Prayer: Lord Jesus, we do worship You. We worship You that You are the speaking God. You have been speaking from the first age until this age. We believe that in this meeting You will speak Your word again to us. We look to You for new light, new enlightenment, and up-to-date, instant, inspiring utterance. Lord Jesus, stand with us; be one spirit with us in our speaking. In our speaking, do speak Your word. We desire to be one with You. How we thank You that You have worked and have accomplished and consummated everything so that You can be one with us and we can be one with You! And in fact, we really are one with You. We believe that even at this moment, while we are here waiting on You and looking unto You, You are really one with us. We have the assurance that we are here one with You and one with one another. Thank You for Your prevailing blood that counters the enemy. Lord, we hate Your enemy. We accuse him before You. Lord, put him to shame, glorify Yourself, and bless all the saints. Amen.

In the Bible there are three main writers of the Epistles. The first, no doubt, is Paul; then there is John, and then Peter. In the previous chapter and in this chapter our intention is to cover in the writings of these three main writers of the New Testament the matter of the growth in life for the building up of the Body of Christ. In the previous chapter we covered this matter in the writings of John. In this chapter we will see this same matter in the writings of Peter and Paul.

John's writing is very divine and mysterious, yet the words and the sentences that he wrote are very simple. In John's writings we can see that the Triune God became a man to live on this earth (John 1:1, 14). Eventually, this One is life to us (1:4), and He is also the life supply to us. He is even our food (6:57b-58a, 51, 68; Rev. 2:7b; 22:2; 2:17b), our drink (John 7:37-39; 4:10, 14; Rev. 21:6b; 22:17b), and our breath (John 20:22). He is all the necessities of our daily spiritual life. We need Him as our food, our bread, our drink, and our breath. Every morning we need to take some time to enjoy Him. Without enjoying Him, I could not live Him and I could not speak Him. Hallelujah, we have Him and we can partake of Him!

To consider the matter of the growth in life for the building up of the Body of Christ in the writings of Peter and Paul, we need a sober mind. It is very interesting to see that all these three great writers—John, Peter, and Paul—touched the matter of the growth in life. Furthermore, their touching of the growth in life is for the building up of the Body of Christ. In the entire universe there is only one building of God. It is true that God created the heavens and the earth, and He even did some remodeling of His creation, but God does not have two buildings. We may think that the old creation, composed of the original heavens and the original earth, is one kind of building, and that the new heaven and new earth with the New Jerusalem as the center are another kind of building. Thus, we may consider that God has two buildings. However, we need to realize that God's building in the new creation is something worked out of the old creation.

First, God created the old creation. The last item created by God in the old creation was man. God first created the heavens with the angels (Isa. 42:5a; Zech. 12:1a; Job 38:7). Then God created the earth with myriads of items on the earth (Zech. 12:1b; Job 38:4; Isa. 42:5b). Finally, the last item created by God was man. After man, God did not create anything else; He stopped His creating work. Man is the consummation of God's creation because God's intention is not to have the stars or the mountains or the animals; God's intention is to have a man who bears His image and has His likeness. Man was created not after man's kind but after God's kind. Genesis 1 tells us that God created all the plants and animals after their own kind (vv. 11-12, 21, 24-25). Eventually, God created His last item—man (vv. 26-27). God did not create man after man's kind. God created man after God's kind. As men, we all bear God's image and walk in God's likeness. So we as man are of God's kind.