In these dark days of degradation, we have to cooperate with the Lord for the carrying out of His recovery. This is why we need to see a vision on both the positive and negative sides. On the positive side, the Triune God became incarnated to be a wonderful person. That person is the God-man, Christ—the Triune God embodied in humanity as the source of life, signified by the tree of life. He went to the cross to die an all-inclusive, vicarious death. Then He entered into resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit. In resurrection as the one grain who died, He has become the many grains. We are the many grains who have been made into one bread, and this one bread is the one Body, the one church, the one new man, the organism of the Triune God. Eventually, this organism becomes the New Jerusalem. How wonderful this is! But regretfully there is also a negative picture, a picture in the night, a picture from the heart as the wayside to the corrupting leaven. We need to come out of this negative picture and be in the positive one with Christ as the Triune God embodied in humanity to be the tree of life, the one grain, the many grains, the one bread, the Body of Christ, the new man, the organism of the Triune God, and the New Jerusalem. We need to be in the recovery, cooperating with the Lord to recover all the items of this positive picture. We also need to be impressed with the vision of the negative picture of Satan's frustration, damage, and corruption.

Now that we have seen the positive and negative pictures revealed in Matthew 13, we come to the third picture, which is revealed mainly in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, we can see the building up of the Body of Christ by the growth in life. This life is the divine life, the life of the Triune God. Through incarnation this divine life has been mingled with humanity, and this life with Christ's humanity has gone through a wonderful, marvelous, all-inclusive, vicarious death. Then this life with His humanity has entered into resurrection and is now in resurrection. Such a life is a life of divinity, a life of humanity, a life of incarnation, a life through crucifixion, a life in resurrection, and also a life in ascension.

By the growth of this life, the church is built up. The building up of the church will be consummated in the New Jerusalem. The building up of the Body of Christ altogether depends upon our growth in this wonderful life, a life that is compounded with the divine life as the base, and with Christ's humanity, the effectiveness of the death of Christ, and the power of His resurrection as its ingredients. We have such a life, but we must look to the Lord for His mercy that we would be willing to let this life grow in us. By the growth of such a life, the church as the Body of Christ is being built up.