Referring to the type of the meal offering, we may say that the Lord mingled Himself as the all-inclusive oil with the disciples as the fine flour to make a cake. This was the initial stage of the formation of the Body of Christ, the stage in which the Lord made fallen sinners, the descendants of Adam, into members of His Body by breathing Himself into them as the life-giving Spirit, who is the totality of the processed Triune God. As a result, the processed Triune God as the all-inclusive Spirit was mingled with His chosen people to become one entity with them. This entity is the church, the Body of Christ.

For a period of forty days, the Lord Jesus appeared to the disciples and spoke to them concerning the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). During this time He trained them to experience and enjoy His invisible presence. After these forty days, He, in His humanity, ascended to the heavens. His ascension was clearly seen by His disciples (Acts 1:9). Seeing the Lord’s ascension edified them, perfecting them to be the church as a “loaf” constituted of the mingling of the oil with the fine flour.

The New Testament reveals that the ascended Christ “received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father” (Acts 2:33) and then poured out what He had received upon His disciples. The exalted Christ’s receiving of the promise of the Holy Spirit was actually the receiving of the Holy Spirit Himself. Christ was conceived of the Spirit essentially for His being in humanity, and later He was anointed with the Spirit economically for His ministry among men. After His resurrection and ascension, He still needed to receive the Spirit economically again that He might pour Himself out upon His Body. That outpouring was the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and it accomplished the second stage of the formation of the church as the Body of Christ.

First, as the embodiment of the processed Triune God becoming the life-giving Spirit, the Lord breathed the Spirit into His disciples essentially. Then He ascended to the heavens and passed through a process involving the Father with the Spirit, a process that involved the mystery of the Triune God. Having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, He poured out this Spirit upon His believers. Actually, what He poured out was Himself as the embodiment of the Triune God consummated into the all-inclusive compound Spirit as the totality of the processed Triune God. Now the embodiment of the processed Triune God becoming the life-giving Spirit is within the disciples, and the consummated, all-inclusive Spirit is upon them. This is a mingling of the processed Triune God with His chosen, called, redeemed, regenerated, and transformed tripartite people to become one entity-the Body of Christ.

Now we can see clearly how the Body of Christ was formed. First, in resurrection the processed Triune God has been wrought into His chosen people. Then, in Christ’s ascension, the all-inclusive, compound Spirit as the consummation of the processed Triune God descended upon His chosen people. As a result, within them they have the embodiment of the processed Triune God, and upon them they have the consummated Spirit. In this way they become the Body of Christ, an entity produced through the mingling of the processed Triune God with the transformed tripartite man. This is the church.

First Corinthians 12:13 says, “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all given to drink one Spirit.” Here we see that as members of the Body we need to drink Christ as the one Spirit. By drinking Him as the Spirit we grow to be His increase, His enlargement, His reproduction, His continuation. Eventually, we shall arrive “at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). This means that we shall be the full expression of Him who fills all in all. We shall grow until we are “filled unto all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19) to express the processed Triune God in His embodiment. The ultimate consummation of this expression will be in the New Jerusalem. Therefore, the Body of Christ should increase, becoming the enlargement, the reproduction, and the continuation of Christ until the Body reaches the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, the full expression of the One who fills all in all.

We all need to see that the Body of Christ is the totality of the processed Triune God mingled with transformed, tripartite man. This mingling, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem, is completed in three stages. The first stage extends from God’s incarnation to Christ’s breathing Himself in resurrection as the processed Triune God into God’s chosen people to make them intrinsically the constituent for the formation of the Body. This was completed on the day of the Lord’s resurrection. After this, the Lord ascended to the heavens. In the heavens there was a transaction between the Father and the Son concerning the Spirit. This is the reason we are told clearly that the ascended Christ received of the Father the promise of the Spirit. Hence, in ascension the Son received of the Father the promised Spirit. Then the Lord poured Himself out as the consummated, all-inclusive, compound Spirit upon the believers. This was the completion of the second stage. Now a third stage is needed for the increase of the Body unto all the fullness of God, unto the fullness of the One who fills all in all.

Although the first two stages have been completed, the third stage is still going on. In this stage we who have believed into Christ to have an organic union with Him need to drink of Him as the one Spirit. After the Lord breathed Himself into God’s chosen people and poured out Himself as the Spirit upon them, He gave them to drink the one Spirit. From this we see that the first stage involves breathing; the second stage involves outpouring; and the third stage involves drinking. The drinking of the Spirit must take place continually until all God’s people are transformed and increased unto the measure of the stature of Christ. This increase will result in the fullness, not merely of Christ as the embodiment of the processed Triune God, but of the Triune God Himself. As the process of the third stage continues, God’s tripartite people experience Christ in His unlimited dimensions, that is, Christ in His breadth, length, height, and depth (Eph. 3:18). Furthermore, by their experience they will know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ (Eph. 3:19a). This third stage will consummate in the uttermost fullness of the Triune God for His eternal expression in the New Jerusalem.
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