, the Spirit is vindicating the manifestation of God in the flesh. This took place in Christ when He was on earth. He was God manifested in the flesh, and this was vindicated and verified by the Spirit. The same principle applies to the church today. God is manifested in our flesh. But this has to be verified, justified, and vindicated by the all-inclusive Spirit. In the church life we need the Spirit’s vindicating, verifying, confirming, that what the church does is motivated by the Spirit. This motivation makes the church a present, living manifestation of God in the flesh. Only when we live in the all-inclusive Spirit do we have the vindication that God is manifested in us, the church.
The church is a great matter. According to 1 Timothy 3:15, the church is the house of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth. Paul’s use of the conjunction “and” at the beginning of verse 16 indicates that the church is something even more than the house of the living God and the pillar and base of the truth. The church is also the mystery of godliness. According to the context, godliness refers not only to piety but to the living of God in the church, that is, God as life lived out in the church. This is the great mystery confessed universally by believers in Christ. The church as the manifestation of God in the flesh is a mystery, the mystery of godliness. Godliness is God expressed. In the church life we are expressing God, and this expression is vindicated by the Spirit.
The mystery of godliness is the living of a proper church, and such a living is also the manifestation of God in the flesh. When a church is well taken care of according to the instructions given in 1 Timothy, with the oversight of the elders and the service of the deacons fully established, the church will function as the house of the living God for His move on earth and as the supporting pillar and holding base of the truth, bearing the divine reality of Christ and His Body as a testimony to the world. Then the church becomes the continuation of Christ’s manifestation of God in the flesh. This is the great mystery of godliness- Christ lived out of the church as the manifestation of God in the flesh. The Spirit works in the believers to vindicate, verify, confirm, that the church is the manifestation of God in the flesh.
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