Message Three

Life and Building

Scripture Reading: John 11:25; 14:2;
Rom. 8:2; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 3:6, 9

1. Life and building are the basic and central revelation of the Bible:
   1. Life is for building, and the building is of life—John 11:25; 14:2; 1 Cor. 3:6, 9:
      1. Life is the content, and building is the corporate expression of the content.
      2. God’s goal is the building; life is the procedure by which God obtains the building, and life maintains the building—Rev. 21:2-3, 9-10; 22:1-2.
      3. Life is God Himself, and building is the expression of the Triune God as life in a corporate Body—Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11; 12:4-5.
   2. The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of life and building for us to be built up as the Body—8:2; 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 12:12, 27; Col. 3:4, 15; 2:19.
   3. The kernel of the divine revelation in the Scriptures is that God created us and redeemed us for the purpose of working Himself into us to be our life for His corporate expression—Eph. 1:7; 2:5, 8, 21-22; 3:16-21.
2. We need to see life and building as portrayed in Song of Songs:
   1. Through her living in Christ’s ascension as the new creation in resurrection, the lover of Christ becomes mature in the riches of the life of Christ so that she becomes the building of God and its safeguard, the holy city—6:4a; cf. Gen. 2:8-12, 18-24.
   2. We become God’s dwelling place, His sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, by participating in the four stages of the divine romance revealed in Song of Songs—1:2-3; 2:14; 4:8; 6:4; Rev. 21:9-10, 16.
   3. To become the sanctuary of God is to be built up (related to the building up of the Body of Christ) in the growth in the life of Christ with its unsearchable riches unto maturity—Eph. 4:12-16:
      1. In the Old Testament the building of God is typified by Tirzah and Jerusalem; in the New Testament this building is the organic Body of Christ—v. 16.
      2. Ultimately, the building up of the organic Body of Christ, which is also Christ’s wife (5:25-32), will consummate the New Jerusalem, the holy city as the consummation of the Holy of Holies, the mutual dwelling of God and His redeemed in eternity—Rev. 21:2-3, 16, 22.
   4. Through the dealing of the cross, we become the sanctuary of God; this sanctuary is the Holy of Holies, which is God Himself—S. S. 6:4a:
      1. When we enter into the Holy of Holies, we enter into God and become the sanctuary; that is, we become God in life and nature—Heb. 10:19-20.
      2. John 14:23 and Ephesians 3:17 prove that the God whom we are pursuing is making us His duplication; for God to make us His duplication means that He makes us His dwelling place, His Holy of Holies—Rev. 21:16.
      3. The lovers of Christ eventually become duplications of God in life and nature but not in the Godhead; this is the fulfillment of God becoming man that man might become God—the high peak of the divine revelation.
3. We need to see life and building as revealed in the Gospel of John:
   1. The Gospel of John reveals that the Triune God is dispensing Himself as life into His believers and that the believers, as the result of this dispensing, become the building of God, His expansion, enlargement, and corporate expression—1:4; 10:10b; 11:25; 14:2-3, 6.
   2. The significance of the stone is that it denotes a work of transformation to bring forth material for God’s building—Bethel, the house of God—1:42, 51:
      1. The believers in Christ, after being regenerated, are being transformed into living stones for the building of the church—Matt. 16:18; 1 Pet. 2:5.
      2. The house of God signifies Christ increased through the church built up with the believers as precious stones and with the life-giving Spirit as the oil to be the enlarged house of God (Bethel) for the fulfillment of Jacob’s dream and of God’s eternal purpose—Gen. 28:10-22; Eph. 1:9, 11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9.
   3. In His resurrection the Lord Jesus rebuilt God’s temple in a larger way, making it a corporate one, the mystical Body of Christ—John 2:19-22:
      1. The body of Jesus, the temple, that was destroyed on the cross was small and weak, but the Body of Christ in resurrection is vast and powerful—1 Cor. 3:16-17; Eph. 1:22-23.
      2. Since the day of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus has been enlarging His Body in resurrection life; He is still working for the building of His Body under the process of resurrection—John 2:19-22.
      3. Christ, who is resurrection and life (11:25), changes death into life for the building of the house of God; our living as Christians is a life of changing death into life for the building up of the mystical Body of Christ—2:1-21.
   4. The Father’s house is a matter of the Triune God, through incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, working Himself into the believers in order to be fully mingled with them so that He may build them up as an organism for His dwelling and expression—14:2-3, 23:
      1. The Father’s house is a divine and human incorporation of the processed and consummated God constituted with His redeemed, regenerated, and transformed elect—v. 20.
      2. The Lord’s coming brought God into man, and His going brought man into God; by this coming and going, He builds up the house of God by building God into man and man into God—1:14; 10:10b; 14:2-3.
      3. By the Spirit and through His death and resurrection, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is building an organism, the church, which is His Body and the Father’s house, produced by the mingling of the Triune God with His chosen and redeemed people—vv. 7-24.
      4. The Father’s house is built up by the constant visitation to the redeemed elect of the Father and the Son with the Spirit—v. 23.
      5. The Father’s house is in three stages: the stage of God incarnate, the stage of Christ resurrected with His believers to be built up as the church, and the consummate stage—the New Jerusalem—2:19-21; Rev. 21:2-3, 9-10.
      6. We all need to be nourished by the truth concerning the mingling of God with us to produce a mutual dwelling place—John 15:4-5.