Message Ten

The Body of Christ—
the Organism of the Triune God

1. The vision of the Body of Christ:
   1. The goal of God's eternal economy is to create, to constitute, and to produce a Body for Christ, who will gain this Body, which is a part of Himself, to be His counterpart, His bride, and consummately the New Jerusalem.
   2. The all-inclusive and the all-extensive Christ (the One who fills all in all) needs a Body as His counterpart for His expression—Eph. 1:23.
   3. The Body of Christ, as the organism of the Triune God in His move, is the accomplishment of God's economy according to the good pleasure of His will—Eph. 1:5.
   4. The Body of Christ, a constitution of the processed and consummated Triune God with the regenerated and transformed tripartite men, is the issue of the dispensing of the Triune God and of the transfusing of the ascended Christ and the consummation of the ministering of the riches of Christ.
2. The constitution of the Body of Christ:
   1. The Body of Christ is a divine and human constitution constituted with:
      1. The regenerated and transformed believers as its outward, visible frame—its members—Eph. 5:30.
      2. The processed and consummated Triune God as its inward, invisible content—Eph. 4:4-6:
         1. God the Father, who is over all, through all, and in all as its source.
         2. God the Son, who is the Lord, as its element.
         3. God the Spirit as its essence.
   2. The formation of the Body of Christ is through the baptism of the Spirit in the economical Trinity—1 Cor. 12:13.
   3. The growth of the Body of Christ is by the increase of the Triune God within all its members, who grow into the Head, Christ, in everything—Col. 2:19; Eph. 4:15.
3. The reality of the Body of Christ:
   1. It is the corporate living by the perfected God-men, who are genuine men but are living not by their life but by the life of the processed God, whose attributes are expressed through their virtues.
   2. It is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ through the power of the resurrection of Christ.
   3. It is also a mingling living, in the eternal union, of the regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite God-men with the Triune God in the resurrection of Christ.
4. The living of the Body of Christ:
   1. The members should take Christ as their Head, life, content, principal object, center, and goal—Eph. 5:23; Col. 3:4a, 11b; 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 1:23; Phil. 3:14.
   2. The Body has the Spirit as its essence and reality and takes the Spirit as its secret and effectiveness—Eph. 4:4a; 1 John 5:6; Phil. 4:12b; Rom. 15:13.
   3. The members should take the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ as their regulation—Rom. 6:6; 8:13b; Gal. 5:24; Eph. 2:6a; Phil. 3:10a.
   4. The members should take life and the Body as the principle—1 John 5:11-12; Rom. 9:11b; Gal. 2:16a; Phil. 1:19-20a; Rom. 12:5; Eph. 1:23.
5. The building up of the Body of Christ:
   1. The Body is built up with Christ's life as its element, the Spirit of reality as its essence, and the person of God as its source—Eph. 4:4-6.
   2. The Body is built up by the perfected saints who are perfected by the gifted members—Eph. 4:11-12.
   3. The Body is built up with the mature believers as its constituents through their growth in the life of Christ unto maturity—Eph. 4:15-16.
   4. The Body builds itself up in love—Eph. 4:16:
      1. The Body is joined together through every joint of the rich supply (the particular gifted members).
      2. The Body is knit together through the operation in the measure of each one part (all the saints).
6. The oneness of the Body of Christ:
   1. The oneness of the Body of Christ is according to the Lord's aspiration expressed in His prayer to the Father in John 17:
      1. In the Father's name by His divine life—vv. 6-13.
      2. Through sanctification by the reality of the word—vv. 14-21.
      3. In the divine glory for the expression of the processed and mingled Triune God—vv. 22-24.
   2. It is of the Spirit; hence, it is called the oneness of the Spirit, which oneness the believers should keep diligently in the uniting bond of peace—Eph. 4:3.
   3. In the whole universe there is only one, unique Body of Christ, with the Triune God as its contents—Eph. 4:4-6:
      1. The one Spirit is the essence of its contents.
      2. The one Lord is the element of its contents.
      3. God the Father is the source of its contents.
   4. This oneness is partly of the faith and partly of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at which all the believers need to arrive—Eph. 4:13.
7. The fellowship of the Body of Christ:
   1. The fellowship of the Body of Christ is the fellowship of the apostles—the divine fellowship between all the believers and the Triune God—Acts 2:42; 1 John 1:3.
   2. It is the fellowship for the Lord's unique recovery.
   3. It is the fellowship of the local churches:
      1. The local churches are many in different localities—Rev. 1:11.
      2. Locally the local churches are separated in existence, but universally they are not divided in essence.
      3. The local churches need to fellowship with all the genuine local churches throughout the earth.
      4. Every local church needs to receive all kinds of genuine believers in Christ—Rom. 14:1-6; 15:1-7.
      5. A believer should be kept away from the fellowship of a local church only because of three things:
         1. Being divisive—Rom. 16:17; Titus 3:10.
         2. Being heretical—2 John 7-11.
         3. Committing gross sins and living in them—1 Cor. 5:9-13.
8. The blending of the Body of Christ:
   1. God has blended the Body together—1 Cor. 12:24:
      1. There should be a blending of all the individual members of the Body of Christ.
      2. There should be a blending of all the churches in a certain district.
      3. There should be a blending of all the co-workers.
      4. There should be a blending of all the elders.
   2. The local churches, though necessary for practicality, are not the goal of God's economy but the procedure to reach that goal, which is the unique Body of Christ.
   3. The Lord blended the seven churches in Asia by writing them one epistle composed of seven epistles to each of them respectively—Rev. 1—3.
   4. The apostle blended the churches in Colossae and Laodicea by writing one epistle to each of the two churches respectively and asking them to read the two epistles reciprocally—Col. 4:16.
   5. Such a blending is not social but the blending of the very Christ whom the individual members, the district churches, the co-workers, and the elders enjoy, experience, and partake of.
   6. Such a blending is for the building up of the universal Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem as the final goal of God's economy according to His good pleasure—Eph. 1:23; Rev. 21:2; Eph. 1:9-10.
9. The consummation of the Body of Christ:
   1. The Body of Christ, an organic building of the God-men who are perfected in life as the representatives of a local church, as Zion within Jerusalem, will consummate the New Jerusalem in the millennium.
   2. This consummation will be the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth as God's increase and expression for eternity.